GEIGER
Judaism and that he advocated religious reforms
to the faith in his journal. Owing to such
criticism, Geiger was prevented from occupying
this position until 1840. Two years later Tiktin
issued a pamphlet stressing the abiding
importance of the laws contained in the Shulhan
Arukh (Code of Jewish Law) and the integrity of
the rabbinic tradition. Geiger's supporters
responded by issuing a tract entitled Rabbinic
Responses on the Compatibility of Free
Investigation with the Exercise of Rabbinic
Functions. The bitterness evoked by this
controversy was reflected in the writing of one
of Geiger's supporters, the chief rabbi of Trier,
Joseph Kahn, who wrote: 'We must publicly
express our contempt for those who, like Tiktin
and company, blindly damn and ban, and in just
indignation we must brand them as men who
"some day will have to account for their deeds",
so that "they should hear and fear and do not sin
any more"' (Plaut, 1963, 70).
During this period Geiger was an active
participant in Reform synods in Frankfurt
( 1845) and Breslau (1846); in addition, he
helped to establish the Judisch-Theologisches
Seminar (Jewish Theological Seminary) in
Breslau in 1854. From 1863 Geiger served as a
Reform rabbi in Frankfurt, later becoming rabbi
of the Berlin Reform congregation. In 1872, the
Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums
(Academy for the Scientific Study of Judaism)
was founded in Berlin, with Geiger at its head
until his death in 1874.
Although Geiger did not write a systematic
Jewish theology, his works constitute a
coherent approach to the Jewish religion.
Familiar with contemporary German idealist
philosophy and the critique of religious
origins advanced by radical Christian thinkers,
Geiger desired to reformulate Judaism so as to
achieve theological clarity in accord with the
scientific spirit of the age. In Geiger's view,
Samson Raphael Hirsch's espousal of a Neo-
Orthodox approach to the tradition was in
essence a return to the past-what was needed
instead was a radical vision for the future. In
line with the spirit of Romanticism, Geiger
viewed the eighteenth-century Enlightenment
as lacking in spiritual depth. Religion, he
believed, was based on the recognition of
human finitude, and the quest for the Infinite.
Religion is more than a rational philosophy,
he argues-it is an inborn longing of the
whole person who desires to act morally. In a
letter written in 1836, Geiger states that he
conceives of Judaism as:
a faith founded on the trust in One who
guides the universe and on the task imposed
upon us to practise justice and mercy, a faith
that becomes manifest in acts that fulfil this
demand and that is clothed in uplifting ritual
forms designed to awaken such sentiments.
(Wiener, 1962, 84)
Of fundamental importance in Geiger's
conception of religion is his notion of human
nature. Adapting the nineteenth-century theme
of Hebraism versus Hellenism, Geiger maintains
that ancient Greek civilization embraced the
view that fate controls the destiny of the gods
and human beings. The Hebrew Bible, however,
contains a constant striving for higher purity.
Ancient Judaism was based on the conviction
that humans struggle against sensuality to attain
the good-this is a striving that ennobles and
elevates humanity.
According to Geiger, the spiritual core of
Judaism which reached its culmination in the
teaching of the biblical prophets should be
distinguished from the shell of faith which is
shaped by external circumstances and can be
subsequently discarded. Animal sacrifice, for
example, was an essential feature of biblical
Judaism but was later eliminated when the
Temple was destroyed; its disappearance did
not in any way diminish the tradition. Likewise
Geiger believes that the concept of nationhood
which was an important element of Judaism in
previous times was no longer required at a later
stage. In this regard, he writes that if a people
can continue when 'the fetters which national
life had put upon it have been broken-if it
continues to live when those who are its
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