Michael Yechiel Sachs (; 3 September 1808 – 31 January 1864) was a Prussian

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

from Groß-Glogau,

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

Life

He was one of the first Jewish graduates from the modern universities, earning a Ph.D. degree in 1836. He was appointed Rabbi in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

in 1836, and in Berlin in 1844. He took the conservative side against the

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

agitation, and so strongly opposed the introduction of the organ into the Synagogue that he retired from the Rabbinate rather than acquiesce. Sachs was one of the greatest preachers of his age, and published two volumes of ''Sermons'' (Predigten, 1866–1891). He co-operated with

Leopold Zunz Leopold Zunz ( he, יום טוב צונץ—''Yom Tov Tzuntz'', yi, ליפמן צונץ—''Lipmann Zunz''; 10 August 1794 – 17 March 1886) was the founder of academic Judaic Studies (''Wissenschaft des Judentums''), the critical investigation ...

in a new translation of the Bible. Sachs is best remembered for his work on Hebrew poetry, ''Religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien'' (1845); his more ambitious critical work (''Beiträge zur Sprach- und Alterthumsforschung'', 2 vols., 1852–1854) is of less lasting value. He turned his poetic gifts to admirable account in his translation of the

Festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

Prayers Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified ...

(''Machzor'', 9 vols., 1855), a new feature of which was the metrical rendering of the medieval Hebrew hymns. Another very popular work by Sachs contains poetic paraphrases of Rabbinic legends (''Stimmen vom Jordan und Euphrat'', 1853).

Publications

* Sachs, Michael, ''Die religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien'', Berlin: Veit, 1845. * Sachs, Michael, ''Stimmen vom Jordan und Euphrat: ein Buch fürs Haus'', Frankfurt upon Main: Kauffmann, 1891 * Sachs, Michael, ''Predigten'', edited by David Rosin from the bequest of Sachs, Berlin: Gerschel, 1866-1869. * Sachs, Michael, ''Beiträge zur Sprach- und Alterthumsforschung: aus jüdischen Quellen'': 2 parts, Berlin: Veit, 1852 and 1854.

References

External links

Digitized works by Michael Sachs
at the

Leo Baeck Institute, New York The Leo Baeck Institute New York (LBI) is a research institute in New York City dedicated to the study of German-Jewish history and culture, founded in 1955. It is one of three independent research centers founded by a group of German-speaking J ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sachs, Michael 1808 births 1864 deaths 19th-century German rabbis German Orthodox rabbis Silesian Jews People from the Province of Silesia People from Głogów