Because men had eliminated God from life, nay, even from nature, and found the basis of life in possessions and its aim in enjoyment, deeming life the product of the multitude of human desires, just as they looked upon nature as the product of a multitude of gods, therefore, it became necessary that a people be introduced into the ranks of the nations which, through its history and life, should declare God the only creative cause of existence, fulfillment of His will the only aim of life; and which should bear the revelation of His will, rejuvenated and renewed for its sake, unto all parts of the world as the motive and incentive of its coherence. — The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel (#17).

Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) was a German rabbinical scholar whose work had a crucial influence on Orthodox Judaism’s 19th-century development. Founder of what is sometimes called neo-Orthodoxy, Rabbi Hirsch aggressively resisted Reform Judaism and early forms of Conservative Judaism. The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel (Ben Uziel was one of Hirsch’s pseudonyms) is a concise exposition of Neo-Orthodox principles.