Chacham Bernays’s efforts in education targeted both the youth and adults of Hamburg. Balancing a fine line between the older traditionalists and the reformers

Title: Chacham of Germany

Location: Hamburg, Germany

Document: The Jewish Chronicle

Time: May 1849

He was the greatest shining light of Jewish thought of his time, and were he alive today, the same would still be true.

—Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch describing his rebbi, Chacham Isaac Bernays

Chacham Isaac Bernays (1792–1849) was the right man at the right time for German Orthodox Jewry. Endowed with a brilliant mind and exceptional speaking skills, he was uniquely positioned to fend off advances by the Reform movement at a tumultuous moment in the history of Ashkenaz.

Born in Mainz, Isaac Bernays studied in the Wurzburg yeshivah of Rav Avraham Bing (1752–1841), from whom he received semichah. He also studied in the University of Wurzburg, and it was in both places that he cemented a lifelong friendship with his contemporary in the German rabbinate, Rav Yaakov Ettlinger (1798–1871) the author of Aruch Laner. Following short stints in Munich and his hometown of Mainz, Chacham Bernays was appointed to the chief rabbinate of Hamburg in 1821, where he’d remain for the rest of his life.

The Hamburg Jewish community was one of the largest in Germany, and had been buffeted by currents of assimilation for some time. The rift within the community had grown with the opening of the first Reform temple in 1818. As a sign of the times, Chacham Bernays’s rabbinical contract included stipulations restricting him from voicing opinions on civil law, and he was not permitted to admonish or punish any member or group within the community for any deviation from religious practice.

Upon assuming his position, he remarked, “Never has a rabbi been so dependent in office on a board as I shall be.”

Despite these limitations, his scholarship, charisma, and leadership skills enabled him to transcend internal divides and have a decisive impact in the realms of Torah education, strengthening of communal institutions, and curbing the influence of the Reform elements of the community.

A brilliant talmid chacham, he utilized his vast knowledge of Shas, poskim, Midrash, Kabbalah, and other areas of Torah to undermine the efforts of Reform. While traditional German rabbis delivered a scholarly shiur to the wider community twice a year, Chacham Bernays pioneered the use of the weekly sermon, appropriating the popular medium from the Reform preachers.