Reply To: Jews Were Protected From Assimilation By Being Despised and Uncivilized

RS: I’m afraid you need to voice a public machaah against your own distortions on this issue. The fact that you find charliehall, an admitted extreme (well, he wont admit to the extreme but will everything else) left-wing modern orthodox pseudo-academic, as your backup speaks volumes.

Rav Hirsch did not encourage non-Jewish culture, in fact his policy of austritt was designed specifically to separate culture from education. He also did not send his students to outside colleges, he made his own. And why in the world would anyone consider it a positive thing to spend years learning secular law – and if so for law, why not for MTV trivia? If all knowledge comes from G-d (quote from Norman Lamm) and therefore is worth pursuing then all knowledge that comes from G-d is worth pursuing – why limit your knowledge to what the colleges teach?

Rav Schwab was a world class Talmid Chacham, who knew Rav Hirsch’s writing almost by heart and who also spent a large chunk of his life discussing Rav Hirsch’s shitos with Gedolim from all other spectrums, such as Rav Elchonon, Rav Bloch, the Gerrer Rebbe and others (btw Rav Schwab said that the Gerrer Rebbe suggested not printing Rav Elchonon’s teshuva because of Kovod for Rav Hirsch! – even though he agreed with R. Elchonon l’halachah, the way some things were said he thought it better not made public).

Rav Schwab was also a very, very big Ish Emes. Another thing about him. He once told of a story where he once mentioned something anti-Zionist one Chanukah in his congregation. He told of the harassment that he got apparently from among his own congregation because of it – not a lot – but more than a Rav should. Now it is clear that Rav Hirsch was staunchly anti-Zionist, yet today not everyone in Khal Adas Yeshurun is. Who knows how those members of his Kehilla would interpret Rav Hirsch? I see some disloyalty to Rav Hirsch in Washington Heights, but not from Rav Schwab.

If Rav Hirsch ZTL were here today he would be one of the foremost opponents of MO, just as he opposed assimilationist values into Judaism then. His policy of austritt was a prerequisite to his policy of TIDE. You can see this explained bluntly and clearly by Rav Shimon Schwab ZTL, who of course was the heir to Rav Hirsh as Rav of the TIDE Kehilla, in his book, Selected Essays.