Hertz Scheyer
1753 CE–1822 CE · Acharonim · Frankfurt am Main
Abraham Naftali Hertz Scheuer (1753-1822), a rabbi and kabbalist of the German lands, was born in Frankfurt am Main, a son of Rabbi David Tevele Scheuer. Around 1778 he took charge of his father's yeshiva in Mainz, succeeding his brother Michael, and in his later years he served as a rabbinic authority and chief rabbi of that city until his death in 1822. His learning combined halakhic practice with a strong interest in Jewish mysticism: he composed Torei Zahav, a kabbalistic work published posthumously in 1875 by his grandson, along with commentary on the Zohar. He is best remembered for his contribution to Eleh Divrei ha-Brit (Altona, 1819), the collection of rabbinic responsa opposing early liturgical reform, to which he added an argument against introducing the organ into synagogue worship.
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Frankfurt am MainפרנקפורטGermany
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Birthplace.
Frankfurt am Main in this era
Frankfurt's Jews lived in a tightly enclosed ghetto, the Judengasse, a narrow lane of timber-frame houses squeezed between the city's walls where the Holy Roman Empire's laws confined them behind locked gates at night and on Christian holidays. Despite these constraints, the community flourished as one of German Jewry's most prosperous centers, its merchants trading across the empire and beyond, and its intellectual life burning with intensity. The yeshiva drew serious scholars; the printing presses produced Hebrew texts that circulated throughout Europe; and the synagogue echoed with learned debate over Talmud and halacha. In the nineteenth century, Samson Raphael Hirsch arrived as rabbi and became the movement's towering figure, articulating his vision of Torah im Derech Eretz—Jewish observance reconciled with modern European culture—in sermons and writings that shaped Orthodox Judaism's future course. The ghetto's narrow streets, lined with shops and study halls, hummed with the sound of Hebrew and Yiddish, a world unto itself surrounded by Christian Frankfurt yet intellectually connected to Jewish communities across the Continent.
About Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt am Main, on the Main river in Hesse, Germany, became an imperial city in 1372. Holy Roman kings were elected here, by law from 1356, and from 1562 to 1792 they were also crowned here, and in 1848 the first elected German parliament met in its St. Paul's Church. Philipp Jakob Spener, the city's Lutheran chief pastor from about 1666 to 1686, is regarded as the father of Pietism. From 1462 its Jews were confined to the Judengasse, early modern Germany's largest Jewish community. The Chatam Sofer was born here in 1762, and Samson Raphael Hirsch led its Orthodox Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft from 1851 until his death in 1888. Most of its Jews fled or were killed in the Holocaust.
In Frankfurt am Main at the same time
Mechel Scheuer, Abraham Bing, Horowitz, Ẓevi Hirsch ben Phinehas, ha-Levi, -1817
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Hertz Scheyer’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Mechel Scheuer, Abraham Bing, Michael Creizenach, Isaac Bernays, Horowitz, Ẓevi Hirsch ben Phinehas, ha-Levi, -1817
Works
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