Modern Orthodox communities tend to be open to some level of working together with other Jewish denominations on issues of common concern, as long as the Orthodox retain their autonomy over their own religious institutions. In contrast, R. Hirsch was a fierce champion of austritt, or separation. Several scholars have wondered why a rabbi with cultural openness toward Gentile wisdom would be closed to working with other Jewish denominations. Prof. Mordechai Breuer enumerates various approaches, but I am partial to Breuer’s own approach. R. Hirsch was a man of yosher or truth. He did not deny the truth that Gentile wisdom had something to contribute and that we could benefit from studying it. For the same reason, he could not work with a group whose ideology he viewed as a distortion of the truths of Torah.[1]
In teaching them the languages of the civilized nations and introducing them to their literature we give them the key with which, when they are grown up, they can gain entrance to the intellectual creations of the peoples and feed and enrich their minds with all that is good and noble and true in the contributions of the noblest spirits to the realm of knowledge. (Judaism Eternal, vol. 1, p. 219)
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