5 - Finding a Proper Faith, 1837–1855

Summary

HAVING failed to persuade Rothschild to purchase Jerusalem, and having appealed unsuccessfully for support from pre-eminent halakhic authorities for the resumption of sacrificial worship, Kalischer refocused his energies: he sought a public role for himself as a voice of enlightened religious faith. He took up his pen to assist Jews who were struggling with modern intellectual challenges to their traditional beliefs. In 1840, three years after the death of his teacher, he wrote an article on contemporary philosophy for a Hebrew language journal. Over the next six years, he published a book and more articles on the same subject, and these contained references to other, already completed manuscripts awaiting publication. Among these were criticisms of the newly presented innovations for religious reform. Pious Jews who felt that their religious faith was impugned by the current standards of rationality in intellectual thinking received from him a message of reassurance. Through these writings Kalischer acquired a name for himself beyond Thorn. He became known as a rabbi who could explain traditional Jewish beliefs from a multitude of perspectives, in philosophical, kabbalistic, halakhic, or in commonsense, everyday terms.

At first glance, it appears as if Kalischer had abandoned his quest to hasten the messianic redemption in favour of more immediate problems. However, a close examination of his new writings reveals a more complex picture. True, he put aside his halakhic study of the renewal of sacrifice, and he no longer wrote about redemption as an immediate possibility. In his published writings from 1837 to 1855, he never mentions the existence of his responsum on renewing sacrifice, nor does he refer to his involvement with the question. There is no evidence that, until the late 1850s, he lobbied anyone in the manner that he had Rothschild and Eger. But the outward change of focus and reticence should not be confused with a substantive change in his views. Instead, it marks his increased willingness to spread his ideas to the larger public in a more broadly appealing and subtler way. His religious apologetics, biblical exegesis, explanations of the daily and holiday liturgy, and Passover Haggadah incorporate a theology in which God no longer enacts miracles, yet guides history so that humanity increasingly recognizes his unity and authority, and welcomes—indeed, requires—Jewish assistance in advancing history towards redemption.