Yisrael Kashkin
Four decades ago, I attended a lecture by Stokely Carmichael, the famous civil rights activist and champion of the global pan-African movement. During the Q&A, a young African American college student expressed to Carmichael his feelings of solidarity with and admiration of Carmichael but also his feelings of confusion since on numerous matters he and Carmichael differed. I don’t recall the entirety of Carmichael’s characteristically energetic response, but I remember vividly the words with which he concluded: “You fight your fight, and I will fight my fight. Our backs will touch.” The young man seemed relieved. Carmichael was saying that we don’t have to agree on everything to be comrades in our struggle.
This brings me to Baal Shem Tov and R. Samson Raphael Hirsch. It is commonly thought that Hasidim and German Jews (Yekkes) are worlds apart.[1] R. Yehonasan Gefen tells the story of how Yekke parents were “shocked” to hear that one of their sons wanted to be a Skverer Hasid. To them, Skverer Hasidus seemed like another world. They consulted with R. Yaakov Kamenetsky, who advised them to send him to the Skverer yeshiva.[2]
With Hasidim emerging from Eastern Europe and the Yekkes from Germany, there are cultural differences, often viewed inaccurately by outside groups through a lens that exaggerates them into a cliché. However, Hasidim with their long coats, beards, and sidelocks are visually distinguishable from traditional Yekkes with their short coats (the term Yekke might originate from the word jacket), goatees, and standard halakhic peyot. Hasidim often daven after the zeman and are somewhat casual with time. Yekkes, famously, are punctual.
More significantly, Hasidic thought and even practice is based partially on Kabbalah, which Yekkes are not commonly associated with, although allegations that they are averse to it are likely exaggerated. R. Elie Munk’s commentary on Humash is replete with references to the Zohar,[3] and Kabbalah was important in the lives of Yekkes Ahron Marcus[4] and Moreinu Yaakov Rosenheim among others.[5] Equally significant, Hasidic practice, particularly in the liturgy, constitutes somewhat of a departure from Ashkenazi tradition as it incorporated liturgy and practices of Sephardim as well as those derived from Kabbalah. The Yekkes pride themselves on strict adherence to the customs of historic Ashkenaz. There is no departure, “not even one iota” as they like to say, even though that’s not 100% accurate.[6]
Additionally, Hasidus emphasizes a personal connection to the tzadik, and that is not a prominent feature of modern era German Jewish writings. Hasidim enjoy communicating ethics via stories, while German Jewry, at least over the last two hundred years, relies more on ethical sermons.
When it comes to the Yekkes of the Hirschian communities of Frankfurt and Washington Heights, New York the contrast is even starker. Hirschians, with their program of Torah Im Derekh Eretz, welcome “all good and true culture,”[7] as long as Torah is “the yardstick by which we measure all the results obtained by other spheres of learning,”[8] and Hasidim generally isolate themselves from the broader society and secular studies.
So, Hasidim and Yekkes are opposites, right? Not so fast. When we look beyond appearances and consider more of the different traits that characterize a group, similarities emerge. As R. Hirsch’s grandson, R. Yosef Breuer writes, “At first glance, the program of Torah Im Derech Eretz appears to be in complete contrast to the so-called ‘Chassidic Jewishness’—which has also lately become a catchword. However, this is true only when a distorted view is mistaken for the true picture of both aforementioned concepts of Jewish living, both designed to chart the course towards the fulfillment of God-willed tasks in our lives.”[9] Hasidim, particularly those from Chabad, share traits with Yekkes, particularly those of the Hirschian communities in Frankfurt, Germany and Washington Heights in New York City. It is about R. Hirsch and the Hirschian communities that I will speak.
For starters, there is the comprehensive kehillah. Hasidic groups tend to have their own hedarim, yeshivot, kollelim, batei din, mikva’ot, social halls, and even kashrut agencies. It’s the same with the German Jewish community in Washington Heights. Continuing in the tradition of Hirsch’s kehillah in Frankfurt, K’hal Adath Jeshurun (KAJ) in Washington Heights has an elementary school, a boy’s high school, a kollel, a beit din, a mikveh, a social hall, and a kashrut agency. It formerly included a girls’ high school, a post-high school seminary, and a post-high school Beit Midrash program. It is led by a community rabbi who supervises not only the synagogue but all the aforementioned institutions just as Hasidic groups are led by a Rebbe, who is a community leader.
This approach provides for efficiency, community identification, and warmth, which is important in religious practice. Along those lines, Hasidim are known for being haimish and the Yekkes pride themselves on Gemütlichkeit, which is a German word for warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. While people who don’t know Yekkes often assume them to be cold, I have found that Gemütlichkeit in the Yekke community, particularly in the old-timers, is real.
Baal Shem Tov and R. Samson Raphael Hirsch had similar missions. Both emerged to address the needs of downtrodden or lost Jews. Baal Shem Tov came to the rescue of impoverished Jews in Eastern Europe. As R. Breuer explains Hasidus “met the needs of the Jewish masses who lived in terrible misery and thus spread rapidly. Tefillah was projected into the foreground from which flowed strength and faith in God; dances and songs induced enthusiasm, and joyfulness; the stress on human and humane qualities increased the self-respect of the impoverished.”[10]
The Lubavitcher Rebbe describes other aspects of the situation that the Hasidic movement addressed:
Before the dawn of Chassidus, many Jewish communities lacked harmony. A gulf, rarely breached, separated the common folk from the scholarly elite. In many regions, that chasm had become so deeply entrenched that the townsmen who identified with either of the two diverse groups even congregated in separate shuls.
For many individuals, a similar cleavage marred the harmonious cross-fertilization that should spark all the positive components of one’s inner world. For such individuals, Divine service had been defined almost exclusively in terms of erudition. The potential fire and energy possessed by every soul were often allowed to lie dormant.[11]
The Rebbe goes on to detail how the study of Hasidus taps into a Jew’s spiritual essence, creating harmony within one’s personality and within the community.
Strategies for lifting people up in addition to those listed by R. Breuer and the Rebbe were employed. Among them were the wearing of regal clothing, comradery (rather than competition), the honoring of the working man and the simple Jew, connection to a tzadik which serves largely to inspire, and the pursuit of joyous religious service.
Similarly, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, originally from Hamburg, wrote his first two books—The Nineteen Letters and Horeb—for the lost Jewish youth of the German Confederation, formerly the Holy Roman Empire. They were not materially impoverished, but they were distant from religious traditions to varying degrees, oftentimes completely. A decade and a half later, in 1851, he left a prestigious rabbinical post overseeing fifty-two communities and 60,000 Jews in Moravia to assume leadership over a small kehillah of 100 members in Frankfurt.[12] While once a great city of Torah, Frankfurt, by the mid-19th century, was rife with assimilation. Emanuel Schwarzschild (1825–1896) reported that in the 1840s, regular prayer services could be found in only two locations, with no guarantees of a minyan in either one of them. He said that in 1840, when he was 15, he was “the only one of my age group who still put on tefillin.”[13]
Hasidus emphasizes joy. Baal Shem Tov is reported to have said that sometimes the yetzer hara entices a person to sin not merely for the sin itself but for the resulting depression over the sin which is more damaging than the sin itself.[14] Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, great-grandson of Baal Shem Tov, said, “However, be aware that depression prevents a person from guiding the mind in the directions that he desires, and makes it difficult to compose himself. It is only by means of joy that a person is able to direct his mind where he wants, and in this manner to settle his mind.”[15] Elsewhere, Rebbe Nachman said, “At first you have to make yourself as happy as possible with everyday things. From that, you can come to true joy.”[16]
Like Baal Shem Tov and his talmidim, R. Hirsch advocated a religious practice that was suffused with joy. In his article, “Jewish Serenity,” he writes that “To the people of our day Judaism appears as asceticism, sombre self-castigation, as a musty product of the ghetto which considers innocent laughter here on earth as a sin, and enjoyment and mundane pleasure as a crime.” However, the Torah promises us blessings, health, wealth, and peace for our loyalty to the ways of God. He continues, “Sorrow breaks, sadness unnerves, mourning consumes man; but cheerfulness of heart and joyful vivacity exalt, revive and strengthen man, and endow him with the inner strength victoriously to brave the most crushing lows of external violence.”[17] He writes elsewhere, “It is not in sorrow and sadness, not in self-castigation and torture that Judaism reaches its highest level; its holiest goal is serenity, gladness, and joy.”[18]
Hasidim value what we frequently call “the simple Jew,” but who really isn’t so simple and is capable of great accomplishments. In Chabad thought, the innermost portion of a Jew’s soul is bound up with the Divine, and this equips each one of us with tremendous potential.[19] Viewing each Jew this way causes him to feel special and to be engaged in his religious life. Rabbi Chaim Kastel once told me that a Hasidic shul will never fold because each Hasid feels at home there and sees the shul as his own.
While Hasidic literature contains countless stories about the powers of rebbes, it also contains stories of these “simple Jews” demonstrating religious devotion and performing noble needs. In one of his discourses, Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, explains that the soul vivifies the entire body but the lower organs follow its dictates best. Offering the metaphor of a heel in hot water, he explains that the heel lags far behind the head intellectually, but when entering a tub of hot water, a person leads with the heel. Along these lines, the people of the generation before the Messiah, the heel of the generations, have the capacity for tremendous mesirat nefesh. One of those in attendance at his delivery of this oral discourse was motivated to start a society whose members would rise at 3 AM to recite Tehillim and study halakhah. The Rebbe praised their sincerity and wholesomeness. A prestigious Hasid, a diamond merchant, questioned the Rebbe’s interest in them. “I don’t see it,” said the Hasid. The Rebbe asked him to lay some diamonds on the table, which he did, while pointing out the really special ones. “I don’t see it,” said the Rebbe. “You must be a maiven,” said the merchant. Said the Rebbe, “On a Jew, one must be a maiven.” [20]
R. Hirsch shares this democratic sensibility. He notes that Moshe’s praise and defense of the prophecy of Eldad and Medad follows the appointment of the seventy elders, and “proclaims that by the appointment of the highest intellectual and spiritual authority in Israel, no monopoly in intellectuality or spirituality is to be formed, that the spiritual gifts of God are in no way dependent on office or profession, and that the lowest in the nation could be considered equally worthy of the spirit of God as the first official in the highest office.”[21] Accordingly, many people from the Hirschian Kehillah went on to make important contributions to Jewish scholarship, outreach, and building of religious communities and infrastructure as well as developing their own religious personalities to impressive levels and serving as examples to others.
Hasidim also encourage the earning of parnassah and praise those who do it. While Hasidim have kollelim of their own, many Hasidic youths go out to work, and proudly so. Hasidic philosophy even points out the superiority of involvement in the world via work. The Lubavitcher Rebbe tells us that a dirah b’tahtonim, a dwelling place for the Divine, is built primarily by those in the workforce who employ the physical world for the sake of G-d. For this reason, until the Messiah arrives, the number of Jews in the workforce will greatly outnumber those studying Torah fulltime.[22]
Similarly, R. Hirsch points out that “The Talmud places great value on people earning an independent livelihood, so as not to need charitable assistance.” He says that the Sages of the Talmud taught without payment and most of them worked in various trades including handicraft, agriculture, and trade.[23] R. Breuer speaks of “choice of vocation for our mature youth,” as a key responsibility for parents, involving identification of their children’s talents. “Alas, the wrongly chosen profession often results in acute dissatisfaction or, worse, utter emptiness.” While stressing the importance of Torah study, he cites Avot 2:2, “Torah study that is unconnected with practical work ultimately ceases to exist and results in transgression,” and advises that while we should encourage students to study Torah after high school, they should do so while preparing for a professional career.[24]
Hasidism pursues heightened awareness of God via recitation of Tehillim, study of Hasidus, which consists partially of descriptions of Divinity (Elokut) and the workings of higher worlds and their connection to our world, hitbodedut (prayerful meditation), and hitbonenut (reflection on Hasidic thought).
R. Hirsch stresses persistent awareness of God and recognition that life and meaning flow only from Him. He writes, “To love means to feel one’s being only through and in the being of another. ‘To love God’ therefore, means to feel that one’s own existence and activity are rendered possible and obtain value and significance only through God and in God. You exist and are something only through God; and therefore in all that you are and do, you have only to strive to reach God—that is, to perform His will.”[25] He writes, “The God Whose Name assigns the priest his place among the Jewish people is a God of life, His most exalted manifestation is not the power of death that crushes strength and vitality but the power of life that enables man to exercise free will and to be immortal.”[26]
While some segments of the Orthodox Jewish world emphasize Torah study with such fervor that they seem at times to neglect the rest of the mitzvot, Hasidim emphasize the importance of mitzvot and are credited with uplifting the standards of mitzvah observance in America. In the words of R. Berel Wein, “Not to be minimized is that their strict observances of kashruth and dress became the standard by which many other groups measure their own behavior. Chassidic garb, custom, and practice gradually gained ascendancy in American Orthodoxy and influenced all groups greatly.”[27] Hasidim, or at least Chabad, speak of forming a connection with God via observance of mitzvot. The word tzavta–צותא means bond in Aramaic and shares a root with the word mitzvah–מצוה.[28] The Almighty “can step into the realm of finiteness and give man a means of bonding with Him” via the performance of mitzvot.[29]
R. Hirsch and his talmidim also emphasize mitzvot. R. Hirsch writes, “Thy commandments are the end which I love; all other things have value to me only to the extent that they serve as means to the attainment of this end.”[30] Hirschian R. Leo Jung asserts that the ideals taught in the Torah must be “translated into life” and “Only the Jew who lives true to this all-embracing program of the Torah, can receive such benefit.” Central to this program are the “profound ennobling influence of the Mitzvoth (Ceremonies).”[31]
R. Hirsch’s book Horeb guides us through the details and meaning of mitzvot that are applicable today in the daily lives of Jews. He describes the symbolism of mitzvot that many look upon as incomprehensible decrees like shaatnez and the prohibition of eating milk with meat. His commentary on Humash does the same with many more mitzvot. His 260-page essay “Jewish Symbolism” discusses different types of symbolism: symbols in history, symbolism in halakhah, and the symbolism of the mitzvot of milah, tzitzit, tefillin, and the Mishkan.[32] This encourages Jews to perform mitzvot. He even criticizes Rambam, whom he first praises as “this great man (to whom) alone we owe the preservation of practical Judaism until this present day,” who nevertheless, stressed philosophical excellence at the expense of action.[33]
For R. Hirsch, mitzvot refine us and shape our thoughts and actions to operate in the ways of God and Torah ideals. This allows for true enjoyment and a recognition of God’s love:
In the Jewish land, where the Divine law has full scope, nothing was supposed to germinate or blossom or ripen without bringing the Jew obligations as well as enjoyment. A duty is attached to every enjoyment, and it alone gives the enjoyment its true taste by turning what otherwise would be selfish and animal into a human acknowledgment of Divine love.[34]
As R. Breuer notes, and as we all know, Hasidim emphasize tefillah and adorn it with song. So do Yekkes. The minyan at KAJ in Washington Heights has a men’s choir. While Hasidic tefillah tends to be ecstatic, Yekke tefillah stresses kevod Shamayim and special care is made to preserve the liturgy including piyyutim and to maintain the honor of the Beit Knesset.[35] R. Hirsch wrote a commentary to the Siddur as did R. Elie Munk[36] and R. Isaiah Wohlgemuth,[37] a German Jew who was ordained at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin and later taught in Boston. R. Shimon Schwab lectured extensively on tefillah and the book Rav Schwab on Prayer was produced from the recordings.[38] And while Hasidim are given to reciting Tehillim, R. Hirsch wrote a commentary on the entire Sefer Tehillim.
Both Baal Shem Tov and R. Hirsch, with God’s help, were successful in their efforts, not just with those who they were trying to help but to Jewry as a whole. The Hasidic movement expanded rapidly to the point where Hassidim outnumbered non-Hasidim in Ashkenazi Jewry. Today there are huge Hassidic communities in North America, Europe, and Israel, and the Hasidic influence in thought, practice, and music is undeniable. I heard R. Aharon Feldman, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Litvish yeshiva Ner Yisrael in Baltimore and member of the Moetzes of the American Agudah tell a large audience that the purpose of life is to build a dwelling place for the Divine on earth. This is a Hasidic idea that is based on the Midrash Tanhuma.[39]
R. Hirsch’s teachings are what inspired Sarah Schenirer to found the Beis Yaakov movement. While fleeing to Vienna from Poland during World War One, Sarah Schenirer stopped in a shul and heard R. Moshe Flesch,[40] a disciple of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, expressing ideas from R. Hirsch about the important role of women in Jewish history. This inspired her to establish the first Beis Yaakov school for girls. Sarah Schenirer was assisted by Rabbi Dr. Leo (Shmuel) Deutschländer of Berlin who took on the financial and pedagogical management of Bais Yaakov[41] and Judith Rosenbaum (later Grunfeld), an alumnus of Hirsch’s Realshule, who was instrumental to the movement in teaching teachers at the fledgling Beis Yaakov of Krakow. Rosenbaum later married Hirsch translator Isadore Grunfeld, taking on the name Judith Grunfeld by which she is well known, and continued her work in London.[42] This led to the Beis Yaakov movement which, in the words of R. Berel Wein, “…wrought a major revolution in traditional Jewish life. Women’s education, in all of its variety and depth and popularity, is one of the major areas of accomplishment in the Jewish world over the past sixty years.”[43]
In 1884, R. Hirsch founded the Free Union for the Interest of Orthodox Judaism which served as the impetus for the founding of the Agudas Yisrael organization.[44] Numerous followers of R. Hirsch, such as Moreinu Yaakov Rosenheim, R. Leo Jung, and other German Jews were instrumental in setting up Orthodox Jewish institutions in America including the Agudah.[45] As with Hasidic ideas, R. Hirsch’s writings, particularly his classic commentary on Humash, is found in all segments of Orthodox Jewry. I recently spotted a set of the Hirsch Humash in Hebrew in a Yerushalmi shul in Israel.
Certainly, there are differences between Hasidim and Hirschian Yekkes as I described earlier, but the similarities are significant and seem more than coincidental. Interestingly, each is described as necessary for national redemption. Baal Shem Tov reported that he encountered the Messiah and asked when he will appear to lead the redemption. The Messiah cited Mishlei (5:16) when “your wellsprings will be disseminated outward.” This is taken as a reference to the teachings of Baal Shem Tov, to Hasidus.[46] Likewise, R. Breuer reports that a day before his father R. Shlomo Breuer passed away his father told him, “I am firmly convinced that the way shown by Rav Hirsch will be mekarev ha’geulah. A sacred testament.”[47]
Baal Shem Tov and R. Samson Raphael Hirsch and their respective followers each have engaged in a project, a boxing match if you will, against various forces that were bearing down on Jewry. The battles took place in different parts of the world, under different conditions. Today, battles continue not so much in different parts of the world but in the hearts of different kinds of people. Baal Shem Tov fought his fight, and R. Hirsch fought his fight. Their backs touched.
[1] R. Hirsch was a German Jew, born in Hamburg. His primary teachers were Hakham Isaac Bernays (1792–1849) and R. Yaakov Ettlinger (1798–1871). Bernays was born in Weisenau (now Mainz), Germany and Ettlinger in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany.
[2] R. Yehonasan Gefen, Weekly Parsha Sheet, “Bereishis–Finding the Truth.”
[3] See for example R. Elie Munk, The Call of the Torah (Brooklyn: Artscroll, 1992) Bereishis 2:17, 3:24, 7:6, 12:5; Vayikra 19:2, 23:2; Devarim 4:39, 26:4, 21:11, 16:18, 4:35; R. Munk also cites Hasidim like the Hidushei HaRim in R. Munk on Vayikra 23:2 and Vayikra 23:3 and the Sfat Emet in R. Munk on Devarim 11:27.
[4] For more on Ahron Marcus, see Shlomo Zuckier, Ahron Marcus: The Leading Hasidic, Zionist, Scholar of Ancient Judaism You Never Heard of, The Lehrhaus, February 27, 2017 (accessible at https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/ahron-marcus-the-leading-hasidic-zionist-scholar-of-ancient-judaism-you-never-heard-of/.
[5] Rabbi A. Leib Scheinbaum, The World That Was: Ashkenaz (Brooklyn: The Shaar Press, 2010), 393–94.
[6] Nusakh Frankfurt might be the most authentic but even there one finds additions such as Lekha Dodi. The Rodelheim Siddur sandwiches birkos haTorah between asher yatzar and Eloki neshamah rather than positioning it in the traditional spot before korbonot and contains Berich Shemei.
[7] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Pentateuch, (Gateshead: Judaica Press, 1989), Genesis 3:24, trans. Isaac Levy.
[8] Hirsch, The Pentateuch, Leviticus 2, 18:4–5.
[9] R. Yosef Breuer, “Our Way,” in A Unique Perspective: Rav Breuer’s Essays 1914-1973 (New York: Feldheim, 2010), 387.
[10] Dr. David Kranzler and Rabbi Dovid Landesman, Rav Breuer: His life and His Legacy (Nanuet, NY: Feldheim, 1998), 227.
[11] Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, Tackling Life’s Tasks: Every Day Energized with HaYom Yom, 4-5; See Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 15, 281ff. The selection presented here is available online at https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/3314965/jewish/19-Kislev.htm.
[12] Mordechai Breuer, “Samson Raphael Hirsch,” in Guardians of Our Heritage, ed. Leo Jung (New York: Bloch Publishing, 1958), 279.
[13] Eliyahu Meir Klugman, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: Architect of Torah Judaism for the Modern World (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1996), 116. See also Yisrael Kashkin, “Austritt—A Tale of Two Cities,” Hakirah 22, (Spring 2017): 259, available at https://hakirah.org/Vol22Kashkin.pdf.
[14] Tzava’at HaRivash, ch. 44, as related in Rabbi Shloma Majeski, The Chassidic Approach To Joy (Brooklyn: Sichos In English, 1995), Publisher’s Foreword.
[15] Likutey Moharan (Tinyana), section 10, as quoted in Lawrence Fine, “Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav’s Teachings on Melancholy and Joy,” located online at https://research.library.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=emw, third page of online PDF, page 42 in pagination therein.
[16] Sichot HaRan 177.
[17] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, “Jewish Serenity,” in Judaism Eternal, Vol. II, ed. Isidor Grunfeld (New York: Feldheim, 1956), 145–46.
[18] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, “Shevat,”in Judaism Eternal, Vol. I, 39.
[19] R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 2, 334.
[20] Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch, “Ein Hakodosh Boruch Hu Ba B’terunya,” as cited in Yanki Tauber, Once Upon a Chassid: The Wisdom and the Whimsy, The Fire and the Joy (Vaad L’hafotzas Sichos, 1999). This particular selection can be found online at https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/113865/jewish/A-Connoisseur-of-Souls.htm..
[21] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Pentateuch, Numbers 11:29. See alsoR. Yitzchak Blau, “Modern Rabbinic Thought–Lesson 6, Rav Shimshon ben Raphael Hirsch,” located online at https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/issues-jewish-thought/rabbinic-thought/rav-shimshon-ben-raphael-hirsch.
[22]Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 30,, 137ff. in The Weekly Farbrengen, #800.
[23] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, “Talmud: Its Teachings and Social Virtues,” in Judaism Eternal, Vol. II, 63–4.
[24] R. Yosef Breuer, “Vocation and Calling,” in A Unique Perspective, 496–99.
[25] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horeb (Judaica Press, 2002), 9.
[26] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Pentateuch, Leviticus 21:5.
[27] Berel Wein, Triumph of Survival (Brooklyn: The Shaar Press, 1990), 438.
[28] 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, VeKibeil HaYehudim, 1 Purim Katan, 5687. Lubavitcher Rebbe, Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 7, 30ff.; Vol. 8, 232ff.; Vol. 32, 1ff. See Eli Touger, “Making Connections: The Message of Mitzvos,” in the Sichos in English Collection, located online at https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/82595/jewish/In-the-Garden-of-the-Torah-Tzav.htm.
[29] Lubavitcher Rebbe as summarized by Eliyahu Touger, Living Jewish 960 (Aug. 16, 2024).
[30] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, Hirsch Tehillim (New York: Feldheim, 2014), 119:44-48.
[31] R. Leo Jung, “What is Orthodox Judaism?” in The Jewish Library: Second Series, ed. Leo Jung (New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1930), 116, 120. The relevant selection is available at https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=33446&st=&pgnum=112. Born in Uherský Brod, Moravia, Austria-Hungary Leo Jung (1892-1987) was introduced to R. Hirsch’s program of Torah Im Derech Eretz by his father R. Meir Tzvi Jung. He attended Cambridge University and earned a PhD from the University of London. He also studied at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin.
[32] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Volume III (Nanuet, NY: Feldheim, 1997), 3–260. For an interesting presentation on R. Hirsch’s writings on mitzvot, see Lessons 7-10 of R. Yitzchak Blau’s series, “Modern Rabbinic Thought,” at the Virtual Beit Midrash of Yeshivat Har Etzion web site, located at https://etzion.org.il/en/series/modern-rabbinic-thought-en.
[33] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Nineteen Letters: The World of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, trans. Joseph Elias (New York: Feldheim, 1995), “Letter 18.”
[34] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, “Shevat,” Collected Writings, Vol. II, 317.
[35] To R. Breuer, this was simply a matter of adhering to Jewish law. He writes: “Extensive chapters in the Shulchan Aruch stress the vital importance of cleanliness, order, and dignity in the Synagogue. Thus, these aspects in themselves have little to do with a specific ‘German Jewishness.’” Cited from “Our Way,” in Rav Breuer His Life and Legacy (Nanuet, NY: Feldheim, 1998), 385.
[36] R. Elie Munk, The World of Prayer: Commentary and Translation of the Daily Prayers (Nanuet, NY: Feldheim, 1963).
[37] R. Isaiah Wohlgemuth, A Guide to Jewish Prayer (Brookline: Maimonides School).
[38] R. Shimon Schwab, Rav Schwab on Prayer (Brooklyn: ArtScroll Mesorah Publications, 2001).
[39] Hag HaShavuot 4:6, Otzer Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 6, Moadim, 560-61 (Brooklyn: Kehot, 2019) from Sichah, 2nd day Shavuout, 5718, Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 18, Hag HaShavuout 1.
[40] “Rabbi Moshe David Flesch,” The Bais Yaakov Project, located at https://thebaisyaakovproject.religion.utoronto.ca/person/rabbi-moshe-david-flesch/. Rabbi Flesch was born in Pressburg and after studying there moved to Frankfurt where he studied with R. Salomon Breuer and became a follower of the teachings of R. Hirsch. R. Flesch took pride in his role in establishing Beis Yaakov and visited the school system in Poland before the second World War in which he perished.
[41] Raised in an orphanage in Altona, he studied at the universities of Berlin, Warburg, and Giessen, and was ordained at the Orthodox Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. “Rabbi Dr. Leo (Shmuel) Deutschländer,” The Bais Yaakov Project, located at https://thebaisyaakovproject.religion.utoronto.ca/person/rabbi-dr-leo-shmuel-deutschlander/.
[42] Sharman Kadish, “Grunfeld [née Rosenbaum], Judith (1902–1998),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (September 23, 2004) (online ed.), located at https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-75144, as referenced in her Wikipedia entry located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Grunfeld. See as well her entry at The Bais Yaakov Project located at https://thebaisyaakovproject.religion.utoronto.ca/person/judith-rosenbaum-grunfeld/.
[43] Wein, Triumph of Survival, 301.
[44] Gershon Bacon, “Agudas Yisroel,” in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, ed. Gershon David Hundert (Yale University Press, 2008).
[45] Scheinbaum, The World That Was: Ashkenaz, 395–96.
[46] Letter from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rosh Chodesh Kislev, 5711 [November 10, 1950], #815, from correspondence of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; translated by Eli Touger and published for the Sichos in English Collection as “An Explanation of the Phrase ‘Spreading the Wellsprings Outward’,” located online at https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/letters/default_cdo/aid/2277184/jewish/An-Explanation-of-the-Phrase-Spreading-the-Wellsprings-Outward.htm.
[47] Joseph Breuer, “The Relevance of the Torah Im Derech Eretz Ideal,”as quoted in the sidebar of The Torah Im Derech Eretz Society web site, located at https://www.tidesociety.org/ (accessed February 23, 2026).
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