Shiur #09: R. Hirsch and the Details of Mitzvot
In last week’s shiur, we noted that R. Hirsch rejects practical or hygienic explanations for mitzvot, as well as historically contextual explanations. He is also critical of explanations that ignore the details of mitzvot or the Oral Law’s elucidation of the mitzvot. In this shiur, we will move from the general overview to concrete examples of his method.
Ta’amei ha-mitzvot (rationales for commandments) play a major role in R. Hirsch’s commentary on the Torah, in his Horeb, and in a long essay he wrote on “Jewish Symbolism” that appears in the third volume of his Collected Writings (Feldheim: New York, 1984). In that essay, he explains the commandments of brit mila, tzitzit, tefillin and the mishkan. The difference between R. Hirsch’s and Rambam’s approach emerges quite sharply.
Rambam explains that tefillin and tzitzit belong to a category of commandments that remind us to acknowledge God and to love and revere Him (Guide of the Perplexed 3:44). He views circumcision as a commandment intended to weaken sexual desire and to provide a bodily marker of Jewish identity (Guide of the Perplexed 3:49). Questions such as why circumcision must take place during the daytime or why we put on the tefillin shel yad (the tefillin worn on the arm) before the tefillin shel rosh (the tefillin worn on the head) do not interest him in the slightest. Indeed, as we saw in the last shiur, Rambam writes that we should not search for reasons for the details of mitzvot (Guide of the Perplexed 3:26).
In contrast, R. Hirsch insists that an adequate explanation must work out the details as well. According to his understanding, the tefillin shel yad represent dedicating our actions to God, while the tefillin shel rosh represent dedicating our thoughts to God. We lay phylacteries on the hand first to demonstrate that in Judaism, religious actions are more significant than theoretical speculation. We have already encountered the primacy of practice as an important theme for R. Hirsch.
In the same vein, seemingly technical details teach important messages. The four passages in the Torah that mention tefillin comprise the text that is found inside the boxes of the tefillin. All four passages are in one compartment in the shel yad but in four separate compartments in the shel rosh. R. Hirsch writes that this indicates that our thoughts incorporate a variety of distinct and important themes but those disparate themes must be united in one purposeful life of Jewish practice. We place the parchment in batim (literally = houses, the term in halakhic literature for the boxes of the tefillin) because a house symbolizes stability and permanence. Those batim must be square because while nature can produce round items, only the human being called upon by tefillin is capable of producing square objects.
The Torah explicitly says that tzitzit remind us to adhere to the commandments. R. Hirsch points out that humanity adopted garments as a result of the first sin. Thus, garments appropriately remind us to keep God’s word. The fringes of the tzitzit unite the white of universalism with the blue of Jewish particularism. Each fringe has a knotted section and a part that hangs loose to symbolize that the Torah restrains humanity but also allows for human freedom to flourish.
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