Commentators:R. Samson Raphael Hirsch/0

R. Samson Raphael Hirsch – Intellectual Profile

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R. Samson Raphael Hirsch

Name	R. Samson Raphael Hirsch
Dates
Location
Works
Exegetical Characteristics
Influenced by
Impacted on

Background¹

Life

• Name – 
  • Hebrew name – ר' שמשון בן רפאל הירש 
  • German name – - Samson Raphael² Hirsch
• Dates – 1808 – 1888
• Location – R. Hirsch was born and raised in Hamburg, and held rabbinic positions in Oldenburg, Emden, Moravia, and Frankfurt.
• Education and Occupation – After attending yeshiva in Mannheim, R. Hirsch went to the University of Bonn, studying philosophy, history, and classical languages, and later served as rabbi of several communities.³ His rabbinic activities focused on battling Reform Judaism and developing the Torah im Derekh Eretz school of Modern Orthodoxy.⁴
• 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.⁵
• Teachers – Chakham Isaac Bernays,⁶ R. Yaakov Ettlinger,⁷ R.Mendel Frankfurter.⁸
• Contemporaries – Abraham Geiger.⁹
• 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.
  • 1876 – Prussian "Law of Secession" passed, which provided a legal basis to create 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,¹⁰ as well as a commentary on Tehillim.¹¹
• Rabbinics –
  
  • Responsa and Talmudic novellae – ספר שמש מרפא : שאלות ותשובות, ¹²חידושי הש"ס, אגרות ומכתבים
• Jewish thought – The Nineteen Letters,¹³ Horeb: A philosophy of Jewish laws,¹⁴ The Hirsch Siddur,¹⁵ Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.¹⁶
• Commonly misattributed to – 

Torah Commentary

Characteristics

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Methods

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Textual Issues

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Sources

Significant Influences

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Occasional Usage

Possible Relationship

Impact

Later exegetes

Supercommentaries

¹ This section incorporates material from M. Hildesheimer, "Historical Perspectives on Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch", available at http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/2009/08/meir-hildesheimer-historical.html, and the Encyclopedia Judaica entry "Hirsch, Samson (Ben) Raphael."

² R. Hirsch adopted his father's name as his own middle name, a common custom at the time.

³ Oldenburg (1830-1841), Emden (1841-1847),chief rabbi of Moravia (1847-1851), 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".

⁴ Sometimes termed "neo-Orthodoxy". This school encourages general education along with traditional Jewish education, as well as involvement in general society and culture.

⁵ See his commentator page at: http://alhatorah.org/Commentators:R._Yehuda_Leib_Frankfurter_%28HaRekhasim_Levikah%29

⁶ Rabbi of Hamburg.

⁷ Author of the Talmud commentary Arukh LaNer and head of the yeshivah in Mannheim that R. Hirsch attended. R. Ettlinger encouraged R. Hirsch to attend university.

⁸ R. Hirsch's grandfather and the head of the Altona rabbinical court.

⁹ R. Hirsch was friends with Geiger at the University of Bonn, but Geiger later became a prominent Reform leader and one of R. Hirsch's most bitter antagonists.

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ Psalmen uebersetzt und erklaert, 1883. Published in English as The Psalms - with Translation and Commentary, 2 vols., Philipp Feldheim, 1960-66.

¹² New York, 1992. Published from manuscript material by R. S. Schwab and E. Klugman.

¹³ Translated by Karin Paritzky, annotated by Rabbi Joseph Elias. Philipp Feldheim, 1994. This is an intellectual presentation of Orthodox Judaism expressed through an exchange of letters between two youths. It made a significant impact in German Jewish circles.

¹⁴ Soncino Press, 1981. R. Hirsch's philosophy of the commandments.

¹⁵ Philipp Feldheim, 1978.

¹⁶ Philipp Feldheim, 1984-2012 (9 volumes).