nt circumstance--never
deviated from it until he attained it. His activity throughout life
shows no inconsistency with his plans. It is his strength of character,
rarest of attributes in a time of universal defection from the Jewish
standard, that calls for admiration, accorded by none so readily as by
his companions in arms. Casting up his own spiritual accounts, Heinrich
Heine in the latter part of his life wrote of his friend Zunz:[89] "In
the instability of a transition period he was characterized by
incorruptible constancy, remaining true, despite his acumen, his
scepticism, and his scholarship, to self-imposed promises, to the
exalted hobby of his soul. A man of thought and action, he created and
worked when others hesitated, and sank discouraged," or, what Heine
prudently omitted to say, deserted the flag, and stealthily slunk out of
the life of the oppressed.

In Zunz, strength of character was associated with a mature, richly
stored mind. He was a man of talent, of character, and of science, and
this rare union of traits is his distinction. At a time when the
majority of his co-religionists could not grasp the plain, elementary
meaning of the phrase, "the science of Judaism," he made it the loadstar
of his life.

Sad though it be, I fear that it is true that there are those of this
generation who, after the lapse of years, are prompted to repeat the
question put by Zunz's contemporaries, "What is the science of Judaism?"
Zunz gave a comprehensive answer in a short essay, "On Rabbinical
Literature," published by Mauer in 1818:[90] "When the shadows of
barbarism were gradually lifting from the mist-shrouded earth, and light
universally diffused could not fail to strike the Jews scattered
everywhere, a remnant of old Hebrew learning attached itself to new,
foreign elements of culture, and in the course of centuries enlightened
minds elaborated the heterogeneous ingredients into the literature
called rabbinical." To this rabbinical, or, to use the more fitting name
proposed by himself, this neo-Hebraic, Jewish literature and science,
Zunz devoted his love, his work, his life. Since centuries this field
of knowledge had been a trackless, uncultivated waste. He who would
pass across, had need to be a pathfinder, robust and energetic, able to
concentrate his mind upon a single aim, undisturbed by distracting
influences. Such was Leopold Zunz, who sketched in bold, but admirably
precise outlines the extent of Jewish