A Living Faith: selected sermons and addresses from the literaryremains.edited by Samuel S. Cohon [1 ed.]

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A LIVING FAITH SELECTED SERMONS AND ADDRESSES FROM

THE

LITERARY

REMAINS

of

DR. KAUFMANN KOHLER Edited by

SAMUEL S. CORON

HEBREW

UNION

COLLEGE

CINCINNATI

1948

PRESS

Copyright, 1948, by

HEBREW UNION COLLEGE

PRINTED PRESS

IN THE UNITED

OF THE JEWISH

STATES

OF AMERICA

PUBLICATION

PHILADELPHIA,

PENNA.

SOCIETY

CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. . . . . . •. . . .

v

1. The Need of a Living Creed, 1896. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 8

BETH-EL

BY SAMUEL S. CoHON. AND OTHER SERMONS

2. A United Israel, 1898................................. The Jewish Year 3. Are Sunday Lectures Treason to Judaism? 1888........... 4. The Sabbath Day and the Jew, 1891.................... 5. Forward and Upward! Is the New Y car's Call, 1909. . . . . . . 6. Reconciliation and Peace -The Message of Yorn Kippur. . 7. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, 1906. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. Judaism and the Jew................. . ................ 9. Sukkoth Sermon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · 10. Israel's Rejoicing in the Law, 1901........... . .......... 11. Strife and Triumph, 1908. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12. Hanukkah, a Festival of Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13. Purim Lecture, 1885. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14. Israel's Perennial Spring, 1903 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15. The Tocsin Call of Liberty and Democracy, 1918 .......... 16. My Strength and My Song is the Lord, 1902. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17. A Glorious Patrimony and Perennial Pledge, 1914 ....... 18. Nearer to Nature, to Humanity and to God, 1912 .........

HEBREW

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

UNION

COLLEGE

19 31 42 48 56 64 70 75 82 89 96 103 110 117 124 131

ADDRESSES

The Scholar and the Preacher, 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Staff of Priesthood and the Staff of Leadership, 1916 .. Religious Democracy, 191 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Judaism's Four Characteristic Traits, 1917. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The God of History and the Religion of History, 1918 ... The Need of a Great Unifying Power, 1919. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Men of Valor, 1921 ................................... iii

139 145 151 155 162 169 176

iv

CONTENTS PAGE

MEMORIAL

ADDRESSES

AND TRIBUTES

26. Ernst Renan, 1892 .................................... 27. The World is the Field of the Jew, Leopold Stein's Centennial, 1910 ................................................ 28. Professor Moritz Lazarus, 1884 ......................... 29. 'Loyal and Free', Addresses and Lectures by Prof. M. Lazarus, 1887 ........................................ 30. Lazarus' Ethics of Judaism, 1898 .............. . ..... . .. 31. Bamberger and Stcinthal, 1899 ......................... 32. Zechariah Frankel, 1902. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33. Gustav Karpeles, 1910 ................................. 34. Samuel Hirsch- A Historical Study, 1915 ............... 35. Isaac M. Wise, Master-Builder of American Judaism, 1915 .. 36. Rev. Dr. Henry S. Jacobs, 1893 ......................... 37. Saba to Morais, 1897. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38. A Leaf Upon the Fresh Grave of Dr. Herman Baar, 1904 .... 39. Bernhard Felsenthal, 1921 .............................. 40. Tribute to Dr. Israel Abrahams, 1925 .... . ............... 41. Thoughts on Baroness de Hirsch, 1899. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42. In Memoriam - Moritz Ellinger, 1908. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43. Memorial Address for E. L. Heinsheimer, 1917 ........... 44. Eulogy for Joseph Sales, 1919 ........................... 45. Invocation in Memory of J. Walter Freiberg, 1921 ........ PERSONAL

46. 47. 48. 49.

185 192 199 212 218 222 225 227 232 241 245 251 253 257 260 262 266 272 276 279

SERMONS AND ADDRESSES

The Priestly Blessing, 1903. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Strength and My Song is the Lord, 1913 ............... Address at the 50th Anniversary of Temple Beth-El, 1924 ... The Lord is My Banner, 1921 ...........................

283 292 300 305

FOREWORD THE religious world knows Dr. Kaufmann Kohler as the erudite author of the most comprehensive pioneer work on "Jewish Theology" (1918), of the volumes "Heaven and Hell in Comparative Religion" (1923) and "The Origins of the Synagogue and the Church" (1929) and of the hundreds of articles and essays in the Jewish Encyclopedia and various other learned publications. These writings show his marked critical judgment and scientific objectivity. This is but one profile of the great master. The other is disclosed in his homiletical expressions, which in part comes to light in his "Hebrew Union College and other Addresses" (1916) and in his "Stu dies, Addresses and Personal Papers" ( 1931). The scientific theologian was also a preacher of exceptional powers, one of the greatest in the Reform Jewish pulpit in America. The present volume consists of sermons and addresses selected from the literary remains of Dr. Kohler. Some of them arc published for the first time. The others appeared in the periodical press over a period of several decades and are inaccessible to the general public. Most of the sermons on the Jewish year were delivered from his own pulpit at Temple Beth-El in New York City, and a number of them as guest preacher at Adat Israel of Louisville, Ky. (no. 5), The I. M. Wise Temple of Cincinnati, Ohio, (no. 8), Rodef Shalom Congregation of Pittsburgh, Pa., (no. 14) and others. The Hebrew Union College addresses were delivered by Dr. Kohler in his capacity as president of that institution during opening and ordination exercises. His personal sermons and addresses are richly autobiographical. The memorial addresses and tributes contain valuable material on the history of modern Judaism. At the same time they show the V

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FOREWORD

breadth of Dr. Kohler's sympathies. The uncomprom1smg champion of Reform appears as a lover of genuine orthodoxy, an admirer of Dr. Zechariah Frankel and a warm friend of Sabata Morais. A life long opponent of political Zionism, he applauds the return of Jews to agricultural pursuits in Palestine. \Vhat strikes the reader of these addresses most is the intellectual integrity of the master. The enthusiastic liberal who sang hymns of praise at the dawning light of human brotherhood, frankly confesses his disappointments and adopts a more cautious attitude to the events of his time. At the Pittsburgh Conference, which he convoked in 1885, he attached much weight to Sunday services, which he first introduced during his rabbinate at Sinai congregation of Chicago. The address, "Are Sunday Lectures Treason to Judaism?", preached in 1888, expresses his enthusiasm for this innovation in the American Synagogue. Its follow-up, "The Sabbath Day and the Jew", written in 1891, shows how changing conditions in the world position of the Jew led him to confess the error of his previous position and to espouse the traditional attitude. Even those who were privileged to know Dr. Kohler intimately as friend and as teacher will gather a fuller and richer picture of this truly great Jew from the sermons and addresses in this volume. The exponent of Reform Judaism appears here as a deeply pious person. The religious spirit of these sermons is needed to enrich the preaching of the men in the Jewish pulpits of our country to-day. Even those who may dissent from some of the viewpoints of Dr. Kohler will find in his words the fire of true religion wherewith to kindle their own souls. The dominant note in this volume on the need of a living faith suggested its title. The volume came to life through the ardent desire of the Misses Rose and Lili Kohler to sec the literary remains of their distinguished father collected and made available to the present day readers. Miss Rose Kohler personally copied some of the sermons from Dr. Kohler's difficult manuscripts.

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FOREWORD

Following her departure on the of October 4, 1947, Miss Lili Kohler carried forward the sacred task. It is through her sacrifice that the volume is now presented to the reading public as a memorial to her father and to her sister. Thanks are due to Rabbi Steven Schwartschild for copying some of the sermons and for going over a large part of the manuscript, and to Dr. Joshua Bloch for his generous helpfulness and for taking charge of the arrangements for the publication of the volume. SAMUEL

Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio. April 22, 1948

s. CORON

Beth-El and Other Sermons

THE NEED OF A LIVING

CREED*

Judges 6:12-14

IN opening our Friday evening lecture course tonight, I wish to speak of the principle upon which we stand, to unfurl the banner around which we must rally, Israel's living God, and emphasize the need of a living creed. We call creeds such beliefs as are obtained from books and recited in formulas dry as the leaves in autumn. No such creed made and shaped by men have I in mind. A creed that makes and shapes our lives, that lends meaning and purpose to our existence, is what we need. There was a time of great distress and depression in Israel, and the farmer's son Gideon had to hide his wheat crops from the rapacious Midianites when an angel of God addressed him saying: "The Lord is with thee, valiant hero." "Why, if the Lord were with us, no such calamity could have befallen us," rejoined Gideon; but the angel said: "Go thou with this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from his foes, for the Lord is with thee." Here is the history of all great men given in a nutshell. They realize the hardship and woe of the time more keenly than the rest, but they also feel all the stronger the impulse to act, because God is a living power in them and no mere name. It is not learning and oratory, nor philosophy and science, nor any of the arts and forms of culture that make men great and give history its powerful impetus. It is the concentrated energy of faith in one single individual that moves the thousands and leads them to victory over hostile powers, however numerous. A single man like Noah, or Abraham, or Moses saves a world from doom. A single Luther, or Cromwell, or Mendels*Reprinted from Sermons by American Rabbis, Chicago, 1896, pp. 217-222. 3

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sohn liberates generations. And by what means? By the creed that molded their lives, by the living God within them. However small their resources, they have God on their side, and His omnipotence is theirs. Doubt had no place in hearts like Elijah's or Luther's. They stood fast like a tower, though the earth shook beneath their feet. We theorize too much. Our age of reason has raised a generation of critics, cynics and cowards. Most of us lack the strength to do great things, to bring great sacrifices for a great cause as did the men of yore. We cannot stand the flattering smiles of fortune, nor the frowns of misfortune. Agnosticism has become the disease of the century. Arguing avails nothing. All our lecturing has failed to kindle the fire of religion, the right enthusiasm of a holy conviction in our midst. Religion comes from within, not from without. The Bible says, Noah and Enoch walked with God. "Walk before Me and be perfect," said God to Abraham. And defining religion, Micah says: "Thou hast been told what is good and what the Lord requires of thee: Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God." To be sure, they had neither a creed nor a Bible in the days of the patriarchs and the prophets, but they felt the pangs of conscience, they carried the law of morality in their bosom, they had rules of ethical conduct even in the days of the Flood. Still they lacked a life-force, a motive power to fashion society after moral principles. There was no fear of God, no faith in God in the multitude. The patriarchs and prophets alone walked with God, held Him before their eyes as a guide and pattern of righteousness, and followed Him, and became the world's saviors. We need a living God. Cold abstract principles do not create characters, do not make men just and good. You must have the animating spirit of goodness in you in order to be good. Whatever virtue and manhood the atheist displays, it is the fruit of the religion of his fathers. Neither will all philosophy, all theories on optimism and pessimism, impart to you the strength to bear up bravely

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CREED

5

under trial and grief, unless you have learned how to walk with God as with a friend, to be sustained by the realization of His love and sympathy and for His sake to suffer and to sacrifice whatsoever He demands. "Have I God with me in heaven, I need nothing on earth," says the Psalmist. To Judah the Saint, a Roman emperor sent a rare jewel as a gift, and he in return forwarded to him a little scroll with the Sh'ma Yisrael written on it as a charm, saying: "Mine is more valuable than yours. Your treasure I must constantly guard against robbers; mine will guard you and your treasures." Yes, whatever men prize, life or earthly goods, is not safe and needs watching. Your religian watches over you, shields your character, lifts you above trial and temptation. For your own safety's sake choose God as leader, make Him your strength and your victory! But you do not stand alone. Religion is not, as you imagine, a mere matter of choice. Whether you recognize it or not, you are, with every blood molecule in your veins, with every cell of your brain, with every fiber of your heart, Jews. You cannot shirk a duty imposed on you by all the force of a four thousand years' history. Either good and loyal, or bad and disloyal Jews~ this is the issue before the world. To be or not to be, to be either godless humanitarians, lost in a vast sea where there is no anchoring ground for the soul, or firmly planted upon the Rock of Ages and pointing to the goal whither the centuries of history are marching? This is the question for the enlightened Jews to-day. What gave the Jew the power to resist a world in arms and become the unconquered conqueror of the centuries? Not his treasures of gold, nor his worldly wisdom, though he knew how to appreciate both. It was his faith that preserved him and kept him alive. It was his God who triumphed over all the art and philosophy of Egypt and Greece. It was the living God of Israel who vanquished all the dead gods of pagandom and challenged the God of Christianity who died on the cross. The secret of monotheism is that it defies the rule of arith-

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metic and asserts that the One is more than the many. Count all the wheels and_ rudders, the sails and masts, the men and goods in a ship, what are they against the one who stands at the helm and steers it towards its goal? So are the myriads of hosts of heaven and the millions of forces and forms of the universe nothing against the Unseen, yet All-seeing One who shapes and directs their course. And of what account is million-headed humanity, what are all the mechanical and dynamic powers that keep the machinery of social life going, what are the political or ethical motors of history, the ages, the nations, the races and sects, compared with the One Mind for which all minds yearn, the One Source of Love from which all hearts derive inspiration and comfort, the majestic Being who marshals them all and, wherever and whatsoever they are, His everlasting arms are beneath to carry them whither He wishes. With this God our fathers walked and braved the fire and the sword, the onslaught of time and the deluge of sin and suffering round about. This God of the Bible has become humanity's God, the luminous center of our civilization, the Tower of Christendom, the Shield of every home, the Refuge of every devout soul. And we, the firstborn among God's children, dare deny Him and suffer His name to be desecrated in high and lowly place and fall into oblivion in our own homes? As was said to Jonah: "While all the rest lie on their knees in prayer and adoration before the Most High, darest thou, God's prophet, sent forth to preach His truth to the Gentiles, remain asleep in the face of the raging storm?" The Jew without God is a monstrosity, an object of fear. We are weak and count little in the council of nations, because we are divided, we are split into factions, without the uniting bond of a living creed. Doubt and unbelief have sapped our strength, our manhood. In quest of mammon, we have lost sight of our goal, of our God. Let us again stand for the living creed of the Jew, for Israel's Holy God, for Israel's Bible, for Israel's Sabbath, for Israel's home sanctity, for Israel's law of justice and truth,

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and united we shall be invincible. Let us rally again around our synagogue, as the Christian does around his church. Let us bring the needed sacrifice for our father's faith to make it our source of strength and our purpose of life, and we shall see the world at our feet. Too long have we been trifling with the name of Jew. Let us be Jews in creed and in deed, positive and emphatic both in belief and observance, proud of our history, eager to work out our task as Jews, and, like Gideon, we may leave thousands that are timid behind but go with the hundreds that are faithful and true and win the battle, for the God of mankind will be with us. Amen.

A UNITED

ISRAEL*

A CONFERENCE lecture at a rabbinical gathering has, as I understand it, a definite purpose. It is to lend expression to such views and sentiments as are uppermost in the minds and the hearts of Israel's appointed leaders, and voice the deepest needs and longings of Judaism in its present state. \\lhile appreciating the honor you, Mr. President, and your committee have conferred on me in assigning this task to me, I wish to speak the word of peace to all: "Peace to him that is afar and to him that is near, and I will heal him." The time for strife and for party division is over. We need consolidation. My message is: A United Israel! Let all differences of opinion be waived. Let all wrangling and bickering between Reform and Orthodoxy, between Conservative and Radical, between East and West, in pulpit and press, cease once for all! Let us stand as one man for undivided Judaism. There is no orthodoxy nor heterodoxy in our confession. Whosoever follows the battle cry: Sh'ma Yisrael, is a Jew. Mark well! There is no plural in the verb Sh'ma - hear; no plural to the noun Israel. There is but one Israel. The people sent forth to proclaim God's Unity to the world throughout the ages should show but one solid front to the nations. One God, one humanity and one Israelthis is our creed - we have no other. Adonai Ehad! "The Lord is One," was inscribed on Judaism's banner, and no other bond was necessary to link the living and the dead together - the generations that were and the generations that are to come. About God and His attributes, about Revelation, Creation and Resurrection, about Miracle and Messiah the most divergent opinions were *Lecture delivered at Atlantic City before the Central Conference of American Rabbis,July 8, 1898. Reprinted from Yearbook C. C. A. R., Vol. 8, pp. 82-90. 8

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held and expressed by the leading authorities of all times. Who dares count all those bold Jewish thinkers out of the synagogue? Who will prescribe and set a measure and a boundary to the working of the spirit? Each prophet had his own style and character; each thinker and teacher spoke as the spirit moved him. However widely the schools of conservative Shammai and liberal Hillel differed in the interpretation of the Law, the maxim prevailed: "Both voice the words of the living God of truth." And this rule was maintained throughout Jewish history. Side by side with the opinion of Moses ben Maiman, the giant mind of Cordova, stands that of Abraham ben David of Posquieres, the narrow-minded mystic in the great work Yad Hahazakah. God's living truth is in both. So stands the Talmud alongside of the Zahar, Rationalism alongside of Mysticism. The entire Jewish literature is a great battle arena of truth, where Aristotle and Plato found a place alongside of Moses and Isaiah. Well could each Sabbath lesson close with the word of the Rabbis: The students of the Law have a mission of peace for the world, because as disciples of God, following the lead of truth solely, they cannot but aid in the building up of God's kingdom of peace. Well, then, peace and union! Union amidst all diversity! Harmony amidst all divergence and discord ! Our Orthodox brethren are rather late in the day in protesting against Reform and attempting to set up a standard of true Jewish belief and practice, claiming the title of observers of the Law only for themselves. They divide the camp of Israel, not we. Still I sec only good come from it. A conference such as they held recently in New York leads to better mutual understanding and clearer issues; and when they are all consolidated and united, they will, in good Jewish fashion, turn toward the light and bless God for it. So we need have no fear as to the final outcome. Two observations only I may be permitted to make in regard to that Orthodox conference:

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I am the very last to deprecate Orthodoxy. It is the soil out of which we have drawn sap and marrow. Orthodox Judaism is the mother that has nursed us with her life-blood, and even if she shows the wrinkles of old age, we will never forget to pay her homage and reverence her in due humility. Not with her do I find fault, but with those who wear her badge without being entitled to the same. There is but one sure test, one infallible standard by which Orthodoxy must be judged, and that is Joseph Caro's Shulhan Aruch. Congregations using the organ, having female voices in the choir and the rite of confirmation, rabbis clean-shaven, carrying watch and umbrella on a Sabbath day or wearing garments of Shaatnez on week days, and Parnassim whose un-Jewish life at home and in the store is relieved only by their wearing a hat and a Tallith in Oriental fashion in the synagogue all these sail under false colors when registered as Orthodox. Knowingly or unknowingly they have changed and broken away from the old landmarks as well as we. What right have they to hurl the charge of disloyalty at us? Of the Spaniards I read the other day that they close their eyes when they shoot, and for that reason they arc such poor marksmen. It seems to me that our Orthodox accusers shut their eyes also when throwing their invectives against us. They see not the stern facts, the hard necessities of life that caused people to transgress the Biblical commands. They charge us with treason, because we keep our eyes open and make allowances for the time; but as to love for God and loyalty to our faith, we stand not behind any of these "Observers of the Law." To-day being Sabbath Balak, it is exactly fifty-four years since Dr. L. Stein of Frankfort-on-the Main preached the sermon before the Rabbinical Conference from the text: "He saw Israel arrayed according to his tribes, and the spirit of God came over him that he could not but bless them." It ,vas the great Rabbinical Conference. Oh! what a galaxy of Jewish thinkers and toilers in the field of religion and literature sat there together. Geiger and Philippson,

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Holdheim, Hirsch and Einhorn, the two Adlers, Aub and Wechsler, Formstecher, Herzfeld, Grunebaum, Hess and Mayer, and dozens of others. Even Dr. Frankel, the Director of the Breslau School, was still among these - all men of genius, of eminent scholarship and prophetic eloquence, men whose every fibre vibrated with love for our ancestral heritage, and whose whole life was a martyrdom for their convictions, each a hero risking his very life by his frankness and honesty, because government and congregation held the lash over them to throttle them and hush them into silence. Were these men destroyers of the faith, breakers of the Law, faithless to their trust, traitors to Judaism? Consult not Graetz, nor the people who know little of the history of the day, because they had no heart-burning, no wrestling and anxiety of soul as these had. Ask the people that lived through those days of divine unrest, and they will tell you that these Reformers saved Judaism from stagnation and decay. They were true prophets preaching a religion of truth and righteousness. While the Orthodox rabbis wrapped themselves into their prayershawls weeping over the neglect of the Law, Reform infused new life into the dry bones of Israel, and awakened new enthusiasm for the ancient faith in the young. Not for convenience's sake, not because a life unrestricted by laws concerning diet and dress offered many social advantages, did they abolish or speak against ceremonialism, but because they hoped and yearned for the speedy realization of Israel's holiest ideals. They wanted to make the Jewish religion a world-conquering spiritual force; therefore ritualism seemed to them an obstacle and a shackle. They yielded the unessential to preserve the essential. They made the cultured Jew who saw only a caricature of religion in the old parental observances look with a new love and admiration upon the priceless treasure hidden beneath repulsive forms. No longer was Judaism rejected and spurned by its own children. No longer was the Judenschule the laughing stock of the mob. Reform lifted it from the dust, made the syna-

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gogue a source of pride and self-respect to the Jew and lent the religion of the despised race a power it never had before. And these pioneers of Reform made us, their pupils and followers, what we are. The breath of their mouth, the spirit of their life and thought, saved many of us from drowning in the sea of doubt and denial. And we rejoice in having in our midst one who was a coworker of all these men, our venerable President, Dr. I. M. Wise. To him belongs the undisputed credit of having done the pioneer's work during the first years of American Reform. He worked for the liberation of the Jewish mind. He broke the ground and laid the foundation, and he now enjoys the rare privilege, crowned with the seal of especial grace of God, of seeing one noble structure after the oth-er, one grand institution in the cause of Judaism, of broad liberal Judaism, owing its existence to his successful efforts, and has secured for himself a permanent place in the foremost ranks of Israel's champions of truth and in the annals of Jewish history. But for that liberty and progress transplanted to American Israel from Germany, the mother country of Reform, the Jew in this country would never have attained that prominent position in society nor displayed that large-heartedness and liberal-mindedness which reared all the splendid institutions of benevolence, all the proud temples and asylums which reflect lasting glory upon the faith and race of Abraham. Reform set those forces free that worked for the glory and elevation of Judaism. All honor, then, to the men whose fervor of spirit kindled the hearts of members and leaders for the work accomplished under the Reform banner. Surely the best testimony to that spirit is our Union Prayer Book, the ,vork of our former Atlantic City Conference. In it burns, amid all the warm outpourings of other hearts, the fire of Dr. Einhorn's God-kindled soul, of one upon whose tongue a seraph put a live coal from God's empyrean to voice the deepest longing of the Jew. And yet, to be candid, the Reform movement has disappointed us all. It has not realized many of our fondest hopes.

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The novelty is worn off. The glowing enthusiasm of the older generation has died away with them; the next one became lax and indifferent, and the young, for whose sake sacrifices are still brought, care little for Israel's glorious trust of the ages. Artificial attractions to dazzle the eye, sensational pulpit topics to tickle the car, are the means resorted to to draw the Jew to the synagogue. Even the beautiful Confirmation rite, the starting point of Reform in Germany, has been recently pronounced a farce and failure. Upon two or three solemn days of the year hinges the religious consciousness of the Jew. In the same measure as culture and knowledge increase in the Jew the pulpit's hold upon the people decreases. The feeling of duty, of loyalty to the synagogue is on the decline. The appeal to reason as final arbiter in things godly has impaired the feeling of reverence and humility, the sense of responsibility and solidarity among the modern Jews. What is after all the gain in having big temples filled to overflowing with spell-bound listeners to enrapturing oratory? Is religion the gainer? Have Sunday attendances changed the lives of young men for the better? Has the J cw in his heart of hearts been touched and led to a purer and holier life, to a life that would lead the world by its exemplary priestly sanctity? Alas, since the bridal crown fell from the Sabbath Queen, Jewish home life has lost its lustre; the purity and virtue of the Jew has faded like a flower torn from its stem. Zangwill in his criticism of American Reform is not altogether wrong. "It is less Judaism than the Jew that needs Reformation." We need something more than an abstract idea and a few sacred days in the year pronouncing it to keep us conscious of our mission in the midst of a materialistic, semi-pagan life foll of dangers and temptations, of tragedy and despair. The Pittsburg platform is a clear presentation of the broad principles of Judaism to the world. We need principles to fashion our own life in accordance with our priestly mission. \Ve need a power to counterbalance the arbitrary individualism, conservative forces to counteract

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the tide of unrestrained progress which ends in Nirvana~ if not in cowardly surrender to the majority. Another point must not be overlooked, The next twenty years will decide the fate of American Judaism, The Russian element, already now in the majority, is undergoing exactly the same process the Germans did, but under severer tests and at a quicker pace. With their brighter intellects and lesser emotional powers, they incline to swing with one stroke from superstitious and mystic orthodoxy to a rationalism which comes quite near skepticism and nihilism. Wise and moderate conservative methods alone can exert a wholesome influence upon them to mould their future. Our Reform ideas will as little impress them as they did the Nationalist Graetz or any of our brethren of Portuguese descent. Reform to them means not Judaism spiritualized, but, as it did to Graetz and others, Judaism Christianized. Shall we then take down the banner and raise the bugle call for retreat? This would be more than folly. This would amount to a crime against the spirit of history. Brethren, I propose to drop the name of Reform and substitute for it a name more comprehensive, more expressive and more positive. Let the Orthodox adhere to his name. He only deludes himself in believing in the stability of the forms of doctrine and of practice. We know better. We see in the history of Judaism the same forces at work that turned chaos into order, the brute into heavenward-gazing man, and the yearning for light and beauty into a religion of righteousness and truth. We see progress at work both in Nature and in Revelation. We see God manifested differently in the Law, and the Prophets, in Hosea and in Amos, in Elijah and in Jeremiah, in the temple and in the synagogue. We see different ages at work writing and composing the Bible. Whose Judaism is grander or more genuine? That of the seer of the exile, Deutero-Isaiah, or Ezra's? That of the Sadducees, the priests that fashioned temple practice and purity laws, that of the Hassidim, the Essene brotherhoods who instituted the synagogue, the house of prayer, thus rais-

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ing the claims of priestly holiness for the people, or that of the Pharisees who worked for the sanctity of home and the elevation of woman? What is the true Judaism of history? The Palestinian or the Babylonian Gemara? The Hellenic or the Judaean practice in Philo's or Josephus' time? vVhat is historical? Shabuoth, the farmer's festival, or the Festival of the Giving of the Law as created by the rabbis? The New Moon of the Seventh Month as known to Philo, or the New Year's day as known first in Mishnaic time? The Tephillin worn as phylacteries or charms the whole day long, or the Tephillin worn only like tablets during prayer time? Historical Judaism means progressiveJudaism, and this is the name I claim for our principle of faith. Reform is no principle in itself; progressis. ProgressiveJudaism can afford to be just. Every progress has necessarily two points of view in sight; one from which to start and one to strive for; the one tenderly, proudly and zealously defended by the one party, the other vigorously, boldly and sometimes recklessly pressed on to by another. Progressive Jews we all are, the one advancing hastily, the others slowly. The most conservative Jew admits that fact. A man on the road asked a child: "How far is it to the next town?" "I cannot tell; walk on," the child answered. The man walked on and the child ran after him and stopped him saying: "I can tell you now. Judging by your steps you have about an hour's walk." Thus the rabbis say it is with the progress of truth. All depends upon the steps you take. We need both a power working for expansion and assimilation, and a power working for stability and seclusion. Yes! C"n C'i1'~ •i:ii ,,~, ,,~ "Both voice the words of the living God." As every star in heaven is swayed by a centrifugal force to move along on the same track while coursing through the vast expanse of heaven, so is Judaism swayed by two powers, one of progress and reform, and the other of piety and loyalty. It is a beautiful observation of our rabbis that, when the march of Israel is spoken of, we read, Vayis'u, Vayachnu (they

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moved along) in the plural; and when they are represented as being encamped in front of Mount Sinai, there (Va-Yihan Israel) Israel is spoken of in the singular - Israel is encamped as one man. Whenever we are cager to break the old fetters, whenever we endeavor to scale the heights of civilization, there pioneers are needed to lead, reformers to break the new paths, aggressive minds to rush ahead and boldly attest the new claims and demands of the new age. This was done in Northern Israel, where prophecy first burst forth with mighty power. This was repeated in Babylonia and Persia, where the synagogue, the power of prayer made itself felt as an element of religious education. This was the case under the sway of Greek philosophy in Alexandria when the idea of a universal, world-wide Judaism took hold of the Jew, and later on under the influence of Arabian culture, when reason began to mould the dogmas of the Jew. The German Reform movement battered down the Ghetto walls of rabbinical seclusion for the modern Jew, and, of course, its storm and stress period, which we have not yet passed, brought forth extravagances, excesses and errors of all sorts. We have at present other problems of a graver nature to solve. To-day, not Reform, but Judaism, must be the sole object of our solicitude. Too long have the party cries of Reform and Orthodoxy divided Israel and undermined its vital powers. Too long have our various congregations pursued only their own interests, placing glitter and outer attractiveness above merit and character, and losing sight of the real demands of Judaism. Too long did we lay all the stress and concentrate all energy upon the synagogue, neglecting the Home, where alone the glory and charm of Jewish life ever made itself felt. \Ve have done nothing to make the Sabbath the attractive center and focus of religion for the household as of yore. \Ve have dropped the old symbols of the festivals and put nothing in their place. \Ve allowed the beautiful benedictions of the old Prayer-book, which made every phenomenon in nature, every event and experience in life, rich with thought and feeling for the old Jew, to fall

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into oblivion, and thus life has become barren, void of cheer and rhythm and poetry and beauty. The spirit of Judaism must be revived. The Jewish heart, the Jewish conscience, must be roused from its slumber. Here we can and must work hand in hand with the orthodox, if not in their way, laying all stress on the traditional forms, then in our own more rational, more independent way. What we are, first of all, in need of is organization union of forces. United we stand, divided we fall. "Why is Israel likened to the dove?" the rabbis say. Like the dove, Israel flies forth with one wing, while resting on the other. We need two wings - a left wing of cosmopolitanism, to fly onwards, and a right wing of the national idea on which to rest our mission. Nowhere in the wide world has Judaism such great opportunities, such bright prospects, as in this, our free land. All the greater is our responsibility. Nowhere in the world do the representatives of the various creeds and shades of opinion work so harmoniously together as in our country. Intolerance and fanaticism are too antagonistic to the liberal spirit of our institutions. Here Orthodoxy and Reform work hand in hand in all fields of charity and of education. Why, then, should we not also endeavor to find a meeting ground for such religious work as concerns us all in common? A union of Jewish congregations, irrespective of religious differences, in every city and town should be the aims we all strive for. Such a union will not only help in elevating the Jew and Judaism everywhere, socially, intellectually and morally, but secure to us also an authorative public representation whenever required. And will not the very association of the various elements of Judaism increase and strengthen the tics of fellowship and brotherhood and the sentiment of mutual respect among us? Let the Central Conference take the lead in opening its gates wide to all the rabbis willing to join us in broadening and deepening the influence of Judaism, no matter whether they call themselves conservative or liberal.

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Also in our theological teaching let us be the first to drop party colors and raise the flag of Judaism all the higher. There is no such a thing as an Orthodox or a Reform Jewish science. Science has neither color nor party. Historical study is the study of progress. Theological study is the study of that which is permanent and eternal. Both must go hand in hand. Let us have a union organ, representing the ideas and views, not of a single individual only, but of those authorized and competent to say the right word at the right time. We are not known, not understood, abroad. Let us present to the world a union of rabbis and congregations representing both the most radical and the most conservative views, yet under the sway of American liberty and American broadmindedness, united and harmonious, strong in the assertion of conviction, and at the same time loyal, devoted and true to the common cause. As the rays of light of the sun arc reflected in the manifold colors and hues of the rainbow, so is God's majesty mirrored in the many views and conceptions, the various creeds and philosophical systems of men and ages. Israel stands between them all for the idea of Unity, the One God, for the One humanity, and so should we to-day stand before the world, not divided, but one Israel, in view of the common cause of God and mankind. Amen.

ARE SUNDAY LECTURES TO JUDAISM?*

TREASON

WORK and wait! The fruit does not fall off the tree until it is ripe." These words of my sainted father-in-law and predecessor, the late Dr. Einhorn, written to me some fourteen years ago with reference to the Sunday lectures I had introduced in Chicago, are still fresh in my mind as I look around to see the success of this movement established in many parts of our country: in Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, as well as in our congregation here in this city. And I hail it as a healthy sign of reawakened interest in Judaism. It indicates a craving and yearning of both old and young for some religious nutrition. It is, of course, quite natural and proper that the opposition should also emphatically remonstrate against the innovation. Every attempt at reform must be prepared for attacks. Far, therefore, from feeling vexed by the invectives hurled against this pulpit and congregation by an article in the Herald of Sunday, Jan. 1st, signed "A loyal Jew," I fully appreciate and respect the Jewish sentiment which dictated it. I can hear the genuine ring of indignation at the harm done to our once so proud Sabbath Queen by our insatiable restless age. And who would not readily forgive all the abuses, however unjust, emanating from a mother's heart overwhelmed with grief and anguish at her child's sad condition? Still I can easily discern the theological armor under the plain coat of the layman, and perhaps I may be able to clear up some mysterious allusions of the article by reading to you a letter of mine published a few weeks ago in the Jewish Exponent, a Philadelphia weekly, among the varying opinions

*Lecture delivered Jan. 8 and repeated Temple Beth-El Publications. 19

Jan.

22, 1888.

Reprinted

from

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of a number of rabbis on the question. In that letter I said: "I believe I do not claim too much in saying that for fourteen years I have incessantly and against all odds and winds been identified with Sunday lectures or services. The discrimination between the two amounts to very little, as some sort of devotion in the shape of song or prayer must as a matter of course accompany the lecture, particularly when given at the house of worship, and the quantity cannot decide the quality. "The question simply is whether it is better for Judaism to allow the large majority of Jews, and especially the rising generation, to die from spiritual starvation, or whether those who cannot attend on the Sabbath, the historical Sabbath, are allowed to have a substitute on the day when all Jews can attend, and rally around the Jewish pulpit to learn the tenets of their faith, and receive some religious inspiration and comfort in the midst of the week's toil and care. Or, to use a familiar expression of mine, whether that congregation shows the right religious (or conservative) spirit which, like the one of the two women before King Solomon, says, 'Let the child die rather than that the Sunday should have it'; or, the one that, like the true mother, speaks, 'By all means let my child live, and if Sunday is the only day when it can be fed and nurtured, take the Sunday rather than allow it to perish altogether.' But there is no one so blind as he who will not sec." This opinion of mine having prompted my antagonist to fling his venomous darts at us and call us "traitors to our faith," "disloyal to our God," "false to our dear Sabbath reminiscences," and "worse than the agnostics of the Ethical Culture, because less frank, less honest, and less consistent," the duty devolves upon me to take up the gauntlet and show that we arc not traitors, but upholders and defenders of our ancient flag, which made Israel triumph over every foe ever since it marched forth as the army and witness of the Only One God. Of every task in life a broad and a narrow view may be

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taken, and it will be found that in many cases strict adherence to the letter of the order given fails of its purpose, whereas a broader construction of the duty of the hour carries out the work intended. Among the victims of the great catastrophe at Pompeii the remains of a soldier were unearthed, who, being found at the outer walls of the city, must have met his fate while remaining true to his post, close to the place of the volcanic eruption. He would not leave the spot where he was stationed as sentinel, while all the rest had fled, terrified, in wild confusion. His death in that awful isolation is a touching testimony of faithful devotion and loyalty. Yet who knows whether this brave guard might not have saved thousands of lives, had he, at the first rumbling sound, or at the first out-pouring of the fiery lava stream, left the place in obedience to a higher calling, in order to give the signal of alarm and warn the people against the impending doom? Would in such a case his very disobedience not have been loyalty in a higher sense, because guided not by the word, but by the spirit of the command? They might have imprisoned him for having forsaken his post, while, in fact, he would have risked his own life for the sake of saving hundreds. Here you have a striking illustration of the difference between conservative legality and enlightened reform. Look at those men in history who, recognizing the need of the hour, cared not for the letter but for the principle of the law, whilst opening out new roads for humanity in response to its cry for higher truth and justice! Were they not always decried as traitors by the unthinking masses and their blindfolded leaders? Were not Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, Maimonides and Mendelssohn, as well as Socrates, Giordano Bruno, and Galileo persecuted for infidelity and disloyalty, because they rose and desired to lift others, above the imperilled grounds of popular belief, while pointing towards higher mounts of vision? Nor could the deafening cry of 'treason! treason!' deter an Einhorn, a Holdheim and a Geiger or any of our pioneers from unfurling the banner of progress and reform for an age which achieved one of the greatest miracles in

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miraculous Jewish history in transforming within two generations the down-trodden, uncultured, shy, and superstitious Jew of the ghetto into the enlightened, broadminded, and large-hearted Jewish citizen of the modern state, now found in the foremost ranks of society, in all fields of culture. True enough, we have broken away from the old landmarks. Our external marks of distinction as orientals amidst occidental civilization are fast disappearing. Judaism is more and more losing its national traits. But are we to blame for this? Would it have been better for us to have stayed in the seclusion of the Judengasse and be buried under its crumbling walls than to rise above all national and sectarian narrowness and come within reach of the purely ethical and humane, the lofty prophetical ideal of Judaism? There is certainly something touching about that woman in the old Biblical legend who, cleaving to the spot where her home stood, would not turn her eyes away, until, seeing it fall a prey to desolation, and as her bitter tears mingled with the salt which poured down upon her, she became all incrusted with it - a pillar of salt. Still this stubborn affection meant rebellion against the will of Divine Providence. I can fully sympathize with our fugitive and outlawed forefathers in their unequalled respect for their glorious past which made all their hopes for the future retrospective. But why should we not from every storm, however fiercely it may rage, all the more expect a rich harvest in summer, now that the winter is over? It certainly is a matter of great solicitude to us to find the outlook of the Jewish Sabbath so gloomy. Would to God that our conservative brethren had more reason for hopefulness in this respect! But they have not. Their sons and employees, if not they themselves, have their necks tied to the yoke of commercial bondage on Saturday no less than the reform Jews have. The chimes of the Sabbath bell of liberty fail to release modern Israel from the week's labor and worry unless the public day of rest stop the ever-turning wheels of business. It is very easy for the rabbi, or the man of leisure, to insist on the restoration of the Sabbath. But is it feasible?

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Is it possible? I do not now speak of the divine service, no word of which is mentioned in the Decalogue nor in the Mosaic law, as especially characteristic of the Sabbath. I refer to the divine law of rest for body and soul, for employer and employee. Could, even if they would, all the Jews of this city or country, or anywhere amidst European life, close their stores and offices, their shops and factories on Saturday without fatally injuring their material existence and social advantages? Could they successfully compete with their fellow-citizens in any trade or profession whilst strictly keeping the historical Sabbath? They might, with much better chances, start at once for one of our territories, if not for Palestine, to build a state of their own in which the historical Sabbath would not be encroached upon. Whether future generations will be differently situated I know not; I must leave this to God. At present, only blind fanaticism or hypocrisy can deny the fact that there is very little choice left to the average Jew, whether dependent or not. He must either retire from business altogether or violate the historical Sabbath. Is he, then, or are you, on account of thus trespassing upon the Sabbath law, no better than murderers, adulterers, thieves, and perjurers, because the transgression of one of the Ten Commandments is as bad and as criminal as that of any other? I must abandon such logic to those theologians who use this argument. Sound reasoning and common sense, disowning such crude conception of religion and revelation, forbid even answering them. I would rather ask them: Who is a better observer of the Fourth Commandment: the Christian who keeps one day out of seven as his Sabbath or the Jew who holds only the shell in his hands, allowing the precious pearl to drop? The truth is that Sunday is the actual day of rest for the majority of Jews in this country as well as for Christians. To be sure, love is not a thing that can be measured and weighed in the scale, but I doubt whether any one can love the precious reminiscences of Sabbath joy and cheerfulness in childhood's days more dearly or prize these sweetest and

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holiest treasures of old Jewish home-life higher than I do; neither would I deem any sacrifice too great to have the beautiful Sabbath lamp of household piety and devotion rekindled for the rising generation. But these wishes of ours can as little restore the blissful Sabbath-day of our fathers as they can bring back to us the happy days of our childhood. I wonder whether you have ever seen Sabbath Eve so exquisitely portrayed among Oppenheim's famous pictures of Jewish life. It strikes me that the serene peace radiating from c\-cry face in the homely group seated around the festive table, brightened up by the Sabbath lights, itself forms a part of ghetto life. The very bitterness of the life around rendered the Sabbath reunion so sweet; the very darkness of medieval barbarism made the Sabbath eve so bright for the Jew; the very cruelty of his fate to wander for six days through a world wild with hatred caused his blessed Sabbath cup to overflow with magic glee and gladness. To-day, however, the redeeming power of the heavenly herald of liberty is no longer realized by the emancipated sons of Israel. Gold has become the god before whose shrine all kneel. The pure idealism of old has given way to a coarse, selfish, and sensual materialism. Ever since the crown of glory was torn from the head of our Sabbath queen, the priceless jewels of Jewish life, deep devotion and piety, filial reverence and domestic purity have lost much of their pristine lustre, and as much in those circles where the appearanceefconservatism is kept uj,, as among the declared radicals! The question, therefore, which concerns us all is not what may happen a hundred years hence, but ,vhat is our duty now? How can the Jewish people be roused from their awful lethargy and again made conscious and proud of their divine calling? How can the dying embers of their former religious fervor be fanned anew into a bright flame to make them burn with love for their grand history and the glorious faith which their fathers scaled with their life blood, and with zeal for humanity, the aim and goal of all prophetical teachings? For the last fifty years the reform rabbis of Germany,

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Holdheim, Einhorn, Hirsch, Formstecher, Philippson, Geiger, and others, most ofthcm without being heeded or encouraged, proposed a measure which, at last, finds response in the Jewish communities of America, namely, institute Sunday lectures! Utilize the only day of rest the Jews have; create attentive centers of religious instruction and inspiration for the rising generation! Follow the example of our rabbis of yore, who instituted the reading of the Sabbath lesson on Monday and Thursday, then the market days, for the benefit of the villagers who could not come to town to participate in the Sabbath service, and establish a substitute on Sunday, in order to prevent the people from becoming altogether estranged from Judaism! Had those measures been generally agreed upon and carried out fifty years ago, Judaism in Germany and France, and all over the Western lands, would not have been paralyzed with religious indifference nor blighted by materialism, as it is now. Narrow-minded conservative policy from without and within interfered, and the consequence was stagnation. Again does blind, stubborn orthodoxy protest, loudly declaring: "Rather let the young, or all those who do not attend the regular Sabbath service, spiritually starve than that the bread of heaven should be offered to them on Sunday!" Am I, then, justified in asserting that no true, faithful mother would imperil the life of her child, saying: "Either take nourishment at the time I appoint, or I will let you starve!" Must I not charge conservatism with cruel, heartless fanaticism for speaking: "Rather no service or lecture at all for the thousands upon thousands of Jews who are excluded from the privilege of Sabbath rest than to have one on the Christian Sunday?" Mark well, the issue is not between Saturday and Sunday, but between Judaism saved and Judaism lost! I am sure, there can be no wrong in assembling in the House of God for prayer and for instruction on any day of the week. On the contrary, it has always been a duty incumbent upon the conservative few to do so every day in the year. Why, then, should it nowadays be unlawful on Sunday,

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unless the fear predominates that Judaism will not have the power to resist the influence of Christianity? Shame on you, ye cowards! We entertain no such fear. We are too certain of the final triumph of Israel's pure monotheistic truth and broad humanitarian ethics to dread the idea of entering the world arena for a race with the powerful Church. Why, not in her palmiest days could the Church silence, nor even with the sword and fagot crush Judaism; how could she with her creed prevail against our enlightened faith? I can fully understand why Orthodoxy, which sees Judaism founded on the letter, the form, the ceremony, the Law, apprehends danger from such a competitive test. We, whose Judaism is built upon the eternal rock of a belief in God and in man, perceive no harm in Sunday services. Rather the reverse. The Sunday is our world tribune. Our trumpet blasts strike the creeds with fear and knock down the Jericho walls of seclusive Church-dogmatism before the approaching army with the Messianic promise of a common brotherhood. Our Saturday service, however dear to us and however tenderly shielded by us, remains but a voice in the wilderness. Our Sunday services send forth their '"-'orld-uniting message of love and truth, of justice and peace to Jew and Gentile alike. Instead of being less loyal and faithful than our conservative brethren are, we claim to be guided by a stronger faith and a brighter hope for Judaism, and a deeper sense of its grand mission. Beholding in it, as our great seers tell us, the light of the nations, the covenant of the peoples, we, on Sunday, mount the watch-tower of the age to preach our religion of humanity, tested by all the ages, to the wide world. Is this frivolousness? Is this treason? But, it is argued, this will finally lead to a surrender of the Je,vish to the Christian Sabbath and gradually to an absorption of Judaism by Christianity. In regard to this I wish to be as plain and as outspoken as possible. Most assuredly, you cannot believe that God has a Sabbath day. You can no longer make even your children at school believe that God began the work of Creation on Sunday and finished it

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on Friday to rest on Saturday. Beyond our little planet there are no days such as we have. Man created days in counting the revolutions of the earth, and months and weeks in counting the turns of the moon. The Sabbath was originally a division of the month, an intermediate festival between New and Full Moon, kept sacred by Babylonian and Hindoo priests. I ts origin and name is older than Judaism, older than the Decalogue. But while adopting it, the Jewish religion rendered it a fundamental law for the people, a day of rest and recreation devoted to man's higher interests. Henceforth the Jewish Sabbath became the greatest teacher and benefactor of man. It took the yoke of slavery from his neck, declaring all to be free and alike before God. It wrenched the law and learning out of the hands of the privileged classes, offering knowledge and the means of devotion to all alike. Thus the Jewish Sabbath became the educator and refiner of the people. Long before Christianity appeared did the heathen world in Syria and in Rome sigh for the redeeming Sabbath day of the Jew. Still the law interfered, declaring the Sabbath to be only for the Jew, a sign of God's covenant with Israel, a mark of distinction between heathenism and Judaism. Only the prophet held out the promise that one day all flesh shall celebrate the Sabbath in common with Israel. How then about Christianity? At first the Church would have no Sabbath at all. Sunday was a Church day, in remembrance of the resurrection of the crucified Messiah, but no Sabbath. Only after the Emperor Constantine had rendered the day devoted to the sun-god a sort of weekly holiday in antagonism to the Sabbath of the Jews, Christianity applied the fourth commandment, and later on Puritanism all the Mosaic Sabbath laws to the Sunday. Now it so happens that Friday was selected for the Moslem Sabbath, and, as a matter of course, we wish and hope that Jewish influence will once be so powerful as to induce both Christians and l\,foslem to celebrate the world's Sabbath on Saturday, the historical Jewish Sabbath day. Suppose, how-

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ever, it is decreed in God's council that, just as is the case with the Christian era to-day, the Sunday should become the Sabbath of the entire civilized world, would this be the work of the heathen sun-god or of the Christian resurrection idea? Or would it be owing to the Jewish idea of the Sabbath, no matter whether it is the same day or not? Surely the Decalogue is not intended for the Jew alone, but for entire humanity. And let me in this connection point to Dr. Einhorn's catechism in which explicit discrimination is made between the eternal idea of the Sabbath and the ceremonial character of the day. Still, while I have the most implicit faith in the vitality of Judaism which enables it to undergo all possible changes of form, I do declare the attempt at an actual transfer preposterous. The name of the seventh day may be applied to any day of the week we choose, but the holy character and the elevating reminiscences cannot by a sudden change be transferred from the historical Sabbath to another. However this may be, Sunday lectures ought not to be a question of Reform or Orthodoxy. They are a question of "to be or not to be" with Judaism to-day. Look around and see how Judaism is despised and cast aside by its own children! Hear how they in abusive language call it "a religion of the pot and the kettle," although the very core and marrow of their ethical culture is Jewish. Can the four thousand years of our history be wiped away by a passing current of agnosticism? Can we afford to have the rising generation grow up without faith in God, without self-respect as Jews, without a living and everlasting ideal of goodness and truth, and like a ship without a rudder and compass, carried away by the tide of materialism and caught in the whirlpool of sensuality and licentiousness? Should we remain idle lookers on, when Judaism is constantly losing ground in our midst and, owing to the neglect of the Sabbath with its hallowing influences sec, the moral standard of Jewish life lowered and the Jew's standing in the community jeopardized? But to tell the truth, I am not satisfied with mere lectures

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which appeal only to the intellect, and leave the heart empty and cold. If we really have the spiritual welfare of our people at heart, we must have the religious sentiment stirred up and re-awakened by Sunday services which touch the flood-gates of the soul and elicit from the hearts of our youth the enrapturing strains of devotion, the music of prayer and song. Only as a living religion can Judaism move and inspire the modern Jew and appeal to his heart to achieve works of love and philanthropy. Only through regular Sunday services can the forces of Judaism, now scattered and inefficient throughout the year, be reunited into a mighty power, not only for the dissemination of truth but also for the noble selfsacrificing work of love and benevolence for which the Jewish heart cannot help beating warmly and incessantly even under the cloak of the agnostic. With houses crowded every Sunday, Judaism can show the world that it is not dead, but that, in spite of the death-warrant issued by the Christian daughter-religion and now by the new-fangled religion of ethics without a God, it lives and works. If our conservative brethren consider the agnostics better than we are, let them allow their children to swell their ranks! Our aim is to impart to our children a religion which, accompanying them from the cradle to the grave, binds them to the throne of a good God and connects them with a glorious past and a mighty future. And the foe against whom we make war is neither orthodoxy nor agnosticism but that indifference joined to sordid materialism which worships the golden calf on Saturday and the Qµeen of Hearts on Sunday and yet decries us as false to our faith and our mission. Rabbi Akiba was once found by a Roman officer studying the Jewish Law in defiance of the imperial edict which threatened this with death. "How darest thou thus risk thy life?" asked the astonished Roman. "Knmvest thou," rejoined the Jewish teacher, "the parable of the fox who said to the fishes: 'See ye not the fisherman spreading his net to catch you? Come on shore to escape!' But the fishes replied: 'Water is our vital element. If we are no longer safe here,

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death is sure to overtake us.' The study of the Law, religious instruction, is the vital element of the Jew. If he no longer finds safety when adhering to that, he is surely lost." These words of the ancient master must disarm all opposition. If it be dangerous for Judaism to rally its devotees around its religious center on the day they can attend in large numbers, then its fate is sealed. Well, Temple Beth-El! Gather thy forces. Let us stand as one man for Judaism's future! God who spoke on the first day: "Let there be light," He says to the Jew of today: "Arise and shine, for thy light has come, and the glory of God shall rise upon thee."

THE

SABBATH DAY OF THE JEW*

EvERY now and then the prudent captain casts his plummet into the sea and takes his measurement of the sun to ascertain his exact geographical position, lest he may some day be suddenly driven by unfavorable wind and wave upon cliffs or shoals where danger is imminent. Likewise must the religious leader from time to time re-examine his attitude towards the surrounding world in order to be fully awake to the duty of the hour amidst the ever-changing demands of the age. Consistency is most certainly a virtue which always merits apprec1at1on. But when altered circumstances require a change of tactics, tenacity may prove perilous. "He who does not alter his opinion once in seven years has no opinion worth having," was Prince Bismarck's brusque reply to his opponents in the German Reichstag, when they censured him for leaning towards! Lassalle's State Socialism, formerly so severely attacked by him. And one wiser than the great statesman of our century says: "There is a time to build up and a time to pull down. There is a time to gather stones and another to cast them aside." Now, it seems to me that the time has come for a careful re-consideration of the Sabbath question. And having for eighteen years been one of the chief advocates and promoters of the Sunday Service, often standing forth in its defence single-handed against a multitude of assailants, I consider it not merely mv privilege but my duty to state publicly that I have found sufficient reasons to change my views of the same. The Sabbath observance is the pivotal question of Judaism. Unlike any other statute or rite it is a preeminently Jewish institution. Every day in the former part of the week *Reprinted from The Menorah, Vol. 12, 1891, pp. 151-160. 31

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has its corresponding match in the latter part. Only the seventh day stands alone, say the rabbis, because Israel is its ally and companion. Both stand for God and humanity. True, the Sabbath formed already a part of the Babylonian calendar. It was a day of standstill in the moon's motion. But it pointed to the pov,-erful sway of the stars as rulers of destiny over men and gods. It was the royal high priest's day of rest, betokening bondage. The Jewish Sabbath made the week's closing day independent of the moon, proclaimed the absolute freedom of God, and the freedom vouchsafed by God to man, His image. It was instituted to cheer and liberate man, as a day of joy and comfort to all alike, to both slave and free man, for body and soul. It was the first abolitionist. It declared the bondman free; it laid down the first fundamental principle of democracy; it disseminated the seeds ofreligious truth of God. The Sabbath forms part of the Jewish Constitution, the Sinaitic Covenant. As morality derives its sanctity from God, the Lawgiver, so docs purity of life find its strength and skill in the Sabbath. Without the Sabbath, Judaism is a religion without a haven of rest, a ship without an anchor. The destruction of State and Temple could never imperil the vitality, the vigor and hope of the Jew, as docs the general neglect of the Sabbath to-day, owing to the encroachment of life's material interests upon the spiritual ones. Oppression and persecution at all times nerved and steeled Jewish loyalty and self-respect. The violation of the Sabbath, in consequence of the pressure of commercial competition, robbed the Jew of his wondrous idealism, loosened his family tie, his precious heritage of the past, and laid bare all the weaknesses and foibles of his race. In one word, it materialized the Jew. Being always in the van of progress, he naturally betrays more than any other the proclivities of an age proud of its intellectual feats and indifferent to religion. \Vhcthcr rightly or wrongly, he now stands accused before the world of selling his birth-right for a pottage of lentils. Can Judaism afford to lose its prerogative as the covenant

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of the peoples and have its Sabbath Queen shorn of her crown of glory? The Sabbath was the redeemer of the Jew, physically, mentally and spiritually. It endowed him in the face of untold trials and woes with the power of a hero, the wisdom of a prophet and the dignity of a king. The very victories achieved by the Christian Church over the pagan world were due to the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath, attracting converts from the heathen world along the commercial routes of the Mediterranean Sea. The Jew today turns into the lowest of slaves the moment he gives over his Sabbath to the rule of Mammon. How to rescue, then, both the Sabbath and the cause of Judaism from the threatening danger, was the grave object under discussion in the various Rabbinical Conferences ever since the Reform movement began in Germany, before the middle of our century. Should the historical Sabbath be retained at any price, no matter how great the inroad was which business and social life had made upon it, or is the observance of one day of rest and devotion in the week, without regard to its character and to past traditions, the main object to be aimed at? This seemed to be the issue. And yet it was scarcely set forth when Jewish sentiment shrank from a step that appeared like a concession to Judaism's life-long persecutor and might be construed as disloyalty. "The Sabbath which is allowed to die on Friday will never see its resurrection on Sunday!" Dr. Stein thundered forth, and his words found a deeper echo in the assemblage than did all the appeals of Hirsch and Holdheim, and at first also of Philippson and others. Still, is a Sunday devoted to instruction and religious elevation not better than a Sabbath desecrated by the worship of Mammon? What harm can there be in introducing additional Sunday services for the benefit of the multitudes prevented from attending divine worship on the Sabbath? The measure was, by way of compromise, proposed and in some degree attempted, but the results were rather meagre. The Berlin Reform Congregation, under Holdheim, was the only one that persisted in the movement inaugurated, and, behold, the Sunday became

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the speedy death knell of the Sabbath, much to the chagrin of the Reform leaders themselves. For, however beneficial the Sunday movement proved at first in stemming the tide of apostacy among the enlightened classes of Berlin, it is a well-known fact that in the evening of his life Dr. Holdheim sorely regretted his own isolation and the desolation of his temple, seeing that the loss was greater than the gain. And so did Dr. Einhorn also become far more conservative on American soil than he was as friend and colaborer of Holdheim in the spring-time of Reform and as leader of the Reform Congregation at Pesth. As we turn to America, here, at first sight, both the free institutions of the land and the spontaneous growth of religious life and the social habits and customs seemed greatly to favor the most radical reform. The Jewish Sabbath, being neglected alike by the Orthodox and Progressivist, the Sunday, rendered by the state a day of general observance, offers a natural substitute. What more was there needed for the Jew who has long since unlearned to accept the Biblical six-days creation story in its literal sense and refuses to believe that before the throne of Eternity, around which sun and stars swing in incessant whirls throughout aeons, one interval of twenty-four hours should differ from another? ·when, therefore, the writer of this pleaded for and finally succeeded in bringing about the introduction of Sunday services in the Chicago Sinai Congregation, he appealed to the plain common sense of the people, asserting that, like yonder mother, who said to King Solomon, "Give her the child, but spare its life," Reform Judaism would rather see the Sabbath observed on Sunday than not at all. At the same time the maintenanceof the regular Sabbath service was made the condition of the innovation, and the document containing the signatures of the members to this pledge is still in our possession. It can hardly be denied that the measure proved opportune. Soon other Reform congregations followed in the lead of the Chicago Temple. It seemed to be only a question of time when the Sunday services would be felt by the people to be

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the need of the hour, as the example of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia worked as an incentive upon others, and the Ethical Culture craze was more or less paralyzed by their success. Still, the charm of novelty being over, the question is certainly pertinent and proper today: Did the Sunday services or lectures render Judaism stronger and firmer in the hearts of the people and in the estimate of the world? Did they deepen religious sentiment and conviction and create a real zeal and enthusiasm in the audiences for our ancestral faith? For this alone is the test of their actual merit. Not by numerical strength, nor by material might, but "by my spirit," saith the Lord. It speaks very badly for the religious needs of the Sunday audiences that all but Jewish and genuinely religious topics are wanted. It is not heavenly manna but artificial stimulants that they crave or care for. Either personal magnetism or morbid sensationalism, either oratorical pyrotechnics or flashing wit must draw the crowds, or the Sunday services are doomed. What prospect does such a state of affairs offer for the future, for the healthy growth of Judaism? Is this the groundwork upon which the synagogue will stand forth as a bulwark against the materialism of the age and as a fortress against the ever-renewed attacks of the Church militant? Will Sunday, with its colorless cosmopolitanism, with its forms of devotion void of the positive Jewish character, awaken the dormant spark of religious fervor, arouse the much needed self-respect in the Jew, and imbue him with heroic valor in the defence of his sacred heirloom? If I am allowed to judge by my own experience, I venture to say there is something in the very air of the Sunday service that chills the heart. Reason alone, cold, proud reason dictates the words. The soul is not there. The true spirit of devotion and of reverence, which animates a Sabbath audience and inspires the Sabbath sermon, is altogether missing. Radicalism, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred means up-rooting rather than rooting-in, is the watchword.

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Indeed, the facts themselves speak in no uncertain tones. The principles of Jewish faith have nowhere taken a deeper hold on Sunday audiences. On the contrary, laxity appears to be the result. Scepticism and agnosticism are on the increase. The danger line, in fact, has been reached. The first dire consequence of the Chicago Sabbath success is that the ancient Sabbath has been ruled out. It died from consumption. This is the rather crude official burial permit for the old Jewish Sabbath. It was merely logical consistency on the part .of the Chicago Sinai President to advise also the transfer of the Jewish holidays to Sunday as the most convenient day for divine service. It must be booked to the credit of the Radical Dr. E. G. Hirsch that he most emphatically protested against this proposition, accentuating the necessity of these historical days as signs and symbols of Judaism. But, after all, the very fact that the Confirmation of the children, surely the most impressive rite in the modern synagogue, takes place for the last few years not on a Shabuoth, the Festival of the Sinaitic Revelation, but on the Sunday preceding it, indicates the perilous drift. It is hardly necessary to enlarge on the agnostic tendency indulged in at the connivance of the leading members of the congregations by other Sunday lecturers who cater to the morbid desires of multitudes that hunger for liberty without law. They remind me of the lion's den, from which all the traces lead inward to the voracious beast, but none outward to safety. But, while all these considerations seem barely sufficient to warrant a sudden change of view after years of fervent advocacy of these Sunday lectures by the writer, there are other and far weightier reasons which prompt me to take a different attitude towards the Sabbath question. It is THE CHANGEDATTITUDEOF THE WORLD TOWARDSTHE JEW AND THE PRINCIPLESHE REPRESENTS. The entire Reform movement was brought about by the great tidal wave of cosmopolitan enlightenment and humanity proclaimed by the French Revolution, and spiritualized, or

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deepened, by German Idealism. The declaration of the three principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity seemed to bring the millennium of universal peace and happiness within reach of mankind and to fulfil the glorious vision of the Jewish prophets. What wonder if the enlightened Jew hailed this era with rapture, and rose from his long winter's sleep to his full dignity as the heavenly-appointed pioneer of this broad religion of humanity! Readily would he pull down with his Samson-like arms the pillars of the temple of blind authority-worship, if he could but unite all men and races upon the common ground of a pure faith in God and man in all its grand simplicity. And this great hope and aim found its correlative object in the establishment of a universal Sabbath, the day when all flesh would bow before the Lord in common adoration. \,Vhat matters it whether the day is termed Sunday or Saturday in the calendar, if it be but the sign of the covenant between God and man, a token of the Messianic peace that has dawned upon the world. This was the gist of the Reform movement among the liberalminded Jews. Upon the altar of broad humanitarian religion they would willingly sacrifice their own tribal traditions. How rudely have we all been roused from our dream! How shockingly were all the illusions of the beginning 19th century destroyed by the facts developed at its close! \Vhat a mockery has this so-called Christian civilization turned out to be! What a sham and a fraud has this era of tolerance and enlightenment become! The Middle Ages, with all their cruel blood-thirstiness, with their abominable hatred and fanaticism have come back again! Germany's statesmen and philosophers, churchmen and university professors, have fanned anew the lurid fires of discord between classes, races, and sects and the many-headed hydra of prejudice demands its victims again by the thousands. \Vithout cause, without a guilt of their own, hundreds of thousands of Jews are driven from their homes in the middle of the night, not as if they had lived there long before the Russian bear had laid his bloody clutches upon the law, but as if they were foes and

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fiends, the relentless tyrant on the throne not sparing the child in the womb, nor the aged nearing the grave. And in view of such atrocities, perpetrated by a Christian ruler upon the kindred race of their Saviour, the churches keep silent. Neither the Pope, whose lips overflow with pity on the lot of both the laboring man and of the bondsman in Africa, nor the leaders of the Protestant churches have a word of condemnation for the persecutions of these Jews. Now is this, pray, the time for a speedy realization of Israel's Messianic hope? Does this general relapse into barbarism permit the Jew to seek alliances with the liberal wings of Christianity, whose liberality is very far as yet from lifting them above narrow prejudices and race hatred? Dare we, in the face of such great disappointments, recognize the predominance of Christian culture, by accepting the Christian Sunday as our day of rest, in place of the ancient Jewish Sabbath? In times of persecution the least concession to the hostile power must be shunned as treason, say the rabbis. No! Let us declare before the world that we hope and long for a universal day, not stained by the blood of persecution. Might not the Moslem Mosque again lead the Christian world back to civilization as she did before the Church took hold of Spain and make Friday the peer and rival of Sunday? And why should we renounce the hope of setting up our timehonored Sabbath above both Sunday and Friday, to rally the entire civilized race under its shelter of divine peace and bliss? The world still hates the Jew. "I am for peace, but when I speak, they arc for war." The J cw is everywhere dreaded as the superior in the race for material and intellectual wealth and power. "No Jew need apply," is still the label of Christian club-houses and summer resorts. Will Jewish Sunday Services break these barriers, erected by prejudice, or convince our fellow-citizens of our loyalty to religion and State? Why, the progressive, the radical Jew is most liable to the charge of disloyalty, of infidelism. The lofty aims of Reform Judaism are least understood by the masses who regard the same

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as a cowardly surrender or as a compromise with the ruling church. No, and a thousand times no! Our duty today is to maintain our Jewish identity and to preserve our Jewish institutions without faltering, without yielding. We must, with united forces, rally around our sacred Sabbath. We can, and we must, make the influence of the Jew felt upon the great markets of the world and force the mercantile world to recognize the Jewish Sabbath as a day of rest. Does not the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the Jewish Day of Atonement, stop the wheels of business and silence the din and noise of the money exchange once a year? Why should the Jew not throw his whole power in the balance in favor of the still holier Sabbath, which is a loud protest against the worship of the earthly powers and the pledge and promise of a world united in peace and love? The time has arrived for a universal effort to reconquer the lost Sabbath of the Jew. We cannot but gain in the world's respect, in our own self-esteem, materially and spiritually, by a restoration of the pristine Jewish Sabbath. And, instead of lessening its powerful hold upon the people, Reform Judaism must do its utmost in making the Sabbath resonant with the victory of the Jewish cause over its assailants. The Sabbath must again be rendered the great educator and instructor of the Jew, the disseminator of the seeds of truth and of love among the thousands of the poor. The question of form and reform should no longer interfere in matters pertaining to the very essence and vitality of the Jew. If we have a right to glory in our enlightenment, let us share our light of culture with our less educated brethren. If we feel proud of our progress, let it enjoin us to lead those forward who, from causes not their own, have been left far behind in civilization. Those millions ofJews, precipitately thrown upon the wide world, will, through our efforts, gradually become a powerful lever to unhinge a religion of hatred and preach and practice a faith of veritable love. The oppressed will become the redeemers of their oppressors, and only under the sign of the ancient Sabbath

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will that great victory be achieved by us. The Sabbath-day must, as of yore, be devoted to both congregational devotion and to instruction of the Jewish working classes. And, above all, we must do everything in our power to make the Sabbath Eve again resplendent with its pristine charm and lustre. The Friday evening was the Jewish fount of youth. From its crystal waters, the worried, the woe-stricken and wearied Jew drank and felt refreshed and re-invigorated. The domestic virtues of the Jews were cultivated at the festive board upon which the Sabbath lamp cast its radiance. We sorely need a revival of the Jewish family pride, a household reunion every week, as breakers against the treacherous pillars of the club-house with its life devouring whirl-pools. Is it too late to re-institute the Sabbath Queen in her bridal garb on Friday evening? Rather say, our much-vaunted progress is a misnomer! We, Reform Jews, sent out from our ark the dove with its olive branch of peace in its mouth, but it has come back to tell us that the waters of the deluge of sin and crime have not abated as yet. The time of peace and of unity is still far off. Instead of doing away with the old landmarks, with symbols and signs of our faith, it is our present duty to refashion our religious forms and make them expressive of, and impressive with, great and lofty ideas. Reform has, for instance, done away with the wine as a means of hallowing the Sabbath and Festival days. Yet there is scarcely a more befitting symbol of the Sabbath joy, of family reunion and of cheer and comfort for the afflicted and the despondent than is the cup ef wine. I, for one, feel that true progress lies not in abolishing but in improving the ceremonies of religion, and in making such innovations as tend to strengthen the loyalty and reverential piety of the people. In the issue between the Christian and Jewish Sabbath, there is no choice left for the Jew loyal to his past but to protest against the doctrine that Christianity stands for redemption of the human race. All that we know from an experience of nineteen centuries is that the name of the

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Jewish Messiah has served to slander and to abuse the race that gave the Church her saviour. Our faith, our hope, therefore, must be bound up with the sign of the old covenant, the Sabbath, until history will put the seal of perfection upon the completed work of mankind and proclaim the earth as the holy mountain of God and man as its king, the vice-regent of the Ruler on high. Which Sabbath will then obtain the victory? Which ring will then prove to be the genuine one? We leave that to God to decide, and in the meantime we wait and hope.

FORWARD AND UPWARD! IS THE NEW YEAR'S CALL* "Forward! The Lord who walketh before Thee shall be with thee." Deuteronomy

31 :8

THE first word that comes on my lips as I stand at this solemn moment in your pulpit to greet with you the New Year is a fervent prayer for the speedy recovery of your beloved Rabbi whose inspiring and cheering presence you miss so very much tonight when the year's manifold experience of joy and sorrow, of trial and triumph are reviewed and a masterful interpretation of life's meaning, born of deep and trusted sympathetic friendship, is required to give new zest, new courage, and hope to life. But though a stranger to many of you, I am a friend of your distinguished leader, moved by the same thoughts, aims and ideals and a bearer of a message from the same Lord of Life before whom you all stand in awe and humble reverence as petitioners tonight. I often wonder, my friends, whether anyone belonging either to the great religious denominations of the world or to none ever realized the impressive solemnity that comes upon the Jew at an hour like this, when amidst the stillness of the night we seem to hear the rushing of the waves of time and the sinking of the flood of past existence into the mighty abyss of eternity, when standing at a great milestone, at the parting as it were of two eternities, of an endless past and of an endless future before us, we bid farewell in tears to the old year beneath which lies buried all that was yesterday and offer a cheerful welcome to the New Year which beneath its impenetrable veil carries all that tomorrow may bring. And amidst "'Preached at Congregation Adat Israel, Louisville, Ky., New Year's Eve., 1909. Printed from manuscript. 42

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this anxiety and trembling awe there is heard the voice of God on high, who says to each of us: "THE LORDWHO WALKETH BEFORETHEE SHALLBE WITH THEE. HE WILL NOT FORSAKE THEE, BE NOTDISMAYED!" Let this be my message to you tonight: Forward with God ! Make God your guiding Principle, your leading Ideal, and you will be safe. The old Romans, as you know, pictured Janus, the god of time, with a double face, the one looking backward into the past, the other forward into the future. Our sages know better: Man, they say, came forth out of the Creator's hand with a forward and backward looking countenance. Yes, as son of Eternity's Ruler, man has a double share of the spirit. The brute has but the moment to live in, the time that NOW is. Its YESTERDAYis soon forgotten, and of tomorrow it has little thought and little comprehension. Not so man. By steady recollection the past becomes to him a fountain of hope, a source of inspiration, and an ever widening outlook and scope as he advances in power and wisdom. Memory and Hope then are the fiery steeds that drive man's chariot ever higher and higher up into the realm of the heavens, ever nearer to the throne of the Eternal. These are the two angels of whom the rabbis tell that they accompany man through life, one to the right and one to the left; the one holding fast with loving tenderness the things of the past, weaving a golden aureole around persons and scenes endeared to us by affection and sweetness, the other pointing forward to the distant future, brightening up the goal to which they are steering with charming views and cheering hope. Both together form the warp and woof of human history, helping man in his upward striving to overcome defeat and death and to turn every tear of disappointment into a pearl of virtue and every trial of yesterday into a triumph of tomorrow. Such then, my friends, is the function of this great day of ours called Day of Remembrance. It is to make us behold success and failure in the light of a higher purpose, in the light

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of the divine forethought, in order that we may ever grow wiser, better and stronger for the discharge of our great tasks or as the Psalmist has it, "Teach us to count our days that we bring along a heart of wisdom." Oh, upon how many generations that came and went again, upon how many nations and empires that rose to power and glory and fell again from their height, humbled and crushed, does Israel's Day of Remembrance look back! How many great world powers did this day of Divine Judgment, as we Jews call the New Year's day, see appear and disappear from the globe! In fact, the marvelous grandeur of this sublime day is such that in all our prayers and praises and hopes voiced by the old Synagogue liturgy we are reminded not of the destiny of the Jewbut of the destiny of man. It is man's birthday that we are commemorating and man's highest goal is the subject of our meditation. And as we cast our glance backward and forward we see God's books opened for a Judgment that means the final victory over what is wrong and the victory of what is good and true and righteous. "Die JYeltgeschichte ist das Weltgeric/zt." And in this work of the centuries, in this upbuilding of the divine Kingdom of truth and righteousness, as this day proclaims, each land and nation, each age and individual has its share. There are in midocean those tiny creatures, the coral that build up in the course of myriads of years amidst the ever tossing waves those gigantic reefs that form the wonders of earth and sea. So do the toiling generations of man successively rear upon the fluctuating tides of mortal life a realm of goodness and holiness which towers above creation as heaven does above the earth. Oh, how different does life's great strife appear from the point of view of our Rosh Hashanah, the anniversary of the world! Herc God stands above the ladder wiping away the tear from every face, because death is swallowed up in life eternal. Why should we lose courage and be disconsolate because of the havoc time makes sooner or later of us all? Which soldier goes to war and does not willingly brave the arrow of the

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foe, knowing that while battling for liberty and right he stands in the service of his country which will live long after he and his comrades have sunk into the dust. We are all soldiers of God, doing His battle, achieving His triumphs, finally to share in His everlasting glory. And while some of you remember with poignant grief the treasures that the past year has taken from your side, do not fail to sec the rainbow of celestial glory in the very clouds that enwrap your vision and through your very tears, the radiance of the angelic spirit that may in higher realms spur you on to holier duty and greater faithfulness for the life before you. And as to our moral losses, our failures and fumblings in the field of duty and responsibility, the Jewish faith maintains too great confidence in man to make him miserable and despondent at the thought of sin. "Why should man while living worry over his sins of which he is the controlling master?" says the Scripture. Mend your errors and they will become warnings, incentives to higher and nobler striving! Cast your sins into the depth of the sea and do better in the years to come. Turn the defeats of yesterday into victories of tomorrow, and out of feebleness new strength will come. This is the sane Jewish view of morality. Life moves on. Abide not moaning among the ruins of the past lest like Lot's wife thou becomest a pillar of salt. Forward! is the trumpet call of the New Year's Day. Leave the hidden things to God; yours is the duty that lies before you. Would you have the curtain lifted from the future in order to know what will happen? That would forever rob men of all courage and hope of enterprise and manhood. No captain but must be prepared for the storm - no soldier but be ready to meet the fiercest foe. Difficulties and dangers steel us for manhood's battle. What need is there for fear? In God's book no loss counts but that of character. Whether the material out of which you are to chisel your character

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is rough or smooth, God, the master, will decide. Your task is to carve it well in accordance with principle, honor, and conviction. Let God walk before you as your ideal, and you will not fear. But my message does not address itself to the individual only. It concerns our forward pressing age as well. We need both the forward and the backward look in these days of ours. Of course, energetic, enthusiastic youth naturally pushes onward and forward to the goal that lies ahead, especially in this age of ours that liberates ever new forces in nature and calls ever new elements of humanity hitherto suppressed and kept in the background, to the great work of progress. New ideas, new discoveries and inventions, new concepts and aspects of life fascinate the new generation, which, eager for ever new conquests, loses hold upon the things endeared to the past, and yet in this maddening forward rushing we arc in danger of losing sight of all the great teachings of past history, of the eternal foundations of life, of God and faith, the very anchor ground of all human welfare. History is but a continuous stream of endeavors, we cannot feel safe for the future unless we build firmly upon the solid foundations of the past. We are but the happy heirs and successors of the great men of bygone days. On their shoulders we stand, and to thctn we owe gratitude for the best we have. The progressivism of optimistic youth must ever be counterbalanced by the conservative tendencies of those ripe in wisdom and in years. Memory and Hope must ever go hand in hand. True healthy progress means a regeneration of the ancient faith, a rejuvenation of the truth for which the fathers lived and died. The old must be reborn in us. The past must be remolded to become the foundation of the future. It This is the secret of Judaism's wondrous endurance. always had pious Memory and prophetic Hope, Piety and Progress for its guiding twin spirits, its double guardian angels. I ts memory goes back to the beginning of human civilization, and its hope points forward to the loftiest goal

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of all human endeavors, to the fullest realization of all the visions and dreams of all the seers and sages of the lands and the ages. Let the monuments of the remotest past be brought to light and read anew to an amazed world; they would not eclipse the glories of Israel's past! And let the world's greatest philosophers, poets, and philanthropists portray mankind's future in the most glowing colors; they must pattern it after the Jewish prophets of yore! The reminiscences of a history unparalleled and the expectations of a coming age grander and brighter than any human mind ever conceived made the Jew the world's hero and martyr and will ever endow the Jew with power to bear and to accomplish what no other people would or could. Yes, Forward.' is written upon Israel's banner for the Lord who ever walked before him will ever be with him until his great mission as the spiritual leader of the nations will be fulfilled. Well then, let us pray tonight for the double spirit: that of reverence for the past and faith in the ideals of the future. May we kindle the lamp of piety and the lamp of progress, loyalty to our ancestral religion and liberalism in our cultural life. May the New Year witness a renewal of our faith, a regeneration of heart and spirit in young and old, and may we be inscribed in God's book of life as Jews, as American men and women, for blessing and happiness, for noble endeavor and righteous conduct, for healthy progress and a life of harmony and peace. And may this beautiful temple under your powerful leader ever echo forth the best and loftiest hopes and ideals of humanity and the most glorious memories of Judaism to be the fashioner of ideal homes, the inspiration of the young, the glory and honor of your entire community, and the blessing of this land and all lands! Amen!

RECONCILIATION AND PEACE -THE OF YOM KIPPUR *

MESSAGE

"Doth my father yet live?" Gen. 45:3

WELCOMEto your Father's house all ye who seek peace in the midst of life's struggle, all who have strayed away from the path of duty and have become estranged from your God and your fellowmen. This holiest of days offers healing to each bruised heart; it opens heaven's holiest treasure-house to hand us all the sweetest of all gifts, the token of God's grace and mercy. 'J:l ri,3,1 n,0J1. Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Peace, Atonement - We are to be at one with our own selves and our Maker, at one with life and what it brings, at one with our fellowmen, with the whole human society. Reconciliationand Peace, then, is the message of Yorn Kippur. And what is the word that shall bring about this atonement? I will answer with the beautiful word spoken by Joseph when "Doth he made himself known to his brethren: 'n ':l~ my father yet live?" You are familiar with the touching scene in which Joseph, the ruler of Egypt, endeavors to have the wrong-doings of his brothers, all that happened between them before and since they had sold him as slave, wiped out from their memory and to assure them that all their past deeds and bad intentions are forgotten so that they would again become to each other what they were as little children - brothers all of one heart and mind. "Does yet my father live?" he asks, and that

,~-,w'

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,,~m

*Preached on Yorn Kippur from manuscript.

Eve, Temple Beth-El.

48

Date uncertain.

Printed

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word brings tears from every eye, melts away the icicles from all hearts and removes with one stroke the mighty wall which separated the humbled, the remorse-stricken and timid brothers from the noble and high-minded Joseph. The feeling that Joseph's father is also their father, that the loyalty and devotion he had displayed during all the years of his absence from home kept up the bond of union between all the sons of Jacob, became the power to cement all hearts; it worked instantaneously for reconciliation and harmony. Now friends, like Joseph, the Yorn Kippur comes to us every year reminding us of our transgressions and sins, of our ingratitude towards God and our manifold forms of treachery against our fellowmen; but at the same time, in order not to crush us and overwhelm us with bitter reproaches, it holds out the soothing balm for our wounded hearts asking: "Doth my Father yet live?" If the thought of God's Fatherhood is not extinguished from the hearts, if the well-spring of all goodness and love is not altogether dried out in the soul, you cannot be lost; you need not give up hope of recovery, however deeply you may have fallen. With God your Father there is forgiveness. He will hold out His arm to lift you if you but desire to rise above the mire of selfishness and sensuality and aspire to the better and higher things of life. This is the incomparable grandeur of this greatest day of the year. It preaches a truth which no other religion has fully grasped. There is no power in heaven or on earth which stands between us and our God. We are children of the Eternal God. The Maker of the universe is our Father. He lives in us and we are akin to Him. God's thoughts we attempt to think out when we study the movements of the stars and the blending of the chemical forces. His divinity in us creates science and art, language and law, philosophy and music, morality and religion. Yet such is our human limitation that we stumble as we rise; we commit errors as we strive for the truth; we fall forever short of what stands before us as the ideal of the

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true, the good and the beautiful. Is then this shortcoming of ours, the sin which burdens our soul, the evil which attracts and beguiles us or which befalls us in the shape of death and woe, the work of some power outside of us against which we are helpless? Is the world divided between God and Satan, and while our soul is of God heavenborn is our flesh earthward bent, all in the hand of the evil power so that we need another heavenly arm, a mediator, an atoning deity to rescue us from death and eternal doom? 'n '.:J~ i1S]il "Does not my Father yet live?" asks Judaism. It was in opposition to the Church which had just started its march of conquest, teaching the worth of the doctrine of Paul that only this belief in the atonement of the crucified man-God can save the sons of Adam from the curse of sin by this fall in Paradise, that Akiba, the greatest of all masters cm~'0 'J£l7 . 7~1rt'' c:,•irt'~ of Rabbinic lore exclaimed: CJ'Ort'.:Jrt' c:,•:i~ ?c:,n~ 1ilt~O '01 CJ'1il~O "Happy are ye, 0 Israelites. - Before whom do you seek to obtain purity of soul and who does impart purity and salvation to you? None but your Father in heaven," the Source and Ideal of all purity and perfection! "Does not my Father yet live before whom I may pour forth my heart in contrition over my sins? Why should there be a mediator between me and my Father in heaven?" says the Jew. If I have done wrong none can pay the penalty of suffering for me. If I stand condemned before my own conscience, no priest nor saint can cleanse me from guilt. I alone can give full account for my doings and misdoings to Him who looks into my innermost being and He alone can condone my transgressions. il.:J1rt'n. "Return to your God, you backsliding children!" teaches Judaism. Before His paternal love your sins though red as scarlet will turn white and pure as snow. Oh, how many a son has gone astray, ensnared by vice, entrapped into a pitfall of shame, flattered as long as he was robed in the gilded drapery of fashion but shunned like pestilence the moment rags betray his utter wretchedness and want! Yet while in his despondency the last star of hope has waned,

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there in some lonely spot a mother's eye glistens with tears and a father's heart throbs with longing love, and as if by some magic touch their prayers reclaim him, and back he wanders to those who will ever be his friends whatever the world may say. Oh, how the long restrained tide of parental affection bursting forth at the unexpected return will sweep away the anguish and shame of years and spread the radiant wings of charity and forgiveness over his shattered life to imbue it with new courage and strength and hope. Such is the redeeming power of the divine forgiveness. It is a change wrought from within, not from without. My father lives in me, the regenerated soul exclaims. God waits for you to diagnose the malady of your heart and to cast off the impurities that check the healthy growth of the soul. In this steeplechase for money in which we are engaged, we lose sight of the higher aims and purposes of life, and sclfseeking, self-sufficiency, greed, passion and pride estrange us from our God. So Yorn Kippur puts the question into our own consciousness: 'n ':lN il;!);"'l- "Does thy God and Father yet live?" Does the power of Righteousness and goodness, Purity and Holiness still work your uplifting and your salvation?

II And here is the second point suggested by my text. The Jewish religion is not like the Church, a system of salvation of the soul centered on self-infliction. "It hath been told thee, 0 man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee: Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." The practice of righteousness and love alone shows that God is enthroned in our heart. We are all members of that great household of which God is the Father, and a day like this makes us ask the question: 'n ':lN i1;!);"'1. Have we so treated our fellowmen as to give testimony that our common Father is a living power within us?

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If God loves all men as His children, said a Roman to Rabbi Akiba, why is He so partial as to bless with wealth and prosperity only the few and visit the many with poverty and privation? "In order that the fortunate ones bestow happiness upon the poor and thus render what they possess a real blessing for others," was his wise answer. Y cs, those that gladden the hearts of others by their gifts or their service are the real recipients, while those that receive are the real givers of blessings. Whenjoscph spoke the words Cl:l'J!l~ Cl'i1~~ 'Jn~W i1'nr.,~ '::J "Only for your good has God sent me hither," he realized the true purpose of his life and he and his brothers became truly reconciled. \Ve arc no longer as punctilious in the observance of the ancient forms of religion as our fathers were but we have a deeper appreciation of our social obligations, of our duties to our fellowmen. In fact the principle enunciated by Judaism of old is that you cannot obtain pardon from God before you have undone the wrong inflicted upon your fellowmen. No peace with God without peace with your neighbor. We feel the wrong and injustice committed in our social world more keenly than ever and we sympathize more than ever before with the unfortunate, the helpless, the suffering and all those disabled and bruised in life's battle. I think the time will not be far when Yom Kippur will not be merely a day of prayer and fasting but also a day devoted to all those philanthropic efforts that make us feel that we are all debtors to each other. Such a Yorn Kippur was contemplated by the Mosaic lawgiver when he made it a day for the restitution of the inequalities of possession in the land: So let us all ask ourselves tonight: 'n ':l~ i1Vi1, whether we have done our duty to reconcile man to his fellowmen, whether God the Father of humanity lives indeed in our heart and in our social life? But there is yet a higher day of Atonement which we crave and yearn for - the Day of Reconciliation, of Unity and Peace among all men and nations, all races and sects, - and here my text voices the deepest sentiment of the Jews. When

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we look out upon this world of ours so wondrously advanced in culture and knowledge, in art and science, so superior to any other age in history in its achievements, in its grasp of the highest and deepest things, in its institutions of benevolence and helpful love and yet find it flooded with passion, deluged with hatred, with war and bloodshed, we cannot help asking: 'n '.:J~ ,,y;, Docs our Father in heaven yet live in this age of reason and progress? The world of man is divided, and all the great religions have not brought about that Atonement, that Unity prayed and hoped for. Both the Church and the Mosque, Christ and Islam, have brought strife, not peace, hatred, not love, the dividing sword, not the brotherhood of man. "Does not my Father yet live?" asks the Jew. Why should a son of God stand between man and his Father that speaks out of my Bible which has become your book, out of your prayers and Psalms which are all taken from it? I have given my life a thousand times for the preservation of the pure faith of Abraham, the belief in the One Father of all men. "Does not my Father yet live?" My sages have taught the world how to blend reason with faith, religion with science. As my great prophet 1-Ialachi spoke the word, "Have we not all one Father, hath not one God created us all? Why should we deal treacherously every man against his brother?" My Hillel taught the Golden Rule. My Rabbis declared that the righteous of all the nations share in the life to come like the best of Israel. For my loyalty to these teachings I have suffered. I have been cast into prison and exposed to shame and torture. "Docs not my Father yet live?" For 4000 years I have been waiting for the Day of Atonement. Yet, like Joseph, the Jew has been sent forth by God to prepare this great time not merely by his teaching but by his very martyrdom. It is with tears that we sow the seeds of truth before we reap the great harvest. The Jew is the Atoning Priest, the scapegoat of the nations.

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The Jew, not a Jew, is the man of sorrow, the Messiah from whose wounds flow the balm of healing for the nations. This is the great secret of history which, alas, so few even among our own brethren seem to understand. The world's future is ours if we would only realize our glorious opportunities. Our faith has all the elements of truth, all the powers of the soul on which to build society and human character. Our God is the God of the soul, the God of humanity, the God of religious and intellectual life. The one God. But in order to accomplish the task the Jew must yet undergo many a trial and stand many a test, many a night of darkness, we will have to pass before that great day will dawn at the end of time. Let us then hold our banner aloft and bring whatever sacrifice is demanded to bring the world and ourselves nearer the great time when God will be One and when all men will be united in one great Atonement. Centuries will come and go, empires will rise and vanish, philosophies will spring up and dissolve like smoke; but the Jew will in the midst of all strife and progress point to his old covenant, old as history, firm as the earth and allencompassing as the heaven and cry forth with ardent faith and sanguine hope: "Does my Father not live in all these?" And the response echoed through the ages will be heard: "Hast thou not from of yore called me Father, Guide of my youth art thou!" Brethren, let us grasp hands for friendship and fellowship, for granting pardon to each other, for hearty co-operation in the work of philanthropy and education, for the re-awakening and up building of religious life in American Israel with the words: Truly my Father lives yet in us all and makes us live and abide forever. So shalt thou, Israel, serve as priest-king, as high priest to unite and atone for all mankind. Thou hast built the corner-stone of the Temple of Humanity; thou shalt build the crowning cupola and make all cry forth and repeat:

,n~•,-

C:J':J~ ?c:Jn~ C'Otl/:JW.

ii11:JO '01 C'ii11:JO en~

'0 'J!)? . ?~itll'

C:J'itl/~

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Happy are ye Israelites. Before whom do you seek to obtain purity of soul and who does impart purity and salvation to you? None but your Father in heaven, the Source and Ideal of all purity and perfection! Does not my Father yet live? Amen!

HOLY HOLY HOLY

IS THE LORD*

Isaiah 6:1-3

ON THIS, the greatest day of the Jewish year, upon which the religious life of the Jew is pillared today as was the Temple life in ancient Palestine, the preacher feels that only the highest thought, the central truth of Judaism should be proclaimed and expounded to the worshipping assembly. As the high priest on Yorn Kippur entered into the innermost sanctuary to obtain for the people heaven's most precious gift, the divine grace and mercy, pardon and peace, so should the pulpit on this clay lead the congregation into the innermost sanctuary of religion and reveal the God of Israel in His highest glory. So let me select as text from the vision of Isaiah, the eagle among the seers, the familiar words: "I saw the Lord on a throne high and exalted and seraphim stood around him ...... one calling to the other: 'Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His majesty' ". Why docs this angelic song resound alike in every Christian Church and Jewish Synagogue? \Vhy is every divine service keyed to that wondrous melody of the celestials? What is the meaning of this word "holiness" - iit!)lip, which is echoed in every part of the Law, in every vision of the prophets, in every hymn of the Psalmist, in every page of our Prayerbook? \ Vhat is the meaning of that solemn word rt'lip - "holy", which recurs in many variations as Kiddush or Kaddish, here in gladsome and there in serious strains, at every season and each turning point of Jewish life, giving name and character to Sabbaths and festivals and lending a deeper sentiment to every joy and grief? It is especially Yorn Kippur that has *Preached Yorn Kippur Morning, 1906. Printed from manuscript. 56

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these elements of holiness combined to make it so grandly impressive. Holiness is the very soul of religion. It is the essence of Judaism whose whole law of life is comprised in CJ'tvi,p-"Be the Biblical verse - C:l'i1'N ,, 'JNrv,,p ,:, 1'i1l"l holy for holy I am, the Eternal your God." Let Holiness cif God, of human life and of Israel be my theme, or as the thrice holy of the angels is interpreted by the rabbis: 'Otv:Jtv',p

rv',p ,;,,rii,::i) ,::i,v NViN ,, w,,p ;,,m,:,rvl"l':Ji1N'>' No,,o N'O?V,o,>7,1 c,v, - "Holy is God on high! Holy His earth the work of His might! Holy for ever and ever!" Holy is God on high! - This is the cry and the sigh of the human soul ever since the days of Eden. Throughout all lands and ages and tribes of men there goes a longing and yearning after a world higher, purer and more blissful than ours, and all the delights offered, and all the charms beheld on earth fail to still man's mighty and irresistible craving. As he stands there among his fellow-creatures with a face directed upward, he realizes that not the earth to which the brute alongside of him is forever fettered but the height of heaven is his goal. He aspires heavenward and seeks after a being greater, higher and better than he. This is the source of all religions, and every altar or temple created on earth is an expression of this deep panting and thirsting of the human soul for the living God on high. Every flame of sacrifice kindled by priest, every Church or :Mosque or Pagoda built by Christian, Moslem or heathen is as it were the song wrung forth from the human breast: "Nearer, my God, to Thee!" Yct strangely enough, just as the sky becomes ever more remote to the child the higher a position it takes on earth, so docs God become ever loftier to the human mind as it endeavors to reach out to Him. Step by step, as he advances, man realizes the sublimity of the divine power until at last after ages of groping in darkness and searching for light he cries out amidst awe and trembling: "Holy is none besides Thee, 0 Lord." Religion, then, is seeking and sighing and yearning after the Unseen, yet All-seeing God on high. As we look out

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upon the myriad-armed and myriad-headed universe, as we watch the coming and going, the bloom and decay of lives and generations, of nations and ages, the circling of the sun and the revolution or evolution of the starry orbs and the crystallizations of organic and inorganic beings and the formation of hills and seas, we sec but the winged messengers at work, not the Master, the forces called into activity, not the Power that accorded to each its place; we see and hear but . the wheels within wheels rolling on and on but not Him who is enthroned above them all dispatching and directing each and all. We no longer call them angels and fiery seraphs; the science of chemistry, physiology and astronomy has lent them new names, but does science or philosophy answer the question which the angels know not how to answer: cipo i1'N ,,,:,,:, - vVhere is God's seat of glory? Science reveals only the mighty empire of law throughout all the infinitudes of space and time, but the divine Personality that is hidden behind this eternal law, the God to whom we feel akin, is not brought nearer to our longing hearts. Away with such scoffers as speak to you: "There is no room in the universe for your God!" Did the scientist or philosopher invent any of the laws of nature and history? He simply discovers them; he finds them established from eternity by a Mind and a Will higher than ours, and of this Mind and \Vill ours is the offspring, hence the question: ,,,:,,:, cipo i1'N - Where is the seat of His glory? But after all, science and philosophy leave us cold; they do not bring us into a close relation to our ~1aker. It is through morality and religion that God speaks to us and answers us. Let the human conscience in the crudest savage utter forth its judgment! Is the shunning of evil and the doing of good an order of man's nature as is the eating and drinking and sleeping? Are the laws of morality invented by society and its leaders like the letters of the alphabet and the numerals of arithmetic? \Vhy does man hide himself in shame after having transgressed the law? Why does the wrong-doer tremhle in dread of punishment when no human eye has

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witnessed his deed? Why does the consciousness of guilt becloud man's pathway ever since he trod the earth? Why does the Hindoo saint torture himself to death in view of his sin and the idea of guilt fall upon the gleeful life of ancient Greece like a terrible doom? Purification from sin was the order of the penitential psalms of Babylonia, the profound cry of supplications of heathens and monotheists all through the centuries; therefore the various rites of fast and sacrifice were resorted to obtain atonement. It is the longing of the human soul for purity and peace, nay for the God pure and perfect, the God of holiness. And here the Jewish religion manifests its superiority above all others. It declares: a holy God whose eyes are too pure to tolerate wrong, a holy God who cannot be bribed by sacrifices, rules the world. He is to be man's ideal of life. "Be holy for I the Lord your God am holy." This is the principle of religion and morality. God is all holiness, all perfection and purity. There is no wrong nor flaw in His majestic workings. His justice, His love, His truth are unending and His holiness fill our conscience with awe and show us the path of virtue, of righteousness and love. Religion has no other purpose than to make us strive for that holy life of which God alone is our pattern. Judaism has no saints; even Moses was not free from sin. There is no righteous man on earth who does not also fail in his best endeavor to do right and good. God alone should be our ideal after which to mold our life. Holiness is the Jewish principle of ethics; holiness which requires not only our actions but our motives to be pure; holiness which makes also the bitterness of suffering sweet and endows all human endeavors, science and art, culture and industry with the charm and power of divine beauty and perfection. Holiness blends justice, which is often rigid, with tender love and keeps each from being onesided and harmful. Not a holiness which turns man away from the earth and things of the flesh, creates monks and nuns and unnatural relations. - ;w1,1:iJ ,:i,v Nl]iN W',p -The whole earth should be full of the glory of the divine holiness.

'V

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Holiness is a moral power that should penetrate all parts of human life to render it divine. There is nothing profane in nature unless we profane it with our lips, thoughts or deeds. The earth is as much God's as is the heaven. God is the moral Power that works its designs of goodness throughout the universe in every atom and every form. The priest or monk or nun that abstains from marriage can by no means claim greater saintship. On the contrary, the Jewish highpriest could not officiate at the Yorn Kippur service in the Temple unless he had a wife living at his side, for an unmarried man knows not what divine holiness there is in the domestic life. And so the founder of Christianity far from presenting a better and holier type of manhood, as the Church claims, we say was a less perfect type of humanity, because he knew not the tender love for wife and children. The whole of life should testify to the God of holiness ruling head, hand and heart alike; eating and drinking and sleeping as well as prayer, the business office as well as the house of God, learning and industry as well as alms-giving should bear the stamp of sanctity. The God of holiness is wanting in modern society; therefore the public thefts and frauds and corruptions in our commercial, social and political life today. You see now what Kedushah, what the hallowing of Sabbath and the festivals means in Judaism. Not that the joy of the flesh, the delight of the body should cease on the days devoted to the service of the Lord, as the Church often thought. On the contrary, ml] 11::irv~ m-tip,- The Sabbath should be a day of delight, not of gloom and austerity, and the cup of wine should, like the increased light of the Sabbath lamp, spread cheer around the family table and dispel care and sorrow from each soul. Every Sabbath and festival should bring gladness into the homes and hearts of the distressed and unfortunate; the heavy load of affliction weighing down upon the feeble should be taken from their shoulders. The holy seasons were in Israel at all times incentives to higher righteousness and broader love and charity. Holiness for Judaism is not bondage but release, a life winged with hope,

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not darkened by fear of death and doom. Also the Day of Atonement as well as the New Year's Day were welcomed as days of joy, and the Sargenes our fathers used to wear on these days were by no means intended to be shrouds reminding them of death. Says the Talmud: when men are summoned before a human king accused of transgression, they appear dressed in black as sign of mourning; when we appear before God, the heavenly king, accused of sin, we appear in snowwhite festal garments certain of God's forgiving love and mercy. And do you know the real meaning of the Kaddish recited by those who weep over a great loss? There is nothing in that prayer which has any special reference to death and hereafter. It is a praise of glory. It is an invocation expressive of the hope that the time will come speedily when God's name will be glorified and hallowed all over the world. But here again the grandeur of the teachings of Judaism is shown. It tells the sorrowing heart to merge its grief with its great longing for the beloved who has gone into the greater longing of a world full of weeping for the time when God's Kingdom of love and peace will have all tears wiped away and all losses turned into spiritual gains. When the high priest Aaron was, on the day of the dedication of the sanctuary, plunged from the very heights of proud joy to the depth of woe and gloom by the loss of his two older sons, God spoke: "By those that are nigh unto Me I shall be sanctified and before the whole Congregation shall I be glorified." The very stroke of misfortune should become to him an uplift to that higher view where God's holiness is seen sending trials to man to turn them into all the greater triumphs of the spirit. Here I come to the highest conception of Holiness. Wherein docs God's holiness consists in reality? He is simply moved in all His doings by the good of the world He has in view. He can have only the purest and highest intentions and motives. ~''-''S',,_,,,,, rtJ'ip. His holiness comprised time and eternity. He can only give, He cannot receive from His creatures, He is all love. Do you not see then that true

c,s,,

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ethics means doing the good as God does it for the sake of the good without any hope for reward or threat of punishment? There are many who think that because we no longer believe in the whole Biblical system of reward and punishment, and the words Gehinnom and Gan Eden or Heaven and Hell have lost their magic power to coax us into virtue and to warn us against vice, our religion and our morality are declining. No. We are only undergoing a great crisis. We are learning how to make the God of holiness our guide instead of the law. We no longer want to be like servants who work for wages but like children who work in God's household from pure love. Notwithstanding our great shortcomings, notwithstanding the numerous vices and crimes, social and individual, our materialistic age so greedy after lucre and so full of profanity, we are gradually emerging from a stage of fear and self-seeking into a stage of love and self-denial. We are rising in the scale, not sinking. We are longing after greater holiness, as men and also as Jews. God has elected the Jewish people as a holy nation. That is, He has chosen Israel to do service for God and mankind whether as priest and prophet or as teacher and leader of the nations. All those many laws of purity and sanctity, laws concerning eating and drinking and sleeping and what not, with which the life of the Jew was surrounded all these hundreds of years, were not given him to obtain for him a choice seat in Paradise or to accredit him with greater merit than the rest, but to make him feel that he was to do service as priest of humanity. And there can be do doubt, he was trained well for soldier-like service to battle for the truth. He braved a world full of foes and died a thousand times the martyr's death for Kiddush hashem, for the hallowing of his God and for the honor of Israel's name. The medieval Jew did his duty nobly. Our age has brought new trials, new tests. In the broader civilizations, in the larger freedom the Jew has dropped the old laws, but he has failed to grasp his higher task, his greater opportunity. As never before he could step forth into the world today as priest and prophet of

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humanity and preach the God of holiness, of purity and righteousness, oflove and peace to a listening humanity. He could demonstrate, as none else can, that religion is nothing but striving for holiness and that his religion embodies the highest form, the sublimest truths, the broadest ethics. The Jew has a great message to bring to the world, the message of the God of holiness, of the God of truth and justice who rules the life of all men and nations, the message of the Kingdom of God on earth. But, instead of hearing the call, he has fled like Jonah from before his God, as it were, shirking his mission, and while each of his fellow-men kneels down in prayer before God in the great storm of destruction that is sweeping over the age, he lies in the corner behind his counters or amidst his merchandise and sleeps. What has become of the prophet of old with his lofty vision? What of the priest with his life of purity and sanctity? What of the martyr with his unequalled zeal for truth and his wondrous self-sacrifice? And yet I feel hopeful for the American Jew. Here the new spirit which arises, the feeling that we are responsible for each other, the spirit of Kiddush lzashem, the consciousness of our duty as American Jews is stirring us to do greater service for our brethren, to bring greater sacrifice for the honor of the name of Israel and for the glory of our God. So may this day awaken in us all a deeper longing for purity and holiness, a greater love for Israel and humanity and a more ardent zeal for our God, so that we may hear in every fibre of our heart the resonant cry of the celestials: "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord. Let the whole earth be full of His glory." Amen.

JUDAISM

AND THE JEW*

IT rs a privilege which I greatly appreciate to stand here today in this pulpit over which the spirit of the immortal Dr. Wisc still hovers and voice the message of the greatest day of the year when the Yorn Kippur, the glorious harbinger of divine love and peace, before departing pours forth the holiest treasures. In looking for a subject I shall not go far amiss if I take up that little book which for 2000 years has been pressed into the hands of the Jew by the Synagogue tradition to ponder upon at this hour and find its half hidden meaning, the Book of Jonah. You are no doubt familiar with the quaint story of the Jewish prophet who contrives to run away from the task assigned to him by God but finds himself outwitted at every step by divine omnipotence. Some of you may find at least part of the story childlike if not ridiculously silly. I beg of you not to sneer at the oddities of the great storybook of mankind, the Bible, whose symbolic folklore contains greater wisdom and profounder truth than do the philosophies of the sages of many lands. The story of Jonah is an exquisite parable, holding up a mirror for us to look into and to find therein a lifelike portraiture of our own selves. Read in the spirit of the great Atonement day, it offers to us, as I understand it, two sublime lessons, the one illuminating the broadness and universality of Judaism, the other illustrating the worldtask, the universal mission of the Jew. You all have read in ancient or modern books of the history of Nineveh, the marvelous capital of Assyria, with her splendid royal palaces and gardens and her high culture and enormous literature, and in museums and libraries seen *Neilah sermon, preached at The I. M. Wise Temple, The date is uncertain. Printed from manuscript. 64

Cincinnati,

Ohio.

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specimens of her gigantic works of architecture and sculpture portraying the battles of her kings and the sports of her princes. Over this mighty seat of ancient civilization which held within its grasp the power and wealth of the nations she vanquished, the opulence and industry of generations of men she enslaved, at the very remnants of which we still gaze with wonder and awe, the prophet of Israel was to pass the celestial verdict of doom. All this proud accumulation of riches and splendor was to be swept away by the fire of divine wrath, by the storm of God's judgment like chaff before the wind, and Jonah the prophet was to bring these tidings of woe to the proud people of Assyria. "Go forth to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against her, for I shall no longer bear her wrongdoings and her unrighteousness." And the word of God came true, though not in the days of Jonah. For two thousand years the mighty empire remained buried beneath the sand of the desert - a great desolation. Every trace of her former existence wiped away from the sight of men, her very memory had fallen into oblivion but for the prophetic words of warning and condemnation preserved in Israel's Holy Writ, until our own time brought her forgotten records to light again. "The city of blood and fraud and violence," as the seer calls her, met her doom, as did the large empires of Babylon and Egypt, Syria and Rome, because they were not reared upon the foundations of justice, because their guiding principle was might, not right. Judaism alone survived to tell mankind that the pillars of God's throne are justice, and by righteousness alone men and nations live. And ever anon throughout history the great cry for justice is sounded anew, and the arm of oppression, tyranny and vice and wickedness is stayed. But then there are those to whom the sigh and the suffering of the innocent appeal with such force, whose soul is set aglow with the fire of a divine justice in the sight of the great wrongdoings and shortcomings which cry so loud for redress that in their impatience they would have the punishing rod of God smite with unrelenting ·wrath the evildoers that fatten upon the spoils of the victims.

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Such was the impatience of Jonah. He was not satisfied with the ways of God whose mills grind slowly but surely. He wanted to sec the heathen city crushed immediately and unsparingly. He did not believe in tempering justice with mercy. So instead of going to Nineveh at God's behest to merely warn the people, he took a fare on one of the Phoenician ships that started from Joppa to Tarshish in far-off Spain so as to be far away from the land where God would have him do His bidding. But God cannot be mocked. Mortal man cannot flee from his Maker. You know what followed. A terrific storm broke out which threatened to shatter the ship. And oh, what irony of fate! What a humiliating spectacle! The whole crew of the ship, all heathen, sank on their knees in prayer. Only he who declares himself to be a Hebrew, worshipper of the Only One, who created heaven and the sea, lies in the corner of the ship all unconcerned until the captain rouses him to join the rest. Only when finally cast into the sea and swallowed by the monster he becomes himself again. Then he offers up his fervent prayers and is saved and cast upon the dry land to go on his divine errand. There at last the great truth is forced upon him, for which Judaism with its holiest day stands forth in matchless beauty, the truth that far above the throne of divine justice the majestic power of world-uniting, worldeducating love reigns. No sooner did the prophet, purged in the great ordeal he had gone through, proclaim in solemn notes of admonition the message of gloom, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be a heap of ruins," than all the inhabitants from king to beggar and slave cast aside their idols of silver and gold, their ill-gotten gain and glitter of shame, all their frivolity and haughtiness and, stricken with remorse, decked themselves with ashes and sackcloth, prayed, fasted and made repairs for wrongs inflicted, and behold, heaven presented a new vision to the prophet. The glaringly red marks of Nineveh's guilt and condemnation vanished one by one from the book of God, and ruler and people were granted a new lease on life. They had repented and were forgiven. But the

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prophet's conceit is wounded at that. Has he been sent merely to turn out a prophet of falsehood, a proclaimer of lies? "My honor is gone. Take also my life. Oh Lord!", he cries out in mad despair and anguish. The woe-begone man must put on a new heart, a heart of true sympathy and compassion with struggling and failing humanity or else he cannot be a true servant of God and man, a true social reformer, the great preacher of religion and ethics. "Thou hast pity on the little gourd that springs up overnight and that perished overnight, and shall I not have pity on a big city with its myriads of people?", God says reproachfully as Jonah complains about the worm that spoiled his little hut of gourd-leaves. Learn first of all that God's heart is larger than man's! God is not merely Judge and Ruler. He is the Father, the Educator of the human race. :Nfan's love, man's horizon is limited; God's are all the coming centuries. He can wait. He finds no pleasure in punishing and annihilating the guilty. He throws the sins into the depths of the sea and says to the sinner: Begin anew! In one word, Judaism's God has faith in man. No perdition nor radical corruption! Man may stumble and fall ever so often; he can always rise anew, and God's arm is ever outstretched to lift him. This is the unique teaching of Yorn Kippur and nowhere so lucidly stated as in our little Book. For here no distinction is made between Jew and Gentile, between believer and non-believer. God is the same stern Judge and loving Father to all, and all find in prayer, in repentance and in righteous practice the way to the Throne of love without mediator and without priesthood. What is the whole New Testament teaching compared with this little Book of Jonah, which in broadness and universality, in true humanitarianism by far outstrips all the systems of the Churches? But this is only one side of the shield. Ours is the religion of humanity building and rebuilding life in the all-loving God of truth and righteousness. But how about the other side? What about the.Jew and his mission? Why, here too the book

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of Jonah speaks not in riddles. Let the nationalists say what they please, the words of Jonah, "I am a Hebrew, and the Only One who created heaven, sea and land I reverence and worship," will forever designate the Jew. No nationalism and no clannishness with the messenger of God who is sent forth by God since the days of Abraham to win the hearts of man for the great universal God and Father in heaven, to preach justice and teach love and peace on earth to all! Jonah the prophet, however, is in more than one sense typical of the Jew. People say we have no mission because, instead of going to Nineveh to preach righteousness and truth to the heathen world, we have embarked upon the ship of commerce that goes to Tarshish seeking only our own gain and pleasure. Instead of being the great workers for the cause of God and mankind, Providence has chosen us to be, lofty-souled idealists who have no thought of self, we have become narrow egotists and sordid materialists shirking the great world-task assigned to us and failing to impress a surrounding world with the all over-towering loftiness and the all overarching broadness of Judaism's glorious truths. Indeed, the great tragedy of the Jew lies not in the persecutions, the massacres and the awful sufferings and hatred he had and still has to encounter. We do not pity Jonah when he is made the scapegoat and cast into the sea or swallowed by the whale, because we know that God will not leave him a prey to the hostile powers of man or beast. We pity him as he with his feebleness rebels against his heavenly master. So the Jew. Oh, what a distressing picture! All the world around him kneeling down in prayer, bowing in reverence and awe before Israel's God, loving and studying Israel's holy books, observing the Lord's day and shrinking from no sacrifice in their endeavor to maintain and propagate the doctrines of their faith. Only the Jew is indifferent, apathetic, disinterested in things religious and spiritual. His faith is the simplest and yet the most sublime truth of mankind which ought to appeal to and finally conquer the entire world; yet he is so small, selfish, derelict in his duty and like Jonah eager

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to run away from his God. vVhat is to become of him? What of Judaism? - is the alarming question today. The Book of Jonah furnishes the reassuring answer. Fear not! The Jew will not, cannot run away from his God, however great his reluctance and his waywardness. The very perils of a hostile world he has to face as well as the progress of humanity in which he takes so prominent a share are bound to bring the Jew ever nearer to his great destination. The cruel persecutions and bloody pogroms have but roused him from his stupor and awakened his Jewish consciousness anew. Be not impatient because of the injustice and hatred that still stain the pages of human history, because civilization's march has been retarded anew and the great Yorn Kippur of humanity is still slow to come! Despair not of the Jew, not even of the one estranged from us and cold! Beneath the ashes of indifference, beneath the rebellious heart, there still burns the divine fire of enthusiasm for love. Despair not of humanity, even in its materialistic pursuits! The world is undergoing a great change. People are unlearning the religion of fear, of dogmatic strife, of bribes to religion and of threats and of self-love. We are coming ever nearer the universal God of love and of peace, the kingdom of righteousness in the world that now is. And in this great transformation, in this great regeneration, in this great work of atonement of all the sons of God, the Jew will find his scope and become the great link and factor of unity, the prophet and priest of a regenerated world. God, who has spared us all these centuries while we were isolated and secluded, will not let us go now in this broader life, until His great purpose, the object of our Mission is fulfilled. The American Jew more than others must work out the great atonement. The question is: Shall we chime in God's plans or shall we run counter to them? For God or merely for self, willingly or reluctantly? Nineveh or Tarshish? Let us begin the new life with God, and He will seal us in the Book of Life and of blessing forever. .A..men.

SUKKOTH

SERMON*

Lev. 23:42-43

THE Sukkoth feast which we celebrate tonight forms in the conception of the lawgiver the climax of the festivals which render this month the sacred month of the year. Just as the seventh day of each week is intended to round off the week and give it a higher meaning and purpose by the day of rest consecrated to God and godly pursuits, so was it the plan of the Mosaic legislator to render each Sabbatical month, that is the seventh month of the year, holy as the season of rest anti festive joy after the six months of work in the field. Accordingly Sukkoth as the harvest feast was to be the chief festival of the month, and the first day of the month being the New Moon was to usher in the Sabbatical month by louder blasts of the trumpet than any other New Moon would. You see then what the original meaning of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah in the Biblical system was. Yorn Kippur or the Tenth of Tishri, too, was intended to be merely preparatory to the harvest feast, inasmuch as it was to purge people and sanctuary from all guilt in order to make all rejoice before God with a pure heart. The people, thus, who celebrate only the great days of solemn awe, Rosh Hashanah and Yorn Kippur, without paying any attention to Sukkoth, saying that we have our mvn thanksgiving day in our land and need no other besides, fail to grasp the religious idea underlying Sukkoth which is best :m~::l~ - A good, spotless expressed in the words -- lnil nr.,rvr., heart is the best feast of rejoicing. But there is another and deeper meaning attached to the Sukkoth feast. The law says: "Ye shall dwell in tents for *Preached at Temple Beth-El. script.

The date is uncertain. 70

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seven days, for I have made Israel to dwell in tents when I led you forth from Egypt." This means: When you are happily settled in your own land, each dwelling safely and peacefully under the shadow of his vine and olive tree, forget not the perils and hardships of your fathers during their many years of wandering in the desert and the wondrous protection granted them by Divine Providence which transformed the wilderness for them into a land feeding and sustaining its inhabitants. Recall the old tents of the nomads which shielded them against all dangers, because God's glory guarded them and guided them, and build for yourselves such tents to live therein for seven days, so as to be reminded of the mercy of God who was with your fathers of old in their hour of need and is with you in your prosperous days! Sukkoth, then, betokens God's protection shown so marvelously in Israel's history. Was not the whole history of the Jewish nation during the forty centuries of its existence a continued proof of God's watchful care of a people without land and without might, living in frail dwellings, constantly exposed to the assault of lawless mobs and relentless tyrants. And ought not we who are today enjoying all the rights and privileges of citizenship in this land flowing with milk and honey, undisturbed and unmolested, manifest our gratitude to God for all His bountiful gifts bestowed upon us by continuing to celebrate this old Palestinian thanksgiving feast, even though we can no longer dwell in tents as our fathers used to do, because our climatic conditions and our entire mode of city life no longer permits us to retain this old rite in our houses? As a symbolic usage in the Synagogue it has of late been revived with us in America and perhaps proved an attractive feature in many a congregation. But while I am the last to discourage practices that appeal to the religious sentiment and lend new charm to our religious rites and seasons, I cannot help thinking that it is not enough to make it a reminiscence of the past to the delight of the older generations; it must be invested with a vital purpose, with a soulstirring meaning for our young. To our childhood Sukkoth

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in the old form meant so much; it brought so much joy to break the dreary monotony of the life of the Jew in the Judengasse. We have no longer the monotony of Ghetto dreariness. Ours is rather the monotony of prosperity which no Sabbath nor holiday can break by either delicacies at the table or by illumination and ornamentation of the homes. One day passes with us like the other. Can the Synagogue wake up to this deficiency? Yes, if you succeed in making the old symbols echo forth new ideas in harmony with our age. The Sukkah tells of the wanderings of the Jew, and these have not ceased yet. Every year records the influx of tens of thousand of Jews fleeing to these happy shores from the Pharaonic lands of Eastern Europe, where a sad destiny awaits the remaining sons and daughters of Israel under the ever-renewed hostilities and outrages of people and rulers. How shall these new-comers be made a blessing to our land and not a blight, a help to us and not a hindrance? Let the Sukkoth feast with its harvest symbols answer. Do all you can to turn your immigrants into farmers! Nay, encourage some of your own sons to follow agricultural pursuits, because all the trades and all the professions are overcrowded and will soon fail to support the great multitudes. America is the land of inexhaustible resources, but the influx to the great cities as centers of commerce must cease and the drift must be turned back to the vast uncultivated tracks of land in the wide prairies of the West. It is the life of the farmer that would again reinvigorate the health and the spirit of the people enfeebled physically and morally by being huddled together in tenement houses and other narrow and filthy quarters. To us Sukkoth should come every year as monitor to the Jew to unlearn his Ghetto propensities and foster those habits which he displayed while in Palestine and Babylonia, in Alexandria and Africa and the South of France before he was forced to be a moneylender and a peddler. This aim and purpose, the transformation of the wandering Jew into a peaceloving and productive farmer, is the only healthy and valuable element in the Zionist move-

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ment. We need Jewish Sukkoth or farmer tents in the remotest parts of the globe, and for this project of Jewish colonization we must work everywhere. Of this the Sukkot should be a reminder. And yet I have not exhausted the ideas taught or suggested by the Sukkoth feast. Perhaps the original meaning of Sukkoth was pilgrimage feast. Once a year, when all the crops and fruit had been gathered and the year's work in acre and vineyard was finished, the Israelite of old pilgrimaged to the capital of the land to join in the great thanksgiving festival of the nation. But then the city of Jerusalem was too small to hold all the crowds of pilgrims that came there from the ends of the land to partake of the celebration. Consequently huts had to be erected all around the city, and hence the name lni1 - the Pilgrim's Feast and m~io;, ln, Feast of Tabernacles. But then such large gatherings brought also a large number of strangers to the city, partly as visitors, partly as merchants, and so Jerusalem offered a glorious spectacle of men, Jews and gentiles, resting under the shadow of the temple. Such a sight, however, could not fail to impress the great leaders of Jewish thought with grander truths and loftier hopes. The Sukkoth festival shall one day become the means of uniting all the nations, and not only Israel but all the people of far-off lands shall come to Jerusalem to pray for rain and fertility for the coming year to the God of heaven and earth. "On that day God will be One and his name shall be One." Thus in the conception of the prophets, Sukkoth ,ms to be a token and pledge of a time \\·hen all the nations will wander to the house of God and take refuge under the wings of His all-encompassing love and protecting kindness. And this idea of a universal feast was aftenvards taken up by the rabbis and further developed. Thus the Talmud and Philo of Alexandria maintain that the seventy bullocks brought as a sacrifice on the seven Sukkoth days were intended to be offerings by the Jewish people for the welfare of the seventy nations of the earth - that is, for all humanity. So the Sukkoth became the exponent of a cosmopolitan Judaism,

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a Judaism comprising truth and blessing for the entire human race. How instructive then is such a review of the ideals clustering around our festival. So let our celebrations revive our sense of gratitude to God, of loving helpfulness for our brethren of the house of Israel and last, not least, strengthen in us the conviction that the truer and more loyal Jews we are the more we must realize that in truly working for the cause of Judaism we cannot but promote the cause of humanity, the progress and the welfare of the world. And vice ersa, the more emphatic we are in announcing the broad humanitarian character of Judaism the more we live in harmony with the best thoughts and ideas of Judaism. This our conservative brethren have lost sight of. In laying all the stress upon the separation of the Jew from the rest of the world and antagonizing the idea of assimilation, that is of adapting ourselves to the civilization of the land and the age we live in, they misinterpret the whole character of the Jewish faith which ever since the days of Abraham was broad and universal in its scope and aim. A double Sukkah then, one to preserve and protect the J cw as priest and prophet of the world and another to predict or prepare for the kingdom of God spread over the nations of the earth and all the sons of men. For this let us work and find blessing in our effort for country and humanity! Amen.

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IN THE LAW*

I WANT to speak on SIMHATH TORAH and to plead for the revival of this ancient Synagogue festival in our midst. No one who follows the trend of religious life among us with open eyes can have failed to notice that Sukkoth, unless it be revitalized by some great soul-stirring idea, unless it has a living message to bring instead of being, what it is now, merely a memory of the past, must needs wither and dwindle away. Efforts have been made to reinstitute some semblance of a Sukkah and to make the festival reveal in its appeal to the Jew a return to agricultural life. Back to the Soil! is a very timely call and a very laudable intention. But I am afraid this cannot change the attitude of the Jew nor lend to our feast without an underlying purpose a deeper spiritual meaning. Above and beyond the great harvest joy of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was the farmer's thanksgiving season in view of the rich produce gathered and field and granary in temple times, there was an overflow of spiritual joy which found expression in the popular rejoicing at the drawing of water from the well of Shiloah, of which tradition says that none saw real gladness who did not witness that outburst of joy among young or old. And this out-pouring of religious enthusiasm was in the course of time transferred to Simhath Torah as the culmination of Sukkothjoy. Indeed there was genuine rejoicing over Israel's glorious heritage of the Law manifested on that day, and well could the pious .Jew of the older generation sing with the Psalmist: "I rejoice in Thy word as he who findeth a great treasure." But the question for us is: Is all this flow of sentiment, this joy of the spirit, a matter of the past, a mere reminiscence of days *Preached at Temple Beth-El, 1901. Printed from manuscript.

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long gone? Can and should it not find its echo, its deep resonance in our own hearts if voiced in proper and impressive form? Look at the Shabuoth festival! The beautiful rite of Confirmation invested the Day of the Giving of the Law with new life, with new charm and vigor, because it thrills all hearts with new zeal and love for the sacred inheritance. So could the Feast of Rejoicing in the Law again be rendered one of the most impressive festal days of the Synagogue, if, as a Children's Festival, in connection with the annual Reopening of the Religious School, it would rally old and young around Israel's banner of the Law and fill the hearts of our little ones with joy and pride at the privilege of being God's chosen banner-bearers of the world's Truth. Most of us receive the wrong impression that the climax of religion is reached by the New Year and Atonement Day, by their solemn note of penitence and supplication for Divine pardon in view of our failings and shortcomings. Only few of us, if any, become aware of the fact that it is the higher note of joy which religion wants to strike on the Sukkoth feast, not as a thanksgiving for earthly blessing only, but rather as a reminder of the great spiritual harvest, which under God's protection, the Wandering Jew has been gathering for mankind. And there comes the last of the festal days, Simhath Torah, and points to the fountain of all joy, the source of Israel's light and salvation, the flag of the world the Torah. Can we have these thoughts and sentiments fall into oblivion in our days? Let me present to you some facts and impressions relating to Simhath Torah. Its beginning can be traced to Biblical times. A most remarkable ordinance in Deuteronomy relates that every seventh year on Sukkoth the entire Congregation, men, women, and children, be assembled to listen to the Law read before them, so that the knowledge and fear of God be made the foundation of Israel's national life. How wonderful that in a time when religion was considered the domain of a jealous priesthood that kept the people in darkness and in superstition the Jew should have been taught to

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look upon religious knowledge as the common property of all. Every seventh year, when slave and master, debtor and creditor, rich and poor, were told that they were all free and equal before God, they were also to receive the lesson that religion is a great spiritual democracy, that priest and laymen, high and low, had an equal share in the knowledge of the Law, the Torah. Of course, the Torah then read before the whole assembly at one meeting could not have contained more than a few chapters. Still, out of it grew and developed that mighty Book of the Law, that great Bible which changed the face of the world. Out of this simple Mosaic institution of reading the Law before the assembled congregation every seventh year grew the practice of reading and expounding the Law to the people every Sabbath and every market day. Thus the Law became the disseminator of the seeds of truth and righteousness all over the globe. Wherever a number of Jews lived together there sprang up a Synagogue as the center of worship and instruction, a schoolhouse spreading knowledge near and far. And under the shadow of the mother Synagogue there rose the Church and the Mosque to turn the gentiles into disciples of God, into followers of the faith of Abraham. But the Jew, loyal to his ancestral traditions, rallied around the Book of the Law every Sabbath, listening every week to some other parts of the Torah as it was read and interpreted for him in the light of the time, until the cycle of the year was completed by the cycle of his Pentateuch portions; and when the last day of Sukkoth arrived, behold, there was proud joy and satisfaction in every heart at what had been achieved by this precious treasure of the Law. For is there a book or a literature in the world, is there a political or religious power in history that can compare with the marvelous doings of the Torah? The Torah which Moses gave to us has made the Congregation of Jacob the wedded bride of the Eternal God. The Torah endowed Israel with immortal life, so that it saw nations come and go, empires rise and fall, philosophical

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and religious systems unfold and decay while, with undiminished strength and unabated vigor, it marched on through the centuries, ever hopeful, ever confident of victory, ever certain of the triumph of its cause. To the Torah, to the study of the Law enjoined as a daily obligation, the Jew owes his wisdom and understanding among the nations that superiority of intellect which made him the torchbearer of science in the new age, the recognized leader of thought in Alexandria and Spain, in Holland, Germany and Italy, the prize-winner in every school and the dreaded competitor in every race for success. But the Torah was to the Jew more than light for the mind. It influenced the soul of the Jew with that matchless heroism which created a race of martyrs such as the world never again witnessed. What is that faith, that love, that hope concerning which we read and hear so much as exhibited and taught by Judaism's daughter-religion compared with the faith, the love and the hope manifested by the hundreds of thousands of Jews who defied the threats, spurned the promises, braved the fire and the sword of a persecuting foe only to die with the cry, "Hear O Israel, the Lord Alone is our God!" upon their quivering lips? The life of the Jew was a continual martyrdom, a life of trial and tribulation spent in the service of God and His truth. And yet with all his sufferings and his severe hardships, with all the taunts and tortures to which he was constantly exposed by a malicious mob he was happier, more contented and more cheerful than the wealthiest and the most fortunate of our Jews today because the Simhath Torah spirit, the joy and pride in his religious truth, buoyed him up, lifted him above all the small things of earth and transformed him into a higher being, into a true son of God; he was thankful for the privilege of being a Jew, a bearer of blessing to all families of men. And should that joy of the spirit, that spiritual force cease today because our heroism, the strength of our faith is no longer tested by ordeals such as our fathers had to undergo? Should .Judaism fill us with less pride and joy and happiness because its truth no longer stands in such striking contrast

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to the world's views and hopes, because its light has pierced the dark clouds and much of the old folly and falsehood and fanaticism have vanished before it? Oh, how much more ought we today exult in the knowledge that our Torah, our Bible is read and studied in every land and language of the world and has become the source of wisdom and strength of every government and household of human civilization, and that it is more and more Israel's God whom all the kingdoms on earth learn to recognize as King and Ruler. How much more ought we to delight in the hopeful vision that it is our C1?tll r,:,o, the Tent of Peace reared by Israel's seers, singers and saints under which all men and nations will find shelter as God's children in the end of days. Why not, then, have parents and children, the whole Congregation of Israel, gathered on the last day of Sukkoth to hear the closing chapter of the Law read and then have the reading of the Book of the Law for the new year begun anew? Is there anything that strikes the imagination of the children more forcibly or appeals to the heart of young and old more vividly than that impressive scene of holding up the Scroll of the Law which tells the wondrous tale of a 4000 years' history of Israel, so that the flag which the fathers have followed in their wanderings through all the lan