Although this is a Karaite, or TeNaCh only blog, and I often criticise the rabbis, it is well worth remembering that there have been some towering figures in the rabbinic world, even when they did not agree with the Karaite viewpoint.
Moses Schreiber/Sofer lived in Austro-Hungary and was famous for his comment that "Hadash" new, is forbidden by the Torah. It was a play on words, where Hadash refers to the new wheat of the agricultural year. He was aiming at the reformists who had gained a foothold and were destroying orthodoxy. This man was a genius, and was compared to Moses Maimonides who lived 700 years earlier. Not only did he oppose innovations from reform, but also from ultra-orthodoxy, thus criticising the Lubavitch Hassidim who tried to completely ban shaving, based on kabbalah ideas. Sofer was even skeptical of the origins of the Zohar book.
What is interesting, is that his motto is essentially a Sadducean motto - and had he lived 2000 years earlier he may have opposed the Rabbinical innovations with equal vigor. On the other hand, he was so fixated to the Oral and rabbinic laws, that he permitted lying about them and pretending they have actual Torah status, even though Rabbinic law does not have Torah status, even according to the Rabbis!
Another brilliant observation of his was that becoming too religious or newly orthodox could be dangerous, and that it could cause a lot of damage. That is quite an observation to make, 200 years ago. He also suggested that he who publicly denies the Oral Law will privately deny the Written law. What that could mean is that he saw the enlightenment as going further than just debunking the oral law, as it initially did, and that it would end up in Bible criticism territory. Orthodoxy has not been able to produce such figures again, and his views are claimed to be the basis of Hareidi ideology, although they flout all that he said about adding more and more laws and strictures.
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