(LITURGY)

FIRST REFORM PRAYER BOOK. The first Reform Temple was inaugurated in Hamburg in the year 1818 by Israel Jacobson (to whom this prayer book is dedicated). What marked the service as Reform was the abbreviation of the liturgy, choral singing with organ accompaniment, and finally, supplementing the standard Hebrew prayers with prayers in the vernacular. The following year of 1819, the Hamburg Temple issued its first prayer book. One of the most egregious innovations in the eyes of the Orthodox rabbinate was that the revised text of the liturgy no longer shared the traditional longing for a return to Zion and the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem. This radical ideological shift is reflected in the Hebrew text on p.105: “May it be Your will…that you accept the service of our lips in place of the sacrifices.” Orthodox reaction was swift. The three rabbis of Hamburg, Baruch Ozer, Moses Jacob Jaffe, and Jechiel Michael Speier issued a ban against the recent heresies. However, the appeal of the Orthodox to the Hamburg Senate to have the Temple closed was turned down. The reformers attempted to garner rabbinical support for their innovations, publishing a tract Nogah Tzedek (Dessau, 1818) presenting several opinions in favor of their efforts. The Orthodox rabbinate of Hamburg likewise appealed to their fellow rabbis to come to their aid. They subsequently produced Eileh Divrei ha-Berith (Altona, 1819), a collection of twenty-two responsa denouncing the new movement. See EJ, Vol. XIV, cols. 23-24; JE, Vol. X, pp. 354-355; E.M. Klugman, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, pp. 20-21, 25-27..