Bar-Ilan University
Parashat Hashavua Study Center
Parashat Yitro 5771/ January 22, 2011
Lectures on the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel.
A project of the Faculty of Jewish Studies, Paul and Helene Shulman Basic Jewish Studies
Center, and the Office of the Campus Rabbi. Published on the Internet under the sponsorship
of Bar-Ilan University's International Center for Jewish Identity. Prepared for Internet
Publication by the Computer Center Staff at Bar-Ilan University. Inquiries and comments to: Dr.
Isaac Gottlieb, Department of Bible, gottlii@mail.biu.ac.il
Dr. Tova Ganzel
HaMidrashah and Department of Bible
A Look at Rabbi Hirsch's Commentary
As soon as it was published, Rabbi Hirsch's commentary on the Torah became one of the
more popular commentaries in latter nineteenth-century Germany (published between 1867
and 1878). His clear and flowing style, as well as his writing in German, made his
commentary widespread among German Jewry. Rabbi Hirsch set forth his objective in
writing a commentary on the Torah in his introduction to Genesis:
To draw on and describe … the truths on which the Jewish world view and way of life
is based, and which are the fundamental eternal laws of the Jewish people . . . to
recognize the complete oneness of spirit inspiring the Holy Writ of the Lord's word,
and to recognize that this spirit is not something which is outmoded and belongs to
bygone days, but rather lives with us in the present and contains the hope for the
future of all human aspiration.1
These words attest to Rabbi Hirsch's thorough awareness of the spirit of the times, including
the ideological polemic among the Jews themselves and between the Jews and Christian
1
All quotes from the commentary are taken from The Pentateuch translated and explained by
Samson Raphael Hirsh, trans. from German by Isaac Levy, 2 nd edition, The Judaica Press, New York,
1971.
1
Bible scholars, whose positions and theories had been gathering force primarily during the
second half of the nineteenth century. These scholars challenged interpretations that until
the 18th and 19th centuries had been considered self-evident in Bible study, and viewed
traditional Jewish approaches as antiquated and fossilized.
Through his interpretation of the Ten Commandments, we shall shed light on his indirect
polemic with the claims of Bible critics of his day.2 We shall see that Rabbi Hirsch kept his
arguments covert because his commentary was popular and widely read both by Jews
influenced by the Enlightenment and those of a more conservative bent, those who had
neither been exposed to, nor felt the need to grapple with the claims of their opponents.
Nevertheless, close reading of Rabbi Hirsch's commentary on the Torah reveals that both the
great length and the intensive dwelling on subjects that appear to be trivial are but the tip of
the iceberg of a far-reaching polemic, even though they do not appear as such at first glance.
What claims did Rabbi Hirsch have to deal with? For the most part he had to contend with
the underlying assumptions of a trend that had been spreading throughout Europe
(primarily) since the 17th century.3 Bible critics claimed that the Pentateuch in its final form
was a rather late work. They denied the historicity of the stories in the Pentateuch and were
the first to suggest that the history of the Jewish people was completely different from that
which emerges from a non-critical reading of the Bible. The underlying assumption of all the
Bible critics with whom Hirsch had to contend was that the Torah was not of divine origin
but rather a human creation.
Rabbi Hirsch openly dismissed this assumption, among other things in letters which he
published in his book, Iggerot Tzafon, as early as 1836. However, in his commentary on this
week's reading he continued to argue against these claims at great length, especially in his
interpretation of the Ten Commandments. For example, in his commentary on the verse,
"You have seen what I did to the Egyptians" (Ex. 19:4) Rabbi Hirsch wrote:
You have seen --The basis of your knowledge of God and of yourself does not rest on
belief, which can, after all, allow an element of doubt. It rests solidly on the evidence of
your own senses, on what you have seen with your own eyes, have yourselves
experienced. In exactly the same words Ch. 20:19 speaks of the fact of the revelation of
the Torah: “You have seen that I have spoken to you from the Heavens.” The two
fundamental truths on which the whole of Judaism rests, the exodus from Egypt and the
Lawgiving on Sinai, stand firmly on the actual evidence of your senses, and as they were
seen, heard, felt, and experienced simultaneously by so many hundreds of thousands of
people, every possibility of deception is ruled out. Both these fundamental truth
2
The question of the extent to which Rabbi Hirsch's commentary contends with Bible criticism is
generally approached by comparing his commentary with that of Rabbi D.Z. Hoffman (1843-1921).
Such a comparison shows marked differences between the commentaries. It is most commonly
argued that while Rabbi Hoffman's commentary is highly polemical, in comparison Hirsch's
commentary abstains from polemics.
3
Among the outstanding names in the development of Bible criticism we should mention Baruch de
Spinoza in the 17th century, Johann Gottfried Eichhorn in the early 19th century, Johann Karl Wilhelm
Vatke in the latter half of the 19th century, and especially W. M. L. De Wette, the most radical of the
Bible critics of his time (1806-1882).
2
accordingly share the highest degree of certainty, are completed out of the realm of
mere believing or thinking, are within the bounds of what we know with certainty, and
are, accordingly, irrefutable facts which must serve as the starting-point of all our other
knowledge with the same certainly as our own existence and the existence of the
material world we see about us.4
In this context we can understand the importance of his remarks further on (in his
commentary on Ex. 19:10-16):
For the Jewish Law—the Torah—is the only one that did not emanate from the people
whose constitution it was to form. Judaism is indeed the one “religion” that did not
spring from the breasts of the men who who find the spritiual basis of their lives in it. . .
Right from the beginning, the Law of God found itself in opposition to the people . . .
This opposition on the part of the people in whose midst this Law found its first home on
earth is the clearest proof of the Divine origin of Law… 5
Another basic assumption of the adherents of the critical approach to the Bible was that the
book of Deuteronomy was written and redacted after the death of Moses. Rabbi Hirsch
appears to have been acquainted not only with the general claim of the Bible critics but also
with their detailed arguments, which relied primarily on differences in the style and wording
of Deuteronomy in comparison with the other four books. Apparently for this reason Rabbi
Hirsch repeatedly stressed in his commentary on Deuteronomy that this book was written
by Moses from the mouth of the Lord on the eve of his death, later than the other books. In
this context we are to understand Rabbi Hirsch's commentary on the Decalogue as it
appears in Deuteronomy (5:6-18):
It says in v. 9 [Deut.5:9] “and on the third and fourth generation” [as opposed to Ex.20:2
where there is no vav copulative]. When we consider that in the generations he had
standing before him, not only children but grandchildren . . . we can well understand
that Moses’s thoughts and feelings did not pause at “sons” and allow him to consider
shileshim [third generation] as a fresh thought, but that he preferred to combine
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren together as one conception to a certain
degree by the copulative vav.
With this comment, R. Hirsch attributes the words of the Decalogue to Moses himself, as he
related them to the people on the eve of the entry into Canaan.
On the people's request of Moses after the theophany at Sinai that he and not the Lord
speak to them (Ex.20:16), R. Hirsch writes:
Here they state that God spoke to them as man speaks to man. That they should
experience this fact themselves, was the essential object of this event which God had
arranged for them. This firmly established the fact of God’s speaking to Man, by the
4
See at greater length in his commentary on the verses dealing with the giving of the Torah in
Deuteronomy 4:9 and elsewhere.
5
See his extensive commentary on other verses in Parashat Yitro: 19:9, 20-25; 20:2, 5, 10, 12, 14, 16,
19.
3
personal experience of the whole nation, and thereby the “revelation,” “And God spoke
to Moses, saying” which stands at the head of every part of the Torah, was firmly
ensured against every twist by which people tried to change the revelation to man, to a
revelation out of man, the revelation to Moses, to a revelation by or out of Moses, i.e.,
the revelation to a non-revelation.
Another front on which Rabbi Hirsch had to fight, no less important than that of the Bible
critics, was the Reform Movement (which had leaders such as the Wissenschaft des
Judentums scholar Abraham Geiger). In this polemic Rabbi Hirsch tied together the divine
origin of the written Torah with the origin of the Oral law. Hence, in his commentary on the
Torah Rabbi Hirsch drew a connection between observing the commandments in all their
detail – an interpretation that relies on Talmudic analysis, rulings by the Rishonim (early
rabbinic authorities) and sometimes also Aharonim (later rabbinic authorities) – in order to
refute the distinction that the Reform made between the Written and the Oral Law.
Therefore his commentary deals with the unity of the Oral Law with the Written Law,
applying the concept of Revelation to both monolithically. Rabbi Hirsch repeatedly stressed
(in his commentary on the Torah as in his other writings) that there did indeed occur a
unique event of one-time oral Revelation in which all the details of the commandments
binding on Jews were revealed. In this way Rabbi Hirsch stressed the divine origin of the full
scope of the Halakhah, and this emphasis is what sets him apart from the spectrum of
Reform thought. It also provides the underpinnings of his negative attitude towards
Wissenschaft des Judentums. Thus did Rabbi Hirsch respond to the Reform advocacy of a
dynamic approach to the world of Halakhah. For example, in his commentary on Exodus
20:10, he wrote:
The whole idea of the Sabbath has been distorted and the whole laws of the Sabbath
undermined by the translation “Thou shalt not do any work.” When Jews began to be
disloyal to the oath they took at Sinai, which swore to “bring life into line with the
Torah“ and altered it to “bring the Torah in line with life,” then the great law of the
Sabbath . . . had to receive a new interpretation to make it harmonize with the demands
and requirements of life. . . . Only hard physical work they said is prohibited on the
Sabbath, but easy non-strenuous work . . . is allowed.
The Bible-critical edifice built in the 19th century still stands firm. Therefore, Rabbi Hirsch's
commentary on the Torah is no less relevant than it was in the past. Hence Rabbi Hirsch's
ideas, including those that stemmed from polemics below the surface of his commentary on
the Torah, still hold pride of place.
4