Preface One major difference between the new world, which emerged in Europe as a reality and an image at the dawn of the modern era, and the preceding age, is the dramatic change in the role of religion in human life. The philosopher Charles Taylor recently claimed that the secular age was created in the course of a change that "takes us from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others." The modern age was marked by the growing tension between the traditional religious structure of the society and culture with the dominant, all-embracing presence of religion, in both private life and the public sphere, and the erosion of this structure by processes of secularization. As it unfolds, the historical story tells of a complex relationship between secular thought and behavior and fundamentalist religious reaction. This is a key narrative of modernization in general and of Jewish modernization in particular. Secularization has been one of the most significant historical processes in Jewish history from the eighteenth century until the present day. The rebellion against the religious norms and discipline demanded by the rabbinical elite, along with the skepticism and religious permissiveness of individuals and groups, may have been openly declared or kept private. In either case, it radically changed Jewish society and culture.

Aspirations for liberation clashed with the anxiety of those who were faithful to tradition. It was no longer self-evident that Jewish self-definition would be based on the beliefs and practices of "Torah and commandments." National, ethnic, cultural, and other alternatives emerged. From this moment in history, a long, circuitous course of "secular" or "religious" searches for identity began, which took on various forms and were attended by severe cultural struggles. Throughout the eighteenth century, the distinction grew sharper between Jews of the old world and Jews of the new world. On the one hand, there was the great majority of observant Jews, elites of talmudic scholars and those who accepted the authority of the rabbinical leadership; on the other, the gradually more conspicuous minority of "freethinking" Jews. At this early stage, the boundaries of the internal split were already drawn and gave the members of the two camps a new identity. This identity marked each individual, labeled his worldview and lifestyle according to his place on the spectrum between faith and heresy, devotion to religious practices and the rabbinical leadership, and permissiveness and indifference.

This "sectarian" identity shaped the self-consciousness of the members of each group and strengthened their self-confidence in their way of life and their belief or disbelief. It also functioned as a counter-identity that raised the dividing walls and made each group adopt a position of conflict, suspicion, and even contempt toward other groups. Because secularization is such a central and influential process, the task of tracing its origins, reconstructing its course, and interpreting the furors it aroused is one of the most important tasks facing the historian of Jewish modernization. Was there ever really a religious "sea of faith" that was "once at the full"? Is the Victorian Matthew Arnold''s 1867 lament in "Dover Beach" over the retreat of the "sea of faith" really convincing? Can we go on claiming that God has been driven out of this world, "which has neither joy, nor love, nor light" or that the world has been disenchanted and rationalized, as Max Weber suggested? How is that possible, when right before our eyes, the role of religion is actually increasing in our own time? Does not the term "secularization" itself carry an ideological charge, and is it not being exploited by secularists in order to present the liberal narrative of the inevitable victory of reason over prejudice, superstition, and the tyranny of the old world? Or was it not their purpose to impose this notion on Western culture as a hegemonic narrative? Even if there is some truth in all these claims, the author of this book joins those historians who reject the sociological and philosophical challenge to the secularization thesis. I am among those who wish to describe, understand, and interpret the historical processes that led Europe to the profound, all-embracing change in the status of religion in the life of the individual, the society, and the state, and who define this change as "secularization." At the entrance to the field of secularization, said José Casanova, "there should always hang the sign ''Proceed at your own risk.'' " This book takes that risk and insists, with the few "old believers," that "the theory of secularization still has much explanatory value in attempting to account for modern historical process." Throughout this book, secularization will be used in those clear terms coined forty years ago by Peter L.

Berger. These terms are very useful for those who, as he does, regard secularization as a process of vast importance in modern history that can be reconstructed: "By secularization we mean the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols. It affected the totality of cultural life and of ideation. Moreover, it is implied here that the process of secularization has a subjective side as well. As there is a secularization of society and culture, so is there a secularization of consciousness. Put simply, this means that the modern West has produced an increasing number of individuals who look upon the world and their own lives without the benefit of religious interpretations." In addition to these insights of Berger''s, this book is also guided by the definitions of "religion" and "secularization" recently proposed by Hugh McLeod, British social historian of secularization in Europe. These definitions are apt for a historian wishing to describe and interpret the origins of secularization among European Jewry.

"Religion" means faith in a merciful, omnipotent creator of the world and that obedience to his commandments and devout worship, together with all the practices and institutions based on this faith, are the only true way of ensuring a good life for the individual and the group. "Secularization" is not a single, unidirectional path that leads outside the religion. It is, rather, a historical process that occurred in various spheres in the life of the individual, the society, and the state. The weakening of the Christian religion''s status and power and the replacements of its institutions and clergy by state institutions and officials were among the most significant manifestations of secularization in Europe. Of course, no comparable ecclesiastical hierarchy with political power existed in European Jewish society, but other aspects of the "religion-secularization" tension in Europe were also applicable in the Jewish case. The emphasis here will be on secularization in the personal and social spheres, and the key questions to be asked in the Jewish context are taken from the more general questions asked in relation to modern Europe: How, why, and to what extent did the religious worldview and the commitment to observe religious commandments decline among individuals and groups, and what was the historical meaning of secularization among eighteenth-century European Jewry? The religious laxity, modern acculturation, and philosophical criticism of religion that marked the onset of the Jewish retreat from religion began as far back as the seventeenth century among former conversos in Western Sephardic communities (especially in Amsterdam) and among the wealthy families of Ashkenazic "court Jews" in central Europe. In retrospect, the contribution of the eighteenth century to the historical course of Jewish secularization seems particularly significant. As I will argue in this book, in this century lie the roots of the process that shaped and furthered secularization of Jewish society in modern Europe.

Research on the Haskalah has pointed to several revolutionary processes of secularization in the eighteenth century that were spearheaded by Jewish scholars, writers, and philosophers. Two historical developments were particularly significant because of their long-term implications. One was the secularization of the personal and collective self-consciousness among the maskilim, who, in fact, invented "modernity" and the modern self-identity of Jews. They created the historical narrative that explained the changes in the modern era and justified the need to invest efforts to reform the cultural, social, and even political life of Jews, and also operated a system of communication and propaganda to persuade a broad Jewish public to adopt modern consciousness, with its promise of a better future for the individual and the Jewish people. The second development was the secularization of the intellectual elite. During the eighteenth century, an elite of writers appeared and broke the monopoly of the rabbinical elite over the culture, books, education, and guidance of the public. The conflict between the old and new elites ignited a long-enduring Kulturkampf that drew one of the many boundary lines that divided late eighteenth-century Jewry. This new elite was secular as far as its source of authority, agenda, and cultural activity were concerned.

It was attentive to the European Enlightenment and its liberal, rationalist, and humanistic values. In my book Haskalah and History (2002), I described the first revolution that secularized the self-consciousness of the maskilim and invented the "Jewish modern age" as a belief and an aspiration. In my second book, The Jewish Enlightenment (2004), I described the revolution that gave birth to the secular Jewish in.