Conclusion

This chapter assesses the achievement of the Jewish Reformation by exploring Martin Buber’s and Franz Rosenzweig’s Jewish Counter-Reformation critique of it. Buber’s and Rosenzweig’s claim that the Jewish Reformation embodies a spiritually vacuous, craven account of Judaism whose final goal is social acceptance and economic advancement is rejected. It is argued that the Jewish Reformation Bible translations show security in a Judaism continuous with rabbinic tradition while Buber’s and Rosenzweig’s attempt to leap over rabbinic tradition to return to a “naked encounter” with the Bible evinces deep insecurity about their Judaism and their attempt to Germanicize the Bible reflects anxiety about the Jews’ place in German society. The dramatic, emotionally intense “archaic modernism” of Buber’s and Rosenzweig’s radical return to tradition is contrasted with the steady, learned spirituality of Mendelssohn’s, Zunz’s, and Hirsch’s middle-class Judaism.

The Fracturing of German Judaism

This chapter explores the sectarian Orthodoxy of Hirsch’s Pentateuch. It is argued that the immediate context for Hirsch publishing his Pentateuch was the stunning success of the moderate Reformer Ludwig Philippson’s Israelite Bible (Israelitische Bibel). Philippson presented his Bible as an inclusive work to unite all German Jews including the Orthodox. It is shown that an important motivation for Hirsch’s Pentateuch was to prevent Orthodox communities from accepting Philippson’s Bible. Hirsch’s and Philippson’s Bibles are compared and connected to their opposing stances on the “Secession Controversy” of the 1870s that centered on the right of Orthodox congregations to withdraw from the governmentally-recognized official Jewish community. It is demonstrated that while Hirsch came to embrace the moniker “Orthodox” in 1854, during the “Secession Controversy” he distinguished his Neo-Orthodoxy from Ultra-Orthodoxy through a biting attack on the leading Ultra-Orthodox rabbinical authority in Germany at the time, Rabbi Seligmann Bamberger. While the early Hirsch presented a new, inclusive vision of German Judaism through his reading of the Bible in the Nineteen Letters, it is argued that the later Hirsch’s sectarian Neo-Orthodoxy which he grounded through his Pentateuch translation and commentary became emblematic of the irreparable fragmentation of German Judaism.

Biblical Education and the Power of Conversation

This chapter covers the role of Bible translation in Mendelssohn’s endeavor to effect a reformation Jewish society by reimagining Jewish education. It explores Mendelssohn’s childhood education and his critique of the prevailing system of German Jewish education for males. Mendelssohn’s conception of the goal of education, his view of Yiddish, his understanding of biblical aesthetics, and his account of the roles of the Bible and rabbinic teachings in Jewish education is analyzed. The place of gender and class in Mendelssohn’s approach to Jewish education is investigated. The connection between Mendelssohn’s efforts to reform Jewish education, his attempt to restructure the hierarchy of German Jewish society and his argument for Jewish civil rights are explored. It is argued that Mendelssohn uses Protestantism and Catholicism as conceptual categories to elaborate his enlightened, bourgeois concept of Judaism.

Bible translation and the centrality of the synagogue

This chapter analyzes Zunz’s Bible translation, situating it within the context of Zunz’s critique of the traditional Ashkenazic system of Jewish education that he experienced personally. Zunz’s assessment of Moses Mendelssohn and his vision for Jewish education that steers a middle path between the “sham Enlightenment“ of Jewish youth and the “blind faith” of older Jewish traditionalists are presented. The role of gender in Jewish education and the centrality of the synagogue in Zunz’s Bible translation project are explored. Zunz’s Bible translation is set in relation to that of his teacher, the Bible critic Wilhelm De Wette as a way of comparing liberal German Protestantism and liberal German Judaism in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It is shown how Zunz uses Protestantism and Catholicism as exemplary categories aligning his vision of Judaism with Protestantism while rejecting forms of Judaism that he deems “Catholic.”

The Bible as Cultural Translation

This chapter explores three aims of Mendelssohn’s Bible translation project: (1) strengthening Jewish national sentiment and halakhic practice, (2) invigorating German nationhood; and (3) fostering love and tolerance between German Jews and Christians. Mendelssohn aimed to strengthen Jewish national sentiment by revealing the beauty and rationality of the Bible. He sought to bolster halakhic practice by defending the Masoretic Text of the Bible and rabbinic interpretation. He aimed to invigorate German nationhood by using Bible translation to enrich the German language and contribute to a cosmopolitan vision of Germanness. By translating the Hebrew Bible into German, he sought to illustrate the translatability of religious truth thereby fostering tolerance and love between German Jews and Christians. Mendelssohn translated two main biblical texts-- the Pentateuch and the Psalms. His aims and exegetical methods in the two works are compared. The aims and methods of Mendelssohn’s Bible translations are also compared with two German Protestant translations with which he was familiar: Luther’s 1545 translation and the 1735 Radical Enlightenment Wertheim Bible of Johann Lorenz Schmidt. The claim that Luther’s translation is closer to the Hebrew original than Mendelssohn’s is refuted. Comparing Mendelssohn’s translation with Schmidt’s Wertheim Bible illustrates similarities and differences between Mendelssohn’s moderate religious rationalism and Schmidt’s radical religious rationalism.

Introduction

The Introduction lays out the subject matter, problem, and plan of the book. A central theme is the emergence of middle-class German Judaism and the fraught dynamics of German Jews’ quest for legal and social equality. The connection between Bible translation and a “Jewish Reformation” and the importance of Protestant categories of religion are investigated. Three forms of bourgeois, middle-class German Judaism are explored: Moses Mendelssohn’s Haskalah, Leopold Zunz’s moderate Reform, and Samson Raphael Hirsch’s Neo-Orthodoxy. It is argued that bourgeois German Judaism is best understood as a spiritual enterprise where social and economic advancement are means to religious development and ethical responsibility.

Translation versus Midrash

This chapter covers Leopold Zunz’s account of the relationship between the Bible and rabbinic literature in his pioneering 1832 work The Sermons of the Jews. The book is situated in several contexts. These include the Protestant scholar Wilhelm De Wette’s use of biblical scholarship to oppose granting Jews greater civil rights by casting rabbinic Judaism as degenerate and alien to the noble “Hebraic” strata of the Bible and a Catholic call for a reformation of Judaism based on rejecting the Talmud and returning to the Bible. Zunz’s use of historical scholarship in The Sermons to ground religious reforms, demonstrate the organic connection between the Bible and rabbinic literature, and explicate the roles of Bible translation and Midrash in preserving Judaism as living religion of spirit is explored.

The Road to Orthodoxy

This chapter covers Hirsch’s controversies following his failed attempt to create a unifying vision of German Judaism. Hirsch gradually evolved from a “man of no party” to a polemical, sectarian “Orthodox” Jew as he came to see himself as representing an embattled minority within German Judaism. Hirsch’s polemics with the leading Reformers of his age, Abraham Geiger and Samuel Holdheim, and the leading Positive-Historical scholars Heinrich Graetz and Zacharias Frankel are explored. Hirsch’s use of Mendelssohn to defend his views is presented. This chapter also covers the role of Protestantism and Catholicism in Hirsch’s bourgeois Neo-Orthodoxy and his critique of the idea that Judaism is a religion.

The Innovative Orthodoxy of Hirsch’s Pentateuch

This chapter covers Hirsch’s translation and commentary on the Pentateuch exploring the anti-historicist premise on which it is founded. It is shown that Hirsch develops an entirely novel account of the relationship between the Bible and rabbinic literature to defend this premise, drawing on the scholarship of his opponent Zacharias Frankel to develop his view. Hirsch’s Pentateuch and Psalms translations and commentaries are compared. This chapter also presents Hirsch’s views on the cultural value of translation, impediments to translation, Hebrew, and Yiddish. The aims and methods of Hirsch’s Bible are analyzed and compared with Luther’s, Mendelssohn’s, and Zunz’s Bibles.

A Man of No Party

This chapter covers the role of Bible translation in Hirsch’s youthful Nineteen Letters on Judaism. Hirsch was educated in the tradition of Mendelssohn’s moderate Haskalah, and he came to see his mission as defending Judaism on a new basis. Hirsch developed a new vision of Judaism by engaging with four central German Jewish ideologies of his day: Haskalah, Wissenschaft des Judentums, Reform, and Jewish traditionalism. Hirsch criticized elements of these ideologies while weaving other elements into a new account of Judaism that would unite German Jews. In the Nineteen Letters he used Bible translation to elaborate this new vision. This chapter also explores Hirsch’s concept of Jewish education and gender.