Samuel Myer Isaacs 
5564/1804--5638/1878
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The contemporary Torah world with its high standards of scholarship, kashrus, mitzvah-observance and hashkafah is truly a phenomenon of the very recent past. Certainly nothing resembling it ever existed previously in this country. Nevertheless, study of American Jewish history of the more distant past is of inspirational value. While it does not reveal great Torah success stories, it does bring to light tales of noble endeavors on behalf of Torah Judaism, and illustrates that there were early fighters for Torah on the continent, who did succeed to some degree.
Among the greatest Torah pioneers of the last century was Samuel Myer Isaacs, an important figure in Orthodox Jewish circles in New York for over thirty-five years. Isaacs was born in Leeuwarden, Holland, on January 4, 1804. His father, a wealthy banker, fled to England in 1814 from Napoleon's invading armies. The London where Isaacs was brought up possessed a number of noteworthy Torah personalities, especially the Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell (1762-1842), son of Rabbi Hirschell Levin of Berlin and great-grandson of the Chacham Zvi. Rabbi Hirschell was responsible for issuing the famous cherem against the Reformers in London in 1842. As a boy, Isaacs was close to Rabbi Hirschell, and it was from him as well as the various dayanim of the bais din (among whom were disciples of Rabbi Yaakov of Lisa and Rabbi Akiva Eiger) that he acquired a good measure of Talmudic learning, although he never studied for or received semichah (rabbinic ordination).
Rabbi Hirschell was aware of the scholastic and oratorical talents of young Isaacs and had him appointed principal of the London Neveh Zedek Jews' Orphan Asylum, where he supervised the religious and secular education of the children. Samuel Isaacs was fit for larger responsibilities, however, and his opportunity for service soon came.
America - a British Spiritual Colony
During the early nineteenth century, a relatively large stream of emigration began to move from London to various new English-connected areas of settlement, including Australia, South Africa and Canada, with the largest group heading to America. This resulted in the establishment of the first Ashkenazic congregation in New York - Bnai Jeshurun, in 1825. This synagogue was formed primarily by English Ashkenazim, some who had previously been members of New York's only congregation - the Sephardic Spanish and Portuguese Shearith Israel - and others who were new arrivals from London. Apparently, by 1825 there were enough Ashkenazim in New York interested in supporting their own kehillah. The new-formed congregation bound itself to the minhag of London and referred its religious questions to the Chief Rabbi and bais din in England.
Not only the newly-formed Bnai Jeshurun looked to Rabbi Hirschell for guidance. Since there were no rabbis and very few knowledgeable laymen in America, congregations all over the country turned to the London rabbi and bais din - the closest religious authority to the United States and the one easiest to communicate with for guidance, conferring them with a sort of informal recognition. This can be seen from the numerous halachic queries and answers related to American problems found in the records of Rabbi Hirschell's bais din.
In view of the terrible spiritual void existing in America, Rabbi Hirschell encouraged Samuel Isaacs to leave London and accept the position of Chazan and preacher at Bnai Jeshurun in 1839. Isaacs expressly promised his teacher before leaving that he would do everything in his power to oppose anti-Torah forces in the New World.
Isaacs was engaged at Bnai Jeshurun "to give lectures on Shabbos HaGadol, on Shabbos Teshuvah, and on every Shabbos preceding Rosh Chodesh and at other times when the parnes and trustees may so direct." He was the first to introduce regular English sermons into the American synagogue. His sermons are masterpieces of oratory, many of which are still applicable today. They are all dedicated to strengthening Torah observance among the congregants, and exhibit a high degree of learning by the author.
Filling the Void
Isaacs' main efforts were in education, for he was fully aware that setting up Jewish schools offered the only way to ensure a future for Orthodoxy in this country. In 1842 he reorganized the afternoon Hebrew school of Bnai Jeshurun, converting it into an all-day Hebrew and English school for boys, known as the New York Talmud Torah and Hebrew Institute. By the next year, there were eighty pupils in the school, which had a budget of $1,500 - a substantial sum in those days. In 1845, the highest class, which consisted of two boys, was able to translate and understand Rashi, an unheard-of accomplishment in America at the time.
The success of the school was short-lived, however, for it soon ran into financial difficulties. Bnai Jeshurun was unable to support it alone and Isaacs tried to make it into a community project. He asked the various synagogues that had begun to form in the city to send delegates to a meeting to support the school. They, however, refused. Rich Jews were unwilling to send their children to the school and the poor Jews could not afford to. After a valiant struggle, the Talmud Torah closed its doors in 1847.
Other congregations in New York continued to maintain their own elementary day schools throughout the 1840's and 1850's, but there was no Jewish high school anywhere in the country. Isaacs expressed concern about this in an article he wrote in 1857 urging the founding of such a school "in which anyone who pleased can be taught the truths contained in the Bible and the commentaries on the Law." He continued: "we cannot afford to lose a day. Talmud Torah K'negged Kulam (Torah study ranks supreme)." Finally, in the late 1850's, Isaacs convinced the New York congregation to open a private Hebrew high school for Jewish students, enrolling boys from all the various New York synagogues. Isaacs himself taught the Hebrew subjects, which reached quite a high level for the time, including the study of Mishnah. After some years, financial difficulties also closed this school.
In addition to fighting for Jewish education, Isaacs was very concerned about safeguarding mitzvah-observance. The mitzvah most neglected by immigrants to America at the time, and indeed, subsequently until our own time, was Shabbos observance. Upon his arrival in New York, Isaacs attempted to exclude Sabbath violators from membership on every board at Bnai Jeshurun. He received no congregational backing in this, however, and failed.
The Sabbath issue eventually led Isaacs to leave his pulpit at Bnai Jeshurun. A group of members inspired by Isaacs became disgusted with the lenient attitude towards Sabbath violation in the officially Orthodox congregation - such as the practice of giving synagogue honors to Sabbath violators - and seceded in 1845, founding Congregation Shaarei Tefila "on pure orthodox principles."
Isaacs assumed the pulpit there in 1847, remaining until his death. At the time, he expressed his feelings about Sabbath observance in Leeser's Occident: "In the days of yore violators were ... stoned to death ... but now we count their society, give them the first honors in the synagogue, call them up to hear the law recited which anathematizes the Sabbath-violator. We dread the moment that the finger of innovation should erase anything from the ceremonial code; but calmly we behold the hand of sacrilege destroying the Ten Commandments."
The Nature of the Battles
Isaacs was also very involved in the struggle against Reform in this country. With the beginning of the 1840's, a massive influx of German Jewish immigrants flooded into America, swamping the existing predominantly English Jewish community. Some of these Jews brought with them Reform ideas which were greatly strengthened by the arrival of radical reform "Rabbis" from Germany, such as Isaac M. Wise and Max Lilienthal. Isaacs, an articulate English writer and speaker, devoted much energy to fighting these ideas.
In 1857 he founded The Jewish Messenger, first as a semimonthly and later as a weekly newspaper, for which he served as editor and wrote most of the articles, assisted by his son and his students. In the very first issue he wrote: "Our principles are based upon the strictest orthodoxy." Nostalgically, he wrote of former times in which "the Rabbis were faithful to their charge, the flock fed on such mental food from which they might eat and live forever; there was no scoffing at religious exactions; no deriding Divine principles as unsuited to the spirit of the age, the violator of the Sabbath and festival did not ask others to join him in the unholy alliance."
Throughout his career as editor of The Jewish Messenger, which continued until his death, Isaacs remained a strong opponent of Reform. Many of his articles were well written, with a sharp satirical bent. Some are quite topical today and can still be read with profit. Thus he described Reform as "that curious plant, which has of late shot forth with lamentable luxuriancy in some congregations, to the derogation, if not subversion, of our time hallowed faith." In analyzing the various Reform prayer books produced in America, Isaac commented "Charleston, Cincinnati, Baltimore, New York, have each and every one its own form of prayer. Which of them has the best, we do not know, as we confess we never had sufficient curiosity to open the pages of one, being perfectly satisfied with the Liturgical exercises laid down for our guidance in Israel's code of laws."
The pages of The Jewish Messenger reveal much information about Jewish religious life in America. In 1858, Isaacs noted that Rabbi Abraham Rice of Baltimore had called his attention to the chaotic situation of kashrus in New York saying he "was actually paralyzed" by the violations rampant in the city.
"The above charge," Isaacs wrote, "is literally true ... how pliant some men's consciences are on a matter in which they jeopardize their future bliss ... Are we to purchase meat from butchers who have three Hebrew letters in their store without making any inquiry whether they are Israelites, are deserving of our confidence, or whether they should not be doubted, seeming that they violate the most holy rites of our religion?"
Isaacs called for mandatory re-examination of New York shochtim, noting that many had never been tested since their departure from Europe. "The smallest community in Europe takes every care that their co-religionists are provided with proper men . . . while we, having twenty thousand Israelites in our midst, are actually careless on a matter which affects body and soul". Unfortunately, due to the lack of any central authority this chaotic situation continued with regard to kashrus.
Isaacs was active in charitable and welfare activities of the New York community. In 1843 he formed the Bnai Jeshurun Ladies Benevolent Society, the first Ashkenazic Women's Chevra Kadisha in New York, which did taharos, sewed shrouds, and paid the funeral expenses of poor Jews. In 1845, he was among the founders of the Jewish Publication Society of America, dedicated to publishing books of Jewish interest. In 1859, as a result of the outcry in the Jewish world concerning the kidnapping of Edgar Mortara, Isaacs led in the formation of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites. It was his hope, unfortunately never fulfilled, that this organization would grow into an American national kehillah. Again, in 1873, he played a central role in starting the United Hebrew Charities in New York to centralize and coordinate all charitable activities in the city.
Isaacs was closely connected with the Jews' Hospital, which in 1852 was the first such institution in America. Until that time, Jewish patients were treated in Christian hospitals where they had no kosher food, and in their weakened condition were subject to constant attempts at conversion. Isaacs, as the hospital's first vice-president, exerted all his influence to see that this institution fully conformed to halachah. Thus in 1859, after much discussion in the pages of the Occident and other American Jewish periodicals, he wrote to Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler in London with a halachic query as to the permissibility of post-mortem examinations and autopsies at a Jewish hospital. Rabbi Adler's response, which was publicized in the American and British Jewish press, allowed such an examination only if the life of another person, present at the time, depended on it. The Jews' Hospital later became the present Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Isaacs also devoted much energy, together with Isaac Leeser, to the establishment of Maimonides College, an Orthodox Seminary in Philadelphia in 1866, as an Orthodox training school for chazanim, shochtim, teachers, and preachers. He also devoted much energy to raising funds for this school, to put it on a firm foundation. Unfortunately, the college was never a success and it was closed in 1868, soon after Leeser's death.
The Turning Tide Against Torah
Indeed, by the 1860's the tide had turned decisively against Orthodoxy in America. More and more congregations were abandoning their Orthodox principles and accepting the new Reform gospel. There remained only a small group of individuals and congregations faithful to Torah, holding out for Orthodox Judaism. Isaacs continued his sharp attacks on Reform in his newspaper - as in 1866, when he noted that what was needed was not "the unauthorized tampering with the tenets of our blessed faith, not the manufacture of a convenient religion"; but he seems to have been less and less effective.
Isaacs gave further expression to these developments in an article in The Jewish Messenger in 1868, commenting on the absolute disorder that prevailed in the field of Jewish marriage and divorce. He realized that only a true halachic authority could stop the descent of the American Jewish community into assimilation and disappearance, and therefore advocated the formation of a proper bais din, noting that there were "Fifty thousand Israelites in our city, twenty-six synagogues, and not one properly constituted Bais Din, to whom questions of the greatest importance might be entrusted." He eloquently described the situation where-by parties who desired a Jewish divorce went to a charlatan who, "without any compunction of conscience, readily yields to the wishes of the applicants, and they are divorced contrary to Jewish law, but agreeably to his understanding of its principles." Isaacs pointed out how this led to the chaotic situation affecting the permissibility of marriage with thousands of Americans, who were the product of unions following such illegal divorces. "As far as our experience extends," he noted, "and it is upwards of a quarter of a century in this city, that there is everything to deplore and nothing to approve, as it regards our religious supervision."
The currents of change sweeping the American Jewish world also began to affect Isaac's congregation. Shaarei Tefila, when formed in 1845, was located on Wooster Street, between Spring and Prince Streets, north of Canal Street, then a well-to-do Jewish area. In 1869 the synagogue moved, with the shift in Jewish population, to Forty-fourth Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. As is often the case, change in location introduced pressure on Isaacs for change in the synagogue ritual. The old generation of founders had passed away and a new, Americanized group was in control. Despite all his efforts, Isaacs was forced to agree to some minor changes - such as omission of the piyutim and later time for beginning services - to ward off basic halachic violations. Despite this, the pressure for Reform continued to mount even within his own congregation. Isaacs, however, succeeded in maintaining halachic standards for the rest of his career until his death in 1878. However, shortly after that time, with the erection of a new building yet further uptown, Shaarei Tefilla became completely Reform, introducing an organ and the Reform prayer book. In a sense, the members had to wait for Isaacs to die before severing their links with Torah Judaism.
Although the life of Samuel Isaacs seems in retrospect to be singularly unsuccessful, we still can find much to respect and admire in it. It is true that most of what Isaacs built and attempted to build did not stand the test of time. It was heartbreakingly difficult to plant Torah in the soil of America, yet the courageous attempts of this authentic Torah pioneer to raise Torah observance and knowledge in the country surely were not totally wasted. He plowed up the earth and prepared it for later more successful plantings, and a delayed but magnificent flowering of Torah in America.