Guest Post by Paul Shaviv
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| Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch |
Paul J. Shaviv M.A., M.Phil is the headmaster of The Ramaz
School. Ramaz is a coed Modern Orthodox day school located on
the the upper East Side of Manhatan.
On the occasion of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch’s upcoming Yahrzeit, he has
submitted this essay. I am honored to publish it here. His words follow.
Away from home, and invited to speak at Seudah Shlishit, I
did what I always do in such circumstances – check whose Yahrzeits occur a few
days before or after Shabbat! This week,
there is a veritable roll-call of figures.
But Monday, December 30 -- 27th Tevet – is the 125th
Yahrzeit of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch ztz’l, who died in 1888.
Hirsch was probably the most original, profound and
revolutionary figure in modern Orthodox thought. (Does Rabbi Jonathan Sacks hold the promise of
being his equal?) Whether aware of it or
not, almost every reader of this blog is, in part, indebted to him. If you attended both yeshiva and college; if
you daven in a shul where the derashot and the shiurim are in English; or if
you are observant and enjoy general culture without feeling guilty, he is your
man. If you read the commentary in English in a chumash, or use any halakhic
manual in English, he is your man.
He was the first to conceptualize, and implement, a positive
theoretical and practical vision of traditional Judaism and Jewish community in
a post-Emancipation, intellectually open, world – one in which most Jews
would naturally speak a European language, dress like the society in which they
lived, and as a matter of course receive a general education.
His mantra ‘Torah im Derech Eretz’ made it clear that his
vision was to see Torah Judaism functioning in a relationship of synthesis with
modern society and modern knowledge. (The
Chatam Sofer, whose brilliant insight was that the new freedom of Europe
included the freedom to opt out of it, prescribed cultural self-isolation as
the alternative strategy of Orthodox survival in the modern world.)
You can read diametrically opposite interpretations of his
personality, hashkafa and vision in two excellent biographies.
In the best biography ever published by Artscroll, packed
with fascinating and meticulously researched detaii, Rabbi Eliyahu Klugman
gives a staunchly traditionalist perspective on Hirsch (“Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch: architect of Torah Judaism for
the Modern World”).
By contrast, an earlier book by the late Rabbi Dr. Noah
Rosenbloom (“Tradition in an age of Reform”) is a radical interpretation of Hirsch,
including a very convincing, but very controversial, biographical account, and
an analysis of Hirsch’s philosophy.
I am not going to rehash the controversy of whether Hirsch
intended his views as emergency measures for his time (le’shaah) or as a
permanent ideology for all similar circumstances (le’dorot), but ask instead
some “What if…?” questions.
The first revolves around trying to predict Hirsch’s
reaction to the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. Hirsch was a fierce German patriot –
embarrassingly so, in the light of subsequent history. How would he have dealt
with Germany’s total betrayal of its Jewish citizens? Would he have changed his disapproval of
early Jewish nationalism? (He did not
live to see the organized Zionist movement.)
Paradoxically, some of his most successful disciples and
followers were the “Yekkes” of the Yishuv and the early State of Israel -- able to fully participate in Israeli
society in academic, professional and commercial/industrial life in a way of
which their post-Holocaust diaspora peers could barely dream. The religious kibbutz movement also contained
strong Hirschean influence.
The second question is whether the same dire circumstances
would have led him to change or suspend his opposition to cooperating with
non-Orthodox Jews in Jewish communal endeavor - the Austritt philosophy which
he embraced in his final years in Frankfurt. (A strategy that even at the time
drew fierce criticism from his fellow-Orthodox in Germany itself.)
The third is how he would have reacted to the social
situation of Jews in twentieth / twenty-first century America or other western
countries? Would he have still pursued
‘Torah im Derekh Eretz’, or would he have rejected the idea? Certainly, current adherents of classic
‘Torah im derech eretz’ are few and far between.
Even though Orthodox views of Hirsch focus almost
exclusively on his Frankfurt years (1851-1 1888), his earlier years suggest a
more flexible personality than the common stereotype suggests. He was a
fabulously original thinker – currently out of fashion, but his life and work
still deserve study. I am not a
Hirschean, but recognize the greatness of this under-appreciated personality. On
his yahrzeit, we can only yearn for someone of his vision in our contemporary
community. Yehi zichro baruch!
