TIDE Society Get-together Next Motzei Shabbos in Monsey

Our third TIDE Society get-together will take place at the KAJ Monsey annual Malave Malke next Motzei Shabbos, Feb. 21, at 8:15 PM at 2 Dover Terrace in Monsey, NY, USA.

I usually sit in the back table next to the Hirsch Sefarim, closer to the stairs. Let me know if you can attend so I'll know to look for you.

YSRH Dinner

The annual dinner of Yeshiva Samson Raphael Hirsch is taking place this coming Sunday in Teaneck.

If you'll be there, let me know and I'll look for you. We can have a mini TIDE Society get-together.

email: TIDE@outlook.co.il

Shraga Feivel Mendelovitz

AMERICAN ORTHODOXY’S LUKEWARM EMBRACE OF THE HIRSCHIAN LEGACY, 1850-1939, Zev Eleff, TRADITION 45:3

"Even more difficult to assess, as far as spreading the word of Hirsch is concerned, is Shraga Feivel Mendelovitz. Despite vocal opposition from his Eastern European colleagues, Mendelovitz taught Hirsch’s writings to his students at Torah Vodaath and hired likeminded educators to teach at his school.74 And, like Bernard Drachman, Mendelovitz, according to his biographer, encouraged his students to learn German in order to study Hirsch’s original writings.75 Mention should also be made of the support and encouragement lent by Mendelovitz to Philipp Feldheim, when the latter established his first bookstore on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1939. Feldheim was most instrumental in disseminating English translations of Hirsch’s writings in America, but not until a sizable German Orthodox community emerged in America.76 Nonetheless, Mendelovitz’s lasting influence on Torah Vodaath was mitigated by Eastern European elements that took control of the school and steered the institution away from Western thinkers like Hirsch.77"

74 William B. Helmreich, The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox
Jewry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 356, n.22.
75 Yonoson Rosenblum, Reb Shraga Feivel: The Life and Time of Rabbi Shraga
Feivel Mendlowitz the Architect of Torah in America (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications,
2001), 198.
76 Shnayer Z. Leiman, “Montague Lawrence Marks: In a Jewish Bookstore,”
Tradition 25 (Fall 1989): 60.
77 Helmreich, The World of the Yeshiva, 302-4.

Choir of KAJ - Maoz Tzur - Chanukah

Choir of KAJ - Maoz Tzur - Chanukah

TIDE from TuM

"…the religious person is given not only a duty to follow the halakha but also a value and vision. The person performing the duty seeks to realize this ideal or vision. Kant felt that the duty of consciousness expresses only a "must" without a value. He demanded a routine form of compliance, an "ought" without aiming at a value. As a soldier carries out his duty to the commanding officer, one may appreciate his service or just obey through discipline and orders. Kant's ethics are a "formal ethics", the goal is not important.   For us it would be impossible to behave this way. An intelligent person must find comfort, warmth, and a sense of fulfillment in the law. We deal with ethical values, not ethical formalisms. A sense of pleasure must be gained by fulfilling a norm. The ethical act must have an end and purpose. We must become holy."  Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Mesorat HaRav Siddur, p. 112-3

We see here also perhaps the limitation of German thought, ie gentile German, and how a German Jew is not a German.

Nevertheless, I know a number of Jews who approach religion like Kant. They talk of duties, derived technically, but fail to give the religion a flavor. They resort to threats of hell because it's all they have. It's like a corporate boss who says he doesn't care if you enjoy your work. You will obey because you need a job.

Rav Hirsch's approach is so different from this. He works tirelessly to show the flavor of mitzvos and Jewish life. For those who say he was influenced by Kant or German culture - read Hirsch in light of this wonderful comment from R' Soloveitchik.