Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, known in Hebrew as the Rashar Hirsch, was born in Hamburg on 24 Sivan 5568 (20 June 1808). His father, Raphael Aryeh Hirsch, was a merchant who devoted much of his time to Torah study; his grandfather, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Frankfurter, served as assistant rabbi in Altona. He also attended the Hamburg gymnasium, where he acquired a broad secular education.

His principal teacher was Chacham Yitzchak Bernays, rabbi of Hamburg, under whose influence he chose the rabbinate over a career in commerce. In 1828-1829 he studied in Mannheim under Rabbi Yaakov Ettlinger, who granted him semichah, and then spent a short time at the University of Bonn.

In 1830, at the age of twenty-two, he became chief rabbi of the principality of Oldenburg. There he wrote the Nineteen Letters on Judaism, published in 1836 under the pen name Ben Uziel, and Horeb (1838), an exposition of the commandments and their meaning. In 1841 he was appointed chief rabbi of the districts of Aurich and Osnabrück, residing in Emden, where he founded a school combining Jewish and secular studies. In 1846-1847 he became rabbi of Nikolsburg and chief rabbi of Moravia, responsible for fifty-two communities.

In 1851 he accepted the leadership of a small, newly founded Orthodox congregation in Frankfurt am Main, in a Jewish community largely won over to Reform. Under his guidance it grew into a large congregation and a model for other German cities. He founded a school there, which he directed himself, and developed the philosophy of Torah im Derech Eretz, joining full fidelity to the Torah with engagement in general culture. He was a tireless opponent of the Reform movement.

In Frankfurt he wrote his German translation and commentary on the Torah, published between 1867 and 1878, as well as commentaries on Psalms and the Siddur, and he published the journal Jeschurun.

He passed away in Frankfurt on 27 Tevet 5649 (31 December 1888) and was buried in the city's old Jewish cemetery.