To summarize the previous few posts, we talked about the Haskalah movement from the 18th century and its ideology, then how it led to Jews slowly trying to somewhat assimilate to their local culture - eventually leading to a Reform in the Jewish faith, with Orthodox rabbis resisting it through the beginning of the 19th century. And now, we’ll talk about a balance that was created between Orthodoxy and Haskalah during the 19th century - a balance that was named Neo-Orthodoxy or Modern Orthodoxy, for balancing tradition and change, or modernity.

Now the idea here is to allow new ideas in, while still keeping true to the traditional ways of the Torah. So unlike in Reform Judaism, there is no giving up on the Messianic ideal or critical study of the Torah - since the Torah is seen as G-d’s word, and not just a text written by humans. On the other hand, Neo-Orthodoxy was far more accepting to studying science and philosophy than Ultra-Orthodoxy, and its prominent rabbis sometimes made a sermon in the local language and not Hebrew - which while controversial wasn’t forbidden in any way according to the Halacha.

Before we continue to talk about the prominent rabbi I want to use as an example for that branch, though, I’d like to talk a bit on what made it so difficult for me to write this installment. It wasn’t just the war - though it did have a big part in it. It definitely wasn’t for a lack of a rabbi to use as an example - I had someone very specific in mind ever since I conceived of this series of essays. My list of prominent rabbis and thinkers for this was always going to be Moses Mandelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Ḥatam Sofer, Rashar Hirsch and Zacharias Frankel, all mentioned in past essays and claimed to be discussed later. No, my issue was the precise distinction of Neo-Orthodox from Ultra-Orthodox and its relation to the current division of Jews in Israel. The problem is, while I claim that those topics are ones still in discussion and relevant to this very day, things did change a bit in the previous 200 years, mostly regarding Zionism. This is also why I avoided touching the “where are they now” point in the previous essay - the division between Neo-Orthodoxy and Ultra-Orthodoxy are a little less apparent nowadays, with the major differences being more along the lines of Zionism. I’ll talk about some of it by the end of this essay, but I reserve discussing Zionism and anti-Zionism to a later date - likely a much later date, I’m afraid. Anyway, back to our topic!

While there are a couple of other examples for Neo-Orthodox rabbis, one of the most prominent among them was Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, abbreviated to Rashar Hirsch usually. He was born in Hamburg (then a part of the Napoleonic Empire) in 1808. The perceptive of you will note that assuming his family didn’t move, he was 10 during the Temple dispute - a fact referred to in a biography of his written by one of his descendants I’ve had the luck to read. Said book either uses creative license - or knowledge from a source I don’t have - to write about a meeting occurring in the Hirsch household, for discussion about the Temple. It’s likely that Rashar Hirsch heard of it anyway even if it wasn’t this way, and it likely influenced him later. 

The young Hirsch studied under Ḥacham Isaac Bernays - an interesting Jewish scholar into himself, if slightly less well-known. He was among the first Orthodox rabbis to carry a Drasha, a sermon, in German instead of Hebrew or Yiddish, and chose to call himself Ḥacham - wise man - instead of rabbi, for some reason. The biography of Rashar Hirsch mentioned above claims it was to differentiate himself from the Reform rabbis by taking on a title from Sepharadi Jewish origin, but I don’t know. Anyway, Rashar Hirsch grew up in a very Orthodox family, though he studied from a relatively more open rabbi. Originally he intended to study to become a merchant, but he eventually forsook it for the study of the Torah and went to Manheim for that purpose in 1828. After studying there for a while he got a Semikha - he was ordained to be a rabbi. Then, in 1830, he went to the University of Bonn to study there.

Sounds familiar? Well, it should, because guess who also studied there at the time. If you’ve been following my essays so far, you’ll note that at this exact time, Abraham Geiger also went to the University of Bonn. While the latter wasn’t ordained as a rabbi yet, the two became study partners - until Rashar Hirsch left to serve as a rabbi in Oldenburg not long after he went to university. By the time Geiger started his activities, Rashar Hirsch became one of his most outspoken opponents.

From here on out, there’s quite a lot to say about Rashar Hirsch that would be relevant. To make it relatively short, I’ll start by listing the places where he served as rabbi - after the Duchy of Oldenburg in northern Germany he went to the city of Emden (which is apparently around the same area) in 1841, and later he became the Chief Rabbi of Moravia - which nowadays is a part of the Czech Republic - in 1846. From there, in 1851, he went to serve as the rabbi in a small sub-congregation in a city in Germany - perhaps you’ve heard of it? It was called Frankfurt-am-Main, where he served for the rest of his life.

Why, yes, it is the same Frankfurt from which both Ḥatam Sofer and Abraham Geiger originated from! I’m glad you noticed. You see, the Jewish community in Frankfurt was a large and prominent community among the Jews in Germany. Even talking outside of what you;ve learned from my essays, you may well have heard of the Rothschild family of Jewish bankers - they originated from Frankfurt. I daresay this essay isn’t likely to be the last time we visit the city, though it might still be the latest time period we visit it in.

Either way, I intend to go back to Rashar’s period in Oldenburg before continuing on to Frankfurt, because while in Oldenburg, Rashar Hirsch wrote two of his prominent books: Nineteen Letters on Judaism (published originally under a Pseudonym), which is a fictional correspondence between a young Jew influenced by the changing times and his studious friend, and an elaboration on the Letters - which was actually the original book, the letters being more or less a summary - named Horeb, or Essays About the Duties of Israel in Exile. Both books were written in German - an unusual move for an Orthodox rabbi at the time, but the Jewish youths who were the intended audience knew little Hebrew so it was necessary. I have not read either book, sadly - I only took a quick peek into the Nineteen Letters, if memory serves it’s mostly made of arguments regarding the Torah and perhaps G-d. 

But our point here is to point out what is unique about the movement known as Neo-Orthodoxy. So, the first noticeable point is likely the excessive use of German. One likely reason is that the intended audience for Rashar Hirsch’s sermons and books merely understood German better than Hebrew or Yiddish. Such points were a factor in other religious books historically - a couple of books were written in Arabic explicitly so the average Jew could understand them, like Ḥovot HaLevavot (Duties of the hearts) by Rabenu Baḥya Ibn Paquda, maybe the Book of Beliefs and Opinions by Rav Sa’adia Ga’on, and likely Maimonides’ commentaries on the Mishnah. Yet, some people shied away from that in more modern times due to the association with Reform Judaism and secularity - Rashar Hirsch didn’t, though. To talk about another, perhaps more fundamental, point of innovation from Rashar Hirsch, though, I’m going to move on to his time as a rabbi in Frankfurt.

You need to understand that by this time - the late ‘40s of the 19th century - the larger Jewish community in Frankfurt was Reform. Now, you might think it was the time of Geiger as a rabbi there and a reunion between the former friends - nope, it wasn’t, the current rabbi of Frankfurt at the time was one Leopold Stein. Geiger didn’t make his comeback until a couple of years later. Anyway, all that is not to say there weren’t Orthodox-aligned Jews in Frankfurt; there were, and they elected to separate from the major congregation in 1849. Legally it was a complicated matter - separation of Church and State, while not unheard of, wasn’t applied at the time, and if you were a Jew you had to belong to the Jewish congregation in your city. Still, they managed to found a small congregation of their own called ‘Adas Yeshurun. By ‘51 they managed to get approval to have their own rabbi, and one of their candidates was none other than Rashar Hirsch.

Now, I have very little idea regarding how the process of picking a rabbi for a congregation, city or state was conducted. There usually were multiple candidates who wanted the office, and one of them was picked - but in many cases, requests were sent to rabbis who already served somewhere, Rashar Hirsch being an example, and they could choose to simply refuse and stay where they were. The congregation they currently served tended to try and convince them to stay, and Rashar Hirsch was definitely someone the state of Moravia wanted to keep. In addition, you can clearly see that this would be a stp down - from the Chief Rabbi of a state to the rabbi of a sub-congregation in what was definitely a major city - but nothing more than a city. But here’s a counterpoint: they needed him more.

By that time, Rashar Hirsch was already known for his opposition to Reform. It may well be that there was a fight to be had at Moravia, but I’m pretty sure there were enough Orthodox rabbis to continue on the work there. In Frankfurt, on the other hand, the Orthodox congregation was a minority, and it was subjugated to the Reform congregation (which, for understandable reasons, didn’t want the Orthodox to be independent like this; not wanting old-fashioned ideas is something common among people who see themselves as enlightened). That was reason enough for Rashar Hirsch to move there.

One of the first things Rashar Hirsch did in his new congregation was found a school, for what is the point of having an Orthodox congregation if the children are taught by the Reform one and will grow to join it? In general, education was one of the most important things in Rashar Hirsch’s eyes - I’m not sure I remember it precisely, but I think it’s apparent from his commentaries on the Torah (Pentateuch), which I probably don’t even need to say were written in German. I won’t claim to know much about Hirsch’s educational philosophy, but I do know of one major point of difference between it and a traditional school: it taught general sciences, while still staying loyal to studying the Torah and living by it. That was in realization of Rashar Hirsch’s motto - “Torah ‘Im Derech Eretz”, lit. Torah with the Way of the Land. Rashar Hirsch didn’t see modern ideas as opposed to Judaism, but tools that could be used in conjunction with it.

There are a couple of additional points to be mentioned - for example, Rashar Hirsch did think Emancipation could be a blessing for the Jews, and tried to convince the members of his congregation to leave the major congregation of Frankfurt when it was permitted - though with limited success. He also (unsurprisingly) saw much value in religious studies and tried founding a Yeshivah - an institute for religious Jewish learning - in Frankfurt, which his congregation also didn’t support much. He also resisted Zionism, as part of his views. He was not the only major innovative Orthodox rabbi of his time - one other name that cropped up was Rav Azriel Hildesheimer, who founded a Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin - I don’t know nearly enough about him though, I’m afraid.

So, in modern day, where are the Orthodox Jews? Where are the disciples of Rashar Hirsch and Ḥatam Sofer? Well… It’s kind of complicated.

Orthodox Jews can be found in many places across the globe, but like (I think) @Kingsdaughter613 (sorry for the tag, hope you don't mind) could attest, the major communities will be found either in the state of New York and around it, or in Israel. By that I mean generally Orthodox communities. Regarding the specifics of the Ultra vs Modern, though, this is the complicated part.

I won’t speak much about the USA here - frankly, there are others here better equipped than me to talk about this. It’s likely also true about Reform and Conservative Judaism - honestly, it’s more true with those two - but I have no idea, I can’t tell and thus I’m saying what I can and hope I may be corrected. Anyway, one institute I think can safely be called Modern Orthodox in the USA is the Yeshivah University in New York. In addition, quite a few American Jews come to Israel to study in Israeli Yeshivas - I would say the ones coming to places like the Gush, Kerem B’Yavneh and Ma’aleh Adumim are likely more Modern Orthodox. More than that I honestly can’t say much.

In Israel, there is a division between the Ḥareidim - roughly translated as pious/G-d-fearing - and the Religious-Zionists. Those are rough but imprecise equivalents of Ultra Orthodox and Modern Orthodox Jews, respectively. The issue at hand, though, is that… well… Rashar Hirsch was opposed to Zionism. So were many of his students. Being a Religious-Zionist, though, kind of requires one to be a Zionist, right? So, how does this work?

Well, to try and not make too much of a mess of things, I’ll say that the Yekkes (Jews of German origin) who came to Israel originally didn’t consider themselves part of the Religious-Zionist community. They even founded their own school, called Ḥoreb - which likely had a thing to do with Rashar Hirsch’s book. Nowadays, though, this school is one of the most prestigious Religious-Zionist schools. I’m not 100% sure how that came to be - a major figure in the community turning Zionist or something? The rather segregationist tendencies of the Ḥareidim clashing with their ideas and the Yekkes not being enough people to form their own group? All of the above? That happened, anyway. And yet, when some people who consider themselves Neo-Orthodox come to Israel from abroad, they tend to join the Ḥareidi communities - they somehow see themselves closer to them. In short, this internal Orthodox division isn’t as clear cut as you might think. There are even Religious-Zionists who are somewhat more Ultra-Orthodox than the rest. So, I think it could be said this is a little complicated.

In short: Neo-Orthodoxy or Modern Orthodoxy is a movement of Jews that stayed completely loyal to the Halachic rules but were willing to accept things like general studies at a young age and usage of other languages in sermons, though perhaps not in prayers. Rashar Hirsch is a good example of this, and made his innovations in multiple places but mostly in Frankfurt-am-Main, where he more or less saved the Orthodox congregation from assimilating back to the Reform one. He had a couple of clashes with Reform Jews which weren’t really elaborated upon - one guy named Heinrich Graetz studied under him in Oldenburg , and later became a famous Jewish historian… who also went in a slightly less Orthodox direction, and Rashar Hirsch opposed him over that. He wasn’t exactly Reform, though - we might touch on the movement he belonged to in the next essay. Anyway, Rashar Hirsch’s motto was Torah with the Way of the Land, something that was expressed in how his school taught both religious and core studies.

Thank you for reading this far, and have a good day!

(P.S., I realize that I didn’t always mention my sources so far, so I wanted to take the opportunity to list some of them - for the most part those are the Wikipedia articles on the movements and people I mention, in addition to (in some cases) the Hebrew Encyclopedia in its article on tradition and change, books by the rabbis mentioned, general knowledge from my history lessons in high school and Mandelssohn’s biography. Just wanted to mention them in case I’d forget to later.)

So, why am I writing about the Age of Enlightenment? Mostly because it was a huge upheaval for Ashkenazi Jews. Duing this time - from about the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th - major changes were made to the European world, and Judaism was deeply affected by them. Those effects are still seen today, in many different reactions to secular studies, to change and to the rise of ideologies like nationalism and socialism - in addition to different approaches to mysticism. All those things are still affecting the Jewish world in various ways, and understanding it will be helpful to stop generalizing too much about Jews - that most of them don't believe in G-d, that they strictly adhere to the letter of the Law, that  "true" Judaism is anti-Zionist, that they're all rationalists - all misconceptions when generalized, some of which I've actually seen in the past and some of which I'm more vaguely assuming might exist. I may well be wrong.

Another part of it is the vague suspicion people assume Jewish Reform had to do with the same things Martin Luther's focused on. I personally think the two came from very different places and should be acknowledged as such - but I'm biased, since I'm Orthodox (and I find that I agree with some of the things Luther said. Except the parts about Jews, those are just regular ol' antisemitism). Those are my reasons for focusing on this period so far, at least.

So, the next question I should answer is: are there other time periods I might cover here? Or am I content to stick to those three centuries? Even if I leave this period, are there periods in the History of Judaism I wouldn't talk about at all?

The answer, simply put, is: I might explore some other periods, depending on the level of interst by my audience and how I feel about it. However, there are periods I don't want to cover - namely, the Biblical period, the time of what you call the Old Testment. You see, the thing is this period is detailed in the Bible, but somewhat less existent in History books, which tend to not consider the Bible as a viable source and thus don't have much outside of archeological findings to go on. And, since I'm religious, and since those scholarly views tend to assume that there is no G-d and that the Bible is merely a fictional book I find it hard to talk about it. I might feel free to talk about Biblical stories and paragraphs from plenty of angles, but the historical one won't be one of them, I'm afraid.

I would like to add that I'm actually planning to go as far back as the 17th century after I go over Modern Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, as a background to the next portion on the series - about Ḥassidut, Mussar and the Lithuanian Yeshivot, I think it's going to be necessary. Besides that, I don't think I'll go over many other periods, though the beginning of Karaite Judaism and Muslim Spain are two possible topics after I finish with the Age of Enlightenment part - as well as the Tosafot era in France, which is much more of an inner-Judaism thing.

Now, the reason I went to this length to explain myself is that the video I mentioned basically said Judaism is a branch of the Canaanite polytheistic faith that became Monotheistic in exile. This, along with saying things like "Ashtoret is the Jewish G-d's spouse" tend to infuriate me to no end, since it starts out from the assumption that Judaism is and always has been lying about itself and its history. I realize that historical research arrived at those conclusions, but I daresay that it's probably not all that one-sided and that it's not an impossible outlook, to believe that when Elijah told the Israelites on the Carmel to stop hopping between to faiths and to decide between G-d and the Ba'al - he actually had basis to what he said in the Jewish faith that existed previously.

Anyway, this has just been my latest rant on this here. I hope you've enjoyed it and that my sleep deprivation didn't affect it too much. Your irregularly scheduled actual update will happen sometime in the future, please be patient.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

What can you expect from this particular essay? Well, talking about the negative reactions to the Enlightenment and emancipation from some more traditional Jews, especially another Frankfurt-am-Main born rabbi - Rabbi Moshe Sofer, AKA Hatam Sofer. We’ll also get to see the Jewish Frankfurt before the time of Abraham Geiger. 

Speaking of which, a few additions to the previous installment: firstly, further research shows that Geiger’s father was a bit more traditional than I implied - young Abraham had to study history under his father’s nose, since the latter didn’t support of Jews studying secular sciences. He went to university to study Middle-Eastern languages, and though I might’ve been right about it being a requirement to be a rabbi, it rather seems that this wasn’t the most important part of it in Geiger’s mind. Regarding the critical Tanakh study, I’ve found out more about his specific opinion - he believed that Judaism evolves through the generations, and that as a part of this evolution, during the time of the Pharisees vs. the Sadducces the Pharisees edited parts of the Tanakh to fit better with their view - I hope it’s obvious enough why such opinions won’t be accepted by Orthodox Jews. If not, maybe it will be after this essay. I got this point from a book of his named “The Original Text and the Translations of the Bible”, originally published in German in 1857. (To be a tad more accurate, it was from the preface by Prof. Joseph Klausner to the Hebrew translation of the book from 1949; but it had a summary of the book, so I’ll go with that.)

Anyway, to start with a few things about Orthodoxy: it continues on, as best it can, the way Judaism existed way before the Age of Enlightenment came around. Yet, there is not much point to talk about Orthodoxy before the Reform and Conservative movements exist, so I’m going to refer to the reactions from traditionalist Jewish rabbis to the Reform as the founding of Ultra-Orthodox ideas. Now, all this is not to say different Jewish denominations didn’t exist before: Karaites aren’t exactly Orthodox and have existed for centuries… but they aren’t very sizable and many Jews never even heard of them. I might refer to them again later, but I’ll leave talking about them to another theoretical essay series, since they emerged at an entirely different era and for entirely different reasons - reasons that could be applicable against Reform and Conservative Judaism just as much, if not more so, than against Orthodox Judaism.

Hopefully that was comprehensible. Anyway, Ultra Orthodox Judaism. The thing is, emancipation and acceptance into gentile society weren’t necessarily things all Jews wanted or liked. For hundreds of years we lived among ourselves, with some autonomy to judge ourselves. We were detached from gentile society, and some people were completely fine with it. Emancipation included things they didn’t want to deal with - plus the fact all this scientific study led to secularity, and quite naturally there were Jews who didn’t want that. So they resisted it. Well, not all that much, but…

When Moses Mandelssohn - remember him? We talked about him in the first essay - wanted to be ordained as a rabbi in 1761, Rav Yehonatan Eibeschitz (who himself did study some general science - I know I’m being overly general, but I kind of have to) refused to ordain him, on the flimsy ground that before he got married he couldn’t get a certain title, but the other title possible was too low to fit him. Apparently scholars think it has more to do with him learning philosophy etc.

I’m not sure how much more I can find, because it wasn’t necessarily all that bad - Jewish rabbis were known to study the science of their time for centuries, with possible examples including a few Amoras (rabbis from the time of the Talmud, over 1500 years ago), Rambam (AKA Maimonides), Ibn Ezra, Rabeinu Tam and many more - those names might not mean much for non-Jews, but they are very prominent Jewish rabbis (mostly Sepharadic ones - meaning those who came from Spain. I give the credit to the Muslims). Things became more complicated later, when the Reform rose and Haskalah was seen as related. I can say that in stories told by Ultra-Orthodox Jews about rabbis of the time, the Maskil - a member of the Haskalah movement - is usually portrayed in a negative light.

Anyway, to better understand Orthodox Judaism I rather want to follow the example I set in the two previous essays and follow a prominent rabbi and thinker - this time the Hatam Sofer.
Rabbi Moshe Sofer was born in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1762 to an Orthodox family. The sharp-eyed among you will note this was later to be the origin city of Abraham Geiger, too - it was a prominent city for Judaism in that era, we’ll visit it again later. As a matter of fact, it ended up becoming mostly Reform - but we’ll get to it. For now, we’ll say that Rabbi Moshe Sofer studied there under both Rav Nathan Adler and Rav Pinchas Horowitz. In 1782, Rav Nathan Adler was banished from Frankfurt due to praying in a Sepharadi Hebrew accent and various other behaviors the local congregation deemed unacceptable, and when he left - Rabbi Moshe Sofer left with him. In a certain future essay, we’ll encounter more people who acted not dissimilarly to Rav Nathan, and we’ll see how such things were accepted in eastern Europe.

Rabbi Moshe Sofer later became the rabbi of various cities around Czechia and Hungary (after being ordained by both Rav Nathan Adler and the chief Rabbi of Moravia at the time), with the city he’s most remembered as the rabbi of being Bratislava - which back then was called Pressburg. He became a rabbi there in 1807. He wrote (at some point) a book on the Talmud called “Chidushei Torat Moshe” - it’s hard to translate, it basically means “new understandings in Moshe’s Torah”, more or less, referring both to the fact we call the Torah “Moshe’s Torah” and to his own name. He was called Hatam Sofer after this book - with Hatam being an acronym of the book’s name, and also incidentally meaning seal. 

So, what can we say about Hatam Sofer’s resistance to the Reform and somewhat to the Haskalah? I think I’ll start on that with a story. For some context, emancipation for Jews was discussed as a possibility in the Holy Roman Empire at the time, and possibly also in neighboring kingdoms.

They say that one Shabbat - a Saturday, the resting day in Judaism - Hatam Sofer went to say a Drasha, which is more-or-less a sermon but I’m not sure if this is a good comparison. In this Drasha, he told the following parable: 

Once, there was a king’s son who disgraced his father and disobeyed him. Thus, as a punishment he was sent to exile to a far-off land for an undetermined amount of time. After a while, the king asked after his son, because even in punishment - he still loved him. He heard that his son lives in the garbage, with hardly anything to eat or a good place to sleep. Once he heard that, the king sent his messengers to his son’s place of exile. The king’s son seemed excited to see his father’s messengers, at first, but then they started building him a good, steady house and bringing him money for provisions, and he started crying. The local men were surprised at that and asked the king’s son what he’s sad about. After all, it seems his father still remembers him and cares about him! The king’s son replied: how can I not cry? At first, when I lived in the garbage it was very uncomfortable, but at least I could draw comfort from knowing my father won’t leave me like that for long, and I’ll soon return home. But now that he’s making things easier for me, that he’s making sure I’m comfortable in my exile, I see that he intends for me to stay here for much, much more time, and how can I not cry over that?

As per usual in Jewish parables, the father/king is G-d, and the son is the people of Israel. Hatam Sofer said: it’s true life in exile wasn't good for us, we suffered and were prosecuted. But at least we knew G-d would eventually hear our prayers and deliver us. Now that He gives us emancipation and ways to live in comfort here, in our exile, it means we’re in this for the long run. Well, longer run than it was so far.

All that is just regarding emancipation for its pure idea. The results it usually led to are a whole different story - after all, it tended to lead to either secularity or conversion to Christianity. Generally, in relation to new things, Hatam Sofer’s opinion was clear: “Chadash Asur Min HaTorah!” meaning lit. “New things are forbidden according to the Torah!” This sentence was originally about the newly harvested grains - I talked about it in my SU about Shavuot, linked here. You see? When I tell you we’ll revisit something, I actually mean it! Bear with me for just a little while longer and we’ll touch on everything I promised I’ll touch on. Anyway, using this motto Hatam Sofer resisted any new innovations that tried to be made in Judaism. An elementary school for Jews in Pressburg trying to teach core studies? Not on his watch. A synagogue in Hamburg is trying to pray in German and change the prayers’ text? Not going to happen. Even if some of the changes could be supported by the Halacha, Hatam Sofer refused to start going down in this direction, fearing the slippery slopes that may be found there.

Now, regarding studying general science eventually - he actually accepted that. He himself studied at some point some math, astronomy, and philosophy. But in his view, studying the Torah always came first. He died in 1839… Leading to people taking his ideas to the extreme.

After Hatam Sofer’s death, his followers - who were called Ultra Orthodox by many, but referred to themselves as Hareidim or Yereim [both coming from words meaning they were G-d fearing, could be roughly translated to pious (or frum, in Yiddish)] - resisted the idea of teaching boys anything but Torah, even more than Hatam Sofer and his original followers. Though, oddly enough, they let girls study general science - but not Torah. This has led to an odd situation where wives were typically more well-educated in the general sense, but they knew nearly nothing from the Torah. 

I think I’ll leave the “nowadays” conclusion to the next essay, to summarize all factions of Orthodox Judaism together - plus I’ll have a better conclusion for that after I finish the essays on this topic.

A short summary: many more traditional Jews didn’t like the emancipation and studying secular sciences, so they tried to strengthen the falling walls of the ghetto as much as they could. First and foremost among them was Hatam Sofer, who coined the phrase “new things are forbidden according to the Torah!” He himself wasn’t completely opposed to studying science, though he did approach it warily, but his students and successors took it a bit further and forbade it almost entirely.
Well, hopefully that’s enough for now. Next time we’ll talk about Neo-Orthodoxy, and after that there’ll be a post about Conservative Judaism and a wrap-up of this topic. Thank you for reading and have a good day!

Just one clarification for the previous entry: I realized I might have indicated that the Haskalah movement caused religious degradation directly. This is not completely accurate; while secularity was caused by the Enlightenment in Jews just as much as it did with Christians, the Haskalah movement wasn't necessarily a part of it. Many of the members of this movement, like Mandelssohn, were devout practicing Jews. In some ways, the fraction of Orthodox Judaism I belong to is not unlike them. Just, the fact they tried to hold the rope on both ends sometimes led to them dropping things from their belief, as we'll see in this entry. As a side note I'd mention that none of Mandelssohn's descendants stayed a practicing Jew. Another clarification: I believe I forgot to include dates, which is kind of stupid of me, in hindsight. For reference, Mandelssohn lived during the 18th century (1729-1786), he arrived at Berlin in 1743, and the Lavatar incident occurred during 1769. Hope this helps with the chronology.

Anyway, Reform Judaism. So, we had talked about the gap between Jews and the general society of Europe. We explained (somewhat) the problems it caused, and showed how one person reacted to this, with a few tidbits about how others did. There were some Jews who became secular altogether; but we’re not really here to talk about them today. As odd as it may seem to me as an Orthodox Jew, we’re talking about the ones who didn’t want to abandon their traditions completely, the ones who thought that Judaism needed nothing more than a little fixing to fit with the times - Reform Jews. Odd to me because, well, Orthodox Judaism doesn't favor Reform over secularity by much.

It's been some time between the death of Mandelssohn and the actual start of something that was different enough to be dubbed Reform Judaism, though a few things that later became the movement's trademarks appeared during that time. A Maskil - a member of the Haskalah movement - named Saul Ascher wrote in his book “Leviathan, or religion in respect of Judaism” (1792) that the principles of faith are the important part of Judaism, while the practical commandments were secondary and by modern times didn’t serve their purpose. There were a few changes to the prayers in a synagogue in Amsterdam in 1796, including removing some Piyutim (religious poems, more or less) from the prayer and adding a sermon in the local language. In Westphalia it was decided by the local Jewish Consistory, headed by Rabbi Israel Jacobson, in 1810 to change the prayers a little and cancel some traditions in order to keep an atmosphere of seriousness in the synagogue - to somewhat look like a Christian church. Jacobson was later involved with more changes to the prayers - including in the incident of the Hamburg Temple Dispute.

The Hamburg Temple was a Jewish temple -  you could say. It's actually a synagogue, but it's almost always referred to as a temple. It may or may not be related to a certain point in the dispute about it - I'm not really sure. Anyway, the actual problem started with a few changes in how prayers went in the Temple. You see, the Hamburg Temple, unlike traditional synagogues, used a choir and an organ in the prayers (the organ was played by a gentile during Shabbat) and added prayers in German - of which at least the first two were perceived to just be added to make it more like a church. All that in itself, though, wasn't any worse than what we already mentioned, and what another congregation in Berlin already started doing - and while many Orthodox rabbis thought it problematic, it wasn't quite enough to create a schism just yet. What did that was a new Siddur - a Jewish prayer book, so to speak - published the same year the Temple was opened (1818) and used in it. In this Siddur, many mentions of wishes and prayers to return to Jerusalem and reinstate the Temple there were revised, and prayers to salvation of the Jewish people and the coming of the Messiah were changed to be about more universal salvation. And that started the heart of the problem. 

As an opening to what I'm about to say, I want to mention that while working on this essay I texted a Reform rabbi to try and hear things from their side. After mentioning this specific bit about the erasure of the hope to return to Zion, he remarked that while it's true that the Reform movement was anti-Zionist in its early days, the same could be said about Orthodox Judaism. This is, indeed, a good point, since some of the prominent rabbis who resisted the Reform movement - like Hatam Sofer and Rashar Hirsch, on whom I intend to elaborate in future essays - were anti-Zionists as well. So it isn't the anti-Zionism in this change that was seen as problematic; instead, it was the drastic change in understanding what salvation meant.

You see, for over 2000 years, Jews have waited for a certain series of events: the coming of a Messiah of king David's line, all the people of Israel being brought back to their ancestral land, the Temple in Jerusalem rebuilt and the ancient kingdom being refounded and getting peace at last. All that, under G-d's guidance, of course. I hope to delve in later essays as to why Zionism wasn't seen as fulfilling that dream, for now suffice it to say that's how it was. But Reform Judaism took a hard turn in the opposite direction: what if we already got our salvation without realizing it (or are much closer to it than we thought)? Throughout history, Christianity pursued Jews, only stopping short of completely destroying them due to a council decision from its early days. But in this modern day and age, in the most Enlightened Germany - home to Kant and Hegel, Schiller and Goethe, with emancipation for Jews being visible in the horizon… surely, we're already at the age of the Messiah. Surely, thought the early fathers of the Reform movement, this is all we could and should hope for. After all, the Temple in Jerusalem and the sacrifices made in it seemed far and kind of barbaric, really. Is that really what we hope and wait for? Opening a compound for butchering animals and burning their meat? Surely, that's not what G-d would want for us.

Other people had different reactions to the possibility of emancipation, and I promise you I'll get to them eventually, but that's probably a good approximation of what went through the early Reform rabbis' heads. In addition, they may have adopted the ideas of nationalism in a rather different way from the Zionists - why assume a nation so different from those around you, when you can be a German of Moshe's faith? The same could be applied to France, or England, or the newly-founded USA - all places Reform Judaism spread to and became prominent in. As a side note, I’ll say that this term (or, well, a very similar one) was apparently used first in the Grand Sanhedrin that Napoleon Bonaparte founded in 1806, where the assembly called Jews “French of Moses’ Faith”. While the Sanhedrin wasn’t necessarily Reform (well, the movement didn’t really exist at the time, so it wasn’t exactly a possibility), its decisions stretched the Halachah a bit and later the main Consistoire of France (Consistoire were the governing bodies of Jewish congregations in France from Napoleon’s time onward) was mostly Reform. 

Anyway, all that was directly opposed to traditional Judaism, which still hopes to return to Israel - if not in the way the Zionists did. Because even if you don't believe in pushing for founding an independent state, you can still believe that being a Jew is more than obeying the laws of a religion - it's belonging to a nation… Or maybe I'm just saying that because I'm a Zionist myself. Mostly, abandoning the Messianic beliefs entirely - which seemed to be what this new Siddur attempted to do - was seen as an unforgivable deed. Many Orthodox rabbis of the time went against it - prominent among them was the aforementioned Hatam Sofer of Pressburg (nowadays known as Bratislava), who voiced loud and clear objections to the changes made by the Reform Jews. Letters of rabbis who resisted the changes were published together under the title "Eleh Divrei HaBrit" (lit. Those are the Words of the Covenant). This pushed a little back on the whole affair, and some of the changes were withdrawn - at least temporarily.

All that does supposedly nothing to assert what I started with, that those were the ones who wanted to keep the religion and tradition. But the point is, secularity became common in Jewish youths at this time and place. Trying to settle Judaism with the spirit of the time like the Reform Jews did was their way to hold on to their beliefs. It was hard for some Jews to accept that the ideal is of Jews returning to an ancient, dead land from their birthplaces. The choice they saw before them, most probably, was either keeping Judaism without the messianic ideal, or abandoning it entirely. 

That's as to the Hamburg Temple Dispute. But in my work on those essays, I wanted to cover things from the angle of at least one rabbi or thinker from each movement, to give a better idea of what the movement’s ideology was. So, to elaborate some more about the changes - reforms - this Movement made, I'd like to talk about one of the prominent Reform rabbis - Abraham Geiger. 

Abraham Geiger was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1810. His family was Orthodox, though they were open to studying German and general science. In 1829 he went to study in the University at Heidelberg - leaving it after a short while due to his professor and fellow students laughing at recent Pogroms. He then went to the University of Bonn, where he met and befriended Rashar Hirsch - who later became his bitter rival, we'll talk about him in a future essay. 

He probably went to a university because it was required of would-be rabbis at the time in Germany -after all, he later asked for and got a Semikha - meaning, he was ordained as a rabbi - in 1832, and served as one in multiple places (including his hometown of Frankfurt and Berlin) during the following years. But considering his positions, he probably was very interested in studying history and critical studies of the Tanakh anyway. Either way, the things he taught were (unsurprisingly, considering our context) controversial. He believed that the Prophets and the Sages all worked to rid Judaism of being overly ritualistic. He believed that G-d's will is revealed differently from generation to generation - something of a reasoning as to why changing the Halakha should be fine. He had a somewhat more scholarly view of the Torah, and supported views of Biblical criticism - which are mostly opposed to traditional views of the Torah, though contrary to popular belief they aren't necessarily anti-religious.

There was a tidbit I wanted to add about views towards the Oral Torah; but it appears the only person to have said those was actually Zacharias Frankel, who went on to become the model for Conservative Judaism. I'm not sure if Geiger held similar opinions - he probably went even farther - after all, Frankel didn’t approve of Biblical criticism, while Geiger was apparently well known to be involved with it. He organized quite a few conventions of Reform rabbis, one of which Zacharias Frankel went to - only to run out and slam the door behind him. We'll talk about this event and Conservative Judaism in another essay.

In short: Reform Judaism sought to fit in better with the gentile society around them and with the ideals presented by the Enlightenment philosophers (well, the ideals of the era at least). This last part is shown by the tendency of Geiger to take a critical view of the Torah, for example - something that gentile thinkers of the time saw as essential, while Orthodox Jewish thinkers saw it as bad. The abandonment of the Messianic ideal served for assimilation, too - because the Messianic ideal itself set Jews apart by saying that one day they'll leave this land and go back to Israel. The Reform counterpoint, then, would be to define themselves as Germans of Moshe's faith - or, well, replace "Germans" with whatever other nation you want.

So, what happens with Reform Judaism nowadays? Well, today they are most prominent in the US - in fact, they are the most prominent Jewish denomination in America, meaning if you meet a Jew in the States (well, probably outside New York, where there are many Orthodox Jews) - chances are they are Reform. Not that I would know all that well - I don't live there and never have. 

In Israel, there are Reform congregations - the Reform rabbi I talked to is Israeli - but they aren't very prominent. We do hear from them every now and then, but not much. Their practices can vary, but they generally will be more receptive to modern ideals - the red lines are mostly not believing that there is one G-d and not circumcising the sons, IE not doing Brit Milah (though some early Reform rabbis did want to cancel this practice). Interestingly enough, modern Reform congregations are still somewhat opposed to ordaining intermarriage between Jews and gentiles - but a non-Jewish partner of a Jewish person will be accepted at a Reform temple. Generally they are much less strict than Orthodox Judaism in obeying the Halacha - they're willing to bend it for modern ideals such as equality and acceptance, and for having a Jewish experience even if it's not according to the halacha, like driving to a synagogue during Shabbat (Saturday). There is no separation between men and women in their temples and they ordain women as rabbis - both things that aren’t approved by Orthodox rabbis.

Well, that's it for now, hope it was helpful! Sorry for the huge delay, I procrastinated and tried to find good sources for a while. Can't promise the same thing won't happen again - I still am not sure whether I'll talk about Ultra-Orthodox or Conservative Judaism next time! If you have an opinion on the matter, or have anything to say, please do comment.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

I include about two or three centuries in the last period in the history of Judaism, because I think that some topics which rose at this era are still points of argument to this very day. At first, I thought to write on it all in one essay; then I realized that it’s going to be too much to talk about, so I decided to divide it to multiple essays, about Enlightenment, Haskalah and Reform, about the more inner religious world - Chassidus, Musar and Yeshivos, and about Zionism, Anti-Zionism and Secularity. This is the one about the direct effects of the Enlightenment on Judaism, starting from the Haskalah, with the next one probably being on how it led to Reform Judaism and different reactions to it.

I can probably assume you all know what the Age of Enlightenment was about; but for my own sake, and for the sake of those who don’t know, I’ll try to explain. 

It was an era, around the 17th-18th century, It was for a couple of centuries that modern printing existed and knowledge was relatively cheaper, free for everyone. This allowed more people to learn, and as something of a side effect, it caused equal rights to be given to many minorities, including Jews. 

The thing is, up until then the Jews were generally secluded. They lived in neighborhoods of their own - ghettos, if you will; this is merely the Italian term for it, the negative associations came relatively late. They mostly spoke their own language - Yiddish or Hebrew - and worked in semi-autonomous communities, though they did have some contacts with the general population. The Enlightenment, and the Emancipation that came with it, changed that. Or, well, the possibility of emancipation. We’ll get to that. Anyway, some Jews, probably those with contacts in the government or the general non-Jewish population, joined the flow of knowledge and learned general science and philosophy. In time, those Jews became the Haskalah Movement - a movement bent on causing Jews to learn more about things outside the Torah. One such person, a prominent member of the Haskalah movement, was Moses Mandelssohn.

Madelssohn was a German Jew, and a great philosopher at his time; he conversed with many gentile philosophers, won awards - surpassing Immanuel Kant for a prize, one time. He got special permission from the king to live in Berlin - and yes, most Jews didn't have this right this easily, sadly. He was also a G-d fearing Jew, well appreciated by at least some of the rabbis of his era.

The thing is, though, in all that fame and renown and contacts with gentile philosophers... Well, he was somewhere in between, sometimes a complete outsider to the people he discussed with; a great example for this is the Lavater incident.

Johann Kaspar Lavater was a Swiss Christian theologian who met Mandelssohn and discussed with him about his opinion on Jesus. Then, one day, he sent him a book of evidence on the truth of Christianity and asked him to either disprove the claims of the book or to convert to Christianity. Mandelssohn found himself trapped; if he'd prove Christianity wrong, it wouldn't do well with the people surrounding him, who were mostly Christians; if he'd refuse to dispute the book's claims, it will seem like Judaism has no answer; in short, Lavater has pushed him to the corner. His reply to that was a public letter, in which he says (among other things) that he thinks that one can appreciate the wisdom of another without trying to convert him. But a point has been made: it is hard for a Jew to both stay true to his religion and converse with Christian scholars.

One more point I'd like to make, in relation to Mandelssohn, is what in the end became his legacy: a translation of the Torah (the Pentateuch) to the German language. He started on this project for various reasons: one, that Christian translations were bound to be Christian in nature, and unfitting for Jews as a result; two, that most Jews at the time studied a Yiddish translation of the Torah, which he saw as an unfitting language for its complexity; and three, to help Jews get closer to the general German culture by helping them learn German.

Moses Mandelssohn was a great Jewish scholar and philosopher; he had a few things to say both about the Jewish Halacha and about philosophy, but he's remembered the most due to his translation. Remembered - and sometimes despised for it. You see, it worked; it did get Jews to learn German and be better integrated to the general culture. But it also had a negative impact on the religion. More on that later.

The Haskalah movement, because of the aforementioned gap between Judaism and general society, adopted the motto "be a Jew at your home, and a person outside". All that was bound to cause a problem.

Most of what I wrote so far is about Germany. This is because it was a huge center of enlightenment. Similar things happened in France, and to a lesser extent in easter Europe, in countries like Poland, Ukraine and Russia; in the Muslim countries - like North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and Yemen - the effects were less immediate, due to the Enlightenment being a European movement. It reached them via colonialism and education centres funded by European Jews, instead, and that actually made the Jews the enlightened people of this area, thus avoiding the gap the European Maskilim fell into. The Yemen Jews who accepted the Haskalah ideas mostly just estranged themselves from Jewish mysticism; the Jewish community in Babbel - Iraq of today - first accepted a school funded by French Jews, only to find out about the negative impact it had religiously and stop sending their children there. The North African Jews received French citizenship far easier than the Muslims around them, and many of them went to live at France at some point, though I don't know how they reacted to the ideas of the Haskalah.

That will be it for today, I'm afraid. I planned on talking about much more, but I delayed quite a lot in delivering in my promise. So this is the first chapter in the series, I don't know how many more I will post.