Portrait of the Maskil as a Young Man

This chapter addresses how the intellectual passage from the culture of Torah scholars to the new world of the Haskalah was one of the fundamental experiences of the maskil. It reconstructs the social experience of the east European maskilim, showing the high price the young man paid for his attraction to the Haskalah, since that attraction often entailed a clash with parents and in-laws, teachers and religious leaders. One way to escape this predicament was to acquire a rich patron. Another route was to forge strong ties with other maskilim. The chapter then reveals the critical role played by the ‘forbidden’ book: the young man's clandestine reading of non-canonical books, his conversion through such reading, and the subsequent trauma of discovery and punishment.