Background
Samuel Adler was born on December 3, 1809 at Worms, Germany. His father, Isaac Adler, rabbi at Worms, died when Samuel was thirteen years of age, leaving his widow and five children destitute.
Samuel Adler was born on December 3, 1809 at Worms, Germany. His father, Isaac Adler, rabbi at Worms, died when Samuel was thirteen years of age, leaving his widow and five children destitute.
Alder received his first instruction in Hebrew and Biblical literature from his father. He carried on his studies assiduously at the Worms Yeshibot, or Talmudical Academy, and later at Frankfort-on-the-Main.
Having completed his preliminary studies, he entered the University of Bonn in 1831, and from there went to Giessen, where the Ph. D. degree was awarded him in 1836.
Adler was elected rabbi at Worms and remained there until 1842, when he became chief rabbi at Alzey. During these years he toiled to lift the civil disabilities of the Jews and to introduce in the lower and higher schools the teaching of Jewish religion on a par with Protestant and Catholic teachings.
In 1857 he was offered and accepted the position of rabbi of Emanu-El Congregation at New York. Entering upon his new duties in March 1857, he now had greater opportunity of giving full practical scope to his genius. He sought, above all, to lift the deadening weight of tradition from his people and to stimulate in them a higher Jewish consciousness. With this in mind, he devoted himself strenuously and ardently to the religious training of the young, to extending the fullest equality in all religious matters to women as well as men, to reconciling Jewish doctrines with the needs of modern life, particularly with reference to the Sabbath Day, and to reforming the ritual and making the liturgy more acceptable to the modern mind.
He undertook the revision of the prayer-book, which his predecessor, Dr. L. Merzbacher, the first rabbi of Emanu-El Temple, had arranged.
He attended the three Rabbinical Reform Conferences, held in Brunswick in 1844, in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1845, and in Breslau in 1846. These three conferences laid the foundation of Reform Judaism, and made it possible to build the Jewish faith for the future.
Adler was the author of The Day of Atonement According to the Bible--Its Origin and Meaning, A Biblio-Critical Study of the Passover, The Levitical Tithe, Karaitic Questions, Phariseeism and Sadduceeism.
Adler was a man of vast learning concerning the life and literature of his people. He combined within himself the old Jewish training and viewpoint with the modern critical analysis and method. His was a flaming passion for religion as an instrument in man's struggle for emancipation from ignorance and the forces which hinder progress.
In 1843 he was married to Henrietta Frankfurter.
His son Felix Adler was the founder of the Society for Ethical Culture.