Rabbi S.R. Hirsch: Life and Thought

Catalog description

This course will examine the life and thought of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch (1808-1888), as well as his major works. The historical context for R. Hirsch’s life work, including the European Enlightenment, the Haskalah, and the German-Jewish Reform movement, will be examined. His worldview, which includes his all-encompassing Torah im Derekh Eretz ideology, Mensch-Yisroel (relating to human and Jewish identity), and Austritt (communal separatism/secession), among others, will be treated in this class. Comparisons to the views of his rabbinic predecessors and contemporaries both in Germany and elsewhere will also be explored. R. Hirsch’s accomplishments as a Jewish leader will be analyzed and his legacy for contemporary Judaism—and his relationship to varieties of Orthodox Judaism of the twenty-first century—will be explored.