[4] Hirsch was a student of Chacham Isaac Bernays, and the Biblical and Talmudical education which he received, combined with his teacher's influence, led him to determine not to become a merchant, as his parents had desired, but to choose the rabbinical vocation.

During this period, he wrote his Neunzehn Briefe über Judenthum, (Nineteen Letters on Judaism) which were published under the pseudonym of "Ben Usiel" (or "Uziel"), at Altona in 1836.

In 1838, Hirsch published, "as a necessary concomitant" of the Letters, his Horeb, oder Versuche über Jissroel's Pflichten in der Zerstreuung, as a text-book on Judaism for educated Jewish youth.

He had written Horeb first, but his publishers doubted that a work defending traditional Judaism would find a market in those times with reform in vogue.

[2] In 1839, he published Erste Mittheilungen aus Naphtali's Briefwechsel, a polemical essay against the reforms in Judaism proposed by Geiger and the contributors to the latter's Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie (such as Michael Creizenach); and in 1844, he published Zweite Mittheilungen aus einem Briefwechsel über die Neueste Jüdische Literatur, also polemical in tendency and attacking Holdheim's Die Autonomie der Rabbinen (1843).

In Austria, he spent five years in the re-organization of the Jewish congregations and the instruction of numerous disciples; he was also, in his official capacity as chief rabbi, a member of the Moravian Landtag, where he campaigned for more civil rights for Jews in Moravia.

This group, known as the "Israelite Religious Society" ("Israelitische Religions-Gesellschaft", or IRG), became, under his administration, a great congregation, numbering about 500 families.

His contemporary Isaac Dov (Seligman Baer) Bamberger, Rabbi of Würzburg, argued that as long as the Grossgemeinde made appropriate arrangements for the Orthodox element, secession was unnecessary.

The schism caused a terrible rift and many hurt feelings, and its aftershocks could be felt until the ultimate destruction of the Frankfurt community by the Nazis.

[2] During the final years of his life, Hirsch put his efforts in the founding of the "Freie Vereinigung für die Interessen des Orthodoxen Judentums", an association of independent Jewish communities.

[8] From reports of his family members, it seems likely that Hirsch contracted malaria while in Emden, which continued to plague him during the rest of life with febrile episodes.

According to Hirsch, the goal of the commentary was to expound the text by ascertaining the exact meaning of the words, their etymology, philology, and origin, and, this achieved, "to establish, on the basis of halakhic and aggadic interpretations, the Jewish Weltanschauung".

This analysis, too, builds on the discussion of the Hebrew, while at the same time, it draws on the treatment of each mitzvah in the Oral Torah, intentionally [12] consistent with the final application in Halakha.

The commentary gained worldwide popularity for its scope of insight and information offered to scholar and layman alike, and is still widely referenced.

[15] Horeb (subtitled Versuche über Jissroel's Pflichten in der Zerstreuung, “Essays on the Duties of the Jewish People in the Diaspora”), published 1838, is Rabbi Hirsch's presentation of Jewish law and observances, with particular emphasis on their underlying ideas, capturing the "unifying ideological threads"; these discussions are still regularly taught and referenced.

As for the Letters, its historical background is the enlightenment, and particularly the beginnings of Reform Judaism, and it thus constituted an attempt "to lead the young generation of Jewry back to the Divine law.

The latest translation to English was prepared by Karin Paritzky and revised by Joseph Elias (who states that they "benefited greatly from the two earlier editions").

[21][22] Elias glosses Breuer's edition as "very readable" while panning it as an achievement reached "by the omission or simplification of a good many passages, so that the reader does not obtain the full meaning that the author intended.

"[21] Hirsch lived in the post-Napoleonic era, an epoch when Jews had been granted civil rights in a large number of European countries, leading to a call for reform.

[23] Although Hirsch does not mention his influences (apart from traditional Jewish sources), later authors have identified ideas from the Kuzari (Yehuda Halevi), Nahmanides, and the Maharal of Prague in his works.

Those on Orthodoxy's right wing hold that Hirsch himself approved of secular studies as a "Horaas Sha'ah", or temporary dispensation, only in order to save Orthodox Jewry of the nineteenth century from the threat posed by assimilation.

In this view, Hirsch thought that it was permissible, and even productive, for Jews to learn Gentile philosophy, music, art, literature, and ethics for their own sake.