THE GRACIOUS AMBIGUITY OF GRACE AGUILAR (1816–47): ANGLO-JEWISH THEOLOGIAN, NOVELIST, POET, AND PIONEER OF INTERFAITH RELATIONS Daniel R. Langton* ABSTRACT: Grace Aguilar was an early nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish writer who concerned herself with the reform of Jewish religion and its relationship to Christianity in her theological works, novels, and poetry. She was interested in challenging the ways in which Jews and Christians represented each other in their teachings, tried to present both perspectives on the vexed question of Christian mission to the Jews, and sought to demonstrate that the theological barriers constructed between the two faiths were often less immoveable than tradition would have it. As a female Jewish theologian writing well before her time, she offered a remarkably innovative conception of female spirituality that allowed her to cross and re-cross the boundaries between the Jewish and Christian religious cultures she inhabited. Any student of the history of Jewish-Christian relations is interested in Jewish views of Christianity. These views include ‘relational theologies’, that is, focused attempts by Jews to create a theological space for Christianity or to highlight the special relationship between Judaism and Christianity. As anyone familiar with the history of Jewish-Christian intercourse will know, such relational theologies have rarely been positive, and have tended to concentrate upon the construction and maintenance of the barriers that separate the two faith systems.1 Over the centuries Jews have traditionally regarded the Christian as the idolatrous oppressor who denies the unity of God, prays to saints, worships icons, and abrogates the Torah. The Christian is perceived to have misinterpreted the scripture and to be profoundly mistaken in claiming that the messianic age has begun. At best, Christianity has been understood as an instrument of God to help prepare the pagan world for the coming of the Jewish messiah, or to test the faith of his Chosen People. Against this backdrop, a positive, or constructive, or appreciative Jewish view of Christianity stands out starkly. In particular, positive relational * Professor of the History of Jewish-Christian Relations at the University of Manchester. Email: daniel. [email protected]. An earlier draft of this paper was first presented at the conference of the British Association for Jewish Studies (BAJS) in Birmingham in 2005. 1 Some well-known studies that emphasise the antagonistic nature of Jewish and Christian conceptions of the other include: James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism (London: The Soncino Press, 1934), Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism, 1st ed. (New York: Holt, 1964), Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), Hans Joachim Schoeps, The Jewish-Christian Argument: A History of Theologies in Conflict [1st ed. (New York: Holt, 1963), Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism (New York: Macmillan, 1965), Franklin H. Littell, The Crucifixion of the Jews, 1st ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), Marc Saperstein, Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations (London: SCM Press, 1989), Joel Carmichael, The Satanizing of the Jews: Origin and Development of Mystical Anti-Semitism, 1st U.S. ed. (New York: Fromm International Pub. Corp., 1992), Leon Sheleff, In the Shadow of the Cross: Jewish–Christian Relations through the Ages (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2004). 2 MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES theologies, which have only begun to emerge in significant numbers in the modern period, are often regarded by Jewish commentators as inauthentic, or heretical, or unJewish. Examples might include theologians such as Claude Montefiore,2 or historians such as Joseph Klausner,3 or writers such as Scholem Asch4 and Franz Werfel.5 And this raises a host of questions about the nature of appreciative Jewish theologies of relation. What historical, social and personal factors account for such a theological endeavour? How do different ideological assumptions and different methodological approaches affect the reception of such an attempt? At the heart of the matter lies the issue of authenticity and a sense that the line has been crossed. What is it about the generation of an appreciative theology of relation which appears to undermine the theologian’s Jewishness? Or to put it another way, does the brush with Christianity leave an enduring trace, and is it this which accounts for such suspicions? This is the context for the following discussion of the theology of Grace Aguilar. Rather than offer a literary analysis or historical contextualization of her writings, which can be found elsewhere,6 the focus here will be on the theological meaning and implications of her positive appreciation of Christianity and Christians for her conception of Judaism. In her writings, which span a wide range of literary genres, Aguilar was struggling to define the precise nature of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. While she offers a positive appreciation of Christianity on many levels, we must acknowledge from the start her 2 The biblical scholar and co-founder of Anglo-Liberal Judaism, Claude Montefiore, with respect to his Synoptic Gospels (1909) was criticised by Ahad Ha-Am who claimed he had detected “a subservience of the Jewish thinker to the Christian doctrine”. Ahad Ha-Am, ‘Judaism and the Gospels’, reprinted in American Hebrew Journal, LXXXVII, no. 21 (23 September 1910) from The Jewish Review, I (3 September 1910), 203. 3 Klausner, a prominent Zionist and disciple of Ahad Ha-Am, saw his historical study Jesus of Nazareth (1929) attacked as ‘a trucking and kow-towing to the Christian religion, and an assertion of great affection for the foggy figure of its founder, a denial of the healthy sense of our saintly forefathers’. Aaron Kaminka in Ha-Toren (New York) May 1922, cited in H. Danby, The Jew and Christianity; Some Phases, Ancient and Modern, of the Jewish Attitude Towards Christianity (1927), 102–103. 4 Amongst the many and varied criticisms Asch incurred for his Christian-themed novels The Nazarene (1939), The Apostle (1943), and Mary (1949) was a book-length polemic, published in 1953, in which he is described as having ‘carried on in the course of years a missionary activity on a scope never before known among Jews’ and in which his treatment of Paul was castigated as a betrayal of Judaism. Chaim Lieberman, The Christianity of Sholem Asch: An Appraisal from the Jewish Viewpoint, trans. from the Yiddish by A. Burstein (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), 1, 139. 5 In response to a barrage of inquiries as to his baptismal status, following the debut of his play Paul Among the Jews: A Tragedy (1926), Werfel insisted in one newspaper interview: ‘I have never moved away from Judaism, I am in feeling and thinking a conscious Jew.’ Interview with Israelisches Wochenblatt (1926), cited in L.B. Steiman, Franz Werfel (1985), 222n3. 6 Aguilar features prominently in a good number of works of literary scholarship, including: Michael Ragussis, Figures of Conversion: Jewish Question and the English National Identity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995); Michael Galchinsky, The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer: Romance and Reform in Victorian England (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996); Cynthia Scheinberg, Women’s Poetry and Religion in Victorian England: Jewish Identity and Christian Culture, Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture 35 (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Cynthia Scheinberg, Women’s Poetry and Religion in Victorian England: Jewish Identity and Christian Culture, Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture 35 (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Michael Galchinsky, Grace Aguilar: Selected Writings (Peterborough, Ont.; Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2003); Judith W. Page, Imperfect Sympathies: Jews and Judaism in British Romantic Literature and Culture (London: Palgrave, 2004); Judith W. Page, ‘Anglo-Jewry and the Politics of Cultivation in Hazlitt, Aguilar and Disraeli’ in Sheila A. Spector, The Jews and British Romanticism: Politics, Religion, Culture (New York; Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Nadia Valman, The Jewess in Nineteenth-Century British Literary Culture, Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). THE GRACIOUS AMBIGUITY OF GRACE AGUILAR (1816–47) (DANIEL R. LANGTON) 3 ambiguity. It will be argued that this ambiguity can be explained in part by the complications attendant to drawing upon Christianity in her reforming programme for Judaism – and her keen awareness of the dangers she ran in the eyes of many of her co-religionists. It will be suggested that Aguilar’s ambivalent presentation of Christianity and unfamiliar ways of expressing her Jewish identity are instructive in terms of understanding why some theologies of relation are so often regarded as somehow inauthentic or compromised.7 Aguilar’s is not a systematic theology, and some of the interpretations offered here are necessarily tendentious. In particular, one might ask: How sound is a methodology that frequently attributes to Aguilar’s fictional characters her own opinions? How much weight can be given to writings that were published posthumously and which she herself might never have wished to publish? In answer to such questions, the defence made here is that it is only when similar ideas can be found elsewhere in her written corpus that her fiction or posthumous writings will be treated as reliable expressions of her own theology. Likewise, the unsystematic nature of her work makes it particularly vulnerable to mistaken emphases and misunderstandings, and so an attempt will be made to focus upon themes and ideas that appear repeatedly in a wide variety of her writings. In the systematic survey that follows, then, Aguilar’s views of Judaism and Christianity will be organised according to three themes crucial to her religious identity. That is, we will consider the way in which she (i) drew upon and privileged her individual or personal experiences, (ii) related this to her tradition and scriptures, and (iii) related both of these to her community and to the relationship between Jews and Christians. Biographical remarks Grace Aguilar (1816–1847) has been described as the most important female Jewish writer in the nineteenth-century, and, as already mentioned, it is literary critics who have taken the 7 As we shall see, Aguilar herself was only too aware of the risks of presenting a positive appreciation of the traditional enemy, and a heightened consciousness of her vulnerability to the charge of Christianizing suffuses all her writings. It would not have helped that in Aguilar’s own day Christian conversionist periodicals praised her books as being ‘imbued with the spirit of Christianity.’ Unsigned review of The Spirit of Judaism in Jewish Herald 3 (July 1848), 29, cited in Valman, The Jewess in Nineteenth-Century British Literary Culture, 98. Later commentators have frequently used the language of compromise and bargaining, even if they did not doubt that she was a committed Jew. Galchinsky has argued that Aguilar ‘bargained’ with the dominant British Christian culture and was prepared to confine Jewish ritual and practice to the private sphere of the home, with the public lives of her characters less obviously Jewish. Galchinsky, The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer, 135–151. Page has mused as to whether ‘all of the difficult balances and compromises’ to be found in a writer like Aguilar, in contrast to one like Benjamin D’Israeli, are more likely for ‘a more Jewish writer seeking to appeal to a wider audience in the Victorian period.’ Page, ‘Anglo-Jewish Identity and the Politics of Cultivation in Hazlitt, Aguilar and Disraeli’, 19, and Page, Imperfect Sympathies, 161. Some have focused explicitly on the apparent influence of Christianity. Lask-Abrahams described the anti-traditional aspects of Aguilar’s thought as ‘a form of Jewish Protestantism’. Beth-Zion Lask-Abrahams, “Grace Aguilar: A Centenary Tribute” in Jewish Historical Society of England Transactions 16 (1952), 142. Valman sees Aguilar’s conception of a bibliocentric Judaism as ‘a Jewish imitation of an Evangelical [Christian] form of imitation of Judaism’, and goes on to suggest that Aguilar not only adopted literary genres popularised by the Evangelical Christians but ‘also echoed their theology’, and dedicates a section aside to consider the extent to which one might describe her as a ‘Jewish Evangelical?’ While Valman certainly regards Lask-Abrahams’ comment on Jewish Protestantism as ‘apt’, her chief object is ‘to consider how Protestant rhetoric was able to provide her with a persuasive polemical strategy for the cause of the Jews’. Valman, The Jewess in Nineteenth-Century British Literary Culture, 10, 92, 94, 95. 4 MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES greatest interest in her.8 She belonged to a traditionally observant Sephardic family from Hackney, London, although, in her youth, she made Christian friends and attended Protestant services near her family’s somewhat isolated rural home in Devonshire and later in provincial Brighton.9 There is no evidence that she ever seriously contemplated conversion and she herself records that she attended these services in some trepidation, fearful that people would think she had abandoned her faith.10 According to one report, Aguilar solved the problem for herself by “altering those parts of the prayer-book which she could not join to her belief.”11 While she herself regarded her attendance at these Christian services as a way of clarifying her own Jewish sensibilities, there can be little doubt that this exposure to Christianity is also important in terms of familiarising her with how Judaism and Jews were represented within Christian culture. For most of her life she taught at a private boy’s boarding school run by her mother where, amongst other things, she taught Hebrew.12 She was of fragile health, and died while convalescing in Germany, aged only 31. Aguilar had been a precocious child, reading and writing voraciously from an early age. Of her 15 books, seven were published posthumously by her mother.13 A series of her letters to Isaac D’Israeli, from 1840 until 1844, now held at the Bodleian in Oxford, make clear with just what difficulty she won literary patrons and assistance for publishing her works.14 Despite this, after her death a number became what we would now call best-sellers, specifically her novels Home Influence (1847) and The Vale of Cedars (1850).15 The readership of her books was mixed. It is clear from dedications and prefaces that she intended Jewish and Christian mothers and daughters to benefit from her novels and from her anthologies, such 8 As several have noted, Aguilar is a constant fixture in modern anthologies of Jewish women writers. Scheinberg, Women’s Poetry and Religion in Victorian England, 146. Galchinsky, The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer, 135. 9 In a work which arguably should be read semi-autobiographically, Aguilar writes “Our very position as aliens in a land whose religion is not ours. . . in a small country town almost entirely surrounded by Christians. . . must increase the mental difficulties you are now enduring. . . Like my own early youth, circumstances have thrown you almost entirely among Protestants; and from your peculiar disposition, longing unconsciously for the high and pure, you have always made those your intimate friends who are serious thinkers”. Grace Aguilar, The Jewish Faith: Its Spiritual Consolation, Moral Guidance and Immortal Hope (Philadelphia: L. Johnson, 1846), 34. 10 There are several examples of this among the poetry contained in her handwritten manuscripts. ‘Aguilar Papers’ (1831–1853), MS ADD 378 University College London. 11 Lask-Abrahams quotes a letter from an unnamed Christian sent to Aguilar’s mother, “Her love for many Christian friends, and her desire to search after truth in every garb, induced her to attend Trinity Chapel [Brighton] frequently on a Wednesday when there was a lecture on the Old Testament, and she joined in the prayers and there with the congregation, altering those parts of the prayer book where [sic] she could not join to her own belief.” Lask-Abrahams, “Grace Aguilar: A Centenary Tribute”, 139. 12 An advertisement in the Voice of Jacob (March 1842) indicates the range of subjects taught: “Mrs and Miss Aguilar’s Preparatory Establishment for Young Gentlemen, from four to ten years of age, No. 5 Triangle, Hackney, with liberal board, and instruction in Religion, the English and Hebrew languages, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography and History.” Cited in Ibid.: 141. 13 Before her death she published The Magic Wreath (1839), Israel Defended (1838), The Spirit of Judaism (1842), The Perez Family (1843), Records of Israel (1844), Women of Israel (1845), The Jewish Faith (1846), ‘History of the Jews in England’ (1847). After her death, her mother edited and published The Vale of Cedars (1850), Woman’s Friendship (1850), A Mother’s Recompense (1851), Days of Bruce (1852), Home Scenes and Heart Studies (1852), Essays and Miscellanies (1853), Sabbath Thoughts and Sacred Communings (1853). One must obviously be extremely cautious about any conclusions reached from readings of posthumous works which the author herself had not had published. 14 Correspondence between Grace Aguilar and Isaac D’Israeli (1840-44) Dep.Hughenden 243/1 fols.3–12, Modern Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford. As a well-regarded man of letters, D’Israeli (1766–1848) wrote the anti- rabbinic The Genius of Judaism, published in 1833. 15 These ran into very many editions, and adverts for her works can be found in the end-pages of Dickens’s Bleak House, as Galchinsky points out. Galchinsky, The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer: Romance and Reform in Victorian England, 135, 139. THE GRACIOUS AMBIGUITY OF GRACE AGUILAR (1816–47) (DANIEL R. LANGTON) 5 as Women of Israel (1845). The same was true for her more formal theological works, such as The Spirit of Judaism (1842) and The Jewish Faith (1846) – although in writing these studies she was also highly conscious of a male audience, again both Christian and Jewish.16 Aguilar’s mid-nineteenth-century historical context was that of Victorian religiosity and the emergence of Anglo-Reform Judaism and the establishment of the West London Reform Synagogue in 1840, which she appears to have regarded with mixed feelings. The influence of her Sephardi background is also important. Crypto-Jewish families in early-modern Portugal or Spain, that is, Jewish families pretending to be Christian on pain of death or expulsion, could only have risked expressing their Judaism within the secret realm of the home, the territory of the mother. Aguilar believed that her own family history offered a precedent for a woman story- teller who took responsibility for the generational transmission of Jewish identity.17 What were Aguilar’s aims, broadly speaking? From even a cursory glance at her various works, it is clear that she had set out from the beginning to persuade Christians to respect Judaism, and to encourage and develop among Jews, especially Jewish women, a pietistic form of spirituality. She was concerned to break down the fence that separated the true exponents of the two faiths, or, at least, she was concerned that the fence should not be allowed to impede the development of good relations between neighbours. And from a collection of copied newspaper clippings and letters now held at the UCL archives, there is no doubt that she was indeed an inspiration to many in these regards.18 That she was influential in her own day is demonstrated by the national weekly Jewish Chronicle’s front page treatment of her death. (i) Aguilar’s Personal Understanding of the Essence of Religion: Spiritual piety Although Aguilar wrote works of formal theology throughout her life, The Spirit of Judaism (published in 1842, after having lost the original 1837 draft) was the only example printed before her death.19 This systematic treatment used the text of the Shema as a means by which to teach the key characteristics of Judaism; each chapter was an exegesis of a section from the Shema.20 Its pious tone21 meant that it acted as a kind of devotional commentary at the 16 Another important collection of theological meditations was Grace Aguilar, Sabbath Thoughts and Sacred Communings (London: Groombridge and Sons, 1853). 17 Galchinsky regards as crucial this aspect of Aguilar’s psychological make-up. Galchinsky, The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer: Romance and Reform in Victorian England, 137ff. 18 ‘Aguilar Papers’ (1831–1853), MS ADD 378 University College London. 19 Grace Aguilar, The Spirit of Judaism, ed. Isaac Leeser (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1842). This was originally written in 1837. Also posthumous was Grace Aguilar and Sarah Aguilar, Essays and Miscellanies (Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1853), which included commentaries on the prophets Daniel and Isaiah, liturgical prayers, and a series of ‘Sabbath Thoughts’ which refute certain Christian claims about Judaism and Jews. 20 Chapter headings include: 1: The Avowal of Unity considered as it regards the Jewish nation; 2: Definition of the word Heart – Love of God considered as it regards the affections; 3: Definition of the word Soul – Love of God considered as it regards the Intellectual and Vital Principle of Man; 4: Definition of the word Might – Love of God as considered as it regards our domestic and social duties; 5: Brief review of the commandments and the Social Duties therein described; 6: Hints on the religious instruction of the Hebrew Youth; 7: The spirit of religion regarded as pervading and guiding our conversation, profane reading, admiration of works of nature; 8: The spirit and forms of Judaism considered separately and together. 21 Lask-Abrahams sees it as typical of “the Sunday-School character of a great deal of Grace Aguilar’s writings.” Lask-Abrahams, “Grace Aguilar: A Centenary Tribute”, 142. 6 MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES same time as exploring a variety of theological themes and controversies. That this was an unusual undertaking for an English Jewess is suggested by its publication through the offices of an American rabbi, Isaac Leeser.22 Within The Spirit of Judaism, Aguilar presented religion as powerfully connected with emotion. “Religion” she said, “is strongest, loveliest, in those hearts ever susceptible to emotion, whether pleasure or pain; the love of their God glows warmest in such bosoms.”23 Feeling was certainly as important as traditional learning, which could not generate the gentle and loveable qualities of the person of true faith.24 Those who disagreed with her, she said, devalued the prayers of the unlearned and were presumptuous and haughty “like the Pharisees of old,”25 a comparison that riled her editor.26 The long-suffering Jew, she argued, had greater need of this kind of faith than the Christian, and could easily point to his Bible to demonstrate Israel’s original discovery of the God of love.27 External forms and religious ceremonies were of far less importance than was the life of the spirit,28 and she drew on her own family history of Iberian crypto-Jews to make this point. The determination, in secret to adhere unchangeably to the Law of Moses, incited many to live a holier life, and ponder frequently on Him, in whose service their very lives were risked. When occupying posts of high trust and favour in the Spanish court, their lineage unknown, their race unsuspected, though they could scarcely keep the forms, the SPIRIT glowed more warmly within.29 This sounds like the familiar classic Anglo-Reform Jewish argument which set spirit against form.30 But in fact Aguilar went on to argue that the ideal was obedience to God’s ordinances, including external forms, through the power of the spirit. She wrote, 22 Isaac Leeser (1806-1868) was a Philadelphia-based lay minister of religion, prolific author, translator, and founder of the Jewish Publication Society. Aguilar’s argument is constantly undermined by Leeser’s patronizing corrections and often openly critical claims of exaggeration or inaccuracy (e.g. regarding her apparent exaggeration of the number of converts to Christianity; and of the extent of Jewish neglect of Bible). His rare agreements tend to be in the form of provision of biblical or rabbinic references or of a fuller/better explanation of the point. 23 Aguilar, The Spirit of Judaism, 46-47. 24 “Precept is too often doubted; we look on professors of religion with a jealous eye; and if they fail, the effect of their most eloquent appeal is lost entirely. But very different is the effect of discovering religion to be the secret source in each and all of those gentle and loveable qualities which in the first instance attracted us. At first we admire and revere at a distance, then as we draw near and love, comes the question, why cannot we too ‘go and do likewise?’. . . When well-selected words flow glibly from eager lips, and an ardent eloquence appears to bear all its hearers along with it: the spirit is ready to condemn others, as far as its inferiors in religious fervour, simply because they cannot speak so well; and yet, while the lips may speak so piously and well, the heart may remain stubborn and unmoved.” Ibid., 94, 184. 25 “[A]nd yet does the presumptuous and haughty Hebrew, imitating the Pharisee of old, dare to say, their prayers are less acceptable than his [the meek and lowly]?” Ibid., 19. 26 The editor, Leeser, commented that “my friend has adopted without sufficient care the opinions [regarding the Pharisees] which our opponents entertain of these people.” Ibid. 27 “Is he [the Hebrew] accused of having no faith, let him prove he has more need of faith, and feels it yet more deeply than the Nazarene. . . Is he told his is a stern, cold, spiritless religion, that can only look to a rigid and exacting Judge, in whom mercy is lost in justice: let him bring forward his Bible to prove that a God of love was revealed to the Israelites, many centuries before the birth of him the Christians call their messiah.” Ibid., 90. 28 “[Religious ceremonies] are given to aid and strengthen the spirit of piety, resting within this spirit, yet NOT to take its place. . . The form. . . springs from, and yet assists the spirit resting within. Thus should every Hebrew rite be considered, and reason, not superstition, be traced as its foundation.” Ibid., 216, 227. 29 Ibid., 85. 30 See for example, the classic study of the worldwide movement, Michael Meyer, Response to Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). See also the slightly more recent study of Anglo-Reform Judaism, Anne Kershen and Jonathan Romain, Tradition and Change (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1995). THE GRACIOUS AMBIGUITY OF GRACE AGUILAR (1816–47) (DANIEL R. LANGTON) 7 Yet while we feel and acknowledge the insufficiency of form alone: the sons of Israel must beware of the contrary extreme. . . If they adhere not to the rites of their forefathers, they cannot take unto themselves the gracious promises made to the children of Israel; for their religion degenerates into that, which is termed, natural theology; in a word, they are Deists not Hebrews, and they deprive themselves alike of faith, hope, and comfort. . . There are many, very many laws, which, if the Hebrew would still manifest himself as the first-born of the Lord, he can still implicitly obey . . . the religion of no Hebrew is perfect, unless the form be hallowed by the spirit, the SPIRIT quickened by the FORM.31 Again drawing upon her Sephardi heritage, Aguilar argued that it fell to Jewish mothers to inculcate the true spirit of Judaism within their children, for they did not enjoy the same cultural encouragements for religion that Christian children did at home and in the wider society. The Hebrew child has not these advantages [of the Christian child]. Debarred from the public exercise of devotion on his Sabbath day; never hearing public prayers in a language he can understand; – having no public minister on whom he can call for that instruction he may not have received at home; – never hearing the law expounded, or the Bible in any way explained: to his mother alone the Hebrew child must look, on his mother alone depend for the spirit of religion . . . We find the root of םבּ תָ רְ בּ  ֵ  ד  ִ ןְ ּ ‘and thou shalt speak of them’ to be רבֵּ  דַּ to utter one’s sentiments aloud, to speak or to converse together. . . Yet when do we speak of these things? When, even amidst a domestic circle, does conversation turn upon these topics which would enable us to obey this command?32 Aguilar went on to suggest that powerful tools in this sacred duty of education included the study of God’s providential work within history, the reading of edifying literature33 and the cultivation of wonder at his creation of the natural world.34 Once the Jewish child had been sensitized spiritually, the result would be a proud Hebrew, fully able to relate the traditions of his fathers to his loving Heavenly Father. As she put it, [Properly educated by his mother] It will be [the Hebrew’s] pride to prove to the nations the spirit of his faith. . . He will not throw off the bondage of our [external] forms, he will not condemn their dictates; for he will trace their minutest regulations to the same merciful Father, whose love supports, whose arm sustains him.35 31 Ibid., 235-236, 254. 32 Ibid., 147-148, 150, 181, 182. 33 “There is scarcely any profane history which, if read attentively, will not afford matter for instruction, thought, and subsequent conversation on the wonderful providence of the Lord. . . Did the spirit of piety pervade, as was intended, the intellect, those very works read for profane instruction would assist to promote obedience to the command we are regarding. Nor is it only history that may do this. There are tales, simple, domestic, highly moral tales, which, though as a whole fictitious, are in the main point but narrations of what, could, but we lift up the veil of the world, is continually passing around us.” Ibid., 192-193. 34 “There are others again who, continually eulogizing Nature, yet never seem to cast a thought, or speak a word of God. . . The mind thus capable of admiring Nature for herself, is peculiarly fitted to adore and love her God. Nature is not herself a deity. She is the frame, not the FRAMER, the created, not the CREATOR.” Ibid., 197–198. This interest in nature was non-trivial. In her eulogy for Aguilar, Anna Maria Hall wrote that Aguilar ‘had made acquaintance with the beauties of English nature during a long residence in Devonshire; loved the country with her whole heart, and enriched her mind by the leisure it afforded; she had collected and arranged conchological and mineralogical specimens to a considerable extent; loved flowers as only sensitive women can love them; and with all this was deeply read in theology and history.’ Ana Maria Hall, ‘Pilgrimage to the Grave of Grace Aguilar’ in Galchinsky, Grace Aguilar: Selected Writings, 359. 35 Ibid., 161. 8 MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES Such a spiritual education would result in a Jewish faith that would properly testify to the surrounding Christian nations and support the eternal truths of Judaism.36 Aguilar felt obliged to make this point because she knew that her emphasis upon the need to inspire spirituality within the Jewish community would sound suspiciously alien to many within that community.37 And, indeed, this provoked criticism that The Spirit of Judaism was not so much a work of Jewish theology, but rather one that drew too heavily upon her own idiosyncratic experiences in the Christian community for its conceptualisation of spirituality.38 To gain a clearer picture of this ideal Jewish spirituality, it is useful to consider Aguilar’s epic mix of scriptural commentary and literary imagination entitled Women of Israel (1845). In this multi-volume work of 576 pages, Aguilar used the lives of biblical and historical Jewish women as a source of spiritual strength and inspiration for modern Jewish women. One biographical sketch, that of Deborah, will suffice. Aguilar viewed Deborah as an excellent role model for Jewish women, combining as she did prophet, judge, military instructor, poet and sacred singer; her very existence and accomplishments demonstrated that Jewish women were not degraded within Judaism, as some claimed.39 But while recognition of poetic abilities was granted, Aguilar felt that this was not where Deborah’s true greatness lay. Nor was it in her military role in Barak’s victory over Sisera.40 Crucially, Aguilar played down Deborah’s outward power and public triumphs and emphasised instead her private role, focusing in particular upon her influence as a local judge after she returned home.41 The important thing to notice here, Aguilar claimed, was that Deborah’s quiet, low- 36 “Every Hebrew should look upon his faith as a temple extending over every land, to prove the immutability, the eternity of God, the unity of His purposes, the truth of the past, the present, and the future; and regard himself as one of the pillars which support it from falling to the ground, and adds, however insignificant in itself, to the strength, the durability, and the beauty of the whole.” Ibid., 245. 37 “Many Hebrews may perhaps object to the lengthened consideration of the second verse of the SHEMANG, which the three preceding chapters contain; that it is following the false lights of the Nazarene, and spiritualizing and mystifying a simple truth; that the command to love the Lord with all our heart, and soul, and might, simply means to pray to Him and praise Him, and obey His laws as far as lies in our power.” Ibid., 109. 38 For example, Lask-Abrahams comments, “One also has the feeling that her frequent decrying of traditional usages represents a form of Jewish Protestantism drawn from her early close association with non-Jewish acquaintances. . . [This] led her sometimes to oppose the Bible to the traditions of the Rabbis and minimize the role of the Rabbis in the development and spirituality of Judaism.” Lask-Abrahams, “Grace Aguilar: A Centenary Tribute,” 142. 39 “Had there been the very least foundation for the supposition of the degrading and heathenizing of the Hebrew female, we should not find the offices of prophet, judge, military instructor, poet and sacred singer, all combined and all perfected in the person of a woman.” Grace Aguilar, The Women of Israel, or, Characters and Sketches from the Holy Scriptures and Jewish History, Illustrative of the Past History, Present Duties, and Future Destiny of the Hebrew Females, as Based on the Word of God (London: Routledge, 1845), 12. 40 “[After her and Barak’s victory over Sisera] We next find Deborah exercising that glorious talent of extempore poetry only found among the Hebrews; and by her, a woman and wife in Israel, possessed to an almost equal degree with the Psalmist and prophets, who followed at a later period. . . We find her taking no glory whatever to herself, but calling upon the princes, and governors, and people of Israel to join with her in ‘blessing the Lord for the avenging of Israel.’. . . The simplicity and lowliness of the prophetess’ natural position is beautifully illustrated by the term she applies to herself – neither princess, nor governor, nor judge, nor prophetess, though both the last offices she fulfilled – ‘until that I, Deborah, arose, until I arose a MOTHER in Israel.’ She asked no greater honour or privilege for herself individually, than the being recognised as the mother of the people whom the Lord alone had endowed her with power to judge.” Ibid., 214–215. 41 “[Deborah’s] judgments, her works, are covered with a veil of silence, but we learn their effects by the simple phrase, that ‘the land had rest for forty years’ – the land, the whole land, not merely that which was under her direct superintendence. Virtue, holiness, and wisdom, though the gifts of but one lowly individual, are not confined to one place when used, as were Deborah’s, to the glory of God, and the good of her people. Silently and perhaps unperceived, they spread over space and time; and oh, how glorious must be the destiny of that woman, who, THE GRACIOUS AMBIGUITY OF GRACE AGUILAR (1816–47) (DANIEL R. LANGTON) 9 profile, unassuming work as a local judge, profoundly influencing the local community, so that “the land had rest for forty years” – a far more powerful demonstration of what a woman can achieve than were military exploits.42 This, she went on, offered a model for the present and future duties of contemporary women of Israel, even if the situation in the real world meant that they “can no longer occupy a position of such trust and wisdom in Israel”. Women should embrace their role as influencers – without feeling the need to do so publicly. Married women can influence their husbands and their households and will thereby “influence society at large, secretly and unsuspectedly indeed, but more powerfully than [they] can in the least degree suppose.”43 With many such examples in Women of Israel Aguilar made it clear that her ideal of womanly spirituality was a reassuringly traditional one, non- threatening in its refusal to compete with men in the public sphere.44 Several years later, in a work of literary fiction called The Jewish Faith (1846), Aguilar returned to the subject of form over spirit. This was ostensibly a series of letters of religious advice from a Sephardi Jewess called Inez Villena to a young girl called Annie, who was contemplating conversion, having had only a nominal Jewish upbringing. Interestingly, Aguilar here reversed her earlier claim that the crypto-Jewish experience had encouraged a spiritual understanding of their faith. Instead, she now argued that that kind of Anglo- Judaism which privileged external form over spirituality had had its origins in the Sephardi experience of Inquisition and crypto-Judaism. Their lives had been habituated to caution and hurried, superficial observance, and their imposed tradition of “soulless obedience. . . [in which they] adhered so very strictly to the form, to the utter exclusion of the spirit of their religion”, had continued upon their arrival in England. This state of affairs was, while understandable, a matter of regret.45 Attitudes were changing, of course, sometimes too without one moment quitting her natural sphere, can yet by precept, example, and labour, produce such blessed efforts as to give the land peace, and to bring a whole people unto God! “ Ibid., 216. “[T]he greatness of Deborah consisted not at all in outward state, in semblance of high rank, or in any particular respect or homage outwardly paid her; but simply in her vast superiority of mental and spiritual acquirements which were acknowledged by her countrymen, and consequently revered.” Aguilar, The Women of Israel, 212. 42 “Yet the history of Deborah in no way infers that she was neglectful of her conjugal and domestic duties. There is an unpretending simplicity about her very greatness. . . To a really great mind, domestic and public duties are so perfectly compatible, that the first need never be sacrificed for the last.” Aguilar, The Women of Israel, 217-218. 43 “Every married women is judge and guardian of her own household. She may have to encounter the prejudices of a husband, not yet thinking with her on all points; but if she have really a great mind, she will know how to influence, without in any way interfering. She will know how to serve the Lord in her household, without neglecting her duty and affection towards her husband; and by domestic conduct [she will be able to] influence society at large, secretly and unsuspectedly indeed, but more powerfully than she herself can in the least degree suppose.” Ibid., 217. 44 Such views reflected wider cultural norms, of course, as demonstrated by the popularity of contemporary authors such as Sarah Stickney Ellis who wrote The Women of England, Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits (London: Fisher, 1839), a work with which Aguilar was very familiar. 45 “In Portugal, as you know, to be even suspected as a Jew exposed our ancestors to all the horrors of the Inquisition, sequestration, torture, and often, death. The religion of our fathers, therefore, was instilled with such impenetrable secrecy, and so burdened with caution and the constant dread of discovery, that, to do more than attend to its mere elements, and keep the mind faithful to the doctrine of the Divine Unity and the perpetuity of the Jewish Faith, in contradistinction to the bewildering dogmas of saints, martyrs, infallibility of the Roman Church, masses, etc, was impossible. To become spiritual was equally so, for the Bible was a forbidden book to the Catholics, and therefore equally so to the secret Jews. Those, therefore, who from some immanent pressure of danger fled to other countries, were unable to throw off the caution of centuries. They could not realise that the yoke was so far removed from the necks, as to permit the public practice, and open confession of their faith. To speak of, or impart it, by means of reference to, and discussion upon the Bible, had so long been an utter impossibility, that it was scarcely unnatural, they should suppose it impossible still, when in reality no impossibility existed. This is the reason why so 10 MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES violently for Villena/Aguilar’s own liking, but “a mighty movement”, by which she meant Reform Judaism, had thankfully begun.46 The artifice of placing her own words in the mouth of an eminently sympathetic woman gave Aguilar greater intellectual freedom than she had had in The Spirit of Judaism. Here, in this work which did not purport to be a formal work of theology, she could talk at length about non-theological aspects of religion, including attitudes and feelings and, in so doing, draw heavily upon her own personal experience without fearing the attentions of religious authorities. (The Spirit of Judaism had received some poor reviews). It was undoubtedly written with Jewish and Christian audiences in mind, concerned as it was to present Judaism in a positive light and to challenge common Christian misconceptions which, she felt, also influenced the Jews’ own self-understanding. In this work, support for Reform Judaism seems less muted, as if Aguilar had begun to believe that it held the hope for Jewish spirituality. Spirituality is a complex thing, of course, notoriously difficult to capture in dry works of theology. In addition to the fictional series of letters and the biographical studies of biblical women, Aguilar also experimented with historical romance. Although only published in 1850, Aguilar’s The Vale of Cedars had been composed in the early 1830s and is a gothic tale of torture, persecution and unrequited love set in fifteenth-century Spain.47 It tells the adventures of a young crypto-Jewess, an intimate of Queen Isabella called Marie, her innocent Christian former beau who is blamed for the murder of her noble husband (also a crypto-Jew), and the consequences Marie must face when the truth of her Jewishness is revealed. Others have found in its pages a clear appeal for Jewish emancipation.48 Here, we are more interested in the way Aguilar uses this particular novel to explore unfamiliar forms of spirituality. To a Christian readership, the Jewess Marie is presented as a paragon of steadfast loyalty to her father and the religion of her fathers, a potential martyr with the sweetness of an angel, easily contrasted with the unspiritual, murderous dungeon-keepers of the Catholic Inquisition. For the Jewish audience, however, one is struck by the remarkable presentation of Catholic queen Isabella as a deeply spiritual and wise Christian, whose profound yet unseen influence upon her husband, Ferdinand, made her the epitome of womanly religious virtue.49 With somewhat broad brush-strokes, history is re-written to reveal that the Isabella has been tragically misunderstood, and that only under considerable duress from Torquemada was she reluctantly persuaded to institute the Inquisition and expel many of our ancient Spanish and Portuguese families, when they came to England, adhered so very strictly to the form, to the utter exclusion of the spirit of their religion; and never spoke of nor attempted to teach it, except by desiring a soulless obedience, which had no power, when the young mind began to enquire for itself.” Aguilar, The Jewish Faith: Its Spiritual Consolation, Moral Guidance and Immortal Hope, 35-36. 46 “If we compare the thoughts and sentiments on the religion of the Hebrews in almost all countries of the present day with those of fifty years back, we shall find that there has been, indeed, a mighty movement; though, as merely looking on the present, we may feel the movement is so small as to be almost invisible, and we sometimes are led to despond more than hope. We may watch too, with dread, the too violent reforms, the too indiscriminate clipping away of the old established, and so somewhat treasured forms; but better, far better, this agitation, than the stagnant waters of apathy and indifference, in which fifty years ago all Judaism was plunged.” Ibid., 443–444. 47 Galchinsky estimates its date of composition sometime between 1831 and 1835. Galchinsky, The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer: Romance and Reform in Victorian England, 139. 48 Ibid., 137ff. 49 “Isabella’s real influence on the far less lofty and more crafty Ferdinand was so silent, so unobtrusive, that its extent was never known, either to himself or to his people, till after her death. . .” Grace Aguilar, The Vale of Cedars, or, the Martyr (London: Groombridge and Sons, 1850), 218.