[Avodah] The Stature of Moshe Rabbeinu

[Prof. Levine]

At 04:42 PM 2/15/2009, T613K at aol.com wrote:
>One of Hirsch's purposes in writing his 
>magnificent Commentary on Chumash was to answer 
>the Reformers and the Bible Critics, the 
>promoters of the Documentary Hypothesis.
>
>He did not deign to actually name or quote any 
>of those heretics -- why give them such 
>credibility, and why immortalize their names in 
>a work of Torah that he hoped would prove 
>timeless?  However, throughout his Commentary 
>there are many subtle arguments against the 
>heretics, and this example is typical.

I recall him mentioning Naphtali Herz Wessely at 
some point in his commentary. He refers to him 
only as Wessely. From 
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/639985/Naphtali-Herz-Wessely

Jew” who had embraced Western culture, 
Mendelssohn’s message to his own community was to 
become Westerners, to seek out the culture of the 
Enlightenment. To that end he joined with a poet, 
Naphtali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely (1725–1805), in 
translating the Torah into German, combining 
Hebrew characters with modern German phonetics in 
an effort to displace Yiddish, and wrote a modern...

>
>He is pointing out, in case anybody buys into 
>the theory that Moshe Rabbeinu himself made up 
>the Torah, that Moshe was incapable of creating 
>such a complex system himself.   He could not 
>even think of a hierarchical system of judges, 
>how could he ever have thought up the whole system of laws in the Torah?

All of this is certainly true. Nonetheless, I 
find it surprising that he wrote in terms which I 
think many would consider not very flattering to 
Moshe Rabbeinu in order to make a point against the reformers.


Yitzchok Levine 
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