The Law

Kohler, George Y.

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4035-8_7

George Y. Kohler²

Part of the book series: Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Philosophy ((ASJT,volume 15))

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Abstract

The chapter discusses how a liberal Jewish philosophy of the authority of religious Law developed in nineteenth-century Germany from the outright negation of Talmudic exegesis and its underlying dogma of the divine lawgiver, to a more moderate version in Hermann Cohen that attempts to preserve some of the older justifications and consequences of keeping the Biblical commandments, notably the separation of the Jews from other peoples. For Maimonides, the authority of the Law finds expression in the doctrine of the identity of belief and knowledge. But after Kant’s Copernican Revolution, this doctrine could no longer be upheld; true knowledge, according to Kant, could only contain empirical objects. The concept of ‘divine’ underwent a complete transformation; and although Hermann Cohen abandoned Kant’s concept of God as a mere postulate of reason, his own substitute concept was not able (and did not intend) to re-establish dogmatic authority. Thus, reason, and by extension, a thoroughly rational conception of the commandments, now had to decree what parts of the Mosaic Law were to be kept, or abandoned – with all the enormous consequences this must have on religion in general. Judaism’s freedom of thought and general rationalism created for a long time the illusion that Jewish theology was also free of dogmas. But here rationalism belied the most crucial dogma, that of the divinity of Mosaic Law. Only when Cohen’s philosophy of Judaism rejected this last bastion of a non-rational approach to the commandments out of hand, the way to a legitimate justification of Reform ideas was paved. In the combination of Kantian ethics and Jewish intellectual tradition, Cohen found a new meaning in the old concept of ‘mitzvah’: the moral imperative, derived from the notion of the unique, transcendent God, representing the idea of the Good, the ethical life as a life led according to the Law.

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Notes

1.
Josef Stern Problems and Parables of the Law: Maimonides and Nachmanides on Reasons for the Commandments, New York 1998, p. 16f.
2.
Basically Guide III:26–49, though there are some statements concerning this question also in other chapters of the work.
3.
Low level of religious observance: See the chapter on religious practice in Michael A. Meyer (ed.) Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit (4 vols.) München 1996, vol. 2, p. 159ff. and Caesar Seligmann Geschichte der jüdischen Reformbewegung, Frankfurt 1922, p. 15–17 and passim. See also Heinrich Graetz Geschichte der Juden, vol. 11, Leipzig 1870, p. 411f.
4.
Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages, Their Concepts and Beliefs, (trans. I. Abrahams), Jerusalem 1975, p. 388.
5.
TB San 21b.
6.
Concerning the Oral Law, essentially the same dogma is applied: either rabbinical regulations were seen as revealed to Moses at Sinai as well, or at least the hermeneutical principles that the Talmudists used to arrive at certain regulations are viewed as God-given. Cf. a detailed account also concerning the Reformers. Jay M. Harris How Do We Know This?, Albany 1995.
7.
In the Mishneh Torah, however, Maimonides seriously cautions man “not to rebel against a commandment decreed for us by God simply because one does not understand its reason” (Me’ilah, 8,8).
8.
Although he wrote about this only late in Jerusalem, Mendelssohn had wrestled with the problem for many years. See his desperate letter to Rabbi Jacob Emden from 1773, whom he asked to explain why Maimonides, of all scholars, had obviously decided in his Code otherwise – when he made salvation for all humanity dependent upon the acceptance of the authority of Mosaic Law, and thus knowledge of it in the first place. For this complex issue see S. Schwarzschild “Do Noahides have to believe in revelation”, in: The Pursuit of the Ideal (ed. M. Kellner), New York, 1990.
9.
Samuel Holdheim Das Ceremonialgesetz im Messiasreich, Schwerin, 1845, p. 45.
10.
See this accusation for example in Abraham Geiger “Das Verhältnis des natürlichen Schriftsinnes zur thalmudischen Schriftdeutung”, in: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie 1844, No. 1, p 53–81/No. 2, p. 243–259, or in Leopold Stein Die Schrift des Lebens – Inbegriff des gesamten Judenthums, vol. 2, Straßburg 1877, p. 57–72.
11.
Darkei ha-Mishnah (Leipzig, 1859) For a detailed account of the issue, See David Ellenson Wissenschaft des Judentums, Historical Consciousness, and Jewish Faith: the Diverse Path of Frankel, Auerbach, and Halevy (New York: 2004, Leo Baeck memorial lecture 48), p. 4–9, and Andreas Brämer Rabbiner Zacharias Frankel: Wissenschaft des Judentums und konservative Reform im 19. Jahrhundert, Hildesheim 2000, p. 366f.
12.
Ibid., p. 20. How much Frankel himself was aware of the philosophical meaning of his “as if” is a matter of speculation. At any rate, with the rise of neo-Kantianism, it became an object of intense analysis, culminating in Hans Vaihinger’s book The Philosophy of ‘As If’ from 1922. Vaihinger developed a theory of ‘useful fictions’, assumptions whose validity cannot be proven but which are nevertheless necessary for a rational construction of reality. In physics, for example, such fictional assumptions are the protons that have never been observed – but also in ethics the assumption that the world will still exist tomorrow is of immense importance.
13.
The 19-year-old Cohen wrote a personal letter to Hirsch in which he points out the strict personal observance of the law by his teacher Frankel, a fact that seems to have had an impact on the debate in Cohen’s view. Hirsch, although he even quoted the letter in Jeschurun, refuted Cohen’s position: important is only Frankel’s influence as a teacher. (cf. Jeschurun 5, 1861, p. 297) Consequently, Hirsch ruled that no Jewish community was supposed to engage a rabbi trained in Breslau. The conflict caused Cohen to leave the rabbinical seminary and study classical philosophy. (See Cohen’s “Ein Gruss der Pietät an das Breslauer Seminar”, first in: Ost und West 1904, No. 11, p. 755 and Michael Zank, Atonement, p. 58–62)
14.
Abraham Geiger Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhangigkeit von der innern Entwicklung des Judentums, Breslau: 1857. Geiger essentially claims there that the Biblical text was changed and adapted many times before the Talmudic era. See Chap. 3.
15.
For this subject see M.A. Meyer “Jewish Religious Reform and Wissenschaft des Judentums: The Positions of Zunz, Geiger and Frankel”, in: Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 16 (1971) p. 19–41.
16.
Cf. Hermann Cohen “Julius Wellhausen”, in: Jüdische Schriften, Vol. II, Berlin 1924, p. 463–468. For Cohen and Wellhausen, see also Michael Zank, Atonement, p. 480–87. While some liberal Jewish scholars implicitly accepted Wellhausen’s results, Biblical research until the end of the First World War was the domain of Christian scholars, with Jews mostly limiting themselves to refuting the errors of their Protestant colleagues. Still in 1922 Ismar Elbogen criticized the absence of an independent Jewish position in Biblical studies, Luzzatto and Hoffman being too conservative, Geiger and Graetz too radical. (Ismar Elbogen Ein Jahrhundert Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin 1922, p. 19.) For the entire subject, see: Ran Hacohen Reclaiming the Hebrew Bible, Berlin 2010.
17.
Dalalat al Haiirin = Zurechtweisung der Verirrten /von Moses ben Maimon; ins Deutsche übersetzt mit Zuziehung zweier arabischen Ms. und mit Anmerkungen begleitet von Simon Scheyer. Frankfurt am Main: F. Hauch, 1838. – The other parts never appeared. Instead, Scheyer published an influential and important monograph about Maimonides’ theory of the soul. (S. Scheyer, Die Psychologie des Maimonides, Frankfurt 1845).
18.
Dalalat al Haiirin, p. VIf.
19.
Dalalat al Haiirin, p. VII.
20.
Some large communities in Germany had not elected new rabbis after the decline of the reputation of this office in the nineteenth century, and ceremonial duties were carried out by “Rabbinatsverwesern.” For the Geiger debate see Michael A. Meyer Response to Modernity, New York 1988, p. 109–114.
21.
On this episode, see Ismar Schorsch “Emancipation and the Crisis of Religious Authority – The Emergence of the Modern Rabbinate”, in: W.E. Mosse [et al.] ed., Revolution and Evolution, 1848 in German-Jewish History, Tübingen 1981, p. 225f.
22.
Rabbinische Gutachten über die Verträglichkeit der freien Forschung mit dem Rabbineramte, Breslau: 1842, p.10. Friedländer (1753–1852) goes on to say in the responsum that the dicta of the Mishnah and the Talmud are not binding for all time. Regarding Friedländer, see the obituary by Rabbi Leopold Stein in Der israelitische Volkslehrer 2, 1852, p. 295–300.
23.
For the historical background see Michael A. Meyer Response to Modernity, Detroit 1995, p. 114–119.
24.
Gotthold Salomon Das neue Gebetbuch und seine Verketzerung, Hamburg 1841. On Salomon, see Chap. 2. For Abraham Geiger’s comments on the debate, see below.
25.
Salomon, p. 16. (emphasis in the original) Note that Salomon himself, in his and many Reformer’s undertakings to return to Biblical “Mosaism”, published a popular German translation of the Hebrew Bible (Deutsche Volks- und Schulbibel für Israeliten, Altona 1837).
26.
Salomon, p. 18f. He notes that Nachmanides attacked this view, but was refuted by Abarbanel in the introduction to his commentary on Leviticus, where Abarbanel claims to have found the rabbinic source of Maimonides’ theory in LevR 22, 8. For further discussion, see Chap. 9.
27.
Samuel Holdheim Ueber das Gebetbuch nach dem Gebrauche des Neuen Israelitischen Tempelvereins zu Hamburg, Hamburg 1841, p. 15. Also Holdheim adds a reference to the criticism of Maimonides’ theory by “some theologians”, while other “well-known authorities” like Abrabanel have supported and based it on an old rabbinical source. (ibid.)
28.
Jude und Nichtjude, eine Erwiederung auf die Schriften der Triple-Alliance der Herren Doktoren Holdheim, Salomon und Frankfurter von einem Ungenannten, Amsterdam (Hamburg), 1842. Naphtali Frankfurter (1810–1866), Prediger at the Hamburg Temple from 1840, had published another small work defending the prayer book: Stillstand und Fortschritt: zur Würdigung der Partheien im heutigen Judenthum, Hamburg 1841.
29.
Samuel Holdheim Verketzerung und Gewissensfreiheit: Ein zweites Votum in dem Hamburger Tempelstreit, Schwerin 1842, p. 62.
30.
Ibid. Emphasis in the original.
31.
Holdheim, Verketzerung, p. 72f.
32.
Seligman Grünwald Die Glaubens- und Sittenlehren des Talmuds, nebst Erklärungen der Heiligen Schrift, Heilbronn 1854, p. XXVIII-XXX. Grünwald (1800–1856) studied at the traditional yeshiva in Fürth, then philosophy and philology at the universities of Würzburg and Tübingen. In 1825, he became district rabbi in Braunsbach, where he introduced moderate liturgical reforms against much Orthodox opposition. From 1842 he officiated in Freudenthal.
33.
Der Israelitische Volkslehrer 1855, p. 77. Herxheimer (1801–1884) studied at the yeshiva in Mainz and at the University of Marburg, where he earned his doctorate. His Bible translation appeared first from 1841 to 48. A rather moderate Reformer, he took part in all three rabbinical assemblies in the 1840s.
34.
Eliezer Schweid “Halevi and Maimonides as Representatives of Romantic Versus Rationalistic Conceptions of Judaism”, in: Kabbala und Romantik (ed. E. Goodman-Thau et al.), Tübingen 1994, p. 286.
35.
Guide III:32. Maimonides makes the same concession towards Islam. Asked by a former Moslem who had converted to Judaism if Islam was idolatry, Maimonides denies this, and explains pagan remnants in the Islamic cult in the context of the Moslem’s true intentions towards God () while practicing them. (cf. Tshuvot haRambam (Hebrew), ed. Y. Blau, 3 vols., Jerusalem 1960, No. 448, p. 725ff.)
36.
Guide III:37.
37.
A detailed description of those Maimonidean teachings can be found in Howard Kreisel “Reasons for the Commandments in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, and in Provencal Jewish Philosophy”, in: Maimonidean Studies 5 (ed. A. Hyman), New York 2008, p. 162–166.
38.
H. Jolowicz Ueber das Leben und die Schriften Musa ben Maimun’s, Königsberg, 1857, p. 19.
39.
Leopold Stein Die Schrift des Lebens – Inbegriff des gesamten Judenthums, vol. 2 Straßburg 1877, p. 358. The Talmudic Sages are divided on this question: some believe that the patriarchs instituted the daily prayers, others saw the prayers as reflecting the three daily sacrifices. (TB Berachot 26b)
40.
Laws of Mamrim 2:4.
41.
Guide III: 41. This source the Reformers almost never used, probably because of the implicit esotericism that they detested.
42.
Hermann Cohen: Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums, first published Berlin, 1919. Cohen’s treatment of the Law in this book will be discussed later in this chapter.
43.
Protokolle und Aktenstücke der zweiten Rabbinerversammlung, Frankfurt 1845, p. 111. To date, almost nothing is known about Rabbi Wagner (d. 1892), but for some information see the eulogy delivered at his funeral held by Rabbi Moritz Steckelmacher Worte des Abschieds, Mannheim 1892. Wagner edited in 1846 together with Rabbi Abraham Adler a short – lived journal called Die Reform des Judenthums.
44.
Ibid., p. 117.
45.
Ibid. 382. (Adler, who later moved to New York, had even prepared a written statement about this point that was published with the protocols of the assembly.)
46.
Leopold Stein “Die Autorität der Torah und die fragliche Dauer der Opfergesetze”, in: Der Israelitische Volkslehrer, No. 5, 1857, p. 141.
47.
For the use of the same word “mere accommodation” in the description of Maimonides’ theory of sacrifice, see also the 1848 pamphlet by Bernhard Beer against Johannes Ronge. (Bernhard Beer Die freie christliche Kirche und das Judenthum: Sendschreiben an Herrn Johannes Ronge, Leipzig, 1848, p. 22). For a discussion, see Stephen Benin The Footprints of God: Divine Accommodation in Jewish and Christian Thought, Albany 1993.
48.
Ibid., p. 147ff. Cf Guide III:32.
49.
Leopold Stein “Maimonides über die Opfer”, in: Der Israelitische Volkslehrer, No. 6, 1857, p. 176.
50.
Melachim 11:1, Me’ila 8:8.
51.
Julius Wellhausen Geschichte Israels, Berlin 1878 (from the second edition the work was called Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, Berlin 1883). For Jewish reactions to Wellhausen, see Ran HaCohen Reclaiming the Hebrew Bible, Berlin 2010, p. 115ff.
52.
Siegmund Maybaum (1844–1919) was born in Hungary and studied at the Hildesheimer yeshiva in Eisenstadt, later at the Rabbinical Seminary and the University of Breslau. He earned a PhD from the University of Halle and held several rabbinical positions before came to Berlin in 1881 where he still officiated as a rabbi and lectured at the Hochschule.
53.
For a discussion of this verse in connections with Hermann Cohen’s reading of Maimonides, see below.
54.
Siegmund Maybaum Die Entwickelung des Altisraelitischen Priesterthums, Breslau 1880, p. 67.
55.
Ibid., p. 126. For an extensive discussion, actually the rediscovery of Maybaum, see HaCohen Reclaiming, p. 199–216.
56.
Moritz Eisler, Vorlesungen über die jüdischen Philosophen des Mittelalters, vol. II, Wien 1870, p. 120. The German reads.“..und haben allen Anspruch auf ihre fernere Berechtigung verloren.”
57.
Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 9:1.
58.
Mishneh Torah, Laws of Mamrim, chapter 3. Cf. the detailed discussion of these regulations in Yaakov Blidstein Authority and Dissent in Maimonidean Law (Hebrew), Hakibbutz Hame’uchad 2002, p. 168–184.
59.
Eisler’s reference here is mistaken; it must be Guide III:32 I believe.
60.
Both quotes Vorlesungen, p. 121.
61.
All quotes: Abraham Geiger Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte, 3 vols, Breslau 1865–71, vol. 2, p. 147f.
62.
Abraham Geiger “Der Formglaube in seinem Unwerthe und in seinen Folgen”, in Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Jüdische Theologie 1839, No. 1, p. 10, translation from David Philipson Abraham Geiger as Reformer, Charlevoix, Mich., 1910, p. 31f. For Geiger’s view of ritual law in Judaism see also his review of the book Rabbinische Ceremonialbräuche (Breslau 1837) by Moses Brück, the review was published in Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Jüdische Theologie 1837, No. 3, p. 413–426.
63.
Michael A. Meyer Response to Modernity, p. 94.
64.
Note that Maimonides never explicitly says that the Akedah happened in a dream and that this was a source of debate already in the Middle Ages.
65.
Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte, vol. 3, p. 50f.
66.
The word ‘trivial’ is used by Geiger in describing Maimonides’ theory of sacrifice. See Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte, p. 41.
67.
Abraham Geiger Der Hamburger Tempelstreit, Breslau 1842, reprinted in: Nachgelassene Schriften I (ed. Ludwig Geiger), Berlin 1875, p. 171. The Hamburg siddur has this text for Shabbat Mussaf:

The association of prayer and sacrifices goes back to the Talmud (Berachot 26b).
68.
Micah 6:8. (He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord demands of you; but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk modestly with your God.) This verse later became one of the favorite Biblical passages of Hermann Cohen, who will repeat Geiger’s arguments closely – but this time with due reference to Maimonides. (See later in this chapter for a detailed discussion.)
69.
All quotes from Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte, vol. 1, p. 52–54.
70.
Heinrich Graetz Geschichte der Juden, vol.6, Leipzig 1861, p. 320.
71.
Guide III:36–49.
72.
Exodus 21: 22–25, Deut 19: 18–21, Lev 24: 19–20. For Maimonides’ discussion see I.H. Haut “Lex Talionis: Views, Ancient and Modern, particularly, those of Maimonides”, in: Dinei Israel 16, 1991–92, p. 7–45.
73.
Jacob Levinger cites more then ten such cases (more or less compellingly) in his Maimonides as Philosopher and Codifier (Hebrew), Jerusalem 1989, p. 177–181.
74.
Guide III:41.
75.
Ismar Schorsch “Scholarship in the Service of Reform”, in Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 35 (1990), p. 89.
76.
Rabbinische Gutachten, p. 90. Wechsler (1807–1874) later immigrated to the USA.
77.
Leopold Stein Die Schrift des Lebens – Inbegriff des gesamten Judenthums, vol. 2 Straßburg 1877, p. 350–353.
78.
Ibid., p. 353.
79.
This view, the rejection of monotheism as the basic theological element of Judaism, is most likely the result of the legacy of his teacher Samson Raphael Hirsch in Graetz’s early thought. Cf. Hirsch’s later commentary on Num 22:8 (the question of the authenticity of Bileam’s prophecy). Hermann Cohen later heavily criticized Graetz for this view (in: “Graetzens Philosophie der jüdischen Geschichte”, in: Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 1917, No. 4, p. 357ff).
80.
All quotes: Heinrich Graetz “Die Konstruktion der jüdischen Geschichte”, in: Zeitschrift für die religiösen Interessen des Judentums 3, 1846, p. 84. An English translation appears in H. Graetz The Structure of Jewish History and other Essays, translated, edited and introduced by Ismar Schorsch, New York, 1975.
81.
Ludwig Philippson in Protokolle und Aktenstücke der zweiten Rabbinerversammlung, Frankfurt 1845, p. 117.
82.
For example, a German government official authored and recommended as early as 1823 a reform program for rabbinical training that included the explicit demand for the candidates to use Maimonides’ Guide as the guideline for their Biblical exegesis. (Documented in Carsten Wilke Den Talmud und den Kant: Rabbinerausbildung an der Schwelle zur Moderne, Hildesheim: 2003, p. 350.)
83.
Julius Guttmann “John Spencers Erklärung der biblischen Gesetze in ihrer Beziehung zu Maimonides”, in: Festkrift i anledning af Professor David Simonsens 70-Aarige Fodselsdag, ed. Josef Fischer, Copenhagen 1923, p. 258–276. Spencer, in his “De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus et eorum rationibus” from 1685, fully subscribed to Maimonides’ theory of the sacrifices and extended it to the ritual law in general, as Guttmann shows there. Cf. also a book by Presbytarian preacher Moses Lowman A Rational[sic] of the Ritual of the Hebrew Worship, London 1748 (translated already in 1755 into German) for the same claim with explicit reference to the Guide.
84.
Geschichte der Juden, vol. IV, third edition, Breslau 1893, p. 442.
85.
Heinrich Graetz Geschichte der Juden, vol. 1, Leipzig 1874, p. 45f.
86.
After he finished working on his History, Graetz devoted the last years of his life to several commentaries on Biblical books (a fact that has widely gone unnoticed), publishing critical editions of Song of Songs, Kohelet, and the Psalms, where he advanced radical untraditional positions as to authorship, origin, and dating.
87.
For Graetz’s motivation to travel to Palestine, see his preface to the first volume of the History (Leipzig 1874, p. VIIIf.). For the reception of Graetz’s History and its reasons, see Jay M. Harris How Do We Know This? Midrash and the Fragmentation of Jewish History, New York 1995, p. 187f. Harris calls Hirsch’s rejection an “irony of Jewish intellectual history”, which is only true if one refers to Graetz’s intentions and not to Graetz’s methods and results.
88.
See here Gershom Sholem’s criticism of Maimonides’ theory of the sacrifices – symbolic kabbalistic explanations of the commandments enhanced the prestige of the halacha, while Maimonides’ historical method diminished the chances of the community of remaining faithful to traditional religious practices. (Gershom Scholem Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, New York 1969, p. 29).
89.
Cf. Abraham Geiger, Lehr und Lesebuch zur Sprache der Mischnah, Breslau: 1845. The book’s main thesis is that the Mishnah is an independent work of literature and that the later Gemara texts often misunderstood the meaning of Mishnaic rulings.
90.
Kings I, 12:8. Beer’s article is in Zeitschrift für die religiösen Interessen des Judentums 5, 1846, p. 184–190, with the footnote on page 190.
91.
“Die Konstruktion der jüdischen Geschichte”, in: Zeitschrift für die religiösen Interessen des Judentums 11, 1846, p. 415.
92.
Konstruktion, p. 416 (note).
93.
Ibid. The open split with Hirsch came only in 1851, after Graetz published the first volume of his History on the Talmudic period, featuring biographies of the sages – for Hirsch an inexcusable attempt to ‘humanize’ the Talmudic rabbis.
94.
Konstruktion. p. 416.
95.
For only two examples of differing references to this passage in Guide II:25, see the more conservative Jacob Guttmann Über Dogmenbildung im Judentum, Breslau 1894, p. 10, and the liberal Martin Schreiner Die jüngsten Urteile über das Judentum, Berlin 1902, p. 38.
96.
David Joel Die Religionsphilosophie des Sohar und ihr Verhältnis zur allgemeinen jüdischen Theologie, Leipzig 1849, p. 11f. (note). The discussion of Graetz’s essay occurs as part of an argument with Spinoza, who also quoted the passage from II:25 against Maimonides (cf. Theological-Political Tractat, ch. 7). Interestingly enough, David Joel used the same intellectual construction as Maimonides in his defense of the Kabbalah, which his book is dedicated to: If there were proof that the Kabbalah contradicts the belief in revelation, Joel writes, he would have reversed his position (Ibid., p. 140, note).
97.
Manuel Joel Die Religionsphilosophie des Moses ben Maimon, Breslau 1876, p. 66, see also p. 77.
98.
Manuel Joel Spinoza’s Theologisch-Politischer Traktat auf seine Quellen geprüft, Breslau 1870, p. 63f.
99.
Konstruktion, p. 415.
100.
Funkenstein, Perceptions, p. 141f.
101.
Knowledge of the Sabians came to Europe through Maimonides’ account in the Guide. Beginning in the seventeenth century, intensive research was done in order to uncover the history of this people that lived in Mesopotamia. But Maimonides himself seems to have followed the Arab custom of his time of calling the religion of all idolatrous peoples Sabian. See for this subject: S. Stroumsa “Sabéens de Harran et Sabéens de Maïmonide”, in: Maïmonide, Philosophe et Savant, Réunies par Tony Lévy et Roshdi Rashed. Leuven: Peeters, 2004 and J. M. Elukin “Maimonides and the Rise and Fall of the Sabians: Explaining Mosaic laws and the Limits of Scholarship”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 63,4 (2002) 619–637.
102.
Guide III:29 (beginning).
103.
Mishneh Torah, Laws of Avodah Zarah, ch. 1.
104.
Guide III:29. (end)
105.
See Geiger’s “Einführung in das Studium der jüdischen Theologie” from 1849, in: Nachgelassene Schriften II, p. 3ff.
106.
This culminated in the well known Bible-Babel controversy. The Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch became German Jewry’s public enemy for his influential “Bibel und Babel” lectures in Berlin (1902/03) where he claimed that the greater part of the Pentateuch is no more than a product of the older Babylonian culture.
107.
In his “Memoire sur les Nabateens”, in: Journal Asiatique XV, 1835.
108.
In his Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, St. Petersburg, 1856, vol. I, p. 707ff.. For a short history of Ibn-Wahshiyya studies, see: J. Hameen-Anttila The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Wahshiyya and his Nabatean Agriculture, Leiden 2006, p. 3–9.
109.
Manuel Joel Die Religionsphilosophie des Moses ben Maimon, Breslau 1876, p. 88, note 1.
110.
Ibid., p. 83.
111.
In: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft XV, 1861, p. 1–110. Ironically, Gutschmid believed that Maimonides (whose Guide he apparently knew only through Chwolsohn) sensed the truth about the age of the Agriculture (see p. 47).
112.
Abraham Geiger Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte, Breslau 1865, p. 147.
113.
David Cassel Das Buch Kusari des Jehuda ha-Levi, (second edition) Leipzig 1869, p. 45.
114.
Adolf Schmiedl Studien über jüdische, insonders jüdisch-arabische Religionsphilosophie, Wien: 1869, p. 326, note.
115.
Israel Finkelscherer Mose Maimunis Stellung zum Aberglauben und zur Mystik, Breslau 1894, p. 12, note.
116.
Leo Bardowicz Die rationale Schriftauslegung des Maimonides, Berlin 1893, p. 40f.
117.
Although Bardowicz himself studied at the liberal Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums in Berlin, his study (which was Bardowicz’s doctoral dissertation) was first printed in the Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1892/93), whose editors were the Orthodox rabbis and scholars D. Hoffmann and A. Berliner.
118.
Hermann Cohen “Charakteristik der Ethik Maimunis”, in: Werke, vol. 15 p. 194 (Jüdische Schriften, vol III, p. 240f.).
119.
Interestingly, the debate seems not to be over today. Hameen-Anttila rejects the nineteenth-century view that “a man, who so impudently made things up, cannot have presented any material of any value at all,” and argues that Ibn Wahshiyya might have incorporated some original older material alongside his forged passages. See The Last Pagans, p. 6. The same thought was already formulated by A. Weiss in 1923 in a note to chapter III:29 of his German translation of the Guide. See: Mose ben Maimon Führer der Unschlüssigen, Übersetzung und Kommentar von Adolf Weiß, reprinted Hamburg: Meiner 1995, p. 187, note 46 (end).
120.
Die rationale Schriftauslegung, p. 19, note 29. The original quote is in: Moses Mendelssohn Jerusalem oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum, (ed. D. Martyn) Bielefeld 2001, p. 128 (my translation). In the original, the word vielleicht (might be) is in italics, obviously in order to emphasize the mere probability – however, the italics are not reproduced in Bardowicz.
121.
Ibid.
122.
Ibid., p. 125.
123.
Die rationale Schriftauslegung, p. 22.
124.
W. Bacher Die Bibelexegese Moses Maimunis, Budapest, 1896 (reprinted Gregg 1972), p. XII. (Archeology refers in the nineteenth century to all findings in ancient history, not only to archeological digs.)
125.
Ludwig Pick Die Weltanschauung des Judentums, Berlin 1912, p. 88.
126.
Ibid., p. 90f.
127.
Joel, Religionsphilosophie, p. 82, note. As a reason for this apparent failure, Joel proffers that in Maimonides “the systematic theologian led the exegete astray.” (ibid.) Bardowicz agrees at least with the first part of this statement: “Maimonides’ merit is that he paved the way for this kind of research.” (Die rationale Schriftauslegung p. 10).
128.
Gustav Karpeles, Geschichte der jüdischen Literatur, 2 vols, Berlin 1886 (quoted after the second edition, Berlin 1909, vol. 1, p. 458). Karpeles (1848–1909), a graduate of the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary later became a famous historian of literature.
129.
Max Wiener, Jüdische Religion im Zeitalter der Emanzipation, Berlin 1933, p.62.
130.
“Charakteristik der Ethik Maimunis”, p. 203 (JS 246). The following paragraphs on Hermann Cohen have been published in an earlier and shorter version as “Finding God’s Purpose – Hermann Cohen’s Use of Maimonides to Establish the Authority of Mosaic Law”, in: Journal for Jewish Thought and Philosophy 18:1 (2010), p. 85–115.
131.
Guide III:51; I, 39; Laws of the Foundations of the Torah II, 1–2 and many more.
132.
In Guide I:2 Maimonides seems to argue the opposite: that ethics belong to the mefursamot, to non-rational social agreement. Nevertheless cf. Steven Schwarzschild with an impressive defense of the Cohenian reading in his “Moral Radicalism and ‘Middlingness’ in the Ethics of Maimonides”, in: The Pursuit of the Ideal, (ed. M. Kellner), New York 1990. As opposed to that see Warren Z. Harvey “Maimonides and Spinoza on the Knowledge of Good and Evil”[Hebrew], in: Iyyun 28, 1978, p. 165–85 and the rejection of this position in Howard Kreisel Maimonides Political Thought, Albany 1999, p. 95ff.
133.
Charakteristik, p. 261.
134.
135.
Guide III:54 – Translation: Moses Maimonides The Guide of the Perplexed (transl. Shlomo Pines), Chicago 1963, p. 636.
136.
Gen. rabb. 35.
137.
BT, Shabbat 31a. Maimonides refers to it in Guide III:54 before the discussion of Jeremiah.
138.
Hermann Cohen “Innere Beziehungen der Kantischen Philosophie zum Judentum”, reprinted in: Jüdische Schriften, Berlin 1924, vol I, p. 284–305.
139.
Ibid., p. 288f.
140.
Cf. Kreisel Reasons for the Commandments, p. 165, where the difference between the Mishneh Torah and the Guide regarding the commandments is explained with different questions Maimonides asked: While in the Guide the question is “Why did God command these particular commandments”, in the Mishneh Torah “Maimonides is more concerned in providing reasons that would add to one’s devotion.” (my italics).
141.
Cf. Hermann Cohen, Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums, Frankfurt 1929, p. 412 [354]. Henceforth this book will be referred to as RR, reference to the English translation by Simon Kaplan (New York 1972) will be given after the German in square brackets. It should be noted that I will not always follow Kaplan’s translation word-for-word.
142.
Guide III:13. “And as He has not been made, no question as to the final end arises with reference to Him. For this reason, one does not ask: What is the final end of the existence of the Creator, may He be exalted?” (Pines translation, p. 448.)
143.
Cf. here especially responsa Nos. 3, 16, 34, and 365 in: Tshuvot haRambam (Hebrew), 3 vols, ed. Y. Blau, Jerusalem 1986. In all these cases a ‘traditionalist’ outlook on halacha – where the law is an end in itself and does not follow a purpose outside of itself – would probably have led to different decisions, very likely to the very opposite of what Maimonides ruled.
144.
Spinoza’s Theologisch-Politischer Traktat, p. 52 note 2.
145.
RR 411 [353]. Ironically, this conclusion is exactly what S.R. Hirsch had anticipated and warned against 80 years earlier. In the eighteenth of his famous Nineteen Letters on Judaism, Hirsch wrote: The author of the Guide entered Judaism from without, bringing with him foreign thought: that knowledge of God is the end and not the means, that the Mitzvot, in contrast, were means, albeit necessary, to the attainment of this knowledge. (S.R. Hirsch Neunzehn Briefe über Judentum, Altona 1836, 18th letter, p. 97f.)
146.
See Guide II:40 where Maimonides explicitly declares that divine (as opposed to human) law is defined as a law that provides true opinions about God and the angels.
147.
RR 412 [354].
148.
RR 412 [354].
149.
Lawrence Kaplan, “Hermann Cohen’s Theory of Sacrifice”, in: “Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums”; Tradition und Ursprungsdenken in Hermann Cohens Spätwerk;. ed. Helmut Holzhey [et al.]. Hildesheim 2000. p. 191–204.
150.
Kaplan, p. 204.
151.
Eliezer Schweid wants to construct a general difference here between Cohen and Maimonides – since the latter holds that monotheism is the earlier, original form of worship. But Maimonides’ discussion to this effect in Laws of Idolatry 1 has no influence on the subject of the law under discussion here, and must rather be interpreted as an exegetical project of both the stories of Noah and Abraham. See E. Schweid, “Maimonides’ Influence on Jewish thinking in the Twentieth Century” (Hebr.), in: Shlomo Pines Jubilee Volume, Jerusalem 1990, p. 314.
152.
Schweid comments that the “emphasis upon the halachic basis of the religion of reason seemed to Cohen both essential and central, since the rational life is one led according to law.” (See his “Religion and Philosophy: The Scholarly Debate between Julius Guttmann and Leo Strauss”, in: Maimonidean Studies 1 1990, p. 166f, note10).
153.
RR 393 [338].
154.
RR 395 [340].
155.
Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften (JubA), Vol. 13, p. 134. The apparent similarity between Maimonides’ theory of the law and Mendelssohn’s was noted by some more conservative Reformers even before Cohen. See for example the short article “Die Religion des Judentums” by Rabbi Adolf Biach in Ost und West 1905, p. 734.
156.
Cf. Moses Mendelssohn Jerusalem (transl. A. Arkush), Hanover and London 1983, p. 119.
157.
Guide III:32.
158.
Cf. for this reading Kreisel Reasons for the Commandments, p. 164, 183 (note 76); Stern, Problems and Parables, p. 43; Funkenstein, Perceptions, p. 142 and many others.
159.
RR 413 [355].
160.
The word Gesinnung appears on p. 218 of the Scheyer edition. Scheyer used the word to translate the same Hebrew word from the same passage of the Guide that Cohen also translated as Gesinnung, although it should rather be rendered as Denken/Gedanken (thought). For Cohen’s praise of Scheyer, see the note to CEM p. 247 (JS 275).
161.
It is interesting to compare here Cohen’s essay entitled “Gesinnung” from 1910 (Werke, vol. 15, p. 389ff., Jüdische Schriften I, 196ff), which, in defense against Christian accusations of Jewish legal formalism, argues the same from the opposite point of departure: that action without Gesinnung is also unethical. (It was Hartwig Wiedebach who called my attention to that essay.)
162.
Hermann Cohen Ethik des reinen Willens (Werke, vol. 7, Hildesheim 2002), p. 177f. The entire discussion of action, thinking, and will occurs on pp. 171–178.
163.
Charakteristik, p. 286. If Maimonides says (the world acts according to its established custom), this is exclusively directed against the belief in miracles, and not against social and ethical progress in the world, Cohen claims here.
164.
RR 199 [171]. The prophets’ opposition concerning sacrifice was already discussed in a Reform context in 1845, during the second rabbinical conference in Frankfurt. Cohen refers to this biblical argument for the first time already in 1892 in his article “Die Versöhnungsidee”, reprinted in his Jüdische Schriften I, p. 138.
165.
RR 199 [171].
166.
Hans Liebeschütz “Hermann Cohen and his Historical Background”, in: Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 13 (1968), p. 21.
167.
Mishna Ber. 2:2, see also Avot 3:6 and TB Ber. 61b where R. Akiva, at the hour of his brutal execution, interprets “with all your soul” (Deut. 6:5) as taking on the yoke of the heavenly kingdom.
168.
In one instance, R. Yizhak is said to predict that God will invite all those who did not eat ritually unclean food in the present to a future festive meal. As a compensation for being faithful, the forbidden food will then be served at this meal. (Lev. Raba 13)
169.
See Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah, the introduction to San 10:1 (perek chelek). In the whole of his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides never mentions the yoke of heaven, and only once the yoke of Torah in connection with conversion to Judaism (Issurei Biah 13:4). In his Sefer HaMitzvot ( 2) Maimonides even identified the concept of the ‘yoke’ with the belief in the uniqueness of God.
170.
“It is a very beautiful thing to do good to men out of love for them and out of sympathetic good will, or to be just out of love of order; but this is not yet the true moral maxim of our conduct, which is suitable to our position as men amongst rational beings, when we pretend with fanciful pride to set ourselves above the thought of duty, like volunteers, and, as if we were independent of the command, to want to do for the sake of our own pleasure what we think we need no command to do.” (Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, Longmans: London, 1909 [1948], p. 175 [209]). For a discussion of Cohen’s view on parallels between Maimonides and Kant, see Chap. 8.
171.
TB Kiddushin 31a, Avodah Zarah 3a, Baba Qama 8a, and others. Cohen mentions this apparent analogy between Kant and the Talmud in Jüdische Schriften I, p. 292. For discussion see Yehodaya Amir “Particularism and Universalism in Hermann Cohen’s Religious Philosophy” (Hebrew), in: Derekh haRuah, Sefer Yovel le Eliezer Schweid, Jerusalem 2005, p. 668ff.
172.
RR 401 [345].
173.
Cf. for example the chapter on Kant in Emil Fackenheim Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy, New York: 1980, p. 33–77.
174.
RR 395 [340], see also RR 236 where Cohen calls this “nothing but a methodological difference [from ethics] that the religion of reason teaches to think of the will of reason as God’s commandment.” The same thought also appears in RR 377: If pure ethics transforms moral law into duty, analogously religion performs a transformation of moral law into God’s commandment.
175.
RR 202 [173].
176.
Amos 5:25. (Did you bring me sacrifices in the desert for forty years, O House of Israel?)
177.
Jeremiah 7:22 (“For I did not speak to your forefathers, nor did I command them when I was bringing them out of Egypt, regarding matters of burnt offerings and sacrifices.”) This famous verse, which often served Christian theology to attack Jewish adherence to the Law, was already in 1840 a matter of dispute between Salomon Ludwig Steinheim and the biblical scholar Wilhelm Vatke (1806–1882). Steinheim uses Jeremiah to proof that the sacrifical law is not of divine-revelatory origin. (See S. L. Steinheim, Die Offenbarung vom Standtpunkte der höheren Kritik, Kiel 1840, p. 98f. and for discussion: Ran HaCohen, Reclaiming the Hebrew Bible, Berlin 2010, p. 107f.)
178.
TB San 56b.
179.
As often, Maimonides does not quote literally, and introduces the reference with a cryptical “the true tradition says….” Cohen’s general command of rabbinic literature should be the subject of a separate study. Throughout Cohen’s works there are, along with some highly original interpretations, some categorical misunderstandings of rabbinic texts. For a theoretical introduction to this subject see Michael Zank “Hermann Cohen und die rabbinische Literatur”, in: Hermann Cohen’s Philosophy of Religion; ed. by Stéphane Moses and Hartwig Wiedebach. Hildesheim 1997.
180.
The classification of the fifth commandment of the Decalogue has always posed a difficulty for Jewish tradition, based on the formal “mistake” that it is placed on the first tablet, together with the commandments concerning God. The generally accepted solution is that with honoring one’s parents the praise of God is naturally included, a solution that is not far from the Maimonidean/Cohenian position!
181.
While in 1880, at the height of the Treitschke debate, Cohen suggested moving the Shabbat to Sunday (“Der Sabbath in seiner kulturgeschichtlichen Bedeutung”, Jüdische Schriften II, 71f.), in 1918, at the end of his life, he wrote that keeping the Shabbat, even in principle, is “a protest against the transformation of the Shabbat into a memorial day for the resurrection of Christ” (RR 426). The idea of moving the Shabbat to Sunday was first proposed by Samuel Holdheim at the third Rabbinical Conference in Breslau in1846, and there refuted by Leopold Stein for the same reasons advanced by Cohen in 1918. For Cohen’s position on the Shabbat, also see his essay “Gesinnung” (Jüdische Schriften I, p. 204f.).
182.
RR 202 [173].
183.
RR 381 [327].
184.
“Not only must jurisprudence be based on ethics, also ethics must be derived from jurisprudence.” Cf. Hermann Cohen Ethik des reinen Willens (Werke, vol. 7, Hildesheim 2002), p. 228.
185.
RR 381. Das Recht in German has two connotations, meaning legislation as well as justice. Therefore, what Cohen emphasized here is the inherent relationship between both meanings.
186.
Num 11:29 and Ex 19:6. Interestingly, this thought of Cohen, that the basic function of Torah is to eliminate the difference between holy and profane, was quoted approvingly in Cohen’s name (among many other insights of Cohen’s) by the former British Chief Rabbi, Joseph H. Hertz, in his popular commentary on the Pentateuch from 1934. (The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. by J. H. Hertz, London 1990, p. 448.)
187.
RR 403f [347]. The parallel to the nazir though is doubtful, for while his asceticism is indeed voluntary, the sacrifices are clearly and positively commanded by the law.
188.
Guide III:31.
189.
Yoma 8:9. The context in the Mishnah is actually the difference in the conditions for atonement for sins/transgressions belonging to the respective groups. To designate God, the Mishnah uses the word hamakom, meaning “the Place.”
190.
Charakteristik, p. 240f.
191.
RR 409.
192.
Cf. Ismar Schorsch, who wrote that “Kant’s philosophical repudiation of heteronomy as ethically worthless served to alienate many an educated Jew from traditional Judaism.” It seems that the Jewish reliance on Kant was already an attempt at finding a new intellectual justification for religious beliefs – while doubts as to the validity of the old (traditional) assumptions existed long before. Jewish Kantianism (for liberal and orthodox thinkers) freed Judaism from metaphysical obligations and returned it to being a religion of belief. As against Schorsch, it could probably be said that many Jews discovered through Jewish interpretations of Kant that the very supposition of heteronomy in fact amounts to anthropomorphic thinking of God. (Ismar Schorsch “The Emergence of the Modern Rabbinate”, in: Revolution and Evolution, ed. W.E. Mosse [et al.], Tübingen 1981, p. 232, note 86).
193.
This is what Aharon Shear-Yashuv probably overlooked when he tried to correct Cohen’s assessment that Maimonides took the concept of from Bahya. See his “Hermann Cohen über Chok und Mishpat”, in: “Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums”; Tradition und Ursprungsdenken in Hermann Cohens Spätwerk;. ed. Helmut Holzhey [et al.]. Hildesheim 2000. p. 388f.
194.
Translation by S. Pines, p. 538.
195.
Here is a short overview of the classic translations: Both Ibn Tibbon and J. Kapach render the Hebrew translation as follows:

To introduce this sentence with “” clearly means reading it the second way. Pines and Munk write “For every commandment…” and “Par tout commandement…” respectively, which leaves it more open, and Michael Schwarz is even more on Cohen’s side when he renders “.” In the German translation that was published in 1923 by A. Weiss (after Cohen’s death) it says, “Man nennt nämlich jedes Gebot…” and Weiss adds a note in favor of Cohen’s reading (cf. Führer der Unschlüssigen, III, p. 218, note 25). In this case Cohen himself seems not to have used the German translation by S. Scheyer from 1838 – otherwise he would have noticed the difference. Scheyer, who prints Ibn Tibbon on the right side, writes: “Jede Verordnung nehmlich…” (p. 240) which positively contradicts Cohen’s reading.
196.
This is the way Hannah Kasher reads the Maimonidean definition (she used the translation by Ibn Tibbon). See her in: Da’at 12 (1984), p. 23–28.
197.
R. Akiva in Tosefta Yevamot 8:5. In his Laws of Murder and Saving Souls (1:4), Maimonides writes that the soul of the murdered is the personal property of God and cannot be ransomed.
198.
TB Baba Qama 79b. To complicate matters, this Talmudic explanation is one of the few instances where Maimonides in the Guide does not adopt the reason the sages gave for the ruling. (see Guide III:41). But this does not necessarily mean that he disagreed with their explanation.
199.
Jerusalem (transl. A. Arkush), p. 57f.
200.
RR 415 [356].
201.
RR 418 [359].
202.
RR 422 [363]. Cf. Ezra 10, 9–12 (After the return from the Babylonian exile, Ezra decreed a general divorce from foreign wives). For Saadia’s statement, see his Emunot ve-Deot 3:7. The whole idea of the purpose of the Jewish people as a mere vessel for carrying the monotheistic idea is borrowed from nineteenth-century Reform theology. This is just another instance of proof for how Cohen is rooted in the Wissenschaft des Judentums traditions.
203.
RR 418 [359].
204.
Liebeschütz “Hermann Cohen and his Historical Background”, p. 23. This development might also be a result of Cohen’s re-reading of the book of Ezekiel, Liebeschütz continues, for the prophet combines his idea of individual ethical responsibility with “care for the ritual forms of worship and life.” (Ibid.)
205.
Both quotes RR 418 [359].
206.
RR 422 [363].
207.
RR 423 [364].
208.
“… ihm zu vergesellschaften” (RR423)
209.
J.W. Goethe Faust, part I (Marthen’s Garden), translation by Bayard Taylor.
210.
RR 423 [364]. This, of course, is an attack on Goethe’s pantheism.
211.
RR 424 [365].
212.
RR 424 [365]. Cohen does not give rabbinic sources here. Usually the reference for the claim that all commandments will be abrogated in the messianic age is TB Niddah 61b, although at this place this annulment is premised on the resurrection of the dead. The notion that only the Day of Atonement will remain appears in the Midrash on Mishlei, chapter 9 (Buber edition). There it says that the holiday of Purim will never be annulled, whereupon R. Eleazar adds that the same is true for Yom Kippur. Maimonides, in the Mishneh Torah, adopts the eternity of Purim, while all prophetic literature and the Hagiographa are abrogated in the Days of the Messiah. The scroll of Esther, though, is “like the five books of the Torah and the Oral Law, which are never abrogated” (Laws of Megilah 2:18), including, therefore, the Day of Atonement.
213.
RR 425 [366].
214.
See for a radical implementation of Cohenian thought pre RR the lecture on Liberal Judaism held by Cohen’s student and later Reform rabbi in Berlin Benzion Kellermann. Kellermann proposed, among other things, to considerably reduce the Torah reading in favor of the prophetic haftarot and to eradicate from the siddur all personal requests to God. (Benzion Kellermann, Liberales Judentum, Berlin 1907, p. 17).
215.
L. Geiger Abraham Geigers Leben in Briefen, Berlin 1878, p. 181.
216.
RR 426 [366]. Nevertheless, there is an important point of difference between Cohen’s view and that of modern German Orthodoxy in the nineteenth and early twentieth century: While the practical consequences appear to be the same, the intellectual motivation is fundamentally different. Samson Raphael Hirsch never went beyond the position that the Torah must be kept because it is God’s word. For Hirsch’s view of the rationale behind the commandments, see Arnold M. Eisen Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community, Chicago 1999, p. 135ff.
217.
RR 401f.
218.
RR 398.
219.
Leben in Briefen, p. 182.
220.
RR 398.
221.
RR 396.
222.
Cf. here Kant’s famous statement about the Jews: “Perhaps there is no more sublime passage in the Jewish Law than the commandment: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… This commandment can alone explain the enthusiasm which the Jewish people, in their moral period, felt for their religion, when comparing themselves with others…” (I. Kant Critique of Judgement, B 124, translated by James C. Meredith). Cohen, as opposed to Kant, believes that the moral period still continues, at least as long as this commandment is honored.
223.
In a text called The Polish Jew, Cohen recalls the disputes he had in 1914 in Russia with secular Zionists. When Cohen “confessed to believing in God” (as he writes), they were either skeptical or pitiful. (“Der polnische Jude”, in Jüdische Schriften II, p. 165.) See for Cohen’s personal observance also Steven Schwarzschild’s opinion in his “Franz Rosenzweig’s Anecdotes about Hermann Cohen”, in: Gegenwart im Rückblick: Festgabe für die Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin 25 Jahre nach dem Neubeginn, ed. Herbert A. Strauss and Kurt R. Grossman, Heidelberg 1970, p. 209–218.
224.
RR 427. Here again, Cohen’s 1910 essay “Gesinnung” is helpful – for it essentially denies that an inherent contradiction between outwardness (the legal formalities) and inwardness (devotion and edifying services), which was so important for the early Reformers, existed in Judaism.
225.
RR 430. This is the subject matter of the next chapter in RR.
226.
Jüdische Religion im Zeitalter der Emanzipation, p. 29.
227.
Jüdische Religion, p. 10.

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Department for Jewish Thought, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel
George Y. Kohler

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Kohler, G.Y. (2012). The Law. In: Reading Maimonides' Philosophy in 19th Century Germany. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Philosophy, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4035-8_7

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