Samuel Hirsch

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Samuel Hirsch

Samuel Hirsch (born on June 8, 1815 in Thalfang near Trier ; died on May 14, 1889 in Chicago ) was a rabbi , religious philosopher and representative of Reform Judaism, first in Germany, then in the USA.

Life

He studied at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin , received his rabbinical training in Metz in France and then in Mainz until 1835 . He was a probationary rabbi in Dessau from 1839 and was ousted from office in 1841. With the support of friends, however, he was able to stay in Dessau and worked primarily on his “Jewish Philosophy of Religion”. It is the first volume of an extensive work entitled The System of Religious View of the Jews , which should comprise nine volumes. I.a. The first chapter of this book, "The Self of Active Religiosity and the Falling Away From It" of the University of Leipzig , was enough to make him Dr. phil. to do a PhD. From 1843 to 1866 he was the Grand Rabbi of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (appointed by the Dutch King Wilhelm II , who was also Grand Duke in personal union). Here he joined a Masonic Lodge.

He married Louise Micholis and had three sons. One son died at the age of four months.

At the German rabbinical meetings of 1844/45 he represented a radical reform of Judaism, which he could not penetrate in the states of the German Confederation .

When Hirsch received an appointment as rabbi of the Reform Church in Philadelphia to succeed David Einhorn in 1866 , he emigrated to the USA. There he founded the Orphan's Guardian Society and the first US branch of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and was chairman of the first conference of US (de facto) (reform) rabbis (Philadelphia 1869). As such, he played a major role in formulating the principles of Reform Judaism. He remained a rabbi in Philadelphia for 22 years, retired in 1888 and moved to Chicago to live with his son, Emil Gustav Hirsch , who was also a philosopher and rabbi, where he died soon after.

Samuel Hirsch attempted to differentiate between a “permanent ideal core” and a merely “external rite” of Judaism that is subject to daily necessity, as in his catechism of the Israelite religion . He made radical changes on the basis of this absolution formula, e.g. B. the zealously advocated introduction of Sunday worship.

In his philosophical writings he used the Hegelian dialectic. However, he argued against Hegel , who had placed Judaism in his hierarchy of religions below the pagan natural religions, that Judaism and (primitive) Christianity as religions of freedom are absolutely superior to any natural religion ( Die Religionsphilosophie der Juden , Leipzig 1842, Hirsch's main work, which remained unfinished). Until the overcoming of the “link between Judaism and paganism” stemming from Paul, Judaism itself is a “model of the new humanity” based on isolation.

In his answer to Bruno Bauer ( Die Judenfrage ), he contradicted his thesis that Jews must be baptized in order to be emancipated.

Hirsch's motto "Understanding is the watchword of our time" was the basis of his teaching.

Other works

  • Peace, Freedom and Unity. Six sermons given in the synagogue in Dessau. 1839.
  • The religious philosophy of the Jews or the principle of the Jewish religious view and its relation to paganism, Christianity and absolute philosophy. Leipzig: Hunger, 1842. ISBN 978-3-487-07719-2 .
  • Judaism, the Christian State and Modern Criticism. Letters to illuminate the Jewish question from Bruno Bauer. Heinrich Hunger, Berlin 1843 digitized .
  • The messiah teaching of the Jews in pulpit lectures. 1843.
  • The reform of Judaism and its profession in the present time. Leipzig 1844.
  • Humanity as a religion. Trier 1854. Newer edition: Rarebooksclub.com, 2012, ISBN 978-1-235-01508-3 .
  • Systematic Catechism of the Israelite Religion. Luxembourg 1856. Newer edition: Nabu Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-277-42151-4 .
  • The teaching that Moscheh commanded us. Philadelphia 1867.

literature

  • Art. Hirsch, Samuel , in: Jewish Encyclopedia . 1901-1906; Volume 6, p. 417.
  • Jewish Lexicon . Berlin 1927; Volume 2, Col. 1623.
  • Emil Ludwig Fackenheim : Samuel Hirsch and Hegel. In: Alexander Altmann (Ed.): Studies in nineteenth-century jewish intellectual history. (= Philip W. Lown Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies, Brandeis University : Studies and Texts, No. 2). Harvard University Press , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1964; New edition 2013 ISBN 978-0-674-73086-1 p. 175ff.
  • Michael A. Meyer : Is it writing? Whether ghost? The question of revelation in German Jewry in the nineteenth century. In: Jakob J. Petuchowski , Walter Strolz (ed.): Revelation in the Jewish and Christian understanding of faith. Freiburg 1981, p. 162.179.
  • Heinz Monz: Samuel Hirsch (1815-1889). A Jewish reformer from the Hunsrück. In: Yearbook for West German State History. 17 (1991), pp. 159-180.
  • Julius Hans Schoeps (Ed.): New Lexicon of Judaism. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1992, ISBN 3-570-09877-X , p. 199.
  • Jacob Katz : Samuel Hirsch. Rabbi, Philosopher and Freemason. In: Revue des Etudes Juives 125 (1966), 113-126.
  • Gershon Greenberg: Samuel Hirsch: Jewish Hegelian , Revue des Etudes Juives 129 (1997), 205-215.
  • Joshua O. Haberman: Art. Hirsch, Samuel . In: Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed. Vol. 9 (2007), 132f
  • Bernd Gerhard Ulbrich: Samuel Hirsch as a rabbi in Dessau. In: Communications from the Association for Anhalt Regional Studies. 16 (2007), pp. 104-132.
  • Christian Wiese : From Dessau to Philadelphia: Samuel Hirsch as a philosopher, apologist and radical reformer. In: Giuseppe Veltri and Christian Wiese (eds.): Jewish education and culture in Saxony-Anhalt from the Enlightenment to National Socialism. Metropol, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940938-05-3 , pp. 363-410.
  • Elmar P. Ittenbach: Samuel Hirsch. Rabbi, religious philosopher, reformer. Rabbi, philosopher, reformer. Hentrich & Hentrich , Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-95565-045-2 (= Jewish miniatures volume 151, German and English).
  • Elmar P. Ittenbach: Born 200 years ago in Thalfang: Samuel Hirsch. Religious philosopher, reform rabbi , guide to the religion of the future , In: Kreisjahrbuch Bernkastel-Wittlich 2015 , Monschau 2014, pp. 223–227. ISSN  1863-6004 .
  • Elmar P. Ittenbach: Jewish life in Thalfang: history and fates , Paulinus, Trier 2011, ISBN 978-3-7902-1900-5 (= writings of the Emil Frank Institute , volume 14).
  • Michael Brocke , Julius Carlebach : Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis , KG Saur, Munich 2004, Volume I, 445-447, ISBN 3-598-24871-7 ( available online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chapter One: The Introspection of Active Religiosity and the Apostasy from It .
  2. ^ Elmar P. Ittenbach: Samuel Hirsch. Rabbi, religious philosopher, reformer. Rabbi, philosopher, reformer . Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-95565-045-2 (= Jewish miniatures volume 151).
  3. ↑ Series of publications by the Emil Frank Institute at the University of Trier
personal data
SURNAME Hirsch, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION radical reform rabbi in Germany and America
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Thalfang
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1889
Place of death Chicago