Part 11

But, indeed, man’s singing May seem good to Thee; So I praise Thee, singing, while there dwelleth Yet the breath of God in me.

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL, 1050. (_Trans. Nina Salaman._)

MORNING PRAYERS

MAY it be Thy will, O God, that I walk in Thy law, and cleave to Thy commandments. Lead me not into sin or temptation or contempt. Let not evil desire rule over me. Bend my will to Thine. Keep me from sinful men and worthless companions. Help me to cling to the good, and give me grace in Thy sight and in the sight of those about me. Amen.

DAILY PRAYER BOOK.

* * * * *

O GOD, I stand before Thee, knowing all my deficiencies, and overwhelmed by Thy greatness and majesty. But Thou hast commanded me to pray to Thee, and hast suffered me to offer homage to Thine exalted Name according to the measure of my knowledge, and to lay my supplication before Thee. Thou knowest best what is for my good. If I recite my wants, it is not to remind Thee of them, but only so that I may understand better how great is my dependence upon Thee. If, then, I ask Thee for the things that make not for my well-being, it is because I am ignorant; Thy choice is better than mine, and I submit myself to Thine unalterable decrees and Thy supreme direction. ‘O Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too wonderful for me. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a child with his mother, my soul is with me like a weaned child’ (Psalm 131).

BACHYA IBN PAKUDAH, 1040.

ADON OLAM[63]

I

THE charm of the Adon Olam consists in the subtle manner in which Jewish dogmatics are associated with the simplest spiritual thoughts. In the first four lines we have a picture of God, the eternal Lord, existing before the creation of the world, existing still when the world shall cease to be. Between the eternal past and the eternal future comes the world of time. This is purely Jewish dogmatics. Aristotle held that the world was eternal; Judaism, that it was created. It is God alone who is eternal. Further, Judaism conceives of God as Something apart from, outside of, His world. He transcends man and the universe. Yet God is also immanent; He dwells within the human soul as well as within the world. God is not one with man, but akin to man; He is high above the world, yet nigh unto them that call upon Him. The God who exists for ever is proclaimed King when men acknowledge His Kingship and show Him the allegiance of worship and obedience. The God who stands high above creation is the One into whose hand man commits himself without fear. The Majestic King is also the Redeemer. The transcendent God is a Refuge in man’s distress. He does not merely raise a banner, He is the Banner; He does not only hold out the cup of salvation, He is the consummate Cup.

I. ABRAHAMS, 1906.

II

BEFORE the glorious orbs of light Had shed one blissful ray, In awful power, the Lord of might Reign’d in eternal day.

At His creative, holy word The voice of nature spoke, Unnumber’d worlds with one accord To living joys awoke.

Then was proclaim’d the mighty King In majesty on high! Then did the holy creatures sing His praises through the sky.

All-merciful in strength He reigns Immutable! supreme! His hand the universe sustains, He only can redeem.

Almighty, powerful and just! Thou art my God, my Friend, My rock, my refuge and my trust, On Thee my hopes depend.

O! be my guardian whilst I sleep, For Thou didst lend me breath: And when I wake, my spirit keep, And save my soul in death.

D. N. CARVALHO, 1830.

ADON OLAM AND MODERN SCIENCE

ALONE of all religious and philosophic conceptions of man, the faith which binds together the Jews has not been harmed by the advance of research, but, on the contrary, has been vindicated in its profoundest tenets. Slowly and by degrees Science is being brought to recognize in the universe the existence of One Power, which is of no beginning and no end; which has existed before all things were formed, and will remain in its integrity when all is gone; the Source and Origin of all, in Itself beyond any conception or image that man can form and set up before his eye or mind; whereas all things perceivable as matter and force are subjected to his inquiry and designs. This sum total of the scientific discoveries of all lands and times is an approach of the world’s thought to our Adon Olam, the sublime chant, by means of which the Jew has wrought and will further work the most momentous changes in the world.

W. M. HAFFKINE, 1916.

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל

THE SHEMA

‘HEAR, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.’ That is at once the quintessential embodiment of all our philosophy, as well as chief among Israel’s contributions to the everlasting truths of religion. The first prayer of innocent child-lips, the last confession of the dying, the Shema has been the watchword and the rallying-cry of a hundred generations in Israel. By it were they welded into one Brotherhood to do the will of their Father who is in heaven. The reading of the Shema has――in rabbinic phrase――clothed Israel with invincible lion-strength, and endowed him with the double-edged sword of the spirit against the unutterable terrors of his long night of exile.

J. H. HERTZ, 1912.

* * * * *

WHEN men in prayer declare the Unity of the Holy Name in love and reverence, the walls of earth’s darkness are cleft in twain, and the Face of the Heavenly King is revealed, lighting up the universe.

ZOHAR.

אֱלֹהָי נְשָׁמָה

‘THE SOUL THOU HAST GIVEN ME IS PURE’

NEXT to God’s unity, the most essential and characteristic doctrine of Judaism is that concerning God’s relation to man. Heathenism degraded man by making him kneel before brutes and the works of his hand: Judaism declared man to be made in the image of God, the crown and culmination of God’s creation, the appointed ruler of the earth. In him, as the end of Creation, the earthly and the divine are singularly blended.

Judaism rejects the idea of an inherent impurity in the flesh or in matter as opposed to the spirit. Nor does Judaism accept the doctrine of Original Sin. In the words of the daily morning prayer, ‘The soul that Thou hast given me is pure, Thou hast created it, Thou hast fashioned it, and Thou hast breathed it into me, and Thou preservest it within me, and at the appointed time Thou wilt take it from me to return it within me in the future’.

K. KOHLER, 1904, _in Jewish Encyclopedia_.

זְכוּת אָבוֹת

THE ‘MERIT OF THE FATHERS’

JUDAISM insists that man has an inborn impulse to virtue (‘Original Virtue’) which can overcome all temptation to sin; an impulse immeasurably strengthened through the merit of the fathers (_Zechuth Aboth_) which is accounted unto their children as righteousness. That man is best able to advance on the road to moral perfection who starts with the accumulated spiritual heritage of righteous ancestors.

S. LEVY, 1905.

* * * * *

THE old Jewish doctrine of the ‘merit of the fathers’ has a counterpart――the idea that the righteousness of the living child favourably affects the fate of the dead father. This might be called the doctrine of the ‘merit of the children’. In this way the living and the dead hold converse. The real message of the dead is――their virtue. The real response of the living is again――their virtue. Thus is a bridge built over the chasm of the tomb. Thus do the hearts of fathers and children beat in eternal unison.

I. ABRAHAMS, 1919.

THE KADDISH

ITS origin is mysterious; angels are said to have brought it down from heaven and taught it to men. About this prayer the tenderest threads of filial feeling and human recollection are entwined; for it is the prayer of the orphans! When the father or the mother dies, the surviving sons are to recite it twice daily, morning and evening, throughout the year of mourning, and then also on each recurring anniversary of the death――on the _Yahrzeit_.

It possesses wonderful power. Truly, if there is any bond strong and indissoluble enough to chain heaven to earth, it is this prayer. It keeps the living together, and forms the bridge to the mysterious realm of the dead. One might almost say that this prayer is the watchman and the guardian of the people by whom alone it is uttered; therein lies the warrant of its continuance. Can a people disappear and be annihilated so long as a child remembers its parents? It may sound strange: in the midst of the wildest dissipation has this prayer recalled to his better self many a dissolute character, so that he has bethought himself and for a time at least purified himself by honouring the memory of his parents.

Because this prayer is a resurrection in the spirit of the perishable in man, because it does not acknowledge death, because it permits the blossom which, withered, has fallen from the tree of mankind to flower and develop again in the human heart, therefore it possesses sanctifying power. To know that when thou diest, the earth falling on thy head will not cover thee entirely; to know that there remain behind, those who, wherever they may be on this wide earth, whether they may be poor or rich, will send this prayer after thee; to know that thou leavest them no house, no estate, no field by which they must remember thee, and that yet they will cherish thy memory as their dearest inheritance――what more satisfying knowledge canst thou ever hope for? And such is the knowledge bequeathed to us all by the Kaddish.

L. KOMPERT.

* * * * *

THE souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They are in peace. Their hope is full of immortality.

WISDOM OF SOLOMON 3. 1, 3, 4.

* * * * *

AND they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

DANIEL 12. 3.

THE HOLINESS OF HOME

IT is impossible to describe to those who have not experienced it, the feeling of holy joy which is diffused throughout the humblest Hebrew home by the solemn repetition of acts which in themselves may be regarded as mere customs, without vital connexion with the souls of men. And the particular institution in which it is embodied most characteristically is that of the Sabbath. I do not know how it has come about that a ‘Judaic Sabbath’ means a day of austere gloom. As a matter of fact, it is the one bright spot in the Jewish life. All is joy and good-humour in the Jewish home on the Friday night, when Sabbath ‘comes in’. I would attribute a good deal of the difference between the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath to the seemingly mechanical difference that the former begins and ends at an hour when its advent or exit can be solemnized by ceremonial. It is, indeed, to the Sabbath primarily, and the other home ceremonials which embody the Hebraic conception of the Holiness of the Home, that we can trace the remarkable persistence of the Jewish race through the ages.

JOSEPH JACOBS, 1889.

* * * * *

THE patriarchal feeling still lingers about his hearth. A man, however fallen, who loves his home, is not wholly lost. The trumpet of Sinai still sounds in the Hebrew ear.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI.

KINDLING THE SABBATH LIGHT

FROM memory’s spring flows a vision to-night, My mother is kindling and blessing the light;

The light of Queen Sabbath, the heavenly flame, That one day in seven quells hunger and shame.

My mother is praying and screening her face, Too bashful to gaze at the Sabbath light’s grace.

She murmurs devoutly, ‘Almighty, be blessed, For sending Thy angel of joy and of rest.

‘And may as the candles of Sabbath divine The eyes of my son in Thy Law ever shine.’

Of childhood, fair childhood, the years are long fled: Youth’s candles are quenched, and my mother is dead.

And yet ev’ry Friday, when twilight arrives, The face of my mother within me revives;

A prayer on her lips, ‘O Almighty, be blessed, For sending us Sabbath, the angel of rest.’

And some hidden feeling I cannot control A Sabbath light kindles deep, deep in my soul.

P. M. RASKIN.

לְכָה דוֹדִי

COME, my beloved, with chorusing praise, Welcome the Sabbath Bride, Queen of the days.

Sabbath, to welcome thee, joyous we haste; Fountain of blessing from ever thou wast, First in God’s planning, though fashioned the last―― Crown of His handiwork, chiefest of days.

City of holiness, filled are the years; Up from thine overthrow! Forth from thy fears! Long hast thou dwelt in the valley of tears, Now shall God’s tenderness shepherd thy ways.

Wake and bestir thee, for come is thy light! Up! With thy shining the world shall be bright. Sing! For thy Lord is revealed in His might―― Thine is the splendour His glory displays!

SOLOMON HALEVI ALKABETZ, 16th cent. (_Trans. S. Solis-Cohen._)

* * * * *

FAR more than Israel has kept the Sabbath, it is the Sabbath that has kept Israel.

ACHAD HA’AM, 1898.

SABBATH PRAYER

BLESSED be the name of the Sovereign of the universe. Blessed be Thy crown and Thy abiding-place. Let Thy favour rest with Thy people Israel for ever: show them the redemption of Thy right hand in Thy holy temple. Vouchsafe unto us the benign gift of Thy light, and in mercy accept our supplications. May it be Thy will to prolong our life in well-being. Let me also be numbered among the righteous, so that Thou mayest be merciful unto me, and have me in Thy keeping, with all that belong to me and to Thy people Israel. Thou art He that feedeth and sustaineth all; Thou art He that ruleth over all; Thou art He that ruleth over kings, for dominion is Thine. I am the servant of the Holy One, blessed be He, before whom and before whose glorious Law I prostrate myself at all times; not in man do I put my trust, nor upon any angel do I rely, but upon the God of Heaven, who is the God of truth, and whose Law is truth, and whose prophets are prophets of truth, and who aboundeth in deeds of goodness and truth. In Him I put my trust, and unto His holy and glorious name I utter praises. May it be Thy will to open my heart unto Thy Law, and to fulfil the wishes of my heart and of the hearts of all Thy people Israel for good, for life, and for peace.

ZOHAR.

THE SABBATH

NOT for us the Sabbath of the quiet streets, Sabbath, peaceful o’er the world outspread, Felt where every man his neighbour greets, Heard in hush of many a slowly passing tread.

Not the robe of silence for our holy day: Noisy run the worker and the player; Toil and stir and laughter of the way Surge around the steps that seek a place of prayer.

Silent we, while through the thronging street and mart Work-day clamour of the city rolls: Cloistered inly, from the world apart, Ours it is to bear the Sabbath in our souls.

NINA SALAMAN, 1918.

PRAYER BEFORE THE NEW MOON

MAY it be Thy will, O Lord our God and the God of our fathers, to renew unto us this coming month for good and for blessing. O grant us long life, a life of blessing, of sustenance, of bodily vigour, a life marked by the fear of Heaven and the dread of sin, a life free from shame and reproach; a life in which the desires of our heart shall be fulfilled for good.

May the Holy One, blessed be He, renew it unto us and unto all His people, the house of Israel, for life and peace, for gladness and joy, for salvation and consolation; and let us say, Amen.

DAILY PRAYER BOOK.

THE SEDER[64]

FAIR is the twilight, And fragrant and still: Little by little The synagogues fill.

One by one kindle The night’s gleaming eyes; Candles in windows And stars in the skies.

Ended in _Shool_ is The service divine; Seder is started With legends and wine.

Father is blessing The night of all nights; All who are hungry To feast he invites.

‘All who are homeless Yet masters shall be, Slaves who are this year―― The next shall be free!’

Children ask ‘questions’, And father replies; Playfully sparkle The wine and the eyes.

Hymns of redemption All merrily sing; Queen is each mother, Each father a king.

Midnight. The Seder Is come to an end; Guardian angels From heaven descend.

Each one a message Of liberty brings; Scattering blessings Of peace from his wings.

P. M. RASKIN.

לֵיל שִׁמּוּרִים

ISRAEL’S WATCH-NIGHT

ISRAEL’S great watch-night dates its origin from the very Deliverance it was to commemorate through all the coming years. Ah! With what a delirious impatience did Pharaoh’s slaves await the midnight hour that was to be at once the knell of Egypt’s tyranny and the joy-note that announced their own freedom! God Himself had singled it out as the time for fulfilling His ancient promise――singled it out, as the Rabbins tell us in hyperbolical language, from the days of creation itself. Too long had unrighteousness flourished. Too long had God seemed to slumber in His Heaven; but now He was to show that the cry of the oppressed had never failed to reach Him, for accumulated wrongs were to be redressed by a complete and unparalleled deliverance. It was for so signal a vindication of the Divine justice that this night was reserved. It was as though the Supreme had set His finger upon this night, in the almanac of Heaven, and declared: This shall witness the long-deferred triumph of Right over Might; this shall tell for all time that I am the Lord, that I reign, and that righteousness and justice are the foundation of My throne, the principles on which I govern My world. This night shall show to all coming generations that it is only the fool who says in his heart ‘There is no God’; that the earthly despot who pursues his career of cruelty, thinking that he has only his victims’ tears to reckon with, is deluding himself to his own ruin.

And is this truth not worth treasuring in these latter days? Often does God seem to hide Himself, to have deserted earth and shut Himself up in Heaven. It is the souls of the meek and the faithful from which humanity’s tears are distilled, from which the painful chorus of a world’s lament goes up, and seemingly up in vain. But the lesson taught to Pharaoh and to Israel on that awful, that joyous night of deliverance, is still a living lesson; not one jot of its force is abated. God neither slumbers nor sleeps. He watches ever. Not one sigh passes unrecorded in the Heavenly Volume.

MORRIS JOSEPH, 1893.

PASSOVER AND FREEDOM

PASSOVER is the Festival of Spring. Its human appeal, therefore, is as old as humanity, and as perennial as Spring. But it is as an historical festival,――Israel’s birthday――as the annual commemoration of an event which has changed the destinies of mankind, that it proclaims the man-redeeming truth, God is the God of Freedom. Even as in Egypt He espoused the cause of brick-making helots against the mighty royal oppressor, He for ever judgeth the world in righteousness, and the peoples with equity. There is an overruling Providence that exalts righteousness and freedom and humbles the Dominion of iniquity and oppression. This teaching has been as a light unto the nations of the Western world in their weary, age-long warfare for liberty.

J. H. HERTZ, 1918.

* * * * *

THE Passover affirms the great truth that liberty is the inalienable right of every human being. The Feast of Israel’s freedom, its celebration is Israel’s homage to the great principle of _human freedom_.

MORRIS JOSEPH, 1903.

‘ADDIR HU’

GOD of Might, God of Right, Thee we give all glory. Thine the praise In our days As in ages hoary.

When we hear, Year by year, Our redemption’s story, Now as erst, When Thou first Mad’st the proclamation,

Warning loud Ev’ry proud, Ev’ry tyrant nation, We Thy fame Still proclaim, God of our salvation.

G. GOTTHEIL.

* * * * *

WHEN the Egyptian hosts were drowning in the Red Sea, the angels in heaven were about to break forth in songs of jubilation. But the Holy One, blessed be He, silenced them with the words: ‘My creatures are perishing, and ye are ready to sing!’

TALMUD.

שָׁבֻעוֹת

THE FEAST OF WEEKS

FOR ever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They abide this day according to Thine ordinances; For all things are Thy servants. Unless Thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in mine affliction. I have seen an end of all perfection; But Thy commandment is exceeding broad.

Thy commandments make me wiser than mine enemies; For they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers; For Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, Because I have kept Thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, That I might observe Thy word. I have not turned aside from Thy judgements; For Thou hast taught me.

PSALM 119. 90‒2; 96; 98‒102.

A SELF-DENYING GUILD

IS there not something spiritually attractive in the idea of the Jew of this age voluntarily submitting to restrictions on his appetites for the sake of duty――forming one of a religious guild whose special characteristic is self-control? It ought to be the pride of the modern Jew――and every child should be taught to feel it――that his religion demands from him a self-abnegation from which other religionists are absolved; that the price to be paid for the privilege of belonging to the hierarchy of Israel is continuous and conscious self-sacrifice.

The Dietary Laws foster this spirit of self-surrender. Respect for them teaches and helps the Jew, in Rabbinic language, to abase his desires before the will of his Father in Heaven.

MORRIS JOSEPH, 1893.

* * * * *

WITH everlasting love Thou hast loved the house of Israel, Thy people; a Law and commandments, statutes and judgements, hast Thou taught us. Therefore, O Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up we will meditate on Thy statutes; yea, we will rejoice in the words of Thy Law and in Thy commandments for ever; for they are our life and the length of our days.

DAILY PRAYER BOOK.

אַקְדָמוּת