Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's Defense of Judaism: From the Nineteen Letters to Biblical Commentary

Abstract

Hirsch wrote his Nineteen Letters on Judaism as a response to Jewish emancipation in Europe and the start of Reform Judaism. While emancipation of Jews had not reached Germany at the time of writing, other European countries had already emancipated their Jewish populations and the same was to happen to Germany in the next decade. Emancipation brought a new challenge to the Jewish communities of Europe: what would Judaism look like given these new freedoms? For many the answer lay in Reform Judaism, in leaving behind what some saw to be outdated practices and "modernizing" Judaism to better fit the new status of its members. The Nineteen Letters are Hirsch's response to the questions on Judaism's role in Germany moving forward. Hirsch's commentary on the Torah is a continuation of the arguments that he made in the Nineteen Letters. Published thirty years after the Nineteen Letters, Hirsch's commentary brings forward the same defenses. In his reading of the different biblical narratives, Hirsch reads his defenses of Judaism into the stories. The Bible serves as a tool for Hirsch to discuss the different strengths of Judaism and why it is relevant inthe modern world. Hirsch makes this argument by defining the difference between Jew and Gentile nations, defending the nature and purpose of Jewish Law, and a defense of relationship with God through the stories of Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his familial relationships, and the Binding of Isaac, respectively.