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Quotations from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.

"It would be most perverse and criminal of us to seek to instill in our children a contempt, based on ignorance and untruth, for everything that is not specifically Jewish, for all other human arts and sciences, in the belief that by inculcating our children with such a negative attitude ... we could safeguard them from contacts with the scholarly and scientific endeavors of the rest of mankind…You will then see that your simple-minded calculations were just as criminal as they were perverse. Criminal, because they enlisted the help of untruth supposedly in order to protect the truth, and because you have thus departed from the path upon which your own Sages have preceded you and beckoned you to follow them. Perverse, because by so doing you have achieved precisely the opposite of what you wanted to accomplish... Your child will consequently begin to doubt all of Judaism which (so, at least, it must seem to him from your behavior) can exist only in the night and darkness of ignorance and which must close its eyes and the minds of its adherents to the light of all knowledge if it is not to perish" (Collected Writings vol 7 pp. 415-6, quoted in "Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch—Torah Leadership for Our Times", by Rabbi Dr. Yehudah (Leo) Levi, http://www.ou.org/index.php/jewish_action/article/44012/).

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"...Judaism is not a religion, the synagogue is not a church, and the rabbi is not a priest. Judaism is not a mere adjunct to life: it comprises all of life. To be a Jew is not a mere part, it is the sum total of our task in life. To be a Jew in the synagogue and the kitchen, in the field and the warehouse, in the office and the pulpit, as ... father and mother, as servant and master, as man and as citizen, with one's thoughts, in word and in deed, in enjoyment and privation, with the needle and the graving-tool, with the pen and the chisel--that is what it means to be a Jew. An entire life supported by the Divine Idea and lived and brought to fulfillment according to the Divine Will.

"The more, indeed, Judaism comprises the whole of man and extends its declared mission to the salvation of the whole of mankind, the less it is possible to confine its outlook to the four cubits of a synagogue and the four walls of a study. The more the Jew is a Jew, the more universalist will his views and aspirations be, the less aloof... will he be from anything that is noble and good, true and upright, in art or science, in culture or education; the more joyfully will he applaud whenever he sees truth and justice and peace and the ennoblement of man prevail and become dominant in human society: the more joyfully will he seize every opportunity to give proof of his mission as a Jew, the task of his Judaism, on new and untrodden ground; the more joyfully will he devote himself to all true progress in civilisation and culture--provided, that is, provided, that is, that he will not only not have to sacrifice his Judaism but will also be able to bring it to more perfect fulfilment. He will ever desire progress, but only in alliance with religion. He will not want to accomplish anything that he cannot accomplish as a Jew. Any step which takes him away from Judaism is not for him... a step forward, is not progress. He exercises this self-control without a pang, for he does not wish to accomplish his own will on earth but labours in the service of God. He knows that wherever the Ark of his God does not march ahead of him he is not accompanied by the pillar of the fire of His light or the pillar of the cloud of His grace."

From "Religion Allied to Progress", excerpted at www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/363_Transp/Orthodoxy/SRHirsch.html, and found complete in Judaism Eternal (London: Soncino) and Collected Writings (New York/Jerusalem: Feldheim)."

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Another essay of his, "Judaism Up to Date" / "The Jew and His Time" (also in Judaism Eternal pp. 213-223, and in Collected Writings)

"From the very beginning, G-d placed Judaism and with it its adherents in opposition to the age. For thousands of years Judaism was the only protest against against a completely pagan world. And if this opposition diminished from century to century, this was not because Judaism altered itself to suit the non-Jewish conditions at any give time [this essay is a polemic against religious reform], but because more and more seeds of the Jewish spirit, sparks from the Jewish word of G-d, found a lodgment in the bosom of the non-Jewish world, and more and more the Jewish word of G-d fulfilled its silent mission on earth.

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"No doctrine is so well qualified as Judaism to fill its adherents with the most all-embracing love, to implant in them a spirit and a heart to which nothing human on the whole earth is alien and which can participate most warmly and most openly in all human suffering and human well-being. It is the Jews who are quick to see in the darkest episodes of history the march of a Divine purpose, who at the grave of the most abandoned sinner are ready to plant the banner of hope for a resurrection and return to G-d, and whose whole strength lies in the conviction that all men are journeying with them towards a kingdom of G-d on earth in which truth and love, justice and salvation will everywhere dwell.

"Consider Abraham, the first and most isolated Jew on earth. Was ever anyone so isolated? Singe and alone with G-d on earth, single and alone in conflict with the whole of his age. What a heart did he bear in his bosom, full of modesty, full of gentleness, full of compassion and love for all, for the most depraved men of his time! The judgment of G-d is suspended over Sodom and Gomorrah, over the vilest sink of iniquity known in history, and it is Abraham who prays for Sodom and Gomorrah! "G-d concluded with him and his descendants the most separatist covenants and stamped on their body the most separatist sign of this covenant [viz. the milah, circumcision]. And we see Abraham with the pain inflicted by this sign still fresh sitting before his tent in the heat of the sun and looking out for weary travellers, inviting idolatrous strangers into his house and showing mercy and kindness and the love of G-d to all his fellow-men without distinction.

"And how could it have been any different? Was not this universalism, this broad humanity of thought and action, the very essence and object, the reason and significance of his segregation? How different from the men who built the Tower of Babel using as their motto the words na'aseh lanu shem, 'Let us make for ourselves a name.' They were prompted by selfishness, sensuality and ambition, a tower which, while it seemed to unite, in reality isolated and divided men from one another. [The Talmudic sages say that although the builders of the Tower were waging war on G-d, they nevertheless had brotherly love for each other, which was to their credit. On the other hand, the sages say elsewhere that when, in the course of building the Tower, a human would fall, no one would mourn, but when a brick fell, all would mourn the setback in construction. In his commentary to the Pentateuch, Rabbi Hirsch combines these two ideas, and proposes that the builders of the Tower were pioneers in authoritarian totalitarianism; they persuaded the citizens, for the sake of grand nationalism, to forsake their individuality and work together for a grand collective national edifice. Apparently, they were all working together as equal brethren, but in reality, the individual was turned into a mere cog of the collective, with a brick of the edifice being more valuable than its construction workers.] It was then, according to the profound remark of our Sages, that G-d called Abraham to Himself and said: "Go thou another way, desire nothing for thyself, for thine own blessing, for thine own fame, in My name call men together, k'ra bashem [proclaim and call in the name of G-d] become a blessing to them, hayah berachah [be a blessing] for behold, I have destined thee to be a father of humanity, let that be thy blessing and thy fame!"

"This remained the fundamental character of Judaism. Abraham was isolated for the sake of mankind, and for the sake of mankind Judaism has to pursue its separate way through the ages.

"Judaism is the religion which does *not* say, "There is no salvation outside of me." Judaism which is disparaged on account of its alleged particularism is precisely the religion which teaches that the upright of all peoples are marching towards the precious goal. Of all men it is the Rabbis, so loudly decried on account of their particularism, who, pointing to the predictions in the mouth of the prophets and singers of a glorious day for humanity, emphasise that there is no mention in them of priests, Levites and Israelites, but that only the just, honest and upright of all peoples are spoken of; and so the just, honest and upright of all peoples are included in teh noblest blessings. And in the darkest times, when the frenzied populace destroyed the Jewish synagogues and tore in pieces the Jewish sacred books, the persecuted and despised Jew stepped forward to the time when this frenzy also will vanish, and the name of the one and only G-d will cause justice and truth and peace to sink into every human breast. And sons visited the graves of fathers who had been slaughtered for their Judaism with the confident hope that one day on the very soil where the most terrible cruelty had raged "the name of G-d would shine forth great and holy and majestic and His kingdom would be established from one end of the earth to the other."

"And why should they not? The guide-book with which G-d had equipped them for their wanderings had solved for them the riddle of history. G-d had taken them back to to the beginning of human history and had disclosed the glorious culmination which was to follow the deepest gloom. G-d had called them His firstborn because among all the lost sons of G-d they had been the first to find their way back to Him; and they knew from this all all their fellow-men would one day follow them to their Father's heart. G-d had called them His priests, and they knew from this that all mankind must be his people, for which they as priests had to proclaim His eternal promise of salvation. And even while G-d said to them "I have separated you from the peoples", the Rabbis came to them and warned them: "Do not forget: G-d has not separated the people from you like one who picks the bad out of the good and throws it away, for then they would be cast off for ever; but G-d separated you from the peoples like one who picks the good out of the less good and goes on picking again and again and adding the better to the good" (Yalkut, Kedoshim [I myself have also seen this same idea in Pesikta d'Rav Kahana]). Every new turn in the world's history, whether for sadness or joy, they looked on as such a selection and collection of all the seeds of better promise; and all the songs of their poets and all the words of their prophets revealed nothing except this way of G-d in world history and sang of nothing but that bright morning which will one day dawnn for all mankind for all nations to see, and of which they, the Jews, will be and remain the messengers and heralds.

"Thus it is just the most isolated Jew who bears in his breast the most universal thoughts and sentiments.

"With serene glance he wanders through the world and down the ages, and joyfully welcomes every apparition in which, wherever and however it may be, he sees the seeds of a pure worship of G-d and of the ennoblement of man, the recognition of G-d and of the divine destiny of man cultivated and preserved in non-Jewish circles. And though he knows that until that morning comes he will nowhere find full and eternal salvation established on earth, yet he rejoices to see anywhere the sum total of truth and goodness increased on earth, he sees in every sunrise the beams of the morning which will one day dawn cloudlessly over mankind. Now at least he observes how one single grain which two thousands years ago fell from the rich harvest of His Divine word - not wholly free it is true from the admixture of strange elements - into the bosom of mankind, has now grown and spread so luxuriantly that, whatever clouds may yet darken the sky, it has already been greeted by men as a full redemption of mankind [do not miss the subtle sarcasm of Rabbi Hirsch, which he so discretely tucks into his none-the-less optimistic words]. He can follow step by step the blossoms of which since then have consciously and unconsciously been plucked from the Jewish tree of life to enrich the realm of truth, love and justice. When he sees this, he is filled with happiness at the thought of the endless store of salvation and blessing which mankind will enjoy when the seeds of salvation scattered from His Divine word shall have reached maturity and brought the full redemption of mankind in which G-d shall destroy death for ever, and dry the tears from every face, and also put an end to the reproach of His people upon the earth. Then his [man's] holy things will be still holier to him [man], then he will cling even more closely to his divine treasure, and he will become still firmer in his resolution to carry through to the end without flinching this vessel which bears the salvation of mankind, until

"in the end of days the mountains of of the L-rd's house shall be established as the tops of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the L-rd, to the house of the G-d of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the L-rd from Jerusalem. And He shall judge between teh nations and shall decide for many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2. 2-4.)

"And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them...and the suckling child shall play on the whole of the asp and the weaned child shall put out his hand playfully to the flashing eyes of the dragon. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the L-rd as the waters cover the ocean bed." (Isaiah 11. 6, 8, 9.) Then, then, when the times are fitted for it, will Judaism be fitted to the times. When G-d has dried the tears from every face, then the reproach of His people on earth will end, thus hat the L-rd spoken.

"But long before reaching this goal, in his whole wandering through time and space, the Jew has by no means been so sharply in contrast with the times and lands in which he has lived. Rather has his Judaism shown him how to adapt it to every age and every land in which his lot is cast, and how to form the closest and most friendly ties with every age and every country. "For he knows that the upright and pure in all societies of men are working with him for the kingdom of G-d on earth. He knows that for almost two thousand years both the seeds of a purer humanity which were saved even in the days of heathendom and since then other genuine seeds of Jewish thought have been germinating and have come to fruition in the most varied spiritual activities for the benefit of mankind. And his very Judaism which guides him through the garden of nature and the galleries of history, which invites him to the full unfolding of his powers in the service of G-d, makes him find in every new truth which is propounded a welcome contribution to the clearer revelation of G-d in nature and in history, and to see in every new art and in every new science a welcome addition to the means for rendering perfect service to G-d.

"Hence the Jew will not frown on any art, any science, any culture provided that it is found to be true and edifying, and really to promote the welfare of mankind. He has to taste everything by the unimpeachable touchstone of his divine law; whatever does not stand this test for him does not exist. But the more firmly he takes his stand on the rock of his Judaism, the more ready will he be to accept and gratefully appropriate whatever is true and good in other sources according to Jewish standards [in his commentary to the Pentateuch, Rabbi Hirsch sees special significance in the fact that Rabbi Saadia Gaon of 10th century Iraq, in his landmark work of Jewish philosophy, Emunot v'Deot, Kitab al-Amanat wal-l'tikadat, in the section on the metaphysics of monotheism, in large part relied on the the Kalam and Mutakallim]; in whatever mind it originated, from whose-ever mouth it issued, he will always be ready to say, as the Sages say, l'kabel ha'emet mimi she'amrah to receive the truth from him who spoke it. Nowhere will he ever sacrifice a single thread of his Judaism or trim his Judaism to the needs of the time. Wherever the age offers him anything which is consonant with his Judaism he will willingly adopt it. He will in every period regard it as his duty to pay due appreciation to the age and its conditions from the standpoint of his Judaism, and to make use of the new means provided by any period in order that in the conditions of that period he may be able to make the old Jewish spirit expand in new beauty and may perform his duty to it with ever-renewed vigour and loyalty."