Opening Address for the second year of the Lehrhaus, 1920

FR's opening address (Aufgabe und Ziel) begins with an assessment of Judaism in Western Europe after the emancipation and concludes that there is a need for a "new learning." Traditional Jewish learning begins with the center, which is the Torah, and spreads out to various aspects of modern Jewish life. This approach to learning is not capable of maintaining a connection between the Torah and Jewish life. As a result, scholars have retreated into a realm of alien knowledge. The "new learning" begins at the periphery, Jewish life and work within the context of Western European culture, and returns to the center, the literary sources of Judaism.

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