Introducing the Horeb Project
Exploring the Jewish Way
I am excited to announce a project I will carry out here on Substack after the High Holidays: a paragraph-by-paragraph exploration of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances.
For Horeb, I plan to focus on one paragraph per post daily, excluding weekends and holidays. As the book contains over 700 numbered paragraphs, we should complete the study in under three years—remember, we have only weekdays to work with!
Jewish study is particularly well suited to this kind of incremental learning. We make our way through the Torah every year by dividing it into Parshah, and every Parshah is divided into seven Aliyot. The modern practice of Daf Yomi for daily Talmud study allows one to read the entire Talmud in seven years.
But you may be asking why I am undertaking a project such as this and why now. The answer is personal on two levels. First, Horeb is the best book I have read that addresses a question I continue to have and want to think about: “What is Judaism?” It’s a deceptive question in that you find more to it as soon as you have an answer. However you try to answer, you wind up in a veritable labyrinth of ideas, philosophies, histories, controversies, and maybe even contradictions. The bottom line is that Horeb gives a very robust, if not complete, definitive, answer. For this reason alone, it is worth close reading.
The second personal reason for this project concerns October 7, 2023, and its cultural-political aftermath. I am not in Israel, and I am not on campus. I am neither a pundit nor an activist. I am proudly Zionist and staunchly liberal-minded. This project is a path forward in the face of so much ongoing violence, hatred, shouting, and intransigence. A great Jewish sage once said, “Now go and study.” That’s what this project is: not a retreat from the world's madness, and not a statement or slogan, but a political stance and stand to champion the existence of the Jewish religion.
Hirsch wrote Horeb to defend Judaism and its underlying philosophies against the encroaching assumptions and thinking of modernity, which threatened to pull people away from observance. For this reason, it speaks powerfully to people like me even today.
When Horeb was first published, Jewish communities across Europe were grappling with the rise of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, which encouraged assimilation and modern secular ideals. Hirsch’s Nineteen Letters on Judaism (1836) and Horeb (1837) responded to this challenge, defending traditional values while showing how Judaism can be lived in modern society. His philosophy of Torah im Derech Eretz, Torah with worldly engagement, revitalized Orthodox Judaism and continues to speak to Jews today.
Now, I am not what anyone would call an Orthodox Jew, so I want to explain who I am, Jewishly, so that my intentions and goals are not misunderstood.
I am an American Jew, middle-aged, and happily intermarried. I grew up in a family that cherished its Jewish heritage and observed the religion on the High Holidays, Chanukah, Passover, and special occasions. I don’t recall we ever observed Shabbat in the home, and I was an adult the first time I saw a Purim spiel. My family’s temple was considered to be of the Conservative strain. I became a Bar Mitzvah in 1983, which ended my formal religious education and training—now much to my disappointment.
I was married in an interfaith ceremony in 2000. We had previously agreed to raise any children as Christians, but I never had any thought of converting or withdrawing myself entirely from Judaism. However, in 2008, as a result of a research project I took on to assist a rabbi, I understood myself to be more like an atheist than not.
I then took a short break from participating in my local Jewish community, but I came back. At some point, I stopped worrying about my non-belief and aimed to enjoy Jewish practice on its terms, without judgment.
In 2017, I recovered myself as a reader. I became more intentional and focused, making reading in the evening a daily practice. I also tracked the books I read. Over time, I saw that Jewish books dominated my queue. I gravitated overwhelmingly to Jewish writers and subjects, and I still do.
Am I still an atheist? I guess, but I don’t mean to appear wishy-washy about it. Do I believe that God exists in the same way that a rock exists? No. Could God exist in the same way as gravity or the number four? I do not know how I would reason my way to this conclusion and make it stick.
I suppose that an existing God would have to exist uniquely; nothing else would be able to exist in the way God does. But if I cannot answer the existence question, and no one really can, as far as I am concerned, I believe and always have that it is fair to ask if God exists. And this is where I rest: the question's humble legitimacy, I say, is enough to allow anyone so inclined to pursue and enjoy Jewish studies and practices, such as they are, without reservation.
In short, I don’t worry about whether God exists and don’t feel I need to. The question is out there, and while it all gets figured out, I am happy to continue learning about Jewish laws and observances.
And so I look to the beginning of this journey with other questions in mind. I am curious to find out if anyone decides to follow along with this project. I wonder if I have the energy, heart, mind, and chutzpah to see it through. I also hope that maybe going and studying—and studying and going—can make the world a better place.
Stay tuned for updates!