R. Samson Raphael Hirsch – Intellectual Profile

R. Samson Raphael Hirsch
Name	R. Samson Raphael Hirsch ר' שמשון בן רפאל הירש
Dates	1808-1888
Location	Germany
Works
Exegetical Characteristics
Influenced by
Impacted on

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Background¹

Life

Name –
- Hebrew name – ר' שמשון בן רפאל הירש
- German name – R. Samson Raphael² Hirsch
Dates – 1808-1888
Location – R. Hirsch was born and raised in Hamburg, and later lived in Oldenburg, Emden, Nikolsburg, and Frankfurt.
Education and Occupation –

After attending yeshiva in Mannheim, R. Hirsch went to the University of Bonn, studying philosophy, history, classical languages, and physics,³
He served in several rabbinical positions.⁴
His rabbinic activities focused on battling Reform Judaism and developing the Torah im Derekh Eretz school of Modern Orthodoxy.⁵

Family – R. Hirsch was the son of Raphael and Gella Hirsch. His great uncle was R. Yehuda Leib Frankfurter Spira, who authored the Torah commentary HaRekhasim Levikah.⁶
Teachers – Chakham Isaac Bernays,⁷ R. Yaakov Ettlinger,⁸ R.Mendel Frankfurter.⁹
Contemporaries – Abraham Geiger.¹⁰
Students –
Notable events
- 1810 – France annexes Hamburg, commencing a process of emancipation of the Jews and the opening of general society to broader Jewish participation.
- 1817 – Reform congregation organized in Hamburg. The Hirsch home was a center of anti-Reform activity, which left a deep impact on the young Samson.
- 1844 - Reform rabbinical synod of Brunswick, where radical reforms were adopted, such as annulment of dietary and matrimonial laws. In the aftermath, R. Hirsch moved towards support for organizational separation between the Orthodox and Reform communities.
- 1848-49 – Emancipation of the Jews of Austria and Moravia. R. Hirsch was a leader of the struggle for emancipation.¹¹
- 1876 – Prussian "Law of Secession" passed, which provided a legal basis for creating a separate Orthodox community.

Works

Biblical commentaries – R. Hirsch authored an extensive 5-volume Torah commentary in German, published together with his own translation into German,¹² as well as a commentary on Tehillim.¹³ A commentary on Yonah, based on R. Hirsch’s lectures, has recently been published.¹⁴
Rabbinics –
- Responsa and Talmudic novellae – ספר שמש מרפא : שאלות ותשובות, חידושי הש"ס, אגרות ומכתבים¹⁵
Jewish thought – The Nineteen Letters,¹⁶ Horeb: A philosophy of Jewish laws,¹⁷ The Hirsch Siddur,¹⁸ Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.¹⁹
Commonly misattributed to –

Torah Commentary

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⁴ Chief Rabbi of Oldenburg (1830-1841), Chief Rabbi of the Aurich and Osnabrueck districts in Hanover (1841-1846),Chief Rabbi of Nikolsburg and Landesrabbiner of Moravia and Silesia (1846-1851), and rabbi of the Orthodox community in Frankfurt (1851-1888). R. Hirsch adopted this last position - in a small, nascent Orthodox community in a city dominated by Reform – after receiving an “appeal from Frankfurt to go to the aid of a tiny group, whose very founding is, in my view, given the goals I had all my life, the most promising development that has occurred in Jewry within the last several decades. For now, for the first time, a Jewish community has been formed, which is openly and proudly dedicated to a most holy principle, in an area which has been successfully conquered by the faces of confusion. What can I do! This holy cause is the very one to which I have consecrated my life.” See Hildesheimer, “Historical Perspectives”.

¹² Der Pentateuch uebersetzt und erklaert, 1867-78. The commentary was later published in an English translation in: The Pentateuch - with Translation and Commentary, Judaica Press, 1956-62. It was reissued in a new translation by Daniel Haberman as The Hirsch Chumash, Feldheim/Judaica Press, 2009.
This commentary, written for both popular and scholarly audiences, became the standard commentary used in German Orthodox communities, often to the exclusion of all other commentaries. See M. Breuer, “פירוש רבי שמשון רפאל הירש לתורה”, מחניים Vol.4 1993: 348-359. R. Hirsch’s commentary was part of his project to correct what he viewed as flawed study methods (focusing on “abstract and abstruse speculation”) that helped lead to the endangered state of traditional Judaism (see The Nineteen Letters, Breuer edition: 99-100, and R. Hirsch’s letter discussing this issue in: Leiman, Rabbinic Openness: 186-7).

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