By persistent private study, this native of a Russian out-of-the-way townlet managed to acquire a fair amount of general culture, which, with all its limitations, yielded a rich literary harvest.

In 1807 he made his _debut_ with the treatise _Pesher Dabar_ ("The Solution of the Problem"), [1] in which he gave vent to his grief over the fact that the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people kept aloof from concrete reality and living knowledge.

While the book was passing through the press in Vilna, Lithuanian fanatics threatened the author with severe reprisals.
Their threats failed to intimidate him.

When the book appeared, many rabbis threw it into the flames, and made every possible effort to arrest its circulation, with the result that the voice of the "heretic" was stifled.
[Footnote 1: Literally, "The Interpretation of a Thing," from Eccl.
8.1.] Ten years later, while residing temporarily in Volhynia, the hot-bed of hasidism, Menashe began to print his religio-philosophic treatise _Alfe Menassheh_ ("The Teachings of Manasseh").

[1] But the first proof-sheets sufficed to impress the printer with the "heretical" character of the book, and he threw them together with the whole manuscript into the fire.