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Moses Mendelssohn – Intellectual Profile

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Moses Mendelssohn

Name	Moses Mendelssohn, Moses of Dessau משה מנדלסון, משה בן מנדל מדעסוי, רמבמ"ן
Dates	1729-1786
Location	Germany
Works	Biur (ed.)
Exegetical Characteristics
Influenced by	R. David Frankel
Impacted on

Background

Life

• Name –  Moses Mendelssohn
  
  • Hebrew name – Mosheh ben Mendel
  • _ name – 
• Dates – 1729-1786
• Location – Dessau, Berlin
• Education – Studied in Dessau under R. David Frankel, the author of Korban Edah to the Talmud Yerushalmi; continued to study with R. Frankel in Berlin, but also studied with R. Yisrael b. Moshe of Zamosc, the author of the commentary Otzar Nehmad to the Kuzari. Virtually all his general education was obtained on his own.
• Occupation – Managed and later was part owner of a silk manufacturing business.
• Family –  Married and had six children who survived to adulthood; they were between 5 and 22 years old when he died.
• Teachers – see Education, above
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• Students – Mendelssohn was neither a teacher in a formal or informal sense; although many were interested in his ideas, he never referred to them as students.
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Works

• Biblical commentaries – Mendelssohn wrote a commentary to Kohelet (1770), and then published Sefer Netivot ha-Shalom, which included his German translation of the entire humash, a Hebrew commentary titled Be'ur, and the Tiqqun Soferim, a masoretic commentary. This humash also included three lengthy introductions; one devoted to defending the masoretic Bible down to the niqqud and te'amim, one on the history of Bible translations, and a third devoted to the principles of translation.
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• Jewish thought –  He wrote a commentary to Millot ha-Higayon, the treatise on logic attributed to the Rambam.
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Torah Commentary

Characteristics

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Sources

Significant Influences

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Impact

Later exegetes

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Supercommentaries

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