Warning About Emancipation

from the Jewish Action Article by Leo Levi

"Rabbi Hirsch lived in a time of great upheaval, when Jews were being granted progressively greater rights. It was easy to become intoxicated with the feeling of freedom, and such indeed was the spirit of the time. Reading Rabbi Hirsch’s works, one is impressed by the low-key terms in which he refers to the emancipation. Far from being swept up in the fervor, Rabbi Hirsch repeatedly warns his fellow Jews not to be deceived by the unprecedented liberality they were experiencing. Renewed anti-Semitism could well be lurking around the corner. “Who knows?” he wrote. “Perhaps it is just those who are blinded by their exaggerated vision, idolizing emancipation and equality, who will be the cause of reviving the danger of renewed enslavement [of the Jews].”"  16

16. In passages where the ultimately anticipated improvement of human morality is discussed—a context which virtually begs for a reference to the rising level of morality among the nations at his time— there is no such reference. (Cf. Nineteen Letters, Letter 7; Collected Writings, vol. 6, pp. 240-255; Commentary, Leviticus 26:42. The quote is from Harav S. R. Hirsch: Mishnato VeShitato, Yonah Emanuel, ed. [Jerusalem, 5722], 300, “On Anti-Semitism”)

HERMANN SCHWAB: MEMORIES OF JESCHURUN

From the synagogue and school in the fifties  and sixties the scene shifts to Friday evenings  in my parents' house in the eighties and nineties.  Here, we children heard for the first time the  Rabbi's articles in the monthly 'Jeschurun', The  'Jeschurun' was oublished by Rabbi Hirsch between  1854 and 1870, and my grandfather, one of the  first members of the newly-founded 'KehlHah', had collected the issues in bound volumes which had  become a precious part of our library. There was  no anti who could read these articles better than  my father and he accompanied his reading with  personal recollections. Among the essays were  addresses, given by the Rabbi on special occasions,  and we listened spell-bound to the Rabbi's words  and our father's commentary

HERMANN SCHWAB: MEMORIES OF FRANKFORT

Uncanny preduction

"Perhaps the day will come when all the things bestowed upon mankind for its benefit and liberation will become corrupted into their very antithesis. Mankind, instead of assuring its members their legitimate rights of development ... will serve them the tear-drenched bread of slaves and the worm-wood of bitterness.... At such time, science, too, will become solely destructive ... will frantically blind itself with its own brightness .... Mankind will vainly exhaust its strength in a blind upsurge of uncurbed desires ...."

Collected Writings, vol. 1, p. 80, [Ges.
Schrift., vol. 4. p. 105] in "Rabbi Samson
Raphael Hirsch, Torah Leadership for Our Times," Leo Levi, Jewish Action

Pretty incredible that a person in the 19th century could foresee exactly what has happened to us.

The Beit Midrash or the Shul Which is Holier And Why?

There's an idea that the BM is holier. Why? Is it simply because Torah study is great or something of that nature? No, it's because Judaism is a religion of complete life. We don't just act one way in the house of prayer and another in the world. By studying Torah, we learn what to do when we are out in the world:

Says Rav Hirsch: "Now, it is just because our Houses of G-d and the Divine services within them are not the essence of our worship of G-d, but are rather places and occasions for preparing ourselves for the worship of G-d in practical life. They take but second place in holiness compared to the Batei Midrash, houses of learning, which are devoted to the studying and teaching of the Torah. i.e., the inquiries into the prescriptions of the Divine Will as to how a G-dly life should be led by man."

R' SR Hirsch
Collected Writings Vol. I p.192
Cited in Rabbi_Beinish__Ginsburg/Behar-_Serve_Hashem_Everywhere

So you'll hear people spin this around and make the cultic seem like the ideal, that Torah study is just for study sake and that's why the BM is better. This is the opposite of how R' Hirsch approaches it. The very reason the BM is holier is because it applies to life.

Tzafon or Tzafun?

Linked post from On The Main Line:

"Shadal series #2 - On Hirsch's 19 Letters and a controversy about the meaning of it's Hebrew title.
Everyone knows - or claims to know - that the Hebrew title of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's "19 Letters," or "אגרות צפון Neunzehn Briefe über Judenthum" (Altona 1836) means "Concealed Letters" and not "Letters From the North." Why, everyone should easily realize this. The book was printed anonymously and it's a witty and skillful allusion to this fact. (To clarify, צָפוֹן, tzafon, means "North,"while צָפוּן, tzafun, means "concealed.")

"The reason why I point this out is because in two prominent places scholars who knew a great deal about Hirsch severely criticized a third author, who wrote a book about Hirsch, for not only thinking it meant "Letters from the North," but even claimed that Hirsch consciously meant to parallel the Rambam's Iggeret Teiman, or "Letter to Yemen," since תימן, teiman also means "South" in Hebrew."

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