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Brim‘ PUBLISHED m TEE
EBREW UNION COLLEGE HUNT—ELY
MAY, 1918!


DR. KAUFMANN KOHLER
35M
755
.Kg
A3


by the wondrous sight of the Alpine Glow, the after-
glow of a glorious day when the sun, after it had gone
down behind the mountains, casts its last rays upon the
:38 high peaks to make them reﬂect once more its brilliancy,
mg as if it were still lingering above the horizon. Such an
afterglow of great historical periods at the turning-points of history is
always interesting to behold. It was my good fortune in the days of
my youth to witness such an afterglow of the old Jewish life in its
beauty and cheer, before the new era of modernism had altogether dis-
pelled the old traditions with their cherished memories and observances.
.rU'LI'U'U'U'h ’
g E EHE wanderer through the Alps is frequently fascinated
j “' ‘ ’
t
MY CHILDHOOD.
My native town Fuerth was the seat of a great Yeshibah, which
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw hundreds of disci—
ples (Bachurim), supported by a system of assessment of the well-to-do
members of the Kahal, sit at the feet of famous Talmudic scholars stun—
moned there as rabbis from all parts of Germany and Poland. It was
widely known also for its j-ewish printing press which furnished the stu-
dent of the Torah with complete editions of the Talmud, t’he Schulchan-
Aruk with its commentaries and a large casuistic and liturgical literature.
Thus in the religious circle in which I was brought up. it held fast to
the proud memories and endearing customs of the ancient days, so that
my childhood was passed in an ‘atmosphere of genuine orthodoxy. At
the same time my education was thoroughly modern. We spoke and
wrote pure German at home, though my parents preferred. to carry on
their correspondence with their relatives and afterwards with us in
Yuedish letters, that is the Hebrew script. My sainted father Moritz
(Moses) Ko‘hler, in common with his friends, devoted a portion of his
time after the morning service at the “Shool” (Synagogue) to the study
of the Talmud, and in the evening at home he prepared himself for the
following day’s portion. The Sulz'bach edition of the Talmud which ‘he
used, I still possess. It bears the name of my grandfather, Jacob Kauf-
man, as he signed himself, before the city magistrate, in accordance with
the edict of 1812, changed the family name into Kohl-er. My father
initiated me into the Torah by teaching me Chumesh (Pentateuch) in my
ﬁfth year, and I remember how proud he was, when I asked him ‘how
Abraham could set before the angels the calf and milk together as a meal
(Gen. XVIII, 8), and how he pointed to Rashi's solution of the religious
problem for me. My sainted mother, Babette Loewenmayer, who died
in her 9lst year, and on whose tombstone I had the words from the
Song of Songs inscribed: “I am asleep. but my heart is awake," was
the daughter of David Loewenmayer, the teacher and cantor of the
_.3__
Sulzbuerg community and sister of Dr. =Mayer Loewenm'ayer, the rabbi
of Sulzbuerg—related to the Sulzberger family, in this country (see J.
E. Art. Sulzberger). She loved to quote in her conversation and corre—
spondence from her favorite poets, Lessing and Schiller; so that fond-
ness of the German classics was ingrained in my soul early in life si-
multaneously with love for Hebrew literature. When I was about six
years old, I entered the day school of Simon Bamberger, the learned
teacher of the Jewish Orphan Asylum, who combined instruction in
Bible and Talmud with secular lessons. He was a pupil of the renowned
R. Wolf Hamburger, the last head of the Yeshibah in Fuerth, and I viv-
idly recall the outburst of grief with which my teacher received the
news of the demise of the great master on that memorable day, May
15th, 1850, when the whole city was suddenly transformed into one
house of mourning and lamentation.
Indeed, with the passing away of Wolf Hamburg-er the pride and
glory of the old communal life departed. It was his tragic fate to see
the split of Jewry and Judaism into two camps glaringly brought out
among his own pupils. Over against the few men of note that re-
mained staunch adherents to his views and teachings, such as Seligman
Baer Bamberger, Rabbi o-f \Vuerzburg; Abraham'Wechsler of Schwa-
. bach and a few others, there stood forth as banner-‘bearers of Reform, or
as they were then called, N eolo-gues, Isaac Loewi in his own city, Joseph
Aub, Leopold Stein, Bernhard Wechsler, Elias Gruenebaum, M. Gutmann
and the most pronounced of all, David Einhorn. Most aggravating and
bitter was the conﬂict between the old and the new in his own commun-
ity, where the Bavarian Government, in its support of all measures
tending to the “enlightenment” of the Jew, took a hostile attitude to the
old method of teaching, and ﬁnally had the Klaus (Beth Hamidrash),
founded 150 years before by Baerman Frankel, an ancestor of his, closed
to him altogether. One of the last pupils there, Eisle (Asher) Michael
Schueler, my teacher in Hassfurt and Hoechberg, had to hide behind
the benches to evade the searching policemen. A mere nonentity, Dr.
Heidegger, was appointed as the ofﬁcial Talmud teacher. Hamburger’s
former co-laborers, men of great erudition and acumen, such as Joshua
Moses Falkenau, Mendel Karga'u, Jehuda Gera and Jehuda Loe-b Hal-
berstadt, had in my time all gone to their rest. Only their names and
characteristic expressions were often mentioned in my hearing.‘ Other
venerable scholars I saw being lowered into the grave with an old Torah
Scroll at their side as an emblem of their life. The house in which the
former rabbi of Fuerth, the great Talmudist R. Zalman Cohn, lived,
and the tombstones of Hirsch Yanov (Charif), of B-aruc‘h-Rappaport
and Joseph Steinhart with his learned wife Kroendla often brought
the past glory of Fuerth home to my childhood. Only the noble ﬁgure
of the adored octogenarian \Volf Hamburger still lives in my memory,
_4._
as he sat in a chair, after have functioned as Mohel in the house of
my mother’s uncle Isaac Dispecker, the grandson of David Dispeck, the
rabbi of Baiersdorf and Baireuth and previously of Metz, the author
of Pardes David, with whom W'olf Hamburger corresponded on ritual—
istic questions. He, my great-great-grand-father, was rather inclined to
the pilpulistic method, and the story goes that, when he was summoned
to the heavenly Yeshibah he was especially eager to meet the R. M. B.
M. (Maimonides), pointing to his 54 discourses on the 54 Parashioth
of the year, in which he endeavored ‘by great acumen to harmonize 365
difficult passages in the Maimonidean Code, but the R. M. B. M. came
to him with a smile, saying: “My dear Rel) David, I am not at all so
full of difﬁculties as you make me appear." Wolf Hamburger was as
far remote from Pilpulism as from mysticism, but as simple in his teach-
ing as in his whole religious life, exceedingly kind and generous to his
pupils and fond of wit and good-natured sarcasm, so as to appreciate
clever replies even of his liberal pupils in their conservative antagonists.
His long protracted warfare against Dr. Loewi, his chief opponent, end-
ed at last in a sort of truce, as the Government upheld the latter in his
insistance on religious tolerance which made friends of Protestants and
Catholics and jews, but the outcome was religious indifference through—
out the Jewish community.
M Y BoYIIooD.
As my native town no longer offered me an opportunity to pursue
the Rabbinical studies, my father placed me, when I was about ten years
old, in charge of the above-mentioned Talmudist Eisle Michael Schueler
in the little town of Hassfurt with whom I remained four years. A fine
type of a modest old-time scholar, he lived on the so-called Shiurim, do-
nations sent to him by generous friends, especially from America, as
compensation for Torah lessons in memory of departed relatives.
As I was too young to fast on Atonement Day, I was teased for
being a “Yomkippur-fresser.” So the next year I fasted and from that
time on kept all fasts with the rest of the boys. For my Bar Mizwah
Derashah I selected, to the surprise of my teacher ‘and of my father
who had come to the celebration, the Sabbath discourse on the w-eek’s
Parashah Behar from my ancestor’s work: Pardes David.
In the last year I joined my beloved teacher when he moved to
Hoechberg, a. village near Wuerzburg, with the view of starting there,
in common with Eleazar Ottensosser, a kind of preparatory school to
the Yeshibah of Seligman Baer Bamberger of Wuerzburg. Ottensosser,
however, though also a pupil of Wolf Hamburger, was more of a mystic
than a scholar, and his method did not appeal to me. All the pupils had
to recite their morning benedictions for him after the service in order
to enable him to respond to each with Amen and have these put to his
_5__
account, so as thereby to complete the 100 benedictions the pious Jew is '
to recite each day. It was said of him that he went over each Talmudic
treatise four times but ‘always without the'Rosh (an abbreviation of
Rabbenu Asheri and at the same time meaning head). One of my fellow
students there was Isaac Schwab who became- the rabbi at St. Joseph,
Missouri, and whose grandson is now one of our College students. Ev-
ery Friday afternoon one of us went to W uerzburg to get ﬁsh for the
Sabbath eve meals of our teachers, and there I frequently went to Rabbi
S. B. Bamberg-e-r, an exceedingly ﬁne personality, honored alike by Jew
and Gentile for his integrity of character. He would never have any
closed letter of his delivered by friends without the stamp required by
the Government in order not to rob it of its due, nor would his noble
wife shake hands with any man lest her touch arouse unchaste feelings.
He remembered my father from the Schindelhof in Fuerth, where'our
house was in the close neighborhood of the famous Jewish printing
press, and when I expressed to him the wish to be admitted into his
Yeshibah he told me to wait, lest all my school-mates would follow me
and break up the Hoech-berg school.
This led me to go to Mayence, where Dr. Lehmann, the rabbi of the
orthodox congregation, was just starting a Rabbinical school, offering
the students, besides the‘ support given by wealthy members, instruction
in Latin and Greek, as well as in German composition. His own Rab—
binic knowledge, however, was markedly deﬁcient, and I decided to at—
tend'the Talmudic lessons given by his father—in—law, Samuel Bondi,
grandson and pupilof the renowned Herz Scheuer, a wealthy w-ine mer-
chant who devoted his afternoons to the Torah. I felt that much of the
four years I spent there was time wasted, but whenever I spoke of my
intention to go to some University, warning was given me by all the
older friends in F uerth in the familiar Hebrew saying from Proverbs:
“None that go to her (the University) returns.” Nor would my uncle
Dr. Loewenmayer, also a pupil of \Nolf Hamburger and at the same time
a ﬁne Latin scholar, persuade me to act against the wish of my father,
though he encouraged me to deliver little homilies in his Sulzbuerg pulpit
despite my immature youth.
Finally, I resolved, when in my 19th year, to go to the Yeshibah at
Altona, near Hamburg, over which R. Jacob Et-tlinger presided, while
two excellent Talmudists, pupils of Moses Sofer in Pressburg, Jacob
COhIl and Isaiah Hollander, functioned as Dayanim and assistant teach-
ers. Ettlinger was a remarkable personality. Belonging to a family of
scholars in Carlsruhe, Baden, he studied in Wuerzburg under Abraham
Bing, while at the same time attending the university. Having been
one of the earliest German Rabbis of academic training and having be-
come one of the most prominent and strict upholders of orthodoxy in
all its practices and beliefs, the saying was that Satan made him go
_6._
through the university and’ come forth immune and loyal so as to lure
all the rest of modern rabbis to pursue those studies which caused their
disloyalty to traditional Judaism. He was a pronounced mystic and
spent hours in prayer, with the two kinds of Teﬁllin (Rashi's and R.
Tam’s), on, before he entered the lecture room. where he dwelt chieﬂy
on the Halakic discussions, pointing out difficulties in the most naive fash—
ion. An instance of this is given in his work on Sukkah where he grap-
ples with the questions how the Jew on the American hemisphere is to
comply with the law requiring the Lulab to be held upwards the way
it has grown when the palm branch comes from the other hemisphere
and to hold it as it had grown would mean to hold it upside down. It
' was, however, a great privilege to enjoy his and his wife’s splendid hos-
pitality each Sabbath and festival evening when the richly decked table


KAUFMANN KoHLER AT 19
with its dishes and songs had a peculiar charm. Even the 15th day of
Shebat, the days of renewal of the year's vegetation (corresponding
to the Valentine Day of Folklore) was made a day of thanksgiving.
all kinds of fruits from the various parts of the world being oﬁ’ered for
repast. My two years’ stay at Altona, where I boarded at the cozy home
of Elias Munk and his amiable wife, the sister of Dr. Israel Hil-
_7._
.'~
(lesheimer of Halberstadt, the leader of orthodoxy in many quarters,
were indeed a great experience for me.
SAMsoN RAPHAEL HIRscH.
The man who exerted the greatest inﬂuence upon my young life
and imbued me with the divine ardor of true idealism was none other
than the representative of what was called Neo-orthodoxy, Samson
Raphael Hirsch, the pupil of Isaac Bernays, the Chakam of Hamburg,
author of the anonymous book, "Der Bibel‘sche Orient,” and of jacob
Ettlinger when Klaus rabbi in Mannheim. Though he kept himself at
a distance from his pupils, as he never invited us to his home nor mani-
fested any personal interest in our welfare or progress, his strong .
personality was such as to work like a spell upon his hearers. \IVhether
he spoke in the pulpit or expounded the Scripture to large: audiences,
or led us through the discussions of the Talmud, there was a striking
originality and the fascinating power of genius in his grasp of the sub—
ject. His method of reading and explaining the Scripture or the Talmud
was so different from the usual way; he made us ﬁnd the meaning of the
passage independently, though his own system of thought was pe-
culiar. His was a strange combination of Hebrew lore and German
culture, which culminated in his concept of the “Jisroel-Mensch," that
is of a humanity which ﬁnds its highest expression in loyal, traditional
Judaism. Every Saturday night in my letter to the dear ones at home
I gave a faithful synopsis of the sermon I heard in the morning and
the impressive teachings laid down in the “Horeb” and other works
by Hirsch became part and parcel of my innermost life. At the same
time I attended the two highest classes of the Gymnasium of Frankfurt
in common with the two sons of Abraham Geiger, but not for the world _
would I ever approach them with the view of being introduced to their
renowned father, the Reform leader. Nor did I ever enter any of the
Reform temples either in Frankfort or Mayence, having been taught to
regard them as Tiﬁah—a perversion of a house of worship.
Shortly before I left Frankfurt, I had the courage to go to-the
well—known liberal-minded Jewish philanthropist, B. H. Goldschmidt,
and ask him for the grant of a ‘stipend for my University studies out
of his large stipendary fund and he gave me the characteristic answer:
“A pupil of Samson Raphael Hirsch, the orthodox rabbi, you come to
me for a stipend? I will grant it, feeling certain that before you have
ﬁnished your university course you will have ceased to be a follower of
Hirsch.” Sooner than I could expect my change of views came. My
Arabic studies under Prof. Mueller in Munich at once undermined
the exegetical system of S. B. Hirsch built upon the assumption that
Hebrew was the original language, and the philosophical and historical
lectures I attended knocked the ‘bottom out of his whole theology. I
_.8_
passed days and weeks of indescribable woe and despondency ; the heav-
ens seemed to fall down upon me and crush me; and the strange tone
of my letters puzzled my dear parents so as to make them suspect me of
having fallen into bad company. I rallied strength and traveled to
Frankfurt to lay my doubts and scruples before my revered teacher; but
instead of having these satisfactorily removed, I received the remarkable
answer: “My dear Kohler, he who wants to journey around the world
must also pass the torrid zone; proceed and you will come back safely."
I proceeded in my studies, but did not come back to where I started
from. I only felt that having eaten of the thus long forbidden fruit
from the tree of knowledge, my eyes opened and I was driven out of the
paradise of my childhood.
MY BERLI‘N LIFE.
The Berlin University was now the. goal of my ambition. There
I hoped to obtain a full response to my innermost longings of heart
and mind, but I met one disappointment after the other. Dr. Zunz,
I was told, was inaccessible to visitors and especially to theological stu-
dents, and the impression I received from hearing him speak at a polit-
ical meeting was that he had become a morose misanthrope. To Aaron
Bernstein, the author of “Voegele der Maggid," then the editor of the
“Berliner Volkszeitung," I came with a card of recommendation from
Dr. Stern, Rector of the Philanthropin in Frankfurt,.his former co-
laborer at the formation of the Berlin Reform Congregation, but was
greeted with the following words: “You have come here to study the—
ology, but will turn out to be a hypocrite like the rest." As a matter
of fact, the dual life which he led in his own home showed him, to the
initiated, to have been a real hypocrite. Dr. Joseph Aub with his Ba-
varian accent was no success in the pulpit of the Northern metropolis,
and he said to me in his witty way: “I have been called hither as the
Moshiach ben Joseph to prepare the way for Dr. Geiger, the real-
Moshiach.” Though somewhat related to me, as my uncle married a
cousin of his, a sister of Hirsch Aub rabbi of Munich, he never made
me feel at home in his house. Dr. Steinschneider’s lectures at the
Veitel-Heine—Ephraim Institute offered me only the husks of Jewish
learning, lists of names and dates of authors and of manuscripts, with all
sorts of attacks.on other bibliographers; in substance I proﬁted little.
In order to keep up my Talmudic studies, I attended daily the lessons of
Michael Landsberg, the Klaus rabbi, a man of singular naivete who was
easily upset by references to different readings or difficult questions put
to him. With the exception of the holy day visits I made to my relative,
Dr. Loewenmayer in Frankfort on the Oder. and the Friday evenings
I oft-en spent with his brother-in-law, Dr. Baerwald, afterwards Rector of
the Philanthropin in Frankfort on the Main, the Jewish life in Berlin
_.9_
appeared to me frosty and uncongenial. All the more was I anxious
to make the best of my Biblical, philosophical and historical studies un-
der Profs. Roediger, Dieterici and Trendelenburg, but it was Prof.
Steinthal's mythological and ethnological views which exerted the pro-
foundest influence upon my whole thinking and feeling. It was the
crisis of my life that I passed while the new ideas crowded upon my
mind, driving it more and more from the old moorings, and I had no
friend of prominence in the big city to conﬁde in during these days of
anxiety and trial. Nor did I have a real Jewish home to keep the cher-
ished memories of old fresh in me. Still, while wrestling with my God
and my own past, I never lost hold upon my ancestral faith, nor did I
for a moment become skeptic like so many of my fellow-students,
most of whom I met at the Jewish restaurant. I only felt that I had
outgrown the romanticism and conservatism of those who adhered to the
teachings of the Breslau Seminary. So in solitary strength of faith I
followed my own ideal of a progressive and liberal Judaism.
MY “SEGEN JAcoBs.”
As the result of my Berlin studies I wrote and published in 1867
the “Segen Jacobs,” a bold effort at reconstructing the entire historic
development of the religious views of the Bible based upon novel myth—
ological and critical research. It was iconoclastic only insofar as it
applied the principle of historical evolution to the whole Pentateuch in
opposition to the prevailing view, voiced chieﬂy by Ewald, of the Mosaic
origin of the law. Some of my main arguments were at once adopted
by the well-known Dutch critic Abraham Kuenen in his “History of
the Religion of Israel” without even the mention of my name except
when he differed with me as to detail. Dr. Geiger, however, in his
Zeitschrift and in private letters welcomed me heartily as a co-laborer
in the ﬁeld of Biblical research and became my warm friend. I left
Berlin with a Rabbinical diploma handed to me by Dr. Aub, after I had
answered 14 ritual questions for him. “These are your ﬁrst Shcelolh,"_
he said jokingly, “and probably also the last you will have to answer.”
Dr. Lehmann, my former teacher, in his journal Der Israelit, in
the bitterest possible terms pronounced Anathema against me and my
work, and there was consternation in my parental home when the news
spread. Dr. Loewi, who had planned to make me a Rabbinical ad-
junct for the rising Congregation of Nuernberg, expressed sorrow at
seeing, as he said, my Rabbinical career blocked by what I wrote. "Must
a man tell all he knows to people that will hardly understand him P”
he said. He did not realize that there was in me something of that
ﬁre of which the prophet Jeremiah says, that it cannot be quenched.
I'went indeed through the pangs of Jeremiah when I saw my parents,
who had built such great hopes upon my future, exposed to fanatical
animosity and reproach for not disowning me.
At the suggestion of Dr. Geiger, I took up my Oriental studies in
Leipzig under Prof. Fleischer, the eminent Arabic scholar, with the
view of preparing for a professorship. There I came into closer con-
tact with Franz Delitzsch and Julius Fuerst. The latter induced me to
undertake for him the publication of the “Illustrierte Juedische Bibel fuer
Israeliten,” but when at the appearance of the ﬁrst installment of the
work to which I intended to give a real scientiﬁc character, I found
my name as ‘editor omitted, I gave. it up. Altogether my heart was not
in mere literary enterprises, and Dr. Geiger pointed to America as the
land of promise for progressive Judaism, paving the road for me by
warm letters of recommendation to Drs. Einhorn, Adler, Felsenthal
and Lilienthal. In the meantime Dr. Lilienthal had written to him on
behalf of the Detroit Congregation asking him to suggest a young rabbi
for the. vacant position, and I received a call there; while Dr. Einhorn
in a number of letters kept' me informed about American, conditions
and ﬁnally welcomed me at the landing in New York as an intimate
friend. His striking personality made at once a deep impression on
me. and his congenial family circle warmly appealed to me. I felt
that “the Lord had led me into the house of kinsmen.” The following
year on the self—same day of my arrival in America, August 28th, 1870,
I was married to my dear devoted help-mate, Johanna Einhorn. Pre-
vious, however, to my sailing across the ocean I attended the Synod at
Leipzig, which gave a new impetus to my future career. The assembly
of the renowned representatives of Liberal Judaism and the discussions
of leading principles was to me a revelation. To hear the masterly
address of Prof. Lazarus, the President of the Synod, and other dis-
tinguished personalities could only inspire me with new courage and
conﬁdence in my calling. At the same time the. half-measures agreed
upon in the spirit of compromise and the hide and seek policy I observed
when meeting these eminent men on closer range, indicated to me a cer-
tain timidity which somewhat dampened my enthusiasm. 7
AMERICA THE LAND OF THE FUTURE.
When the sun sets over the Eastern hemisphere, it sends forth
under the vast waves of the sea, as it were, the herald of a new day
to dawn upon the Western Continent. Before my mind was the vision
of the new world, no longer handicapped by fear of authorities and
petty consideration of obsolete customs, but offering a free scope for
general progress and individual independence and courage of convic-
tion. Buoyed up by this spirit and ﬁrmly believing that a benign Provi-
dence had assigned to me the special task of working for a complete
harmonization of modern thought with the ancient faith in the land of
my destination, I prepared mind and heart for entering upon my duties
as American Rabbi. I preached my inaugural sermon at the Beth-El
Congregation of Detroit the Sabbath before the Jewish New Year,
1869, and three months afterwards. I had the opportunity of meeting
the American leaders of Reform Judaism at the Rabbinical Confer—
ence of Philadelphia, convened by Drs. Einhorn and Adler, which
held its meetings in the house of Samuel Hirsch, and was attended by
Drs. Wise and Lilienthal. On that occasion I heard for the ﬁrst time
an English sermon, which was preached by Dr. ‘Wise, and his words
are still vivid in my memory. The broadness of view and independence
' ZftTF'umv-L‘ae-y, I h w’:


DR. K. KOHLER AT 26
of thought, which characterized all the deliberations, formed a striking
contrast to what I had heard and witnessed at the Leipzig Synod, and
I thanked God for having been permitted to come to America, the land
of liberty and large opportunity to help, with the powers allotted to me,
in the building up of American Reform Judaism, the religion of the
future. Looking back upon my years of preparation and my years of
activity as American Rabbi, I feel like saying in the words of Scrip-
ture: “I have wrestled wrestlings for God, and have prevailed.”
A. J. Exxon dz Con—Printers
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