Season 2: Episode 17 - Scientific Judaism

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If there are ranks in suffering, says Leopold Zunz, Israel takes precedence of all the nations. If the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are born ennoble, the Jews can challenge the aristocracy of every land. If a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for 1,500 years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story. Episode 17, Scientific Judaism. You know, the failure of emancipation as a solution to the Jewish question, in my eyes, was rooted in the fact that you just can't legislate Am Yisrael out of existence, even with the best of liberal intentions.

In many ways, the Middle Ages of Europe can be looked back upon as the story of the making of the Jew, a phrase that we've used before. And that's true for both Am Yisrael and Europe in the way in which you can't separate European and Jewish history. Consider the parallel development of Christianity and Judaism in the Middle Ages. The role which the Jew played as a liquid factor factor in the agricultural-military complex of feudalism, and then the role which the Jew played in the spiritual and intellectual ferment that produced the Reformation and multipolar Christian society, and finally, the ghettoization of the Jew and the eventual emergence of the emancipation issue, the Jewish question as civil society, became the goal of modern Europe.

so the attempts to answer the Jewish question in modernity and that's by the way only reference to the positive options that were considered were through philosophy social theory and ultimately legislation all of which were essentially attempts to deconstruct the Jew that had been built in the middle ages to break down his perceived negative social and economic roles in European society and to dissolve his very nature as a traditional society in and of itself in a religious and cultural sense. And in a certain way, we're going to trace this deconstruction over the coming hundred years as mission impossible. Or at least mission, this is taking way too long. Because the formation of modern Europe is going to be bound up with the partial liberation of the Jews and then their near total destruction.

because that, of course, has always been another option in how to answer the Jewish question. But for our task today, regeneration, naturalization, and finally, emancipation, as we mentioned in the interlude last week, became the words of the day in the various entities which were taking form as Europe tried to reset and thrive in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. And the Jewish question, at our point in history, is still bound up with the general question of civil liberty, and the gradual reordering of these societies into civil states, which had begun. Legal barriers to the admittance of the Jews fell in the beginning of the 18th century in many European societies, whether through full emancipation or simply expanded civil rights.

But there was also regression. Some of the rights granted by Napoleon and the states that he formed were revoked as part of the reaction against all things liberal, which began at the Congress of Vienna. But overall, the 19th century looks like progress for the Jews on the front of civil freedom. And it's a progress inspired by a very particular ism, which is going to be important for us, the spirit of liberalisms. And since this is a time of isms, and this one is going to be particularly important for the Jews, and arguably for humanity as a whole, let's take a minute to understand it. So classical liberalism, which by the way is a lot closer to libertarianism than liberalism is today, has its intellectual roots in the British Enlightenment thinkers, and British society's struggle for social religious equality and ultimately parliamentary rule, which has been going on basically since the late 17th century.

It also, of course, finds a lot of its supercharges from the great Republican Democratic experiment of the United States, which of course broke away from Britain. Don't forget, the United States as a society rises on a tide of liberalism. It was a civil society in concept from its political inception, and there was almost no opposition to such a notion after the revolution. I mean, European liberalism faced all the conservative economic, political, and royal forces that had been entrenched on the continent for centuries, Whereas there in the United States, it was basically, to borrow a phrase, tabula rasa, a clean slate. And we're going to have to find the time to talk about the Jewish experience, the Jewish story in the United States.

But for now, we're still stuck in Europe. So despite the challenges of the reactionary forces, liberalism swept like a fire through Europe in the beginning of the 19th century. And the Jews burned in its wake. Ooh, well, maybe not in the old-fashioned European sense. Anyway, the rapid industrialization and urbanization, which are the hallmarks of early 19th century, don't forget, we can't discuss everything, but the Industrial Revolution is booming. And these elements created a newly mobile Jewish middle class, who, of course, shared the social and economic interests of other liberal elements of society, and were engaged in the intellectual discourse of Europe of their time, through the universities and through print media, and therefore these Jews will find it very easy to espouse the classic liberal notions of, number one, natural law.

This idea that the standard of justice is certain inalienable rights of human beings. We're no longer dealing in divine law, nor really willing to entirely reduce it to moral relativism. This is humanism at its beginnings. Number two, the notion of a utilitarian ethical code. Today, utilitarianism has somewhat of a bad name, but its origins is in the notion that what is good is the maximum good for the maximum number of beings minus any suffering involved. Now, there are some challenges to utilitarian morality, not the least of which is that when you say maximum good for maximum number of beings, what you really mean is that the consequences of our actions are the only standard of right and wrong.

Which, by the way, utilitarianism shares with egoism. It's only that utilitarianism purports to consider the interests of all beings equally. Whereas in reality, much of the history of Western society has been one of progressive enfranchisement of swaths of humanity as beings whose interests make it into consideration. And that's why utilitarian often means terrible suffering for a bunch of people whose needs are not given equal weight. And we'll speak of that ahead in the age of the ism of colonialism. But for now, Jews will also go in for the economic liberalism of Adam Smith. They're all for free trade between nations and territories, as opposed to the mercantilist notions that had created the previous system of colonies, mother countries, and exclusive trade policies, all backed, of course, by the threat of war.

They believe in the invisible hand of self-interest, which drives the wealth of nations. And the concentration which history has produced of Jews in financial fields and petty trade will thrive in the capitalist era into which we are entering. There's another ism for you. Capitalism is on the rise. And of course, in addition to natural law, to utilitarianism, and to economic liberalism, the Jews will certainly worship that sacred pillar of secular hope, progress. And let's not forget, Jews love progress. We worship at its altar because it's simply the messianic ideal made kosher for the secular mind. We'll speak of that more when we get to the big isms like communism and socialism. But just as Jews will make good bourgeois liberals, they'll make even better radical revolutionaries.

And when liberalism passes the tipping point toward radical social action, which is really the Paris Revolution of 1830 if you want to look it up, the Jews will be heavy in the rank and file and even the leadership of that movement as well. And we'll talk about the birth of the revolutionary Jew in the coming episode. But for now, just know that there are many, many battles against political and economic tyranny coming to Europe, and the Jews will be on the cutting edge, will be on the battlefront. But no matter how liberal and enthusiastic the wave's sweeping Europe, and no matter how many laws are passed and theories espoused about how we can disappear into the happy mass of homogenous humanity, The Jews don't just disappear in the face of changing laws and shifting ideas.

The ethnic body is far too persistent. And don't forget that our discussion right now is focused on Western and Central Europe. We're going to have to wait to another episode to discuss what's happening as you move east toward the Great Pale of Settlement and the Russian Empire. Just remember, these Ostjuden, these Eastern Jews, as their enlightened liberal Western brothers will eventually come to call them, are living in a population concentration and geographic boundary, which is of national proportions. But even here, in liberal Europe, the Jew doesn't get legislated out of existence so quick. And why is that? Well, number one is a phenomenon, which is a hot topic today that we call endogamy, meaning people like to marry amongst their own type.

And even those Jews who in liberal Europe are advocating for the full legalization of intermarriage are rarely interested in exercising their rights in that respect. I mean, intermarriage is happening at this point in history, but it's still the equivalent of defection from Jewish society, and therefore often leads to conversion. And certainly even when Jews don't convert, very few maintain family and social ties and create new ones between Christians and Jews. On the contrary, the reaction against and the rejection of those who marry out will create even greater barriers. Intermarriage in many ways clarifies communal boundaries. So there's endogamy. There's also economics. Because on the eve of their progressive emancipation, Jews were heavily concentrated in financial businesses and petty trade, because that's where the Middle Ages put them.

They were largely the fields that were even permissible to Jews, as we know from our story. And legislation can push for, mandate, and even make emancipation contingent on a diversification of the Jews into more productive economic roles. But practically speaking, only symbolic entry into the trades occurred in most places, despite all the laws passed by Napoleon and his inheritors. Even removing the legal barriers into the trades and the artisans and abandoning by the Jews of the halachic strictures on food and sacred times only opened the theoretical possibility for apprenticeship. A Jew still had to find a Christian willing to take him into his home and teach him the trade. Jews did purchase land where that became possible, but mostly as capital.

Becoming a peasant just isn't so appealing. Or even so easy, if you do find it desirable, life off the land depends entirely on community. And even if the Jews had wanted in to the rural life, the peasants were the last element of European society, open to intimate interdependence with the Jews. And capitalism, as I noted, is hitting its flexion point. And the Jews are situated to thrive. We have the financial capital, we've got the grasp of trade, and once again, our international network is looking quite valuable. So, even as new fields open in the capitalist economy, Jews will tend to cluster together in them, and not spread out, because social capital is the absolutely necessary precursor to success in any economic field.

And of course in addition to endogamy economics there always good old Jew hatred to keep us together The persistence of the Jews even in the face of liberal legislation as an identifiable category with their continued clannishness, their rising role in capitalism, and their parallel but opposite role in radical revolutionary socialism, will be fertile ground for the continued development of theories of Jew hatred. The word anti-Semitism won't be coined actually until toward the end of the 19th century, but the language is already developing, which will give new form to the most enduring hatred in all of European history. As Heinrich Hein, convert and master poet of the Young Germany Movement said, Jewishness was an incurable malady.

And on that note, let's just recall a pattern that we've mapped out. when it was Rome, the Jews were the indigestible element you can go back and listen to season 1 but that was not one, not two, but three wars when the rest of the world was at least exhausted if not enjoying the Pax Romana and when Rome became Christianity the Jew went from being the indigestible element to the obstinate refuser of redemption and has remained so for at least a thousand years of Christian culture And now that European society is emerging out of the Middle Ages and Christianity, in civil society, you won't be the indigestible element, or the obstinate refuser of salvation. He will simply be the alien other. That peace which is always identifiable as what we are not.

So, we are the other in 19th century European society, despite the most well-meaning efforts to make us otherwise. And the idea of our otherness is intimately bound up with Europe's struggle to form a notion of citizenship and economic justice, which won't just hold off war, revolution, and disaster, but will birth a new world of justice, peace, and prosperity. That's what's going on outside of the Jews. What exactly is happening inside? There is an intellectual spiritual process which is running parallel and of course feeding back and forth with the sociopolitical one which I just described. And a particularly critical element of this more inner process is what I would call coming to historical consciousness.

It's the re-engagement of the depth of the Jewish story which can happen in the wake of the break of what we've been calling Da'at Chitsoni, a sort of external perspective. Now, take a second to remember the origins of Greek wisdom. There's this story told long ago, many episodes ago, about how when the two brothers, the last of the house of the Hasmoneans, the descendants of the Maccabees, were struggling for control of Jerusalem, and one brother was inside and the other outside, and they were, despite their attempt to decide the civil war, still cooperating in the daily service. And there was an old man there who spoke to them in Greek and said, you fools, if you want to break the siege and be supreme, when the people on the inside lowered down the basket full of gold coins expecting you to put two goats for the daily sacrifice and pull it up, put a pig in instead.

And we said that when that happened was the day that the rabbis declared, Aru ha'ish, cursed be the one who raises pigs in Israel and cursed be the one who teaches their children Greek wisdom. And I said that was because what Greek wisdom is is Dat Chizoni. It's the perspective that allows you to step outside the story of the Torah and the Jewish people and claim that it's just another narrative and that relativism gives quite a bit of power. Right? So, in the end it's that very stepping out of the story that produces alienation from Am Yisrael, but only if you stay outside. Because there is actually a potential two-step motion. Stepping out to gain a critical perspective on the development of Am Yisrael as a people, the Torah as a text, and Judaism as a religion.

And then a stepping back into the story. Which I would say is actually the recognition that the so-called step out was just a step into a broader dimension within which the story is also unfolding. This is not a story you can get outside of people. And then, when one does that, the critical perspective is sweetened by humility. After all, what perspective would the next dimension provide me on my current understanding if I could step out of it? And once critical perspective is sweetened by humility, it can become a tool of education and conscious growth. I would even say of conscious evolution. And so Yom Tov Lipnitzunz, also known as Leopold Zunz, father of scientific Judaism, was born in 1794, son of course of a Talmud scholar, in Westphalia, Germany.

His father, who was also his first teacher, died when he was still quite young, not even eight. and he was admitted in the wake of such a tragedy to the Jewish Freischul, the free school founded by Philip Sampson in 1803, part of that network of liberal reform schools, and he went away, leaving his family behind. When Samuel May Erlenburg took over the directorship of his school, he reorganized the curriculum in its entirety and introduced, along with the traditional learning, new subjects like religion, history, geography, French and German. he became Zunz's mentor, and Zunz never looked back. They remained friends, actually, until Ehrenberg died in 1853. Zunz proved himself to be quite the apt pupil, and in 1815 he actually received a doctorate from the University of Berlin.

It was the same year he was ordained by Rav Arn Haran, a Hungarian rabbi, early advocate of religious reform, who had already drawn down the angry lightning bolts of his Orthodox compatriots. So, together with his doctorate and his ordination, Sons tried to start a career as a teacher and preacher in the Reformed synagogue, which was now established in Berlin. But apparently, the life of rabbi had little appeal for him. It did, however, place him as an eyewitness to an important conflict, a conflict which, in fact, in the eyes of many historians, defined the birth of both the Reformed and Orthodox movements in Germany, which means in the Jewish world as a whole. It's called the First Hamburg Temple Dispute.

Now one piece of critical background. Don't forget, the Jewish community in the various German states, and particularly in Prussia, had been organized into official government-recognized bodies for centuries. And you may recall, it was these semi-autonomous bodies that Moses Mendelssohn wanted the rabbis of his day to dissolve voluntarily as part of their move toward an enlightened Jewish society. Now, full dissolution still lies a couple of steps ahead of our story. But at this stage, the extent to which the community exercised authority had been tightly constrained by the state. But the realm in which they still reigned was ritual, and in particular, the service in Jewish houses of worship. And I'm sure you're familiar with the psychology that the more power you take away from someone, the more important the bit that they retain becomes to them.

So, when Israel Jacobson, who hopefully you'll recall was the director of the Westphalia Consistory formed by Napoleon in the wake of his conquest of Prussia and an early passionate advocate of religious reform when he moved his mode of worship to Berlin from the school that he'd built in Cisen controversy with the formal community was almost inevitable. And even though he began in Berlin, it was actually the Israelite temple of Hamburg where things finally erupted. In some sense, the name says it all. In the mind of the reformers, the Jews now worshipped in temples. They were no longer sitting in shul, in the synagogue, the mikdash ma'at, the little sanctuary, and praying for a return to Zion and the true temple service.

Berlin was the New Jerusalem, and their synagogues were now temple, and their service had replaced that of the sacrifices once and for all. And so the Israelite Temple of Hamburg reflected all the innovations pioneered by Israel Jacobson at his school in Cisen, the organ, the choir, preaching in the German language, and even prayer in the German language, because it was here in 1818 that for the first time a complete reformed liturgy was developed. They excised any references to the sacrifices, the return to Zion, and the rebuilding of the temple. And in the new historical, critical view of Texan peoplehood, they express that such institutions belong to the ancient past, not the aspirational future, and that the sitter was not a sacred, inviolate text, but rather an ongoing project which must reflect the worldview of those who sit in synagogue and use it today.

Now, the controversy which erupted was not just over the content of the changes made by the Israelite temple, but of course also over their social context. As opposed to Jacobson's private school in Cicin, the Hamburg Temple was now a direct competitor with the existing communal institutions. And for most accounts, it was wildly popular. Zuntz reported that on the first Yom Kippur after its inauguration, the Israelite Temple was packed. In fact, so full people were outside for a lack of seating, and many who had not fasted for years decided to do so that year. A power struggle involving not only the Jewish leadership, but also the secular authorities erupted. And there's no need for us to delve into the details of what was said and done, especially since the very name First Temple Dispute tells us that there's another round on the way anyway.

But just know, the statements for and against this first official reform temple in many ways embody the positions of what will be soon called orthodoxy and the reform movement. Calls by traditionalists to seal the breach and erect a fence around the law, to undo this new law fabricated by some unlearned individuals who are not scholars, were met by satires portraying the elderly rabbis of the official community as senile and indifferent to religious apathy amongst the youth. And don't miss the political cross-current. In the eyes of the state, there can be only one communal entity with the right to tax its members and organize. Therefore, conflict between the reformers and the traditionalists for control was all but inevitable.

However, Zuntz did not waste his energy on such battles. By all accounts, his retreat from the rabbinate was driven largely by a dislike of ecclesiastical ego. His passion was for history. And Zuntz's opening salvo in the intellectual babbles of his day was an essay called On Rabbinic Literature, which he published in 1818. Beyond the immediate question that he was addressing, the paper established the intellectual agenda of what he came to call the Wissenschaft des Judentums, the science of Judaism. And he saw the science of Judaism as the primary means for presenting, preserving, transmitting even, the body of Jewish literature which modernity had inherited from its own past. because in Leopold Zuntz's eyes the traditional mode of learning was insufficient it lacked the tools which were needed to truly mine the depths of this precious legacy only an academic approach incorporating philology, that's the study of how language develops in text through time, comparative linguistics and of course a critical historical research perspective would allow for the adequate study of Judaism And a year after the essay, in 1819, Zunz gathered around him a group of like-minded Jewish intellectuals, fired by the spirit of Hegel and historical mysticism, and founded the Reign für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden.

I'm sure I'm saying that wrong, but it's the Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews. And from here, he rose to the supreme position in the developing field of Jewish scholarship, Publishing foundational works on principles for the investigation of the Midrash and unpacking the Sidur and of course innumerable monographs throwing light on the literary and social history of the Jews at almost every period in time And the significance of this move toward science, of the approach to Judaism through historical criticism, cannot be overestimated in its impact on Judaism as we know it even today. In Zunz's time, the desire of the Torah world was largely to continue on in its traditionalist mindset and mythic living, remembering that traditionalist is not the same as traditional, as we discussed, and furthermore that the Hasidim have to move ever deeper away from the harsh life of modernity in order to maintain their enchanted life.

And we will have a discussion some other time as to whether an ahistorical worldview can even flourish in modernity or not, and if so, at what cost. But before we end this episode, I will touch on the leading light of German Orthodoxy and his relationship to the Wissenschaft. But the emergence of the historical critical school led by Zuntz should be understood as a step in a progress itself. Remember, rationalistic criticism of Judaism grew out of the Enlightenment. That was Mendelssohn's type of reform. and his faith that all the laws and rituals of traditional life could be fended on a rational philosophical basis was not entirely shared by his students. They began to discard the elements of Judaism which they deemed irrational and that process is still ongoing here in the early 18th century.

There were very few thinkers of Mendelssohn's caliber amongst the rational critics that inherited his perspective. Most of them lacked any coherent basis to guide their desire to bring Judaism in line with their vision of modernity. And in general, by the way, the cult of reason in Europe is running out of steam. Most people are just not up to using merciless intellectualism to differentiate between what is essential and non-essential in something as complex as Judaism, or really anything for that matter. So therefore, the momentum of religious reform was in danger of becoming just a wholesale move toward laxity and non-observance, non-identification, ultimately assimilation and even conversion. And like I said, this is not just a local Jewish problem.

The cult intellect has already lost its appeal in much of Europe. A new romantic spirit is stirring the emotions they mine together now on the continent, and history is central to its approach. And therefore, Zuntz saw the modern tools of historical analysis coming out of the academy as those which would best aid Am Yisrael in our struggle to take form in modernity, specifically in our struggle to differentiate between what is essential and what is an accident of history in Judaism. Like so many other revolutionary historians of his day, Zuntz believed that critical historical perspective could return Judaism to its pristine state, a state which it had lost over the centuries under an accretion of basically accidental additions.

And so, abandoning the abstract approach of the rationalist critique, he chose the analysis of how the Jewish people had embodied themselves through time, through text and practice, as his standard of measure. And it was an analysis guided by the spirit of Hegel and his students. You cannot overstate the importance of Hegel's thought and its impact on Europe altogether, and in particular on these idealistic young Jews looking to make Judaism their own by taking it to the next stage of history. The disciples of Hegel believed that their master had discovered the true pattern of human history. He conceived of the universe as an active subject, be it spirit or organism, one which was growing toward self-awareness.

And this awareness takes the form of the increase of rational knowledge amongst men, and therefore of their power over nature and over themselves, meaning, of course, their freedom. It's a world growing toward rational knowledge and freedom, and that is its consciousness. The process of growth, according to Hegel, is one of perpetual struggle. This is the thesis, antithesis, synthesis that people are familiar with from Hegel's thought. and the collision of forces at every level, social, intellectual, economic, political, produce crises that mark the stages in the ascent of what Hegel calls the world spirit. And of course, his students were activists as well as theoreticians. Many of them saw the function of the most advanced elements in society to be specifically destructive.

They were meant to destroy whatever was static, dead, frozen, irrational, whatever obstructed self-criticism and thereby the progress of humanity toward its goal. And all over Europe, in every country that fell under the German influence, these intellectuals were seeking the progressive revelation of what they call the ways of God or the absolute spirit in history. This was not just a Jewish problem. Schools of historiography were popping up all over. each in its own romantic, mythic, but secular fashion praying that history would now do the work which theology and philosophical metaphysics had failed to accomplish and Zuntz and the reformers who followed in his wake were riding this Hegelian wave Halachasis, Jewish legal scholars had been replaced by theologians for a brief intellectual span at the beginning of the Enlightenment And their drive toward rational abstraction had transformed Judaism into a confession of faith, as we've spoken about, one which could fit into the notions of citizenship that grew out of the French Revolution and were now taking over modern Europe.

But, from the halachists to the theologians, the historians have now taken over. And though Zuntz was certainly an idealist in his belief that the tools of historical analysis could uncover true Judaism. What really happened was that every type of reformer began to assert a claim to be true Israel based on their interpretation of history. And of course, to make recommendations on how to embody their claim going forward in the world. It's a process which is of course ongoing even now. Everyone claims to understand the past and in that way to be able to give form to identity in the present and get us to the future which we deserve. Sound familiar? And so a diversity of views began to emerge. What weight should be given to the lessons of historical consciousness?

How should they guide Am Yisrael in making practical moves toward embodiment in the modern era? Zuntz himself swung back and forth between thoughts of radical reform and a personally fairly conservative attitude toward tradition. And perhaps because of his quiet personality or his conservatism, the Veren, the Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews, which he founded, failed to create a viable movement. They had a goal of helping Jews to remain Jews, as they absorbed the secular European worldview. But it was going to have to be met by someone else. In fact, German culture proved too attractive to those who joined the society, and many, amongst them Edward Gantz and Heinrich Hein, actually converted to Christianity.

And even though Zunz is often associated with the Reform Movement, he actually showed little interest in it in his own lifetime. His contribution was an awaking historical consciousness amongst European Jewry. The question of what to do with it would be addressed by others. You know, if you want to name a founder of the Reform Movement, it's Abraham Geiger, German rabbi and scholar born in 1810, who really deserves the title. Born only a few years after Leopold Zuntz, Geiger shared his passion for historical criticism as the guiding light to Jewish reform. And he followed the trail which Zuntz blazed into academic studies, arriving eventually at the University of Bonn in around 1830. It was here, by the way, in his student days, that he first met fellow Jew, rabbinic colleague, and future leader of German Orthodoxy, Shimshun Raphael Hirsch.

They quickly became close, organizing a society of Jewish students for the purpose of practicing homiletics, that's preaching, and of bringing them closer to Jewish values, of course. But Geiger and Hirsch were not destined to say friends. It was also in Bonn that Avram Geiger began to make his name in academia, primarily with the publication of his essay What Did Muhammad Take from Judaism? It was a demonstration that large parts of the Koran were taken from, or at least based on, rabbinic literature. And it was a smashing success. It earned Geiger a doctorate at the University of Marburg and really launched his intellectual career. It was the first in a whole larger project in which Geiger attempted to demonstrate the Jewish roots of both Christianity and Islam, including the contention that Jesus was a Pharisaic teacher of Torah, by the way.

And these were not just academic themes. As a true son of modernity and student of Hegel, Geiger saw history driving inexolably toward the universal. And therefore, it was the ahistorical and particular elements which in his eyes had to go. So, unfortunately for Geiger, Jews were not given university professors at this point in Germany. So in 1832, he took the pulpit in Westbaden and the synagogue became his platform. He didn't give up on his writing, however. In fact, Geiger founded two different journals, which were meant to serve as vehicles for his own continued academic publication, and it was through one of these that he became close with Leopold Zunds. In the spirit of the Wissenschaft der Juden, Geiger began to develop his thoughts on religious reform, and the distinctions which he drew between the essential and the accidental pushed him toward an ever more universalist vision.

Not only Universalists, but of course, to Geiger, revelation was no barrier to change, because in addition to historical criticism, textual criticism became an intellectual foundation of his worldview. In Avram Geiger's understanding, no text was divinely revealed, but was rather, as was true of all things, a product of historical process. And though the systematic deconstruction of the biblical text, which is associated with the so-called Wellhausen School, still lies ahead toward the latter half of the 19th century. We know that since Spinoza, there have been Jews and non-Jews digging away at both the historicity of the biblical narrative and the integrity of the biblical text. To Geiger, Judaism was unique and meaningful because of its monotheism and its ethics, not because of its history and its law.

Historical consciousness, in fact, told him to discard the bulk of Jewish ritual and law that had developed over millennia, in order that the spirit of Judaism, as he called it, could reconstitute itself around these essential aspects into a form and content which was proper to the modern age. A turning point in this life came in 1838, when one of the positions in the rabbinate of Bresla became vacant, and Geiger visited this very important center of German-Jewish life. In fact, he didn't just visit, he was invited to preach on Shabbat. But his reputation as a student of the Visionshof had preceded him, and it was not exactly a benefit in the eyes of all. Rav Ticton, the traditionally minded chief rabbi of Breslau, even turned to the police in order to stop him from speaking, claiming that German language sermons were forbidden in the synagogue by order of the king himself.

Tension rose as the days approached. But apparently, the police chief, who of course was not Jewish, was a man who disliked censorship on the pulpit. So in order to stall, he referred the dilemma to his superiors. And the decision against Geiger actually arrived in a letter on the very day set for his sermon on Shabbat. But the police chief went to hear him preach, leaving the unopened order on his desk. and the sermon was a wild success. In fact, in its wake, and in wake of the public perception of the struggle to stop him, Geiger was chosen as the second rabbi of Breslau, though not without enough controversy surrounding it afterwards. However, when Rav Ticton died in 1840, Geiger succeeded him in the position of chief rabbi And it was in the capacity of chief rabbi of one of the more important Jewish centers of Prussia that Geiger participated in the second Hamburg Temple dispute Truth is the first one had not ended.

The Reform and traditionalist communities existed side by side in a cold peace for the last couple decades, complete with some communal crossover and periodic dueling sermons. But demographics, it must be said, were on the side of reform. At this point, by mid-century, German Jews had passed the tipping point. The new generation were entirely the products of the modern schools that had been built. Levels of observance had reached a new low, and in the 1840s, the vast majority of German Jews could be classified as non-Orthodox. If not a mass majority, then certainly a majority. Higher education for rabbis was already mandated by government decree, and anyway, was demanded by the public. And as young university graduates replaced the old religious leadership, the drive to reform, which 20 years before had been limited to a certain acculturated upper crust, now began to penetrate the rabbinate itself.

And the trigger for the second round of the temple dispute happened in 1839, when the leadership of the Hamburg Temple decided to draft a second edition of its liturgy. In content, the text was no more radical than the 1818 version. In fact, there are scholars who see it as a retreat into the more traditional. But this time, the authors declared they hoped that the Siddur would be adopted in all communities where the strive for progress reigned alongside a genuine fear of God, meaning that they were ready to become the majority voice of German Jewry. And in October of 1841, the Chacham Yitzhak Bernays, the Orthodox but university-educated chief rabbi that had been elected in the wake of the first dispute, issued an announcement that the new prayer book did not fulfill the minimum requirements under religious law, and that those who used it were not meeting the obligation of worship and risked a ban of excommunication.

And now the battle of words erupted. But aside from the communal politics of who gets to exercise power, the struggle quickly took form of a battle for the soul of historical Judaism. As Geiger stressed in his letter of support to the Hamburg congregation, as well as the long treatise he wrote on the development of the Sidur in its wake, the controversy brought to the surface the deepest religious debate of its era. So first, Geiger mocked the medieval method that Bernays had used to try to assert his authority, as well as what he called Bernays' complete lack of understanding of the role which historical progress had played in developing the Jewish prayer rite in the first place. Now, in all fairness, for an Orthodox rabbi of his day, the chief rabbi actually did have an extensive knowledge of history.

It's just that Geiger and Bernays disagreed on a fundamental point. Bernays didn't consider historical analysis to be a relevant factor in decisions about halachic legal practice. But Geiger saw the sun of orthodoxy already setting. He wasn't interested in a battle with Bernays. His real opponents, the ones he truly targeted in his treatise, were actually the conservative voices amongst the reformers. He, in fact, felt that the authors of this new prayer book had not gone far enough in their adaptation to the realities of modernity. In his eyes, they should have fully removed the entire traditional messianic concept, replacing it with the messianic age of global harmony. Degas also insisted that the authors should have excised all references to what he considered irrational beliefs, chief amongst them the resurrection of the dead.

And by the by, it wasn't just the Orthodox rabbis who opposed such historical radicalism. Zacharias Frankel was the rabbi of Dresden, and he shared Geiger's belief in the importance of historical research as a guide to reforming Judaism. And he, in his turn, had abandoned what he saw as the rigid nature of orthodoxy, this ahistorical view. Nevertheless, Frankel held historical experience, what he called the collective sentiment of the Jewish people, to be a source of sanctity. And therefore, he was less quick than Geiger to say that the lessons of history always dictated we discard the forms of the past, which had developed through historical process. They had intrinsic importance in Frankl's eyes.

Furthermore, he was deeply opposed to Geiger's drive toward turning Judaism into a universalist creed, lacking any particularism. Together, these elements made up of what Frankl called positive historical Judaism. and he is seen as the forerunner of conservative Judaism. And so now we can see how the Hamburg Temple dispute, which in the end ended in favor of the temple, really can be labeled the point of origin for the three main movements which would emerge from early 19th century Judaism, reform, conservative, and orthodox. And furthermore, we can see that the issue revolved around the science of history. So there's one more voice we need to add before we cut off what might be an overly long discussion.

Because there's another perspective on historical Judaism that hasn't got its due, that of Orthodoxy. Now, in the last episode, or two ago, I can't remember now, we mentioned how the Chatham Sofer, that great Hungarian rabbi, the leader of the Pressburg community, made the rallying cry of Orthodoxy, Hadash Asur Min HaTorah, anything new is forbidden by the Torah. And I've alluded a couple times even in this episode to the impact which this ahistorical approach will have on the development of Torah Judaism. But for the sake of rounding out our present discussion, I want to complicate the picture of the traditionalist just a little bit with the story of Rav Shinshen Raphael Hirsch, founder of what today is called Modern Orthodoxy.

Now, Modern Orthodoxy might be seen as a strange hybrid beast. One which probably deserves its own discussion at some point, but the attempt to hold fast to the immutable past while wholeheartedly engaging the modern present will define Rav Hirsch's life. So Samson Raphael Hirsch was born in 1808 in Hamburg, Germany, it's kind of where all these guys were from, to a strongly observant family, not a given in this decade before the first temple controversy. And his grandfather, in fact, Mendel Frankfurter, had been the founder of the original Talmud Torah in Hamburg. but nevertheless, young Samson went to public schools like his peers and there he picked up a healthy dose of Hegel along with a mastery of the German language.

Shimshon Raphael Hirsch's Jewish education came to him privately and his teachers were among the leading lights of German Orthodoxy including, by the way, Chief Rabbi of Hamburg, Rav Hiyotak Bernays. And from a young age, Rav Hirsch felt it to be his mission to demonstrate that traditional Judaism and Western culture are indeed compatible with one another. Toward that end, he studied first for the rabbinate from 1823 to 1829, under Rav Yaakov Etlinger, and then he entered the University of Bonn, more or less at the same time as his classmate and future rival, Abraham Geiger. In 1830, while still in university, Hirsch was appointed the rabbi of the community of Oldenburg, and it was here that he made his first literary contribution to debate about Judaism, which was swirling through Germany of his day.

It was a book entitled 19 Letters on Judaism, written as an exchange between one Ben Uziel and a confused enlightened youth of his day. And it was wholly new. German Jewry had never encountered such a fearless and uncompromising defense of traditional Judaism in flawless German and popular literary style. And while highlighting the ignorance which Rav Hirsch saw as the main problem of German Jewry, he also echoed the sentiments that we heard from the mouth of the Alter Rebbe when he spoke about Napoleon remarking that it would have been better for the Jews not to have been emancipated if the price to pay was assimilation from Oldenburg, Rav Hirsch moved on to Emden I should say, by the way, I'm just giving you a few of the details he had a massive, massive collection of writings and they continued to advance as he grew and so he moved on to Emden and his writing time there was completely consumed by communal struggles.

But he managed to found a school in Emden where he first made popular the slogan, which would eventually become his hallmark motto, Torah im derech Eretz. It's a phrase from the Mishnahh in Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of Our Fathers. Yath the Torah im derech Eretz. That Torah is good together with derech Eretz. Derech Eretz in the context of the Mishnahh really means work, means having an occupation. But to Rav Hirsch, it wasn't just making a living. It was a full engagement with modern culture, which was good insofar as it came together with an absolute adherence to Jewish law. This is modern orthodoxy in a nutshell. Rav Hirsch saw the Torah as the divine guide to achieving the ennoblement of the human spirit.

And as such, it needed both the tools of traditional learning and the methods of modernity in order to realize its full glory. Furthermore, he saw a divinely ordained role for the Jews to play in the world. And because of this, Jews required both a traditional education and a clear place in the secular world. Now, despite these enlightened views on the benefits of modern culture, Hirsch was a direct opponent of Geiger's historical criticism-based reform. As he wrote in the 19 letters, Was Judaism ever in accordance with the times? Did Judaism ever correspond with the views of dominant contemporaries? Was it ever convenient to be a Jew? He goes on, but I'll spare you. Rav Hirsch rejected the historical science of Judaism approach because he claimed that it produced a relativistic attitude toward Torah.

In his eyes, the divinity of the Torah was absolute, and he rejected the notion of changing law in any conscious process of historic development. but this orthodox and even in the end somewhat a historical view didn't prevent Rav Hirsch from an honest engagement of the challenges which science as a whole presented to the traditional world view you know in the next episode we're going to dig deeper into the 19th century as the age of isms but I just want to end with a couple of bombshell quotes that show how Rav Hirsch could guide the way in responding to an ism which is right now rocking the religious boat, and that's Darwinism. Quote, Even if this notion were ever to gain complete acceptance by the scientific world, Jewish thought would nevertheless summon us to revere a still extant representative of this primal form as the supposed ancestor of us all, meaning we're not going to worship ourselves as apes.

Rather, Judaism in that case would call upon its adherents to give even greater reverence than ever before to the one soul god, who in his boundless creative wisdom and eternal omnipotence needed to bring into existence no more than one single amorphous nucleus and one single law of adaptation and heredity, in order to bring forth, for what seemed chaos, what was in fact a very definite order, the infinite variety of species we know today, each with its unique characteristics that sets it apart from all other creatures. and the issue of evolution is not secondary to our discussion you know Rav Hirsch went on and spent the rest of his life in various rabbinic positions and not to mention a five year stint in parliament in the Moravian parliament fighting battles against reform within and against assimilation and political oppression without and in that respect he was truly Abram Geiger's companion though they differed on method and even meaning both were committed to the spiritual and material survival of their people And what could be more evolutionary than that?

I just want to thank a few people. I want to thank all the people who give their hard-earned money to help make this show happen, to keep it free and widely available. And I want to invite you to join them. Go right now to robmike.com. There in the upper right-hand corner, you'll see Be a Patron and click through until you get to a per-podcast support. I want to thank the Land of Israel Network for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people. I want to thank the Pardes Institute, P-A-R-D-E-S dot org dot I-L for bringing together so many wonderful Jews so I can teach them. And I want to thank you for listening. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story.