Biblia Hebraica Non Punctata.

(HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL).

Johann Wust

Frankfurt a/Main

1694

Vinograd, Frankfurt a/Main 115.

Samson Raphael Hirsch’s personal Tanach. A front-flyleaf German inscription, signed by Julius Hirsch and dated Frankfurt a/Main 14th October 1904, states: “My father of sainted memory used this Bible for at least 50 years in all his sermons. He also had it with him at every wedding. He cherished it greatly. In those days it had a black silk binding and many ribbons to make it easy to find the place. The order of the marriage ceremony is on the last page.” Julius Hirsch (1842-1909) was the sixth of the ten children of the champion of German Jewish Orthodoxy, Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-88). The “order of the marriage ceremony” to which Julius refers is a Hebrew inscription on the back flyleaf in the hand of S.R. Hirsch, being an abbreviated aide-memoire of the marriage service. See E.M. Klugman’s biography, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1996), who is evidently referring to the present volume when, at the start of his his chapter on his subject’s impressive and unusual speaking and writing style, he says: “Rabbi Hirsch was an orator of rare talent. He spoke without a text, occasionally keeping a small Tanach in front of him. In his early years he would commit his speeches to writing before he delivered them and a few of these records still exist. After several years, however, he dropped this practice. As he later explained to Rabbi Salomon Breuer, he felt confined by the text.” Klugman’s source is Salomon Breuer’s son, Rabbi Joseph Breuer of New York, who, adhering to family custom, also always carried a small Bible with him when performing the marriage ceremony.