Thursday, August 6, 2015

Mordechai Breuer

So of course there are two that we often hear of in connection to Germany Orthodoxy. They were cousins with one being an expert in Tanach and the other a historian. Mordechai Breuer the historian was a son of Isaac Breuer. Both were great-grandsons of Rav Hirsch.



from Wiki: "Breuer wrote on extensively on History, particularly German Jewish History. His works include Modernity Within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry in Imperial Germany, (Columbia University Press: 1992) and The Torah-im-Derekh-Eretz of S.R. Hirsch (1970)."



I have been reading Modernity Within Tradition in recent months. It's a terrific work for getting an Orthodox Jew's perspective on changes within Germany. There are a number of history books written by non-observant professors about Jews in Germany- one that I looked at recently doesn't mention Hirsch, Hildesheimer, Hoffman, or YY. Weinberg even though its focus is 1848-1933. So Professor Breuer's book is quite refreshing. And he had incredible respect for Rav Hirsch. For example:

 "Hirsch's seemingly unending resourcefulness and talent for winning understanding and respect for the Torah and its laws through appeals to reason never ceased to amaze his listeners and readers. He left no question unanswered, no riddle unsolved. Religious observances that had struck enlightened people as obscure, absurd, and repulsive, suddenly shed sparkling new meaning on their noblest thoughts and endeavors. An apparently hopeless, arid desert was changed to a flowering garden." p. 20.

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