he twenty-four books of the Bible, their etymology, prosody, and
syntax, then the six divisions of the Mishnah with the important
commentaries and the suggested emendations, and finally the Talmud in
general, without wasting much time on pilpul, which brings no practical
result. "These few lines," says a writer, "contain a more thorough
course of study than Wessely suggested in his _Words of Peace and
Truth_. Though they did not entirely change the system in vogue--for
great is the power of habit--they produced a wholesome effect, which was
visible in a short time among the people." Furthermore, the Gaon
exhorted the Talmudists to study secular science, since, "if one is
ignorant of the other sciences, one is a hundredfold more ignorant of
the sciences of the Torah, for the two are inseparably connected." He
set the example by writing, not only on the most important Hebrew books,
Biblical, Talmudic, and Cabbalistic, but also on algebra, geometry,
trigonometry, astronomy, and grammar.[19] And his example served as an
impetus and encouragement to the Maskilim in spreading knowledge among
their coreligionists.

Such was the man who led the crusade against the converts to Hasidism.
But even he could not stem the current. In their despair, the Lithuanian
Jews turned to their coreligionists in Germany, and implored their
assistance in eradicating, or at least suppressing, the threatened
invasion. The great learning and literary ability of the "divine
philosopher, Rabbi Moses ben Menahem" (Mendelssohn, 1729-1786), were
appealed to for help. Not a stone was left unturned to crush the new
sect (kat), so called. Volumes of the _Toledot Ya'akob Yosef_, in which
Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy set forth the principles of the Besht,
were burnt in the market-place in Vilna. Intermarriage, social
intercourse of any kind, was prohibited between Hasidim and Mitnaggedim.
In Vilna, Grodno, Brest, Slutsk, Minsk, Pinsk, etc., the ban was hurled
against the dissenters by the most prominent rabbis. Israel was divided
into two hostile camps.[20] But soon everything was changed. Hasidim and
Mitnaggedim discovered that while they were fighting each other, a
common enemy was undermining the ground on which they stood. The
Haskalah was steadily drawing recruits from both, and it threatened
ultimately to become more dangerous to both than they were to each
other.

From the South had come the impulse of religious revivalism through the
followers of