Shadal's series #11 - coping with the loss of a daughter.

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Certainly not to minimize the many tragic losses people suffer every day, yet there can be little doubt that in earlier times untimely death was lurking ever closer, with minor illnesses posing greater threats. Hardly a family was untouched by the Grim Reaper and the loss of a child or more. So it was with Shadal, who lost several of his children. Originally, the apple of his eye was his eldest son, Ohev Ger, who many believed (the father included) was possessed with an even greater mind than his father. He died in 1853, aged 23, and with him Shadal's dream of a scholarly successor. 
Of his other children's deaths, one which struck him particularly hard was the loss of his 18 year old daughter Miriam, who died the night after Shavuot, 1862. He had grown extremely close to Miriam, his oldest child by his second wife, and as we shall see, he studied with her, and of her own initiative she made herself very helpful to him. Always a man dealing with his own illnesses, he had become blind in one eye as a relatively young man. In his middle age he also lost most sight in his good eye, and of course this constrained him, since pretty much all he did was read and write. Miriam stepped up and from that point on she copied all his letters (his practice had been to actually write two copies of each letter, one to send and one to save). From time to time Shadal letters turn up on the market. If you have one from those later years, it may have been written by Miriam.
When she suddenly became sick and then died, he was heartbroken, as all parents are. He wrote movingly of this loss several times.
In the 1870s Shadal's son, the physician Isaia Luzzatto, began to publish many of his father's letters and writings. In 1878 he had an index of Shadal's letters printed, the Index raisonné des livres de correspondance de feu Samuel David Luzzatto, which not only lists all (or at least many) of Shadal's letters, broken down by date and language, but also includes short notes describing the content of many of them. The purpose of this index was to pave the way and whet the appetite of the public for the actual collected letters, which were eventually published in two separate collections; Igrot in Hebrew, and Epistolario, which gathered letters written in Italian, French and Latin. Isaia also included some specimens of letters at the end of the Index, as well as a couple of French poems, of a personal nature. One of them was written on the loss of Miriam and is dated the day after she died. Here is my translation:

6 June 1862 

My Daughter is No More 

After thirteen days of illness
(Febris miliaris)
At 2:30 this morning 

She ceased living.
She was a force of brightness,
A superior mind.
Disregarding human weaknesses
(without affectations)
Extremely rare for her sex. 

Like that! my last hope vanished
I had hoped for a son, my pupil. (I had a lot of trouble with this line. Help?) 

She studied with me all of the Torah,
Also half of Kohelet
And after learning that 'all is Vanity,'
At eighteen years
She left this world.

He wrote at least two more letters describing her virtues and his devastation at the loss. One was written in French, the same month, and is printed on the next page in the Index:
It describes how he continued to cope with the loss. Here is my translation:

". . . the world lost an angel of virtue, intelligence, diligence, modesty and beauty. A mind superior to its age and sex. She lived 18 happy years, then began to suffer, for her mind was above rank. Death delivered its inevitable sentence. Her father and mother remain forever inconsolable; this affliction will not fail to produce its positive effects. . . The wise man knows he is an instrument for the Most High, and he sees this.  

"At first he is angered when events do not go his own way: ×œ×�ויל יהרג כעש ('Anger kills the foolish man' Job 5.2). Then he adjust to the will of one wiser than his, and strives to task it imposes on him. It does not yield to blind necessity - it obeys the supreme wisdom. He is not a Stoic. He is not a bigot. He sees the final reasons, he loves the eternal wisdom, and is happy to go where it calls, ×•×“×™ בזה, and this is enough.  

"Sir, I received your two letters. Your words, your sympathy have relieved my pain . . ."

Finally, he wrote a Hebrew letter to Eliezer Lipmann Silbermann about one month after Miriam died. Here it is:

"God's hand touched me and took her from me these 30 days ago, the eve after Shavuot - the beloved of my soul, my only daughter[1] Miriam, aged 18. None was like her with her combined qualities of intelligence, good character and beauty. This has further weakened and aged me, all the more as I see my wife in great sadness, inconsolable.  My daughter had no other teacher but her mother, who read with her French, Italian, and German authors, and with all this, she was constantly involved in the housework, major and minor work, ironing and so forth. She even taught herself to write in Rashi script and to read and write Greek. She began to copy my letters, for her desire all her days was to help and assist, without any self-aggrandizement. Her face appeared like God's angel, delightful to all who saw her. Her wisdom and righteousness were apparent in her countenance, while she was modest and quiet. She was healthy and strong all her life, and in 13 days she took ill and died, and no one knows what her illness was. "

[1] His first daughter, Regina Malkah, was born in 1833 and died in 1851, also aged 18.

Krochmal complains that it's hard to speak to all Jews.

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Here's a great excerpt from a letter from Nachman Krochmal to Shadal, bearing the date of  1st day rosh chodesh Elul 5536/ Aug. 25, 1836.

"[The Rambam] conveyed his teachings of the inner part of the Torah only to the Arab Jews of Spain, including those of neighboring Provence. The rest of the Jews were as if they didn't exist, since there was such little bonds of communication with them then. But now, how does one speak one way, with the same message, that will be acceptable and able to penetrate the hearts of Italian Jews and Oriental Jews? In the ears of those in Germany who think they are scholars, and in those who think they are hasidim in Poland and Russia? Even if these communities are all still far apart in location and views, there is still no little connection between them nowadays. They all know each other, and despise each other. Each group of Jews feels that if its views and approach were adopted by the others, the redemption would arrive!"

(From Letteris' Mikhtevei Benei Kedem, pg. 66.)

On that Arabic Talmud

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Recently the new kind-of-cool, kind-of-creepy Arabic translation of the Talmud has gotten a lot of attention. Obviously. (link)

 It it surprising to me that no one seems to reference the alleged Arabic translation of the Talmud - if that's what the source means - by R. Joseph ibn Abitur, about 1000 years ago, as reported in Sefer Haqabbalah and another source.
















"Rabbi Moses of Cordoba had many disciples, among them Rabbi Joseph bar Isaac ibn Satnas (?), known as Abitur; he [explained? translated? wrote a digest?] all of the Talmud into Arabic for the Ishmaelite caliph, known as al-Haqim."
So, we can now consider it mentioned.

Tilting at Windmills? My attempt to make sense of the Asifa.

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It was like sausage being made. Having seen all the rumors and alleged plans going on over the past few weeks, being the curious sort, and frankly wondering if there was indeed anything for me to learn, a friend and I decided to see that sausage. Would the message be that we can't live with the internet, we can't live without it? What would the mood of the crowd be? Did they really sell it out? Also, I knew that whatever would happen it would literally be historic. Would I have missed a chance to witness the Michalowitz conference in 1866? Not on your life. Finally, I honestly wanted to know how I would feel there, in a gathering that in an earlier phase of my life I may have felt fairly at home in.
So we made our way to Citi Field, and witnessed something that was far more subdued than the Beatles in Shea in 1965, true, but possibly far more interesting - in a meta sense. In fact, I think many people would say that it was rather quite boring concerning the nitty gritty details. But it wasn't about the details, really. So without further ado, I will now proceed to recount the details!





















Throngs of people were calmly waiting their turn for security screening. Once inside, you were handed a branded Ichud Hakehillos goodie bag, consisting of a bottle of water, a plastic cup, a Stern's chocolate danish, a little bag of Bloom's pretzels, ineffective binoculars, and two printed pamphlets; one containing an interlinear translation of the second part of kaddish, beginning with amen, yehei shemei rabbah, Yiddish and English. The other was a copy of the tefillas ha-Sheloh. The bag was a nice gesture. A lot of people seemed to have a kuntres called Ha-internet be-halacha, but I couldn't tell if my bag was just defective, or if they were being distributed or sold (yeah, right) elsewhere. Eventually I saw someone put one down near a drinking fountain. I asked him if it was his, and he said I could have it. It consists of eight simanim. 1.  Is there a halachic obligation to filter one's computer? 2. Is there a prohibition of yichud on Skype or a Webcam? 3. Can a kinyan be enacted over the internet, such as for a sale of chametz? 4. If someone sends someone else a virus, is he liable to pay for the damage it causes? 5. Is using another's wifi without permission stealing? 6. Is it permissible to download and collect music? 7. Can one allow his internet business, such as ebay, accrue sales over shabbos? 8. On web sites in Israel which update on shabbos, can one read it after shabbos? In 300 years I guarantee that this will be a quality collectible sefer.
First of all - it was a full house. This was no Million Man March with 110,000 people. It was full. Score one - a big one - for the Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane (which actually sounds as odd in the original as it does in English, something unusual for rabbinic idiomatic language, which generally sounds perfectly fine in  rabbinic Hebrew). One of the things I really wanted to get a sense of was, what was the mood of the crowd? It was hard to say. It was certainly not mournful, but neither was it especially jubilant. No one looked very annoyed to be there, that I could tell, but no one seemed excited.  I did hear a fair share of quasi-cynical comments all night, but really only very mild ones. Also, half the place was texting and emailing all night. By half I of course mean something like 5-10%. There was an awful lot of texting going on. At one point one of the speakers was speaking and the camera picked up a guy on his iphone and everyone could see this on the big screen - lots and lots and lots of iphones all around. No one was hiding them, and I think that is the main point. They are facts of life.
Mincha began 45 minutes late, but of course that's to be expected. It seemed like quite a few people davened early, presumably because they did not expect to be there at 6:30. They could have waited. In any case, at some point some unspecified person grabbed the mike and told us that al pi hora'as ha-gedolim this revolution will not be broadcast online. Then we recited 5 kapitlach tehillim; #s 51, 41, 102, 130 and 133. Look them up. I almost hesitate to mention this, because in a way it's shallow, and it's also besides the point. But I think it bears mentioning. The leader in the recitation had, well, a kind of terrible voice. Now I realize that substance over style is more important, but I think this is kind of a comment on the lack of aesthetic appreciation which seems to be current in Chareidi society. There is a concept of hiddur, and one of the qualifications for a shaliach tzibbur is to have a nice voice. It's not finicky artists who say this. This is in the codes. It may not be the main thing, but it is not nothing.
The evening's emcee, Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman, began in Yiddish. He was talking about the tough challenges. A simultaneous translation was being typed on the big screen as he spoke. Unfortunately the person they employed was not fully up to the task, see my note about aesthetics above, for just as Rabbi Wachsman mentioned the "shver nisyonos," "the harsh challenges," the caption read "that have bee set us." I was not the only one to notice, as I distinctly heard some snickers. What a pity. Substance over style, yes. But wouldn't it have been fairly simple to get someone who would have written "beset us?" And there was more of this all night. At this point, Rabbi Wachsman apologized because he was going to switch over and speak in the "sefas medina," the State Tongue, "Ainglish." And that is just what Rabbi Wachsman, who is a masterful orator and a darshan did. He began mentioning the "dangers of the internet," which was what I was waiting to hear. It seems like the euphemism "technology" was used in a lot of the buzz prior to the event.  Would the word actually be mentioned? Yes indeed.

At this point, according to my notes, I noticed that the Cholula Hot Sauce ads surrounding the big screen had large white canvases hanging on them blocking a part of the bottle. I was curious what was on the bottle. Here it is:






















Rabbi Wachsman began quoted a Rambam about the very negative repercussions of departing from the congregation, and said that people who are otherwise okay must know that they "cannot repudiate 40,000 Yidden." The crowd has spoken. The Rambam says that if you disagree with this then you have no share in the World To Come. ×�×� בקשת ליחנק היתלה ב×�ילן גדול?
Then Rabbi Wachsman delivered the first of several conciliatory messages. It is clear that unlike some other speakers, he has a real sense of people and things happening outside his immediate environs. He said that a message must be delivered, we must also "speak to our brethren." At this point he began speaking in more English. He mentioned Mount Sinai, the Oral Tradition. (Watching the faces of the Chassidishe rebbes was interesting.) Then he said that people ought to realize that the media will be covering this event. Frankly, we don't need media coverage, but they are covering it. We don't consider media attention an accomplishment: "even a bank robber" gets media attention! Then he said we are a holy people, a chosen people, even though we, admittedly, sometimes fail. Then he delivered a paean to the holy tefilos of Jewish mothers as they light candles on Friday night, and recalled that our tradition is to cover our 3 year old boys as we take them to cheder for the first time. Then, he said that we "cherish this great country which has been good for us, and done a tremendous force for good all around the world" - my paraphrase, but very close - but he urged that the United States should please "come to your senses, come to your senses" - regarding gay marriage (although I don't remember precisely what he said, and he obviously didn't say "gay marriage").
Next a certain rebbe from Montreal spoke. Let's say he was not the 1st rate darshan that Rabbi Wachsman was, and I will not mention the rumor a$ to why he was given such a prime spot. He spoke in mamme loshn, rather than sefas hamedinah. My correspondent at Arthur Ashe Stadium later told me that there was no translation for the Yiddish speeches there, which led to a great deal of restlessness. The rebbe began by mentioning the talmidim of the Chasam Sofer who took the initiative to oppose and separate from the bad things, like haskalah. He then referred to "Tzionisten," which the translator promptly gave as "the ism which sought to substitute the Land of Israel for the Land of Torah." His motif was "Mi Lashem Elai," Moshe's clarion call, "Whoever is for the Lord, join me!" He then said that in all the earlier challenging periods, we knew who the enemy was. Today they are disguised and are not discernible. He then said that baalebatim sometimes say that the rabbis don't really know the internet ('terNET is how he pronounced it) and therefore don't understand the challenge. This may be true, he said, that we don't know the internet. But we know about the crying fathers who present us with the bad results of the internet. Then he said that the only heter for using the internet is for parnassah, and only with a filter. ("Can't live with it, can't live without it?") He said that some people had ridiculed the event, they say that there just is nothing that can be done about the challenge of the internet. But those who don't mock, Hashem will ensure that they have good children. He then began to quote Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman's restatement of the argument for design (spilled ink on paper), and the inept translator promptly wrote "Rebbe Wasserman the great great dot dot." Hm. He was speaking for a long time, for it was at this point that I began counting people in blue shirts (which I decided to define as non-white). I wasn't the only one who was distracted, as someone began passing notes up to him telling him his time is up, and it apparently reached the point where his chevra surrounded him to make sure that he was not removed from the podium.
Rabbi Wachsman then returned and, basing himself on a Tana De-vei Eliyahu, quoted the Opatow Rebbe, saying that when a group of 20,000 gather they have the strength of Avraham Avinu. Thus, when 40,000 gather they have the strength of two Avraham Avinus. In case it was not clear, the speakers seemed to again and again promote the idea that the medium is the message. We are united. Although we've got no weapons in our arsenal, because of this gathering we are strong. It's all about this, the gathering. He referred to the isms, Communism, Haskalah, Tziyonus (audible groans, at least near me). He then said "we will determine what Yiddishkeit will look like a few years from now." The internet "is no longer a tool or a device. It is a culture. It is a psychology. A way of life." He reminded us that "heimishe yungerleit and frauein" are ensnared in "social media" which is "the technological equivalent of the dor hamabul." Speaking of these lost souls, he expounded on the gemara that everyone can do teshuva, besides Acher (Elisha ben Avuya). He asserted that you can see the ruin "in the eyes of yungerleit." Can't we see that "people are changing?" We "gave the world a Yirmiyah, a Rambam, a Chasam Sofer." Who are we becoming? "Yentayachna.com." End quote. 
He continued that the internet is about the superficial, the lack of focus, the instant, and that even secular sources are bemoaning this, decrying that children are becoming "click-vegetables." He then delivered what was a truly conciliatory message: even these "brazen" people, the people the internet ruined, are still acheinu benei yisrael, our brothers, and Hashem loves "you." Yes, he said this. If no one else reports it, he still said it. He then spoke about how this is simply the biggest challenge the Jews have ever faced, and we are weaker than all our predecessors. Yet, he said, even one step forward can make a difference. Even though "the webbed mind has to struggle to understand Torah," what if a person is determined to have "an internet massechta," instead of wasting X amount of time online, he takes that time and completes a Talmudic tractate? He said that someone told him that he was passing some kind of obscene billboard on the way to work every day, and he determined that every time he chose not to look, he would give himself $1. In no time at all - (if you do the math it would have had to have been a considerable amount of time) - he accumulate $2000, and bought himself an awesome silver menorah. Transforming tumah to taharah. He referred to the internet as a "kli mashchis," a "destructive vessel." He bemoaned the "billions of hours and dollars" which went into producing and maintaining the internet. Then he made a most interesting comment: Even if, he said, we have lost the 25 - 35 year olds! - and maybe we haven't - that doesn't mean we have to lose the 0 - 20s. He feels that the Chareidim have been retreating (!) and there can be no more retreating. It is time to arise like a lioness. This garnered, for the first time, applause.
Then he said (claimed? hoped?) that "there are thousands here tonight who have no shaychas to internet. Don't think that only a black hatter in Lakewood, or a man in a shtreimel in Williamsburg can do without. Even a Yid in a blue shirt can!" (This prompted me to count blue shirts once more, and also collected kippot of various sorts as well). Then he began to say something which I was starting to get excited about, but I didn't realize what he was going to mean. He said there are other forms of entertainment. Was he about to acknowledge that people need leisure and entertainment? Was he going to suggest walks with children? But then he continued - and we eschew these entertainments. Which Yid hunts? Do you have or want a moose head in your living room? No, you hang pictures of gedolim! In other words, don't think you need Netflix - you already don't partake in many alternative things which you have no desire for. You can do it with the internet too. You can scale back. 
The fact is, Rabbi Wachsman provided the most realistic approach. I no longer recall if he also reiterated that the internet is only permitted for business and with a filter, but even if he did, it was pretty clear that he was under no illusion about what people do, and was really trying to promote a lessening of use and dependence on the internet. At point he had also mentioned that people who give their 11 or 12 year old kids internet access, or an ipod, are crazy. He wisely and realistically pointed out that if someone had given him an ipod when he was 11 years old he would immediately have hacked that thing.
Next came the Skulener Rebbe, who had been alleged to have been one of the rabbis who called for the event to take place. The rebbe is quite aged and apparently somewhat weak, and he could barely talk. But he was clearly very, very passionate about the event and the message and summoned up much strength. Since he could barely speak in an audible voice, he had a meturgeman with him, who repeated everything he said. Again, in reality substance is supposed to trump style, but what can I say? The man who repeated his speech for twenty minutes had the voice of a cartoon character. Again, this is not the message, but these are things which could be avoided, even if the man is his gabbai or whomever. R. Elya Ber Wachtfogel was sitting next to him and looked embarrassed, or maybe pained. You could see the Skulener's passion and that he was genuinely moved, and he spoke a lot about the milachama with the klipos. He referrred to the internet as chochmas behemos (which the intrepid translator rendered as "subhuman"). He noted that an animal looks down to the ground, whereas humans can raise their head to look at things on high.
At 9:15 the Asifa received a telephone call from Rav Wosner, a true living legend. His face appeared on screen next to the caption: hagaon ha-adir posek ha-dor ba'al shevet ha-levi shlita, "the mighty gaon, halachic decisor of this generation, author of  the responsa Shevet Halevi, may he live long," and his purpose was apparently to lay down the law. He spoke in Yiddish, and no translation appeared for 5 or 6 minutes. While people began to get really, really restless and get up to walk around or go home, the Shevet Halevi restated that the internet is just assur for anything besides business, with a filter, and he added that if a child has the "mashchis internet" access at home then he should be expelled from yeshivos. I honestly and truly felt that it was a terrible choice in timing because, you know, people were walking up and going home while Rav Wosner was speaking! But at this point my chavrusa decided he had enough, and we also made the strategic decision to go home.
I know there were other speakers, I know that some guy streamed the whole thing live, but I will just read what others say they said. The bottom line? There was a major, major disconnect from reality. In Rabbi Wachsman's case maybe it was major, rather than major, major. As I said, people were using their smartphones all night. Openly. Does anyone think they were conducting business? "Buy 1000 shares of Faceschmutz!" Everyone uses it. No one is going to stop. In five years, more, not less people will be online.  I was thinking about that, and I realized that the insular life depends upon free choice as much as coercion. Thirty or forty years ago, people were still largely choosing the insular life. But they had large families, and not all of the children would or will choose it. People who wanted to be part of something, and were willing to not own a television and not read newspapers had children and grandchildren who never asked for that. They can't even ban it in China - the only people who can be kept away from the internet are those who will freely choose to eschew it.
Perhaps some will take the healthy message to heart that they should while away less time online. There were flashes of inspiration. It was a nice crowd. I felt fine there. I'm sure plenty of people would have thought that they were watching a Fascist rally, but I didn't, which was interesting to note about myself and how I would feel. I guess I just felt like it didn't affect me? After all, my kids are not going to be subjected to Rav Wosner's ruling. Was it ironic, and perhaps apt, that it took place the very week that the proverbial you-know-what began to hit the fan, as the six years of not facing up to our own abuse scandal finally really began to get serious coverage, fueled of course by the tumeneh mashchis, and that it is not going to be wished away or disappear? Yes. 
My email companion on the outside asked me at one point to scale it, 1 to 10, in terms of weirdness. I had no answer. I replied, I will have to tell you later.

Moritz Steinschneider deigns to drop down into the fray to defend the Talmud in a footnote.

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Johann Andreas Eisenmenger earned a place in infamy for his anti-Jewish book Endecktes Judenthum (Koenigsberg 1711) - Judaism Discovered - which compiled countless strange or offensive aggadot from a great variety of rabbinic sources. At the beginning of the book he lists about 225 separate Jewish works which he used (the Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi are two single sources out of the 225). 
Here is how it begins, in the English translation printed in 1742 (although this is from another part of the book):

Enthusiasm on the one Hand, and a Spirit of Domination on the other, are, and have ever been, the Disgraces of the Priests of most Religions: But None are, or have been, more extravagant on the other, than the Rabbins, or Teachers amoung the Jews. The Rabbinical Domination and Enthusiasm will appear in the following Extracts from the best and most celebrated Writings of the Rabbins . . . 

Moritz Steinschneider, celebrated as the father of modern Jewish bibliography - which, I promise, is more exciting than that sounds - was commissioned to write an encylopedia entry on Jewish literature for Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine encyclopädie der wissenschaften und künste. He submitted a very, very, very long article - book, really - and it was actually  printed under the heading Judische Literatur covering pages 357 - 471 in the 20th volume, which was printed in Leipzig, 1850. Several years later this "article" was translated to English as Jewish Literature from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century, a 375 page book, which is still useful - believe me. Now, Steinschneider (1816-1907), scholarly to a ridiculous degree and legendarily unsentimental, was one of the scholars who took writing with objectivity as the 11th Command, to unprecedented degrees. Thus, while his works are brimming with useful and fascinating information, he generally took care to betray not the slightest bit of enthusiasm or personality in his work. (Yes, there may be no Yiddish hartz, but often this means that you get facts which you yourself are then free to project your own opinion on.) Thus, it is interesting that he inserted what is, truthfully, a useless - but interesting footnote - into his encylopedia entry, concerning Eisenmenger. Useless as scholarship per se, but useful as a stealthy defense of the Jews in a scientific German encyclopedia in 1850.
Writing about the history of the development of Halacha after the Temple's destruction, there is the following (p. 365):























In the sfas hamedinah, this says that "under the Halacha more and more things were collected which would not be of practical import until the advent of the Messiah (Hilchetha Lemeshicha). Thus arose the idea that the law can be fulfilled through study, since with the Temple's destruction, it was impossible any other way: "Since the Temple was destroyed, God has only the four cubits (one's personal space) of the Halacha." 
Moritz footnotes: "Eisenmenger writes: "[God has ] Only four cubits [ells] of space to go," while halacha can only be taken to mean "to go" by translating it maliciously, since in this sense the term is halicha. In his translation he ignored the genius of the language!
In other words, this aggadic passage in Berachos says that after the destruction of the Temple, God's place on earth, his place became the four ells of the halacha. Eisenmenger says that the passage means that after the destruction of the Temple God is restricted in space, period.
Here is Eisenmenger in the original:

A description of the 'Mitzvah Tanz' circa 1600.

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Here's Buxtorf the Elder's discussion of the Mitzva Tanz in the 1643 German edition of his Synagoga Judaica (Juden-Schul; 1603). From Chapter 28.
Translation from the 1657 English edition:

After these sports and childish fooleries, they fall to feast their bellies in good earnest ; after dinner they dance many Giggs, and Capering Currantos, and when they are about to depart and to put a period to these nuptial sports, dance a dance called Mitzuah, The commandment, or marriage pavia, because it was commanded by God himself.  

This they dance in this manner, the chief man at the table takes the Bridegroom by the hand, he another, and so every one his fellow, even so many as have any skill in dancing, takes one another by the hand. So likewise the chief matron and most honourable woman in the company joynes hands with the Bride, and all the rest with one another. Dancing hand in hand and making great noise with their feet, and in this manner put an end to their marriage rites and sports. 

Here is a modern translation, which is simply not half as fun:

After this enjoyable entertainment, the real meal is offered. They are happy, and do not think much about Jerusalem. They dance and leap, as everyone who has seen it knows. 

At the end of the wedding they hold a dance which they call the Mitzva dance, that is a dance which is held at a wedding because of the law of God. The most eminent person present takes the groom by the hand, and they follow one another. Also the preeminent woman takes the bride, and all women follow, and they all dance round in a large circle. It is a horrible tossing about, and with that they conclude the joyous wedding feast.

A Galician maskil defends Yiddish against its detractors in 1815.

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Here's an interesting letter on the subject of Yiddish, which was printed in Kerem Chemed 1 (1833). The actual action had taken place around 1815. The author was Yaakov Shmuel Bick, who was probably the only Galician maskil who was sympathetic to Chasidim. (I want to know which Chasid was sympathetic to the maskilim.) 
What happened was, Mendel Lefin (probably most well known nowadays for adapting an excerpt from Benjamin Franklin's autobiography in a manner suitable for mussar) had made a Yiddish translation of Mishlei (Proverbs) for the benefit of the masses. This was naturally seen as uncouth pandering to the uneducated people by those who were at the time devoted to developing the prestige and capabilities of Hebrew on the one hand, and trying to promote and teach German, rather than Yiddish, on the other. One of them, a scholar named Toviah Feder (1760-1817) attacked Lefin in a pamphlet in which he accused him of terrible things, including pandering to women and whores and that Lefin had gone crazy in his old age. Yiddish? Feh. In the pamphlet he assembled a group of heavenly luminaries, including Rabbis Menasseh ben Israel, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, and Moses Mendelssohn, who can't understand Lefin's debased Yiddish translation. Ben Israel and Luzzatto are really left scratching their heads, until finally an ignorant melamed is able to explain it. In addition, several other leading maskilim of the previous generation, such as Itzik Euchel, who translated Mishlei into German, men who personally knew and admired Lefin, are present in this fantasy scenario and feel puzzled and betrayed by Lefin's betrayal of enlightened ideals. The overarching attiude which Feder was expressing was that Yiddish is not a real language. What Lefin should have done was write in correct High German, especially considering that Lefin was highly educated, knowing German and French perfectly well. Was not his role to educate, not descend to the level of the lowly?
Lefin's friend Bik took up the cudgel to defend Lefin, and in doing so defended Yiddish as a legitimate language, with a lineage, usefulness, and a possible future. Here is his letter, followed by Feder's reply (scroll down to the end for my summary):





After praising and rebuking Feder, he quotes Jacques Basnage's History of the Jews that the foremost quality which God perceived in Moses was his empathy for the people!
He goes on to point out that the vernacular of the people is the proper medium for instructing them, noting that Tissot's famed medical book was translation in the various vernacular language of Europe; in fact, Lefin himself translated Tissot's book into Hebrew (for the benefit of Jews who knew no European language), and no less than the foremost of all translators, Mendelssohn himself, praised Lefin's translations.
For example, Cheshbon Hanefesh, which is based on a wonderful work by the scholar Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, in North America. This scholar is famed all over the world, and is a "Non-Jew who lit a lamp which is used as light for Israel." So R. Mendel undertook to present the good in this work to our people, and the rabbis in their approbations acknowledged that it was a lofty, new thing. And the book was well received by the people. 
Now, he continues, the language of the Proverbs translation which, to you, is like chirping birds and braying cattle; do not forget that this is the language of our fathers and ancestors here in Poland for some four centuries! [Yiddish] is the tongue in which the ge'onim the Bach, Rema, Sema, and Shach spoke, thought and preached. This is the language with which we heard the Gaon of Vilna. Not only that, the scholar Fabre (?)* in his geographical work numbered this language as a daughter tongue of German. If German is the beloved firstborn to you, why don't you denigrate the Tzeena Reena and various other translations like it? These - which were very useful in their time - were written in a very debased German, with a very sparse vocabulary. None of those were able of making an impression on a tasteful person, like the translation of Lefin, who with wisdom clarified in the best methods of translators, even without the language having been improved as of yet. 
He goes on to point out that there are vernacular newspapers throughout the Austrian-Hungarian empire, and this in the capital cities, where pure and proper German is used by the authorities! If this is so then certainly Jews who live isolated in Ukraine, who do not know how to read books in any other language. The way of scholars is out of good will and righteousness they do not neglect the people who need help, and they write works in their vernacular. This is in exchange for the hard work which the common people do to sustain their needs.
Note that French and English are also admixtures of Germanic, Gallic, Latin and Greek languages, and it was purified as a result of the work of scholars over these past 300 years. Now the most sublime poetry and the best thoughts can be expressed in these tongues, still mixed from many tongues. Only 100 years ago German was still debased. Eighty years ago Russian was a crude tongue. Even the classical languages, Greek and Latin, originally they were crude, until their scholars polished it, discoverd and expounded their grammatical principles, over generations, until they were perfected, and are the wonders we behold. The masses created the language! - and so it is in every nation. There's no difference in this stage between any language, all are originally somewhat crude, and then the sages take the formless mass (homer and golam) and shapie it, purify and perfect it. 
He closes by telling him that if when all is said and done he still didn't like the translation, why heap abuse upon Lefin, rather than focusing on the defects in it? Do you have harsh words for the incomrehensible aggadot of Rabbah bar bar Hannah? It wasn't right to write such a pamphlet, and he ought to reach out to Lefin and ask for pardon. 
Feder's reply, which you can see below as well, tries to be conciliatory, denying that such an illustrious maskil like Lefin could possibly have been wounded by his words. But he was says he will not to publish his pamphlet, which had already been paid for - if Bick pays or raises funds to reimburse him. And so it happened.
When all is said and done, eventually Bick's sympathies for the masses (which in his native Brody meant the Chassidim) led to a dramatic act of identification with them, not the misnagdim and the maskilim: he sold his copy of the Guide of the Perplexed! Allegedly, anyway. Here is the reference to this dramatic action, in a letter to Bik from Samson Bloch. I have my suspicion that Bloch meant it metaphorically although all the historians took it literally:
* I'm not exactly sure which Fabre (Fabro, Fabreaux, etc.) is intended or which work. He says he used the edition printed in Halle 1815.