The rabbi and the psychoanalyst: Erich Fromm and Samson Raphael Hirsch – an unacknowledged debt

Abstract

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was one of the twentieth century’s most renowned psychologists. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) is regarded as the herald of Modern Jewish Orthodoxy. Fromm’s grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi with strong personal ties to Rabbi Hirsch. Fromm grew up as an Orthodox Jew in Rabbi Hirsch’s hometown Frankfurt, and his intensive Jewish learning until his rupture with Orthodox Judaism (at the age of 26) is well attested. Thus Fromm must have been familiar with Hirsch’s teaching and thought. Through his entire life Fromm continued to write about Judaism, from a psychoanalytic point of view. Although Fromm mentions Hirsch only in passing in two of his very early German writings, in at least two instances in his mature writings – dealing with symbolism and Shabbat – he draws heavily and undoubtedly on Hirsch’s thought. The present article presents the evidence for this claim.