Part 12
COULD we with ink the ocean fill, Were every blade of grass a quill, Were the world of parchment made, And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love Of God above Would drain that ocean dry; Nor would the scroll Contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky!
MEIR BEN ISAAC NEHORAÏ, 1050.
THE BIBLE
IS it a book, a world, a heaven? Are those words, or flames, or shining stars, Or burning torches, or clouds of fire What is it, I ask ye――the Bible?
Who inspired those infinite truths? Who spoke through the mouth of the prophet? Who mapped out the highways of ages, The glorious lines of the Scriptures?
Who planted the flowers of wisdom In this sacred soil of the angels? O dream of eternity――Bible―― O Light that is all and for ever.
MORRIS ROSENFELD, 1918.
THE SEPHER TORAH[65]
FOR any community of people to be, and to remain, Jewish, they must be brought up from their tenderest childhood to regard the Sepher Torah as the title-deed of their birthright and pedigree, which they are religiously to hand down unaltered from generation to generation. For is there a Jewish community anywhere, however safely domiciled, which has relinquished the Torah for even one generation and has survived that separation? The Jewish masses, though dispersed to the four winds of the world and mostly destitute of mere shelter――_because tenacious of their creed_, endure, true to themselves and to their past.
The Torah, therefore, is a fountain of life. In it is protection greater than in fortresses. Those who forsake the Torah, bringing it into disrepute and weakening the hold it has on us, are working at the destruction of the brotherhood that cradled and sheltered their fathers and forefathers through all the vicissitudes of the bygone ages, to whom they owe their own life and presence on earth.
W. M. HAFFKINE, 1917.
RELIGION AND MORALITY
‘I AM the Lord thy God’――the pronouncement that forms the introduction to the Decalogue――is rightly regarded as the indispensable basis for all the Commandments, upon whose conscientious fulfilment the well-being of humanity depends. The identification of moral laws with religious precepts, which has been so fully accomplished for the first time in the Law of Moses, gives to the Bible its exceptional importance as a regulator of the conduct of men and of nations. Those who are convinced that by wronging their fellow-men, or transgressing any of the established laws, they violate a command that comes from God, and defy the will of their Maker as expressed in His law, are much less liable to wrongdoing than those who create their own ethical theories and set up their own standards of right and wrong, relying upon their conscience and sense of honour as infallible guides. To some it seems a kind of humiliation if a super-human authority is pointed to as the indispensable guide of human conduct. But man ought never to have assumed such pride as to feel humiliated by the idea of his imperfection and his need of guidance and restraint. History does not justify this pride.
SALIS DAICHES, 1910.
SYMBOLS AND CEREMONIES
YOU have heard that in Egypt the waters of the Nile overflowing its banks, take the place of rain; and that these fructifying waters are led by various channels into the remote fields to irrigate them. Now, the Nile with its precious floods would be of no benefit to the fields without these channels. Thus it is with the Torah and the _Mitzvoth_.[66] The Torah is the mighty stream of spirituality flowing since ancient times through Israel. It would have caused no useful fruits to grow, and would have produced no spiritual progress, no moral advancement, had the Mitzvah not been there to lead its divine floods into the houses, the hearts, and the minds of the individual members of the people, by connecting practical life in all its variety and its activities with the spiritual truths of religion.
It is the greatest mistake, based on an entire misunderstanding of human nature, to assume that men are capable of living in a world of ideas only, and can dispense with symbols that should embody these ideas and give them tangibility and visible form. Only the Mitzvah is the ladder connecting heaven and earth. The Tefillin, containing among others the commandment: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might’, are laid on the head, the seat of thought, and on the arm, the instrument of action, opposite to the heart, the seat of feeling; thus teaching that all our thoughts, feelings, and actions must conform to the will of God. This Mitzvah, performed daily, has contributed more effectively to preserve and to further the morality of our people than have all the learned books on ethics written by our religious philosophers.
M. JUNG, 1917.
CUSTOM IN RELIGION
RELIGION, they say, is only custom. I might agree with this if the ‘only’ were left out. Customs are the flowers of civilization. You can tell a man’s education, yea, even much of his character, by his habits. Morality, ethics, are words derived from roots denoting that which is acknowledged and adopted by the people as right and proper. Manners and usages are the silent compact, the unwritten law which preserve the proprieties of civilized society.
Religion will not come to our aid the moment we call for her; she must be loved and cherished at all times if she is to prove our true friend in need. Much of the present indifference of our young people is directly traceable to the absence of all religious observances in their homes. Piety is the fruit of religious customs.
G. GOTTHEIL, 1896.
‘IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TIMES’
WAS Judaism ever ‘in accordance with the times’? Did Judaism ever correspond with the views of dominant contemporaries? Was it ever convenient to be a Jew or a Jewess?
Was the Judaism of our ancestors in accordance with the times, when compelled by the Egyptians to bend their necks during centuries under the yoke of slavery and to suffer their babes to be buried in the waves of the Nile? Was the Judaism of the Maccabees in accordance with their times, when they resisted to the utmost the introduction of Grecian manners prevailing in their days? When the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans and the sons of Judah were slaughtered, sold in slave markets, cast before wild beasts or scattered through every country then known; when Worldly Wisdom would have taught, ‘Now it is certainly impossible for us to remain Jews’――did not the Hillels[67] and the son of Zakkai[68] teach yet more earnestly the holiness of our laws and our customs, and so order and regulate things that not a fibre might be lost from the ancestral sanctuary? Was that Judaism in accordance with the times, for which, during the centuries following the Dispersion, our fathers suffered in all lands, through all the various periods, the most degrading oppression, the most biting contempt, and a thousand-fold death and persecution?
And yet _we_ would make it the aim and scope of Judaism to be always ‘in accordance with the times’!
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH, 1854. (_Trans. Isaac Leeser._)
FAITH
WHILE faith and reason are blended in the religion of Israel as perhaps in no other, it is not the second place that must be assigned to faith. From the foot of Sinai there is wafted to us the voice declaring with the most perfect childlike faith, ‘_All that the Lord hath spoken we will do and we will hear_’. It is not surprising that a people who, in their infancy, could give utterance to an expression of trust so childlike, yet so sublime, should produce a prophet who summed up the whole of Israel’s law in the words, ‘_The just shall live by his faith_’.
SIMEON SINGER, 1906.
צִיּוֹן הֲלֹא תִשְׁאֲלִי
ODE TO ZION
(HYMN FOR THE FAST OF AB)
ART thou not, Zion, fain To send forth greetings from thy sacred rock Unto thy captive train, Who greet thee as the remnants of thy flock? Take Thou on every side, East, west and south and north, their greetings multiplied. Sadly he greets thee still, The prisoner of hope who, day and night, Sheds ceaseless tears, like dew on Hermon’s hill. Would that they fell upon thy mountain’s height!
Harsh is my voice when I bewail thy woes, But when in fancy’s dreams I see thy freedom, forth its cadence flows, Sweet as the harps that hung by Babel’s streams. The glory of the Lord will ever be Thy sole and perfect light; No need hast thou then, to illumine thee Of sun by day, or moon and stars by night. I would that, where God’s spirit was of yore Poured out unto thy holy ones, I might There too my soul outpour.
Oh, who will lead me on To seek the spots where, in far distant years, The angels in their glory dawned upon Thy messengers and seers! Oh, who will give me wings That I may fly away, And there, at rest from all my wanderings, The ruins of my heart among thy ruins lay? I’ll bend my face unto thy soil, and hold Thy stones as special gold. And when in Hebron I have stood beside My fathers’ tombs, then will I pass in turn Thy plains and forest wide, Until I stand on Gilead and discern Mount Hor and Mount Abarim, ’neath whose crest Thy luminaries twain, thy guides and beacons rest.
Thy air is life unto my soul, thy grains Of dust are myrrh, thy streams with honey flow Naked and barefoot to thy ruined fanes How gladly would I go! To where the ark was treasured, and in dim Recesses dwelt the holy cherubim.
Perfect in beauty, Zion, how in thee Do love and grace unite! The souls of thy companions tenderly Turn unto thee; thy joy was their delight, And weeping they lament thy ruin now. In distant exile, for thy sacred height They long, and towards thy gates in prayer they bow. Shinar and Pathros! come they near to thee? Naught are they by thy light and right divine. To what can be compared the majesty Of thy anointed line? To what the singers, seers, and Levites thine? The rule of idols fails and is cast down; Thy power eternal is, from age to age thy crown.
The Lord desires thee for His dwelling-place Eternally, and bless’d Is he whom God has chosen for the grace Within thy courts to rest. Happy is he that watches, drawing near, Until he sees thy glorious lights arise, And over whom thy dawn breaks full and clear, Set in the Orient skies. But happiest he, who, with exultant eyes, The bliss of thy redeemed ones shall behold, And see thy youth renewed as in the days of old.
YEHUDAH HALEVI, 1145. (_Trans. Alice Lucas._)
THE ETERNAL CITY OF THE ETERNAL PEOPLE
JERUSALEM, the hearth of pure religion, the home of prophecy, the sacred fountain of the word of God, is the very emblem of the deathlessness of the spirit. With its 4,000 years’ history it is coeval with the Jew, and is as unique among cities as is Israel among the nations. Like the Jew, this Holy City of Israel――the spiritual capital of humanity that has for ages been the magnetic pole of the love and reverence of mankind――is deathless; fire and sword and all the engines of destruction have been hurled against it in vain. A score of conquerors have held it as their choicest prize; and more than a dozen times has it been utterly destroyed. The Assyrians burnt it and deported its population; the Romans slew a million of its inhabitants, razed it to the ground, passed the ploughshare over it, and strewed its furrows with salt; Hadrian banished its very name from the lips of men, changed it to ‘Aelia Capitolina’, and prohibited any Jew from entering its precincts on pain of death. Persians and Arabs, Barbarians and Crusaders and Turks, took it and retook it, ravaged it and burnt it; and yet, marvellous to relate, it ever rises from its ashes to renewed life and glory. And now, on the very day that 2,080 years ago Judah Maccabee rescued it from the heathens, the Holy City has passed into British occupation! What a privilege it is to have lived to see such a world-historic event! A new future, with undreamt-of possibilities, opens before this eternal city of the eternal people. But in the future, as in the past, it will proclaim the prophetic teaching of the Maccabean festival: ‘_Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts_’.
J. H. HERTZ, _at the Thanksgiving Service for the Taking of Jerusalem by H. M. Forces_, 1917.
* * * * *
ARISE, shine, for thy light is come And the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: They all are gathered together, and come to thee; Thy sons come from far, And thy daughters are borne on the side. Then thou shalt see and be radiant, And thy heart shall throb and be enlarged.
Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, So that no man passed through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, A joy of many generations.
Thy sun shall no more go down, Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, For the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, And the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
ISAIAH 60. 1, 4‒5, 15, 20.
רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה
NEW YEAR
INTO the tomb of ages past Another year hath now been cast; Shall time unheeded take its flight, Nor leave one ray of higher light That on man’s pilgrimage may shine And lead his soul to spheres divine?
Ah! which of us, if self-reviewed, Can boast unfailing rectitude? Who can declare his wayward will More prone to righteous deed than ill? Or, in his retrospect of life, No traces find of passion’s strife?
With firm resolve your bosoms nerve The God of right alone to serve; Speech, thought, and act to regulate By what His perfect laws dictate; Nor from His holy precepts stray, By worldly idols lured away.
Peace to the house of Israel: May joy within it ever dwell!
PENINA MOÏSE, 1838.
WRITTEN AND SEALED
‘TO be inscribed in the Book of Life.’ This must be understood in a spiritual sense. When a man clings to the love of God, and, putting his trust in His infinite mercy, takes upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of heaven――he therewith inscribes himself in the Book of Life. Whereas the man, a slave to his passions, who so loses his belief in the all-embracing love of God that he fails to repent and return to his Father in heaven, this despairing of the love of God is equivalent to his being inscribed――God forbid――in the Book of Death.
ISRAEL BAALSHEM, 1700.
* * * * *
IN a higher than their literal sense the words of the liturgy are true. Our destiny――our spiritual destiny――is written down on New Year’s Day and sealed on the Day of Atonement. We write it down in the penitence with which we greet the dawn of the year, we seal it with the amendment which we solemnly vow on the Fast of Kippur. The time for penitence is with us; the Fast with its supreme task awaits us. Let our endeavours to see ourselves as we really are, our sorrow for our shortcomings, the unrest of our unshriven soul, prepare us for the final act of atonement. The Day of Atonement shall lead us, with hearts bowed in submission, to the Divine throne; and God will lovingly lift us up, absolved, forgiven, filled with the spirit of faith and loving obedience. We shall begin to live at last, to live before Him, to live the true life which is inspired by the constant thought of His presence.
MORRIS JOSEPH.
THE SHOFAR
THE Scriptural injunction of the Shofar for the New Year’s Day has a profound meaning. It says: Awake, ye sleepers, and ponder your deeds; remember your Creator, and go back to Him in penitence. Be not of those that miss realities in their hunt after shadows, and waste their years in seeking after vain things which cannot profit or deliver. Look well to your souls and consider your acts; forsake each of you his evil ways and thoughts, and return to God, so that He may have mercy upon you.
MOSES MAIMONIDES, 1180.
* * * * *
FOR this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say: ‘Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldst say: ‘Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
DEUTERONOMY 30. 11‒14.
* * * * *
THE Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
PSALM 27. 1.
MY KING
ERE time began, ere age to age had thrilled, I waited in His storehouse, as He willed. He gave me being; but, my years fulfilled, I shall be summoned back before the King.
Thou gavest me a light my path to guide, To prove my heart’s recesses still untried; And as I went, Thy voice in warning cried: ‘Child! fear thou Him who is thy God and King!’
Erring, I wandered in the wilderness, In passion’s grave nigh sinking, powerless; Now deeply I repent, in sore distress, That I kept not the statutes of the King!
Thine is the love, O God, and Thine the grace That folds the sinner in its mild embrace; Thine the forgiveness bridging o’er the space ’Twixt man’s works and the task set by the King.
Unheeding all my sins, I cling to Thee! I know that mercy will Thy footstool be; Before I call, oh! do Thou answer me, For nothing dare I claim of Thee, my King.
MOSES BEN NACHMAN, 1300. (_Trans. Alice Lucas._)
THE LORD IS KING, THE LORD WAS KING, THE LORD SHALL BE KING FOR EVER AND EVER[69]
THY people in passionate worship cry One to another the Lord is King. In awe of the marvels beneath the sky Each explains that the Lord was King. One sound from Thy pastures ascends on high: The chant that the Lord shall be King for ever. _The Lord is King, the Lord was King, the Lord shall be King for ever and ever._
The universe throbs with Thy pauseless praise, Chorus eternal, the Lord is King. Thy glory is cried from the dawn of days, Worshippers calling the Lord was King. And ever the Saints who shall witness Thy ways Shall cry that the Lord shall be King for ever. _The Lord is King, the Lord was King, the Lord shall be King for ever and ever._
ELEAZAR KALIR, 8th cent. (_Trans. I. Zangwill._)
IF NOT HIGHER
AND the Rebbe[70] of Nemirov, every Friday Morning early at Sliches[71]-time, disappeared, melted into thin air! He was not to be found anywhere, either in the synagogue or in the two houses-of-study, or worshipping in some Minyan,[72] and most certainly not at home. His door stood open, people went in and out as they pleased――no one ever stole anything from the Rebbe――but there was not a soul in the house.
Where can the Rebbe be?
Where should he be, with the Solemn Days so near, if not in heaven? Jews need a livelihood, peace, health; they wish to be good and pious, and their sins are great, and Satan with his thousand eyes spies out the world from one end to the other, and he sees, and accuses, and tells tales――and who shall help if not the Rebbe? So thought the people.
Once, however, there came a Lithuanian――and he laughed! You know the Lithuanian Jews――they rather despise books of devotion, but stuff themselves with the Talmud and the Codes. And who, I ask you, is going to argue with a _Litvack_?
What becomes of the Rebbe?
‘I don’t know, and I don’t care’, says he, shrugging his shoulders, and all the while (what it is to be a Lithuanian!) determined to find out!
The very same evening, soon after prayers, the Lithuanian steals into the Rebbe’s room, lays himself down under the Rebbe’s bed, and lies low. He intends to stay there all night, to find out where the Rebbe goes, and what he does at Sliches-time.
Day has not broken when he hears the call to prayer. The Rebbe has been awake some time. The Lithuanian has heard him sighing and groaning for a whole hour. Whoever has heard the groaning of the Nemirover Rebbe knows what sorrow for All-Israel, what distress of mind, found voice in every groan.
After that the Lithuanian hears the people rise and leave the house. Once more it is quiet and dark, only a very little moonlight comes in through the shutter. He confessed afterwards, did the Lithuanian, that when he found himself alone with the Rebbe, terror took hold of him. But a Lithuanian is dogged. He quivers and quakes like a fish, but he does not budge.
At last the Rebbe (long life to him!) rises in his turn. He goes to the wardrobe, and takes out a packet which proves to be the dress of a peasant: linen trousers, high boots, a pelisse, a wide felt hat, and a long and broad leather belt studded with brass nails. The Rebbe puts them on.
Out of the pockets of the pelisse dangles the end of a thick cord, a peasant’s cord.
On his way out, the Rebbe steps aside into the kitchen, stoops, takes a hatchet from under the bed, puts it into his belt, and leaves the house. The Lithuanian trembles, but he persists.
* * * * *
A fearful Solemn Day hush broods over the dark streets, broken not infrequently by a cry of supplication from some little Minyan, or the moan of some sick person behind a window. The Rebbe keeps to the street side, and walks in the shadow of the houses. He glides from one to the other, the Lithuanian after him. And the Lithuanian hears the sound of his own heart-beats mingle with the heavy footfall of the Rebbe; but he follows on, and together they emerge from the town.
Behind the town stands a little wood. The Rebbe (long life to him!) enters it. He walks on thirty or forty paces, and then he stops beside a small tree. And the Lithuanian, with amazement, sees the Rebbe take his hatchet and strike the tree. He sees the Rebbe strike blow after blow, he hears the tree creak and snap. And the little tree falls, and the Rebbe splits it up into logs, and the logs into splinters. Then he makes a bundle, binds it round with the cord, throws it on his shoulder, replaces the hatchet in his belt, leaves the wood, and goes back into the town.
In one of the back streets he stops beside a poor, tumble-down little house, and taps at the window.
‘Who is there?’ cries a frightened voice within.
The Lithuanian knows it to be the voice of a Jewess, a sick Jewess.
‘I’, answers the Rebbe, in the peasant tongue.
‘Who is I?’ inquires the voice, further.
And the Rebbe answers again in the Little-Russian speech:
‘Vassil.’