der freien Forschung mit dem Rabbineramte. We may translate the title roughly as"rabbinic responsa concerning the compatibility of free research with the rabbinic office.” The title is suggestive in two ways. First of all these are to be rabbinic responsa as opposed to the earlier theological responsa. We would expect then to find texts that more closely resemble classical responsa than did the academic essays in the previous volume. On the other hand, the rest of the title puts us on notice that the subject of the responsa will not be halakhic questions but a broader intellectual agendum. The title’‘thus vacillates between responsa and academic essays. So, as it turns out, does the content.
The collection Rabbinische Gutachten appeared in 1842 and so is contemporary with the Theologische Gutachten. It was published as a response to an attack on one of the leaders of early Reform, Abraham Geiger . Abraham Geiger was appointed to the post of rabbi in Breslau in 1839. He was appointed specifically to serve the interests of the more reform-minded members of the community who found the senior rabbi of the community, Solomon Tiktin, to be unacceptable traditional and totally unsympathetic to their views. Tiktin not only resented Geiger ’s appointment as his associate, but was deeply antagonistic to the changes to which Geiger was committed. The clash of these two rabbis in Breslau became the focus of the religious struggle between Orthodoxy and Reform throughout Germany . Tiktin brought the dispute to full blows in 1841 with the publication of his Darstellung(17) in which he gathered together attacks on Reform in general and Geiger in particular from a number of traditionalist rabbis. In response, the Breslau community leaders solicited responses from rabbis sympathetic to Geiger and the program of reform.