Crowd). He offers to give him his daughter Emunah (Faith) in marriage,
but she is wooed by two lovers, Emet (Truth) and Sekel (Reason).

The influence of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto is direct and manifest. Like the
older author, Lebensohn, skeptic though he is, does not go to the length
of casting doubt upon faith. He rises up against falsehood, hypocrisy,
and mock piety, the piety that persecutes others, and steeps its
votaries in ignorance. "Pure reason is not opposed to a pure religion",
was the device adopted by the Wilna school.

Belief in God being set aside as a basic principle, the reason invoked
by the dramatist is positive reason, the reason of science, of justice,
of rational logic. In verbose monologues, he combats the superstitions
and fanaticism of the orthodox. The whole force of the Maskil's hatred
against obscurantism is expressed through the character named Zibeon,
Jewish hypocrite and chief adjutant in the camp of Sheker (Falsehood).
This Jewish Tartufe is very different in his complexity from the
character created by Moliere. Zibeon is a wonderworking Rabbi, a subtle
sophist, a crafty dialectician. The waves of the Talmud, the casuistry
of more than a millennium of scholasticism, have left their traces in
his mind and personality. In his hatred of the adversaries of the
Haskalah, Lebensohn depicts him, besides, as a hypocrite, a lover of the
good things of this world, and given to lewdness, which are not the
usual traits of these Rabbis. The alleged Tartufe of the ghetto cannot
be called a hypocrite. He is a believer, and hence sincere. What leads
him to commit the worst excesses, is his fanaticism, his blind piety.

On the other hand, the dramatist is full of admiration for Sekel
(Reason), Hokmah (Knowledge), Emet (Truth), and even Emunah (Faith).