Samuel Holdheim

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Samuel Holdheim
Personal
Born1806
Kempen, South Prussia
Died22 August 1860(1860-08-22) (aged 53–54)
Berlin, Prussia
ReligionJudaism
NationalityPrussian

Samuel Holdheim (1806 – 22 August 1860) was a German rabbi and author, and one of the more extreme leaders of the early Reform Movement in Judaism. A pioneer in modern Jewish homiletics, he was often at odds with the Orthodox community.[1]

Early life

Holdheim was born at

rabbinical literature according to the methods in vogue at the Talmudical yeshivas
. Before he was able to speak German with even moderate correctness, he had become a master of Talmudic argumentation, and his fame had traveled far beyond the limits of his native place. This reputation secured for him employment as teacher of young boys in private families both in Kempen and in larger cities of his native province. It was while thus engaged that he began to supplement his store of rabbinical knowledge by private studies in the secular and classical branches.

Holdheim went to

Frederick William III
regulated the status of the Jewish congregations.

Attitude toward government

Holdheim's purpose was to bring about a change in this state of affairs. In the preface to his Gottesdienstliche Vorträge (Frankfurt (Oder), 1839) he appealed both to the government to accord the modern rabbinate the dignity due to it, and to the congregations to cease regarding the rabbi as an expert in Jewish casuistry mainly charged with the duty of answering she'elot (ritual questions) and inquiries concerning dietary laws. He insisted upon the recognition of the rabbi as preacher and teacher, who at the same time gives attention to the practical requirements of his office as the expert in Talmudical law.

While in Frankfurt, Holdheim scrupulously decided every question according to the

Midrashim and other Jewish writings. He also repeatedly took pains to arouse his congregation to help carry out Abraham Geiger's and Ludwig Philippson
's project of founding a Jewish theological faculty. Judaism even then had ceased for Holdheim to be an end unto itself. He had begun to view it as a force in the larger life of humanity.

Progressive views

Holdheim now became a contributor to the Jewish periodicals (e.g., Philippson's Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums and

Breslau. Holdheim pleads for progress, on the ground that at all times the Torah
has been taught, in accordance with the changing conditions of succeeding ages; but this progress he holds to be a gradual development, never a noisy opposition to recognized existing standards.

In the meantime Holdheim had received the degree of PhD from the

Mecklenburg-Schwerin
, leaving Frankfurt on August 15, 1840.

Hamburg Temple controversy

In his new field Holdheim gave his first attention to the founding of schools for Jewish children. The

Ḥakam Bernays' excommunication
of this prayer-book evoked, Holdheim's deserves to be ranked as the most thorough and incisive.

More controversies

Soon after, the most important work by Holdheim appeared under the title Die Autonomie der Rabbinen (Schwerin and Berlin, 1843). In this, he pleads for the abolition of the antiquated Jewish marriage and divorce regulations mainly on the ground that the Jews do not constitute a political nation. The Jewish religious institutions must be rigidly kept distinct from the Jewish national ones, to which the latter belong the laws of marriage and divorce. The laws of the modern states are not in conflict with the principles of the Jewish religion; therefore these modern laws, and not the Jewish national laws of other days, should regulate Jewish marriages and divorces (see Samuel Hirsch in Orient. Lit., 1843, No. 44). The importance of this book is attested by the stir it created among German Jewish communities, many members of which found in its attitude the solution of the problem of how loyalty to Judaism could be combined with unqualified allegiance to their German nationality. Evidence of its incisive character is furnished also by the polemical literature that grew out of it. In these discussions such men as A. Bernstein, Mendel Hess, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Zecharias Frankel, Raphael Kirchheim, Leopold Zunz, Leopold Löw, and Adolf Jellinek took part.

The foundation of the Reform Verein in

Frankfurt am Main led to another agitation in German Jewry. Einhorn, Stein, Samuel Hirsch, and others deplored the rise of the Verein as a step toward schismatic separation. The obligatory character of the rite of circumcision was the focal issue discussed by no less than forty-one rabbis. Holdheim, in his Ueber die Beschneidung zunächst in religiös-dogmatischer Beziehung (Schwerin and Berlin, 1844), takes the position that circumcision is not, like baptism, a sacrament of initiation, but is merely a command like any other. Nevertheless, he classifies it not as a national but as a Jewish law
, and pleads for its retention. Indeed, he was not unreservedly an adherent of the program of the Frankfurt Reform Verein. This is clear from his Vorträge über die mosaische Religion für denkende Israeliten (Schwerin, 1844). While the Verein assumed unlimited possibilities of development, according to Holdheim the Mosaic element, after the elimination of the national, is eternal. Religion must be placed above all temporal needs and desires. To yield to the spirit of the age would make that spirit the supreme factor and lead to the production of a new 19th century Talmud as little warranted as was the Talmud of the 5th century.

Mosaism as contained in the Bible is the continuous religion of Judaism. The belief in this revelation is the constant factor in all variants of Judaism. This is also the main thesis of Das Ceremonialgesetz im Messiasreich (Schwerin and Berlin, 1845). He shows the inconsistency of Talmudism, which, assuming the inviolability of all biblical laws, still recognizes the suspension of many. Hence the Talmudic insistence on the restoration of the Jewish state. Some ceremonial laws were meant to assure the holiness of the people; others to assure that of the priests. These ceremonies lose their meaning and are rendered obsolete the moment Israel no longer requires special protection for its monotheistic distinctness. As soon as all men have become ethical monotheists, Israel is nowhere in danger of losing its own monotheism; nor is its distinctness further required. Hence in the Messianic time, the ceremonies will lose all binding or effective force. This book, too, called forth much discussion, in which Reform rabbis like Levi Herzfeld took a stand opposed to Holdheim's. Answering some of his critics' objections, Holdheim insisted upon being recognized as an adherent of positive historic Judaism. The doctrines, religious and ethical, of biblical Judaism are, he claimed, the positive contents of Judaism; and a truly historical reform must, for the sake of these positive doctrines, liberate Judaism from Talmudism.

At rabbinical conferences and his sudden death

Holdheim took part in the rabbinical conferences at Braunschweig (1844), Frankfurt am Main (1845), and Breslau (1846). The stand taken by the last with regard to the Sabbath did not satisfy him. He rightly held it to be a weak compromise. For him the essential element of a true Sabbath was not worship, but rest (see his Offene Briefe über die Dritte Rabbinerversammlung, in Israelit, 1846, Nos. 46-48). The debates at these conferences had touched on vital subjects. Holdheim felt prompted to treat some of these at greater length, and therefore in quick succession he published the following essays: Was lehrt das Rabbinische Judenthum über den Eid? 1844; Ueber Auflösbarkeit der Eide, Hamburg, 1845; Vorschläge zu einer zeitgemässen Reform der jüdischen Ehegesetze, Schwerin, 1845; Die religiöse Stellung des weiblichen Geschlechts im talmudischen Judenthum, ib. 1846; Prinzipien eines dem gegenwärtigen Religionsbewusstsein entsprechenden Cultus, 1846.

Holdheim, consulted among others when the Jüdische Reformgenossenschaft was founded in Berlin, was called to be its rabbi and preacher in 1847, leaving Mecklenburg. As leader of the Reformgenossenschaft he had a share in the editing of its

Rosh ha-Shanah
) were abolished.

He officiated at so-called "mixed" marriages (see his Gemischte Ehen zwischen Juden und Christen, Berlin, 1850). He had to defend his congregation against many attacks (see his Das Gutachten des Herrn L. Schwab, Rabbiner zu Pesth, ib. 1848). Though engaged in many ways in the development of his society and in the organization of its institutions, during the thirteen years of his stay in Berlin he wrote a text for schools on the religious and moral doctrines of the Mishnah (Berlin, 1854), a criticism of Friedrich Julius Stahl (Ueber Stahl's Christliche Toleranz, ib. 1856), and a catechism (Jüdische Glaubens- und Sittenlehre, ib. 1857). He also wrote a history of the Reformgenossenschaft (Geschichte der Jüdischen Reformgemeinde, 1857) and a more ambitious work (in Hebrew) on the rabbinical and Karaite interpretations of the marriage laws (Ma'amar ha-Ishut, 1860).

Holdheim died suddenly at Berlin on 22 August 1860. Sachs objected to his interment in the row reserved for rabbis in the Jewish cemetery, but Oettinger granted permission for the burial. Holdheim was laid to rest among the great dead of the Berlin congregation, Abraham Geiger preaching the funeral oration.

See also

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Samuel Holdheim.
  1. ^ (History of the Jews, p. 565)[full citation needed]
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Holdheim, Samuel". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  • "Holdheim, Samuel" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 583.
  • Wiese, Christian, ed. (2006). Redefining Judaism in an Age of Emancipation: Comparative Perspectives on Samuel Holdheim (1806–1860). Leiden: Brill.

External links

Media related to Samuel Holdheim at Wikimedia Commons
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