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Untitled Document
Sociologists of religion have routinely noted
that the term "secularization" has provided a powerful
ideal type for analyzing and illuminating the course and direction
of personal and communal religious life in the modern Occident.
In employing this term, sociologists do not contend that
religion disappears from modern life. Rather, they utilize
this notion to indicate that, in the modern setting, religion comes
to be confined to ever more discrete precincts. Areas of life
that were formerly under the sway of religious imperatives and
sensibilities no longer are, and most individuals, and the
communities to which they belong, are no longer guided in these
areas by traditional religious norms and values. In such a
setting, religion increasingly comes to be compartmentalized and
restricted. People belong to multiple cultural worlds, and
there are often great differences between the values and norms that
mark those worlds. In such a situation, the dissonance
between the values advanced in the formal educational institutions
of a traditional religious community and the values that obtain in
other sectors of society to which the religious individual is
exposed is often quite pronounced. For these reasons, the
modern situation often makes it difficult for traditional religions
to maintain themselves and transmit a holistic heritage to future
generations.
Such considerations provide a significant
framework of analysis for the responsum by Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch (1808-1888) that is presented in this article. Rabbi
Hirsch was acutely aware of these matters, and the viewpoints he
advanced in this responsum show that he was fully appreciative of
the heavy and unique burden the modern setting imposed upon the
Jewish school as a transmitter of Jewish values and identity.
Rabbi Hirsch is of course famed as the foremost proponent of
the "Torah 'im derekh erets" philosophy that spawned "Modern Orthodox
Judaism." A brilliant ideologue as well as a charismatic
figure who served as the rabbi of the Israelitische
Religionsgesellschaft in Frankfurt from
1851 until his death, Rabbi Hirsch was convinced that traditional
Jewish observance and belief were compatible with modern western
culture. A prolific author who wrote on a broad array of
topics in a number of different literary genres, Rabbi Hirsch
enjoyed unparalleled fame and prestige as the foremost leader of
traditional Judaism in his time and place. His correspondence
was vast, and Jews worldwide wrote to Rabbi Hirsch for his legal
rulings and opinions on a wide array of topics.1
Among these persons was the famed Amsterdam
Orthodox philanthropist Liepmann Phillip Prins (1835-1915).
Prins turned to Rabbi Hirsch more than once as he sought
support and advice on Jewish public affairs in general and on
behalf of the Jewish educational institutions he helped establish
in particular. On one occasion, for example, Prins asked
Rabbi Hirsch to provide the Orthodox Amsterdam community with a
curricular model for the day school they were about to create.2
In the specific responsum presented in
translation below, Prins posed a different educational question to
Rabbi Hirsch. In this instance, he solicited Rabbi Hirsch's
opinion as to the obligation Jewish tradition imposed upon wealthy
and influential members of the community to provide their own
children with a Torah education. Prins took it for granted
that such people were required by tradition to maintain communal
educational institutions for the offspring of less affluent as well
as indigent Jews, and in this responsum Rabbi Hirsch explicitly
agreed with this position and labeled such support for the children
of the less affluent as "an act of loving kindness."
But Prins clearly wanted to impress upon members of his own
socio-economic class their personal responsibility to educate their
own children in traditional Jewish texts and teachings, and he
hoped that the viewpoint Rabbi Hirsch would express on this matter
would aid him in this effort.3
The response Rabbi Hirsch provided Prins
surely did not disappoint him. Indeed, the Hirsch responsum
buoyed Prins's position and strengthened Prins's resolve to provide
a meaningful Jewish education for the children of all Jews as well
as his conviction that authentic Jewish instruction for the
children of the well-to-do and powerful was particularly critical
in the present-day era of modern Europe. After all, there was
an overarching social-religious-intellectual cohesion that marked
the Jewish world of medieval Europe. That world was not
marked by the secularization of the modern situation. The
values present in the Jewish home were consistent with those that
obtained in the marketplace and the synagogue as well as in the
formal educational institutions of the community. With the
advent of the modern West, such cohesion—for the reasons put
forth in the opening paragraph of this article—no longer
existed, and the children of the wealthy were even more exposed
than other Jewish children to the lures of a non-Jewish world.
Without a vibrant and vital Jewish education, these children
and the aid they might one day provide for the Jewish people and
Jewish life would disappear. In his responsum, Rabbi Hirsch
therefore insisted that these wealthy and powerful individuals were
required to provide for the Jewish education of their own children,
and he assigned absolute priority to this obligation for the Torah
education of the offspring of the affluent.
In adopting this stance, Rabbi Hirsch showed
significant religious insight and sociological sagacity. The
policy statement he put forth in this particular writing is of
ongoing religious and sociological significance for committed
modern Jews because the thoughts Rabbi Hirsch here put forth in his
social context are reflective of our own world as well. He
correctly pointed out the crucial role that education plays in
fostering and transmitting Jewish values to each new generation of
Jews. Rabbi Hirsch also underscored the unique role that
Jewish schools were called upon to play in the differentiated
setting of the modern world if Jewish continuity and teachings were
to be maintained and passed on to a Jewish community that no longer
enjoyed the political hegemony and cultural and religious cohesion
that characterized European Jewish life in the Middle Ages.
In the contemporary setting of the modern Occident, the
Hirsch responsum remains of enduring worth as Jews continue to
grapple with the challenges and burdens confronting formal Jewish
education today. It is fitting that the thoughts Rabbi Hirsch
expressed on this occasion be disseminated to wider audience
through the translation that now follows.
A Letter From Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of Frankfurt to the Honorable Liepman Philip Prins of Amsterdam
May 29, 1873
Your Excellency turned to me with the
following question and requested an expression of my opinion on it— Is
it the obligation of the leaders of a community among the people
Israel, after they have provided for the Torah education of the
children of the poor and the middle-income [members of the
community], to do the same for the children of the well-to-do? Is
this matter not important, if not to a greater extent, at least to
the same extent as the concern for matters of the synagogue and
other interests of the community?"
In connection with this, I am honored to
respond:
The concern for the Torah education of all the
youth of the community, with no distinction between rich and poor,
is not only a portion of the obligations thrust upon the leaders of
a community; rather, it stands, without doubt, in first place among
their obligations, and other matters retreat before it. Leaders of
a community who did not do everything in their power to see to it
that all the children of the community, rich and poor, can study
Torah as required, have failed to fulfill the obligation that they
took upon themselves before God on a matter that is of supreme
import and the greatest holiness.
The law of Torah obligates us, as well as
those responsible for the administration of the affairs of a
community, concerning the absolute importance of this matter on the
basis of the following sources:
1) "Teachers for children are appointed
in every city, and if any city does not have a teacher for children
within it, a ban is pronounced upon the inhabitants of the city
until they appoint a teacher for the young. And if they do not make
such an appointment, they are destroying the city, that is, they
are undermining rather than sustaining the future existence of the
city. For the world is sustained only by the breath of
schoolchildren." (Yoreh De`ah 245:7.)
2) "Every father is obligated to hire a
teacher for his son. Comment [by Rema]—and we compel him to
hire a teacher for his son, and if he is not in the city and he has
means, if it is possible to inform him, they inform him, and if
not, his funds are expropriated and a teacher for his son is
hired."(Ibid. 245:4.)
3) "The residents of a city compel one
another jointly to hire a teacher for their children" (Ibid. 245:15).
From these laws it is absolutely clear that
the Torah education of the children of the affluent is not a
private concern of their parents alone. The Torah education of
children is a public concern attached to the entire community. The
wealthy members of a community have a mutual claim upon one another
to arrange for a comprehensive Torah education for their children,
making use of their fiscal resources. At the same time, they are
obligated to be concerned about the Torah education of the children
of the poor. According to the commentary of Rashi on Nedarim 81a, the
phrase "take heed of the children of the poor" does not
at all mean that we fulfill the obligation of concern for a Torah
education through a specific program of study for the children of
the poor. Rather, its sole intent is to protect the children of the
poor from abandonment, "that it will not be trivial in our
sight to teach them Torah." This caution receives double force
in that it emphasizes that it is precisely from the children of the
poor that great Torah scholars frequently emerge.
Yet, without a doubt, the first obligation of
the affluent and a commandment directed towards Heaven is the
concern that the Torah education of their own children takes
precedence over the education of the poor.
The commandment to teach Torah to their own
children assails them at the start, as it is the first commandment
of the father with respect to his son and his obligation to
bequeath Torah to his sons after him. Indeed, the commandment to
teach Torah to the children of the poor may be thrust upon them
indirectly only through the commandment of tsedaqah. Thus, a Jewish law
states unambiguously, "One is obligated to hire a teacher for
his son to teach him. However, he is not obligated to hire for the
son of his friend"(Yoreh De`ah 245:4).
Hence, the wealth of the affluent, from which
tax money is taken for the needs of the community, is subject first
and foremost to the Torah education of their own children, and only
afterwards to the children of the poor. The leaders of the
community who are called upon to administer the community and who
are obligated according to Jewish law as explicated above to demand
from the affluent father that he maintain Torah education from his
wealth—it is incumbent upon them to use the funds of the
wealthy first and foremost for the necessity of Torah education for
the sons of the wealthy themselves and only afterwards for the
children of the poor.
This and more. It is clear and obvious
according to the law that the holiness of the house of study is
greater than the sanctity of the synagogue, for in a time of need
it is permissible to transform our synagogues into houses of study
(Orah Hayyim
153:1), and in a time of emergency it is even permissible to sell
our Torah scrolls if it is necessary for the maintenance of Torah
education (Yoreh De`ah 270:1). From this, it is also evident that a
concern for the Torah education of the children of the rich and
poor alike is not only a matter comparable in importance to other
affairs of the community; rather, the extent of its importance, its
essentiality, and its urgency, exceeds all else. For the synagogues
as well as all the other religious institutions of the community will lose all their value and prestige, and
the glory of our synagogues and our scrolls of Torah—their
significance and content—will be reduced to objects of scorn
and derision if we are not concerned with establishing schools
which will raise our children to be faithful heart and soul to
Judaism and to be sanctified in those synagogues for the sake of
this Torah, in accord with all its statutes and judgments, from a
state of understanding and enthusiasm, and for the sake of being
servants of God in truth in the life of Israel, a life of Torah and
commandments.
And that which has been true at all times has
been elevated into a matter of unparalleled importance at the
present moment. The holy concerns of Judaism will, God forbid, be
abandoned completely if we do not succeed in arousing enthusiasm
among the children of the affluent for Torah and worship, and if we
do not raise them to become proper Jews. For they are those most
exposed to the great temptations of the time, and they are likely
to be the first who will be lost to the community of Israel if they
do not acquire a broad knowledge through the spirit of an
illuminating and exciting Torah. In this way, they will display an
honor and an enthusiastic love that elevates the prestige of Torah,
and they will not, from a lack of knowledge, distort and abandon
her in life. The study of Torah alone will permit their rescue, and
this will be only if the affluent members of our community and
their children return and understand the honor that stems from
being among those who are learned and who revere the Torah and
those who study it. Then, members of our middle class as well will
preserve their faith in God and His Torah, and the decisive
influence upon our communities will be in the hands of those who
are devoted in nobility and enthusiasm for the cause of Torah and
its holiness.
In our day, concern for the Torah education of
the poor is an act of loving kindness. However, the concern for the
Torah education of the wealthy is an act of rescue for the sake of
God and His Torah.
I hope that the leaders of your community
succeed in this great act of rescue for your community. May
God Extend his help and bestow blessing upon all the works of your
hands.
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