Antinomianism and Its Responses in the Nineteenth Century
Antinomianism and Its Responses in the Nineteenth Century
Antinomianism is a theological doctrine that asserts Christians are freed from the obligation to obey moral law, particularly the Mosaic law, through grace
Leora Batnitzky argues that before the late 18th century, Judaism encompassed religion, culture, and nationality simultaneously.
Inspired by the Enlightenment and seeking emancipation, Jews began to view these broad notions of Judaism and Jewishness as unsuitable for the modern world.
From Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) onward, Western Jewish intellectuals often reduced Judaism to a "confession," aligning with a Western Protestant Christian concept of religion as "faith."
Nineteenth-century Jewish thinkers redefined Judaism in private, apolitical, and non-nationalistic terms, often opposing the central role of law in premodern Judaism.
Historical Jewish groups like the Sadducees and Karaites challenged rabbinic authority and the Oral Law, affirming only the Written Law.
Normative rabbinic Judaism affirmed the Twofold Law (Written and Oral) as divine, believing it to be the means for humanity to encounter God.
The Shulchan Aruch (1564), a central code of Jewish Law, exemplified this belief with the verse “I have set God before Me always” (Psalm 16:8), showcasing Judaism's nomian (system of rules/law) nature.
Modernity brought about a change, with many Jews demonstrating antinomian attitudes and practices.
Summary: In contrast to the traditional adherence to the law, these attitudes reflected a growing trend among certain Jewish movements that prioritized personal spirituality and ethical conduct over strict legal observance. This shift was particularly evident in the rise of Reform Judaism, which sought to adapt Jewish practice to contemporary values and emphasized ethical monotheism, leading to a re-evaluation of the significance of ritual law. As a response, conservative interpretations emerged, aiming to balance modern values with traditional beliefs, thereby reinforcing the importance of community and continuity in Jewish practice. Tradition is still important as it connects modern practices to the historical aspects of Jewish life.
Gershom Scholem posited that Shabbatai Tzvi and the Sabbatean Movement initiated this revolt against halakhah using Jewish mysticism.
Social historians like Azriel Shochet and Todd Endelman suggested that many Jews in 17th- and 18th-century Germany, France, and England abandoned the law as modernity advanced.
Batnitzky focuses on Germany, where Jewish leaders, influenced by historical criticism, used the evolution of Judaism to justify a less law-centered approach.
This approach provided a rationale for religious reform and movements challenging the hegemony of rabbinic Judaism.
The modern cultural environment led Jewish thinkers to view Judaism through a Protestant lens, redefining and diminishing the role of law.
Adherence to religious law, seen as public, did not align with the individual and private nature of faith. Instead of viewing Jewish law as a set of binding regulations, some Jewish thinkers began to see Judaism more as a matter of personal faith and ethical conduct.
The Twofold Law and halakhah, central to rabbinic tradition, became subjects of debate among 19th-century German-Jewish leaders.
Batnitzky's insights serve as a starting point for examining antinomianism and its responses in the 1800s Jewish world.
summary: In this context, the tension between adherence to traditional law and the desire for a more personal, individualized approach to spirituality led to significant theological discourse, influencing movements such as Reform Judaism, which sought to modernize Jewish practice while retaining core ethical principles.
This chapter will explore this topic by focusing on the Reform Movement in nineteenth-century Germany.
The Reform Movement began in Germany in the 1810s under Israel Jacobson, marking the initial denominational response to the changes brought by emancipation and the Enlightenment.
The early Reform Movement aimed to align Jewish worship with 19th-century German aesthetic standards.
Wissenschaft des Judentums, emphasizing Judaism's historical and cultural context, provided an ideological basis for non-Orthodox Liberales Judentums in Germany.
While Reform spokesmen like Samuel Holdheim and Abraham Geiger affirmed the ethical elements of Jewish teachings as eternal and binding, they weakened the traditional commitment to law.
These leaders used the concept of Judaism's evolution to promote a position that diminished the importance of ceremonial law.
Traditionalists like Rabbi Zacharias Frankel (1801–1875) and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1878) critiqued Reform positions on Jewish law.
Frankel, head of the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary, championed the Positive-Historical trend and Hirsch, champion of Orthodox Judaism in Germany.
Both Frankel and Hirsch defended the ongoing place of law within Judaism.
Frankel, as a Positive-Historical Jew, shared a commitment to Wissenschaft des Judentums with his Reform colleagues.
Hirsch, as an Orthodox Jew, championed a view of Jewish law as eternal and unchanging. Nevertheless, each argued in his own distinct way against antinomianism.
summary: Frankel emphasized the need to adapt Jewish law within the context of contemporary society, advocating for a dynamic interpretation that considered historical developments, while Hirsch asserted that adherence to the immutable nature of Torah law was essential for maintaining Jewish identity and continuity.
The chapter will present Reform positions on Jewish law, followed by a summary of the positions of antinomianism advanced by its opponents.
The thinkers' stances on Judaism and Jewish law were influenced by Immanuel Kant and Bruno Bauer.
Kant negatively characterized Judaism as "statutory law" in his book, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.
Bruno Bauer stated in his 1842 Judenfrage (The Jewish Question), that Jews were unfit for political emancipation on account of the legal character of the Jewish religion.
Jewish writers addressed Kant's dismissive view and Bauer's attacks, seeking to articulate a culturally respectable vision of Judaism and achieve civic emancipation.
Understanding Kant and Bauer's arguments is crucial for grasping the attitudes of Jewish leaders toward antinomianism.
The chapter aims to illuminate the character of 19th-century Judaism in the West across denominational lines.
Earliest Reform and Jewish Law
The Hamburg Reform Temple, established in 1817, was the first congregation founded on a declared Reform basis.
The Hamburg Temple's Gebetbuch (prayer book) engendered controversy, drawing attacks from Orthodox champions in Eileh Divrei Habrit.
M. J. Bresslau defended the Hamburg Temple Prayerbook in Herev Nokemet Nekam Brit, arguing that the Orthodox had misinterpreted rabbinical sources.
Bresslau cited rabbinic legal material to defend the actions of the Hamburg Reformers and also drew upon earlier halakhic works (Or Nogah and Nogah Hatzedek) in defense of Reform.
David Caro also condemned the Orthodox responsa as misinformed in his Brit Emet (1820), and he gathered alternative halakhic sources.
Despite debates, the early Reformers felt the need to defend themselves within a traditional Jewish legal system.
The earliest Reformers were not antinomian and were committed to defending their reforms within the framework of a traditional Jewish legal system.
The Hamburg Temple Reformers were tied to the "authority of [legal] precedent" to sanction their actions, according to Gerald Blidstein.
Jay Harris notes the suspicion of those faithful to Jewish law toward those advocating changes based on Halakha.
Suspicions of traditional Jews was confirmed by the ideological postures Reform exemplars would adopt two decades later in their writings on the role and nature of law in Judaism.
Reform Approaches to Jewish Law and Jewish Civic Emancipation: Holdheim, Samuel Hirsch, and Geiger
The 1840s were a crucial decade for the creation of a Jewish religious Reform Movement in Germany, according to Steven Lowenstein.
The reissue of the Hamburg Temple Prayerbook in 1841 and the formation of the radical Frankfurt Society of Friends of Reform (Reformverein) in 1843 pushed Reform rabbinical leadership to call three rabbinical conferences in Brunswick, Frankfurt, and Breslau in 1844, 1845, and 1846.
Radical reforms include rejection of ritual circumcision of Jewish boys, its advocacy of moving the Jewish Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and its opposition to the authority of talmudic law in Jewish life.
Reform rabbis sought to establish a principled approach to Reform and the matter of law.
An 1842 book, Theologische Gutachten ueber das Gebetbuch nach dem Gebrauche des Neuen Israelitischen Tempelvereins in Hamburg, as well as the published rabbinical conference proceedings of the 1840s, are the first evidence of the attitudes of matters.
The viewpoints of Reform advocates regarding Jewish law evolved and found fuller expression in the decades to follow.
Samuel Holdheim (1806–1860), Samuel Hirsch (1815–1889), and Abraham Geiger (1810–1874) are prominent figures illustrating the range of Reform opinion on antinomianism.
It is important to summarize the relevant views of Kant and Bruno Bauer before turning to these three men and their views.
Kant derided Judaism as "statutory law," dismissing it as an immature religious ethic reduced to externally imposed heteronomous legislation.
Kant's critique deemed Judaism discordant with his autonomous ethic, which emphasizes reason and internal moral recognition.
Reform ideologues attempted to align Judaism with Kantian morality in response to Kant's characterization.
Jewish thinkers crafted responses to defend Judaism against Bauer, whose Judenfrage argued that religious Jews were unfit for political emancipation.
Holdheim, Samuel Hirsch, and Geiger addressed Bauer's claims, arguing that Judaism was compatible with modern citizenship.
Bauer argued that Jews could not be emancipated unless they surrendered their national traits and placed allegiance to the state above fidelity to Judaism.
Emancipation could not be granted until the Jew would be willing to surrender the imperatives of his religion and the demands of its laws – when the Jew would be willing, for example, “to go to the Chamber of Deputies on the Sabbath and participate in public discussions.”
Bauer asserted that Jews must surrender their particularity for political emancipation.
Bauer dismissed the distinction between political and religious obligations in Judaism as a lie, asserting that the Jewish religion made Jews unfit for participation in the modern political order.
Holdheim responded to Bauer in his 1843 Ueber die Autonomie der Rabbinen, distinguishing between public and private spheres and advocating for religious commitments in the private realm.
Holdheim argued Judaism had the right to exist in the modern nation-state so long as it did not interfere with the individual Jew’s performance of duties in the public realm.
Holdheim maintained that dina de-malkhuta dina was an authentic Jewish warrant, that made the Jew fit for enfranchisement in the modern political setting.
Holdheim argued on the place of law in Judaism that justified the division he had drawn between the religious and national-political dimensions of Judaism:
Religious aspects, referring to the relationship of human beings to God, are eternal.
Political, legal, and civil aspects applied only to specific political and civic conditions and lose applicability when Jews enter other states.
Holdheim asserted that the Talmud Sages missed God's purpose after the Temple's destruction by conflating religious and national laws.
The loss of Jewish political autonomy should be viewed positively to promote a universal spiritual-ethical mission and should allow the Jewish people to fulfill its universal spiritual-ethical mission.
In his 1845 writing, Holdheim stated:
He advocated for giving up concepts like the Chosen People and particularistic laws to promote a universalism founded upon pure humanity.
Holdheim eviscerated Jewish attachment to the law, restricted Judaism to morality, and argued that even marriage was a civil matter.
In his 1850 Gemischte Ehen, he claimed that the traditional Jewish legal prohibition against mixed marriage was no longer justified in the modern era.
Holdheim viewed the purpose of the Jewish sermon was to study the ethical spirit of Judaism’s oldest institutions.
Holdheim promoted an attitude towards the law that was far removed from that of classical rabbinic tradition and clearly constricted the areas of life that Jewish law traditionally addressed.
He gave explicit voice to his mature position in his 1859 Ma’amar Ha-ishut where he asserted that any affirmation whatsoever of rabbinic Judaism and its legal teachings was nothing more than a commitment to falsehood and distortion.
His oft-quoted 1845 statement in his Das Ceremonialgesetz, “The Talmud speaks out of the consciousness of its age and for that time it was right, I speak out of the higher consciousness of my age and for my age I am right,” fully captures his belief in human progress and autonomy.
Holdheim asserted that Jewish authority ultimately rests in the autonomous conscience and reason of the leaders of the Jewish people in a more advanced modern age, and not in teachings derived from rabbinic teachers of yore.
Only the ethical components of Jewish law remained permanently valid.
Holdheim condemned rabbinic Judaism, producing a portrait of Judaism as ethics in the spirit of Kant.
Heinrich Graetz commented on these views of Holdheim, writing, “Since Paul of Tarsus, Judaism had not known such an enemy in its midst, who shook the whole edifice to its very foundation.”
Samuel Hirsch, Chief Rabbi of Luxembourg from 1843 to 1866, in his 1843 Religionsphilosophie der Juden and his 1844 Die Reform im Judenthum as well as in letters and other writings espoused a conception of Judaism that both echoed and went beyond the positions that his colleague Holdheim had adopted on the issue of Jewish law.
Hirsch, like Holdheim, criticized talmudic Judaism, asserting that religious principle remains constant but external forms can change.
He argued that the purpose of ritual forms is exclusively symbolic of the eternal principles of the religion.
Hirsch condemned Orthodox rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) for wanting “to know Judaism only from its literature – Pentateuch, Prophets, Writings, Talmud and Midrash.”
Samuel Hirsch maintained that the commitment to law that Samson Raphael Hirsch and Orthodox Judaism displayed meant that the Orthodox and their spokes- men were committed to meaningless duties devoid of moral import.
According to Samuel Hirsch, the essence of Judaism was in the notions of freedom and morality and not in law.
Hirsch built upon Kant's foundations, emphasizing the distinction between nature and morality and the freedom to actualize morality through choice.
Hirsch conceptualized freedom as the liberty to perform duty, with the "eternal ought" becoming the law of human life.
Judaism, in Hirsch’s schema, is the religion of both duty and freedom, where ethical monotheism is central.
The establishment of a world marked by justice and truth, the goals of Judaism, is parallel to that of the aims of the modern state.
The world has arrived at the threshold of a future where freedom, truth, and justice for all are about to be realized.
Andreas Gottzman has pointed out, that Hirsch, by identifying civil society with the universal goals of Judaism, dissolved the conflict between religion and state for the Jew and responded to Bauer's charge that the Jew was unfit for emancipation.
Hirsch redefined Judaism apart from any rabbinic or traditional conception of law, and from a traditional Jewish perspective, his antinomianism was unbridled.
Abraham Geiger (1810–1874) was the foremost spokesman for Reform Judaism in the nineteenth century and had a more conservative approach than Holdheim and Samuel Hirsch.
Geiger recognized that his view of Judaism was not identical to that of more traditional co-religionists, and he admitted that he departed from a strict observance of Jewish law.
In response to critics, that Reform was marked by a “wholesale renunciation of Jewish law” he defended that his approach to Judaism was a legitimate one in keeping with the historical stream of Jewish tradition despite his admitted departures from the talmudic-legal and nationalistic dimensions of the Jewish past.
The consistency of these views regarding the ephemeral nature of the ceremonial commandments within Judaism over his lifetime is evidenced years later by the mature Geiger. All that changes is the outer shell and forms, the essence remains intact.
For Abraham Geiger, there was a creative spirit inherent in Judaism that produced principles and moral ideals of undying authority. However, in his schema, ceremonial laws were seen only as instrumental.
The core [of Judaism] is the pure faith in God, needed to be enveloped in a mass of ceremonies so that the pure spiritual treasures would not be crushed. [The entire] civilized world has discarded primitive idol worship and is refined since then, hence the spirit of Judaism no longer needs the mantle.
Geiger's approach emphasized the ongoing working of God's spirit in and through Israel, assuring the continuity of Judaism as it evolved.
In his Das Judenthum und Seine Geschichte, Geiger rejected divine revelation at Sinai, positing a “religious genius” that allowed Israel to discern the connection to the Universal Spirit through reason.
Israel serves as the vehicle for divine revelation, and the Jews, “as the people of revelation,” have been the bearers of universal spiritual and ethical messages throughout history.
Geiger outlined four periods of Jewish history:
Revelation: The original genius of the Jewish people for religious and ethical perception emerged (Bible).
Tradition: Talmudic rabbis adapted the Judaism of the Bible to the demands of life.
Rigid Legalism (6th-18th centuries): An inflexibility that removed Israel “from the present” and led Israel “to remain part of a past that was misinterpreted.”
Liberation and Criticism: the modern age, in which Judaism would be renewed apart from the law.
The nineteenth century had loosened the legalistic fetters of the previous period through the use of reason and critical, historical investigation without interrupting the connection with the past.
The Leipzig Synod of 1869 affirmed that Judaism was in agreement with the principles of modern society and of the state, such as the equality of all before the law and the freedom of the individual in his religious conviction.
The connection between Reform Judaism and the philosophy of an Enlightenment political liberalism that had made Jewish emancipation possible could not be more pronounced.
Reform thinkers viewed the authority of Jewish law as ended, emphasizing Scripture as a depository of eternal principles.
While the Reform connection to the ethical teachings of Judaism were such that it may not be fair to label Reform thought of this era as completely antinomian, as viewed from the standpoint of more traditional Jewish thinkers it was surely anarchic.
Summary: The important figures during the Reformation of Jews during the 19th century are characterized by their contributions to reshaping Jewish identity and practice, including notable leaders such as Moses Mendelssohn, who advocated for the integration of Jews into European society; Samuel Holdheim, who pushed for a more radical departure from traditional Jewish laws; and Abraham Geiger, who emphasized the historical and critical study of Jewish texts and the importance of adapting Judaism to modern values. Other influential figures included Leopold Zunz, who laid the groundwork for Jewish scholarship and communal organization, and Isaac Mayer Wise, who established the first Reform synagogue in the United States, thereby promoting a more progressive interpretation of Judaism that resonated with broader social changes. This wave of reform not only redefined Jewish religious practices but also fostered the emergence of a dynamic cultural and intellectual environment that encouraged dialogue between Jewish and broader societal values.
Positive-Historical and Orthodox Responses
The leaders of the more conservative wing of Liberales Judentums in Germany led by Rabbi Zacharias Frankel of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau and the heads of the Orthodox Movement in Germany under the guidance of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of the Separatist Orthodox Israelitische Religionsgesellechaft in Frankfurt were hardly sanguine about the positions that Reform rabbis like Holdheim, Geiger, and Samuel Hirsch had adopted in relationship to Jewish law.
Despite their theological differences concerning revelation and history, Positive-Historical and Orthodox Judaism emphasized the centrality of Jewish law and criticized Reform stances.
Frankel and his followers spoke of the historical nature of Jewish religious tradition, and Like the spokesman for Reform adopted the canons of modern critical scholarship that spoke of Judaism as being not only in but of history
To abrogate or cast aside Jewish law rendered Judaism inauthentic and fatally diminished the essence of Jewish faith.
Frankel opposed Holdheim's burial alongside talmudic scholars, viewing him as an enemy of positive Judaism.
The antipathy Frankel felt for Holdheim stemmed from a lifetime of bitter disagreement with the Reform champion.
Frankel accused Holdheim of betraying the Jewish religion for identifying Jewish legalism as transitory.
Frankel further chided Holdheim and the Reformers for promoting the notion that “state” and “religion” embraced identical aims of “morality, humanity, and justice.”
Holdheim and Samuel Hirsch granted religious sanction to the motto, “Obedience [to the civil law] is every citizen’s first duty – as a reduction of religion.”
By arguing that marriage was a civil act, Frankel viewed Holdheim as having compromised Jewish religious integrity.
Frankel did not agree that Jewish participation in the modern political order was dependent upon the assignment of marriage to a civil realm, nor was it contingent upon the abandonment of traditional Jewish commitments to rabbinic and Jewish ritual law.
Spokesmen for Orthodox Judaism charged that the Reformers had gone beyond authentic Judaism.
Rabbi Pinchas Heilprin criticized Holdheim, questioning his authority in matters of marriage.
Samson Raphael Hirsch likewise condemned Holdheim, viewing his Autonomie as “anti-Talmudism in disguise” and even compared Holdheim to King Jeroboam who brought disaster upon the Jewish people.
Samson Raphael Hirsch also desired to participate fully in the civic and cultural life of nineteenth-century German society.
The phrase, “behuqqotehem ̣ lo telekhu – You shall not follow their practices,” found in Leviticus 18:3:
You may imitate the people among whom you live in everything that they practice on rational grounds, but nothing [that they practice] from grounds related to their religious customs or with immoral customs.
Hirsch's views affirming the legitimacy of Jewish cultural integration into the contemporary setting were akin to the proponents of German Liberales Judentums.
Cultural and religious integration was unquestionably the hallmark of the nineteenth-century German-Jewish community. However, this overlap among all sectors of the German-Jewish community of the time should not obscure the real theological differences over law and revelation that distinguished Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Orthodox from the Reform Movement and the champions of Liberales Judentums.
The Written Law and the Oral Law are equal. Both were revealed to us from the Mouth of the Holy One, Blessed be He.”
Hirsch defined Jewish law as perfect, asserting the choice of acknowledging it fully or denying it.
Hirsch condemned his Reform opponents, and even Frankel, despite their embrace of Jewish law. How little is the principled difference between the [Breslau] reformers who do their work with silk gloves on their hands and the Reformer Geiger who strikes with a sledgehammer.”
The Orthodox argued that Reform Judaism rejected classical rabbinic belief, and that the historicist views of Frankel would lead to the same end.
Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes charged that the Reformers did not accept “Torah min ha-shamayim u’nitzhiteha,” viewing Jewish laws as mere fashions.
Chajes, like Samson Raphael Hirsch and other Orthodox peers, reserved his most venomous views for Holdheim, and that there was ultimately no commonality of the core, beliefs involved.
A Brief Afterword
The arguments among these men over law in Judaism continue to echo in Jewish circles today.
Denominational divides center on halakhah and its foundations, as articulated by figures like Holdheim, Samuel Hirsch, Geiger, Frankel, and Samson Raphael Hirsch.
These 19th-century debates transcend their time, retaining relevance for students of Judaism and contemporary Jewish life. The content of those positions and disputes are echoed in the theological and legal stances and affirmations that are present in the contemporary Jewish world.
This chapter explores antinomianism and its responses in the 1800s Jewish world, focusing on the Reform Movement in Germany. It discusses how Jewish thinkers redefined Judaism in private, apolitical, and non-nationalistic terms, often opposing the central role of law. The chapter examines the views of Reform leaders like Samuel Holdheim, Samuel Hirsch, and Abraham Geiger, who sought to align Judaism with modern values and diminish the importance of ceremonial law. Traditionalists like Rabbi Zacharias Frankel and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch critiqued these Reform positions, emphasizing the centrality of Jewish law. The chapter also addresses the influence of Immanuel Kant and Bruno Bauer on these debates and concludes by highlighting the ongoing relevance of these arguments in contemporary Jewish life.