[Avodah] Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on the parsha: Avraham, the first “Protestant”

[Prof. L. Levine]

From

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/379197

We’re supposed to change the world, not Torah.


When secular intellectuals embrace new ideas, many of their Jewish counterparts try to “update” Judaism accordingly. They even justify their behavior, claiming that Judaism is supposed to evolve with the times.

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch rails against this assertion in his commentary on this week’s parsha. “The loudest protest against it is the first Jewish command: lech lecha. Was Avraham’s first stand in accordance with the spirit of his times? In the midst of Chaldea, Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt! Idolizing sensuality and power was the contemporary doctrine there – worshipping the life of the senses in Asia, worshipping human power and killing freedom in Egypt.”


G-d placed Avraham in these societies, not to fit in, but to stand in opposition to them. In that sense, Avraham was “the first ‘Protestant,’” writes Rav Hirsch. His very life served as a protest against his surroundings.

Going with the flow is a natural impulse. And under normal circumstances, we’re supposed to honor our home and country. But “stronger than the bond that attaches us to fatherland and family should be the bond that attaches us to G-d.”


“Everybody is responsible to G-d for himself. If necessary, alone – with G-d – when the principle worshipped by the majority is not the true godly one,” Rav Hirsch writes.


Professor Yitzchok Levine

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