The modern rabbinate is a product of the Enlightenment and of the political emancipation of the Jews in western and central Europe. Under the influence of such Enlightenment ideas as natural human rights and the concept of the nation-state, Jews in those areas were gradually emancipated from their medieval status in the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth century and became the political equals of their Christian neighbors.

The emancipation process was slow, however; it varied from place to place in some particulars but was regarded as a two-way effort everywhere in western Europe. For their parts, the governments of these countries recognized Jews as the political equals of their fellow citizens. On the other hand, Jewish communities no longer constituted a "state within a state" as they had in medieval times, and rabbis no longer possessed legal authority and...