HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL

(Foremost Orthodox Rabbi in Germany, 1808-88). “Av - Jeremias.” Autograph Manuscript in German, with occasional use of Hebrew, with corrections in the same hand. The portion concludes with a short Hebrew prayer for good health.

pp. 5. Folio.
1857
Autograph manuscript of Samson Raphael Hirsch’s lead article on the Hebrew month of Av, published in the August 1857 issue of Jeschurun, the Orthodox monthly periodical that was edited by Hirsch himself, the rabbi of the secessionist Orthodox “Israelitische Religions-Gesellschaft” in Frankfurt am Main. In this article Samson Raphael Hirsch comments on Jeremiah Ch. 16:19 - Ch. 17:14 in which the Prophet emphasizes the need to place one’s trust in God and not in man. Hirsch reflects how the Jews lost their Land, yet took with them their God. This spiritual heritage became their strength and the core of their survival in the Diaspora for eighteen hundred years. He comments at length on the Christian flaw of seeing the Jewish nation as cast off by God due to their sins. Hirsch asserts that the Jews are the Chosen People and that their laws and ethical principles became the foundation of other religions. He sees God’s blessing in the survival of the spiritual heritage of the Jewish people which is built upon individual faith and trust in God. Published in: Jeschurun. Jg. 3. 5617 =1856/1857, Heft 11 (August 1857), pp. 547-56 [manuscript text is complete]