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Dec. 2, 2008

Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review 27 Teves

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch

By Rabbi Yonason Goldson


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Remembering the first Jewish warrior for tradition in the modern era


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There is no such thing as an Orthodox Jew.


Or, more accurately, the term "Orthodox" has no basis in Jewish tradition. The appellation was coined by the earliest Jewish reformers in 17th Century Germany to differentiate between themselves and the Torah establishment. In the minds of these newly "enlightened" Jews, the practices of traditional Judaism were, like the Jewish ghettos of Europe, anachronisms with no purpose than to shackle the modern Jewish world in a self-imposed Dark Age.


In those intoxicating times when Jews found themselves with unprecedented freedoms and opportunities, in the midst of their zeal to find acceptance among their cosmopolitan gentile neighbors, German Jews recoiled from the antiquated style of Jewish dress and Jewish speech, from the rejection of secular studies common in formal Jewish education, and from the Torah observance of those who perpetuated the stereotype of the "wandering Jew." Thousands upon thousands turned away from what they denounced as "Orthodoxy" to embrace the modern Jewish reformation which, they believed, would lead them into an era of enlightenment.


Seduced by the attraction of modernity, observant Jews throughout all of Germany cut off their side locks and cast off their religiosity. Devout but poorly educated parents mourned over children who found little reason not to forsake the archaic customs and rituals of their fathers for the wealth of opportunity offered by the modern world.


In neighboring Bohemia-Moravia, however, Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch took notice and could not sit idle. A member of Parliament as well as a rabbinic leader, Rabbi Hirsch left his secure position to accept the post as rabbi in the undistinguished community of Frankfort-am-Main. There he would build his bulwark against the tides of change.

CRISIS OF FAITH
In 1729, almost 80 years before Rabbi Hirsch was born, a brilliant thinker by the name of Moses Mendelssohn had introduced a new approach to Judaism to the Jews of Germany. Believing that he had identified the cause of anti-Semitism as the visible "otherness" of Jews living in gentile society, Mendelssohn's solution adjured each of his brethren to live as "a cosmopolitan man in the street and a Jew in your home."


With his extraordinary intellect and the convictions of his own philosophy, Mendelssohn managed this ideological tightrope walk in a way that his followers could not. Four of his six children abandoned Torah observance completely, and within two generations the reformers who looked to him as the father of their movement had forsaken the most cherished and time-honored precepts of Jewish practice.


By the time Rabbi Hirsch arrived on the scene, traditional Judaism was in full retreat. Recognizing the gravity of the crisis, Rabbi Hirsch crafted a response that at once strengthened the traditional community while drawing the teeth of those who sought to dismiss tradition as irrelevant and headed for extinction.


Observant Judaism's detractors argued that traditional Jewish dress was a throwback to the dark ages, that the pidgin tongue of Yiddish was a gutter language unfit for the modern world, that the traditional community knew nothing beyond their Talmudic tomes and, even worse, wanted nothing to do with the secular world. To the Jews caught up in the excitement of a new age, their indictment effectively equated Torah observance with social leprosy.

FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE
Rabbi Hirsch met their objections head on. Within his community in Frankfort, he instructed his congregation to dress in the modern style, to learn and speak High German, to attend university, and to acquire professional positions in the heart of German society. He instructed his community to take on the outer trappings of the secular world, while creating a K-12 dual-curriculum educational system that built a rock-solid foundation in Torah study while providing the tools to succeed in the secular world.


Applying and adapting the philosophy of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yishmoel, Rabbi Hirsch described his approach as Torah im derech eretz, "Torah study and observance together with secular culture." In Rabbi Hirsch's vision, professionalism, secular education, and a familiarity with ways of the world pose no threat to the devout and committed Jew, so long as Torah law and Torah philosophy remain both the compass that points his way in the world and the anchor that prevents him from being carried away by the tides of intellectual fad and fashion.


In 1836, when he was 28 years old, Rabbi Hirsch published The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel, a dialogue between an "enlightened" Jew and his traditional childhood friend. Writing anonymously, so that the personality of the author would not interfere with the book's message, Rabbi Hirsch articulated the fundamentals of Jewish belief powerfully and concisely. His discourse forced many attracted to reform to look with new respect upon the wisdom of tradition.


Indeed, how could one not respond to words both reasoned and impassioned, to observations founded upon both human logic and the empirical evidence of history, to the inspiration of the divine spirit calling out from the depth of the human heart: "Not to see G-d, but to see the earth and earthly conditions, man and human conditions, from G-d's pinnacle is the loftiest height that can be reached by human minds here on earth, and that is the one goal toward which all men should strive."


Over the course of his life, Rabbi Hirsch produced many volumes in which he developed his ideas into some of the most profoundly thoughtful writings in contemporary Jewish literature. His commentary on the Torah is a modern classic, and his insights into the meaning and understanding of the commandments in Horeb are illuminating for laymen and scholars alike. "Dear friend," writes Rabbi Hirsch, "forget what you know about Judaism, listen as if you had never heard about it -- and not only will you be reconciled to the Law, but you will embrace it lovingly and will allow your whole life to become a manifestation of it."


In our world today, where politics and religion are driving a polarizing wedge ever deeper into society, it's hard to imagine a body of literature more relevant than the writings of Rabbi Hirsch. Unwilling either to negate the relevance of the secular world or to compromise the values that have enabled the Jews to survive two thousand years of exile, Rabbi Hirsch elucidates a vibrant synthesis of the body and the soul, of engaging the physical world in pursuit of spiritual goals.


Rabbi Hirsch passed away on the 27th day of the month of Teves in the year 1888. Through the impact of his leadership and his writings, however, he remains very much alive today.


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JWR contributor Rabbi Yonason Goldson teaches at Block Yeshiva High School in St. Louis. Comment by clicking here.


Previously:

The Septuagint
End of the Great Flood
First Day of Creation
Reprise at Sinai
Tu B'Av: Repentance and the foundations of love
Sin of the Golden Calf: Understanding the how and why and resulting Divine punishment
The day the sun stood still
Nemirov massacres and the Chmielnicki uprising
Independent Judea under Shimon HaMaccabee
The Great Revolt begins
Dedication of new walls of Jerusalem

© 2006, Rabbi Yonason Goldson