Rabbi Samson
Raphael HIRSCH Architect of Torah Judaism for the Modern World by Rabbi Eliyahu
Meir Klugman
In 1851, Rabbi Samson Raphael HIRSCH left the chief
rabbinate of Moravia, where over 50 000 Jews were under his jurisdiction, to
assume the spiritual leadership of the
fledging Kehillah of Frankfurt-am-Main, which could then boast of no more than
one hundred families. That move was to have dramatic consequences not only for
the Jews of Frankfort, but for all Western Jewry down to our day.
Armed only with the force of his personality and the
eloquence of his pen Rabbi HIRSCH almost single-handedly arrested fifty years of unbroken
ascendancy of Reform in Germany. To young German Jews convinced that their Judaism
was nothing more than an obstacle
to the fruits of gentile society, now available to them for the first
time, Rabbi HIRSCH offered a vision of Judaism of unsurpassed beauty and power. His philosophy of Torah
im Derech Eretz is an insistence that the Torah continues to provide the
guide to every aspect of life, even after the fall of the ghetto walls.
The world of Rabbi HIRSCH remains the world of most of
us today: a world without the protective insularity of the ghetto, a world in
which every Jew simultaneously lives in a broader gentile society. It was in
the Germany of Rabbi HIRSCH’s day that authentic Jewry first confronted the
challenge of modernity. Rabbi HIRSCH not only showed the way for his
contemporaries, but remains the guide for us as well. His writings remain not
only the first word but the last on a variety of issues that are still pertinent:
Reform, Wissenschaft des Judentums, the precursor of the Conservative
movement; the attitude of Orthodoxy towards institutionalized heresy (the Austritt
principle). He articulated a trenchant
philosophy on the place of secular knowledge in a Torah life. It is
impossible to read his prescient words without amazement that they were not penned
today. They have not lose of their force
with the passage of time, a fact attested to by the new editions of his works
that continue to appear a hundred years after his passing.
Now, for the first time, a comprehensive biography covering every aspect
of Rabbi HIRSCH’s life’s work and struggles has appeared. Written by a direct
descendant of Rabbi HIRSCH, it will remain the authoritative biography for the
decades to come.
ArtScroll
Halachah Series Mesorah Publications Brooklyn
New York Ed. 1986
Review: As far as I know the most
comprehensive publication on Rabbi S.R.
HIRSCH in English. A must have, where it
only for the Notes and Index.