Lowenstamm, Abraham ben Aryeh Loeb. Tzeror ha-Chaim [“The Bond of Life”: Nine Responses to the Innovations of the Reform Movement]

(REFORM JUDAISM)

David Proops

Amsterdam

1820

FIRST EDITION. The Isaac Dov Halevi Bamberger Copy

Vinograd, Amsterdam 2480

The author points out the prohibition of praying in a synagogue where there is an organ; abolishing the silent recitation of the Amidah; changing the formula of the prayer; changing from Aschkenazic custom to Sephardic custom; praying in the vernacular; praying bareheaded or in mixed company; and the obligation of continued belief in the Messiah (in contradistinction to the Reform omission of references to the Messiah in the prayers). Isaac Dov Halevi Bamberger (1807-1878), the Würzburger Rav, was the author of Yad Halevi and the most revered Halachic authority in Germany in his day. His anti-separatist stance famously clashed with Samson Raphael Hirsch’s philosophy of “Austritt” See B.S. Hamburger, Kitvei R. Yitzchok Dov Halevi (1992), pp. 497-566; E.M. Klugman, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1996), pp. 160-162