The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Menorah Journal, Vol. 1, No. 4, October 1915, by Various.

Crumbling, age-worn, in Rome the eternal

Stands the arch of Titus' triumph,

With its carven Jewish captives

Stooped before the holy Menorah.

And each nightfall, when the turmoil

Of the Petrine clangor ceaseth,

Seven flames the arch illumine,

Mystic burnings, glowing strangely.

Then cast off their graven shackles

Judah's sons of beaten marble;

Living step they from the ruin

Living stride they to the Jordan.

They are healèd in its waters,

Till the freshness of each dawning;

Then resume their ancient sorrow,

Perfect marble, whole and holy.

Dust of dust the wheeling seasons,

Grind that mighty archèd splendor,

Raze the Gaul and raze the Roman,

Grind away their fame and glory,

The shackled Jews alone withstand them,

Stooped before the holy Menorah.

The Duty of the Hour

By Max Nordau

WE are the people of the Messiah. We feel, we think Messianic. In all situations of life, and particularly in the critical ones, we hope for a miraculous event which will fulfill all our yearnings, and in this hope we feel delivered of the manly duty to work for the realization of our ideals, to prepare our salvation by our own efforts.

At this moment a large portion of Israel dreams once more a particularly lively Messianic dream. Hundreds of thousands, millions of Jews, indeed, have abandoned themselves to the expectation that at the conclusion of the peace which will put a stop to the world's war, the destiny of the Jewish people must take a miraculous turn. The plenipotentiaries of the belligerent [203]powers will assemble in a conference or a congress to treat of the conditions of peace. The conquerors will exact of the vanquished the price of their sacrifices and return home with their booty in the shape of territorial acquisitions and indemnities. And in the course of these transactions the miracle will happen that a share will be apportioned to the Jewish people too. Palestine will be offered them, either as an area for colonization or, still better, as a full property under the protectorate of a great power. They will be accorded also entire equality of rights in Russia and Roumania.

WE may plead reasons or excuses for indulging in this dream. Utterances of leading personalities of the big nations which will necessarily be represented at the peace conference have become publicly known which permit the conclusion, without intentional self-beguiling, that some governments at least, if not all of them, are occupying themselves earnestly with the Jewish problem and examining the question whether it might not be worth trying to settle the Jews in search of a homestead in Palestine, under international and local legal conditions vouchsafing them full freedom of economic, intellectual, and moral development.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the situation of the six millions of Russian Jews occupies a certain place in the thoughts and cares of the governments. Several countries have an interest in turning away from their frontiers the ever more violently swelling stream of Jewish emigration, and doing so otherwise than with the brutal method of locking up their boundaries and posting a police watch before them. Others have the well-being of Russia at heart; they understand that the sufferings and the despair of her six millions of Jews are a source of dire evils and that the emancipation of this hard-working and highly gifted population will bring about the material prosperity, the general progress, and the powerful strengthening of Russia. Other countries again, the statesmen of which are more farseeing than the average and have been able to rise to the conception of a political world hygiene, are aware that the systematic crushing of six millions of intellectual and strong-feeling people driven to despair must create a hotbed of the most dangerous anarchistic[204] and revolutionary epidemics, the spreading of which cannot easily be limited to the spot of their origin. Lastly, even the most irreclaimable pessimist will admit at least the possibility that governments may not be entirely inaccessible to purely humane sentiments of pity and justice, and may regard the treatment of the Jews of Russia and Roumania as an indictment against the civilization and the ruling religion of white mankind.

THE hope of the peace conference resulting in great achievements for the Jewish people, moreover, can evoke an historical precedent. The Berlin Congress of 1878 which brought the Russo-Turkish war to an end, created the Bulgarian state, raised Roumania to the rank of an independent kingdom, and gave Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary, found time to occupy itself with a Jewish matter and to introduce into the treaty condensing its decisions the well known article obliging the new kingdom of Roumania to bestow on her Jews equality of civil franchises. It is not the fault of the Berlin Congress that this article has remained to this day a dead letter. The case, at any rate, is of a nature to encourage Jewish optimism against those sceptics who sneer: "A diplomatic conference distributes no presents; complacency and liberality play no part there; there are only such interests enforced which are backed by a victorious army or at least by an army which still inspires some fears." Well, in 1878, too, the Jewish people had no country, no army, no government, no accredited ambassador, and yet two of the most influential members of the Berlin Congress, the representative of Great Britain, Earl Beaconsfield, and that of France, Waddington, were ready to step forward as advocates of the Jewish cause, and the president of the Congress, Prince Bismarck, evidently favored their action.

I HAVE produced everything capable of justifying the expectations with which many Jews look forward to the future peace congress. But I do not notice that the Jewish people keep in[205] view the lessons taught by the historic example of 1878. Beaconsfield and Waddington did not plead for the Roumanian Jews at the Berlin Congress from impulses of their own or in consequence of a sudden inspiration from on high. The Paris Alliance Israelite Universelle, the London Anglo-Jewish Association, the Berlin Verband der deutschen Juden, had done serious and efficient preparatory work, memorialized their several governments, informed them of the facts, solicited their intervention. It was due to their efforts that the position of the Roumanian Jews came up for consideration at the Berlin Congress. They showed the way the Jewish people must follow if they wish to obtain anything of governments in congress. What are the Jewish people waiting for in order to act now as their fathers acted thirty-seven years ago?

The war is raging, in a hundred battlefields uncounted brave men shed their blood for the future of their nation, Jewish soldiers fight and fall side by side with their non-Jewish countrymen and comrades, but their heroic sacrifices are utterly useless for their own people. In every country, even in Russia, the military excellence, the patriotism, the contempt of danger and death of the Jewish soldiers, will be rewarded more or less lavishly and liberally with distinctions and preferment, but experience teaches us that their glorious conduct is forgotten very soon after the war by everybody but themselves and their brethren, and that it certainly does not change in the least the status of the Jewish people among the nations. At any rate the consideration of the merits and military virtues of the Jewish soldiers will not by itself stimulate to action the diplomatists at the peace congress, unless they are insistently recalled to their memory. All this requires preparation and arrangements, of which as yet there is scarcely any trace to be seen.

THERE is another point to which attention must be drawn. Let us admit the most favorable case: the congress will really open up Palestine to the Jewish people for colonization with self-government and autonomous local institutions. To whom[206] will it be in a position to make such a concession? To whom will it deliver Palestine? The Jewish people is a concept, but it is not a political and administrative individuality, it is not a body with a head and vital organs. There is actually not one man who could present himself to the governments assembled in congress, receive Palestine from their hands, and offer them the guarantee that he will lead into the land of their ancestors those Jews that yearn for a new home and national life on an historic soil, and that he will undertake the implanting of modern culture, the maintaining of order, and the economic development of the country. An offer of the congress would fall flat, nobody having the moral right and the material capacity to accept it in the name and in behalf of the Jewish people.

ALL this points to the necessity of an adequate preparation for coming events. The Messianic dream does not suffice. Mere wishes and hopes are vain. We must work. We must organize ourselves without further loss of time. We must create a body with men of authority at its head, and the living forces of the Jewish people, or at least a considerable portion of them, at its back. The forces and the men do exist. They have only to be gathered, united and grouped.

Who is to do this organizing work? My reply is unhesitating: American Jewry. I should be happy to say: here is a task for the Zionists' organization which exists, which lives, which is prepared for work of this kind, and which has to consider its carrying out as its natural function; but I shrink back from giving this near-lying answer. Many pre-eminent and influential Jews whose good Jewish sentiments no one has a right to doubt, persist in considering Zionism as a party tendency against which they raise objections. Now the representations of the Jewish people before the governments must not be a party affair, but ought to be the cause of the entire people and must embrace all its parts. The invitation must therefore be issued by personalities who repel nobody at the outset by their pronounced party color. Moreover, these personalities must necessarily belong to a neutral country,[207] so as to leave no room for the argument that according to the political definition of the hour they are enemies and to co-operate with them would mean disloyalty to one's own country. Only in the case, which I hope will not be realized, of the United States also precipitating itself into the whirlpool of the war, would they be bound to transfer their initiative to the Swiss or the Dutch Jewry. The first labor of the initiators should consist in inviting the existing Jewish organizations of all countries to have themselves represented by a delegation on a permanent board or committee. It would be a matter of regret if they refused, but this ought by no means to be a reason for discouragement nor for discontinuing further endeavors. In this case the initiators would simply have to do fundamental work and try to fall back on elements that at present stand outside, or intentionally keep aloof from, existing organizations. It would be the business of the permanent board to secure financial co-operation that could be called upon under given circumstances, and to cause Jews of standing in every great country to approach their government, to submit to it in time the aspirations of the Jewish people, and to procure its approval and sympathy for them.

OUT of the peace which must follow the present horrible war, a new Europe, a new world will be born. It depends on us whether in this new world there is to be a place, "a place in the sun," for the Jewish people. We have not an instant to lose if we wish to prepare for the grand opportunity. Should we miss this occasion we should have to resign all our national hopes, I am afraid, for a very long time, if not for ever. We may, of course, continue to dream our Messianic dream, but this will then ever remain a dream till the dreamer disappears and his dream with him.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Original and translation read at a dinner of the Harvard Menorah Society.

What Judaism Is Not

By Mordecai M. Kaplan

MOST of the pain, which according to Koheleth comes with the increase of knowledge, is in the unlearning of the old rather than in the learning of the new. Once an idea has become imbedded in the mind, it cannot be removed without causing a mental upheaval. Blessed are the young to whom unlearning is easy, or who have not much to unlearn. Whether our Jewish young men know much or little about Judaism, they are certain, as a rule, to have formed notions about it of which they must be disabused, if Judaism is to constitute an important factor in their lives. Strange to say, they have obtained these notions not from sources hostile to Judaism, but on the contrary from sources distinctly intended to inculcate both a love and an understanding of the Jewish religion,—such as catechisms and text-books used in our religious schools, and articles in encyclopedias meant for the enlightenment of the general public. The view of Judaism that one gets in this manner is not only a distorted one, but it has the effect of bringing all further reflection to a standstill. It lands one in a blind alley. The conclusion which a person generally arrives at when he consults these sources for information about the Jewish religion is that, whatever else Judaism might be, it certainly offers no field for the exercise of deep insight or broad vision. This largely accounts for the manifest sterility and uncreativeness of present-day Judaism. To give new impetus to fruitful and creative thinking in Jewish life, it is necessary, in the first place, to counteract the paralyzing spell of these routine and conventional interpretations of Judaism.

To be concrete, let us take a typical instance of the kind of instruction that has been in vogue for more than a century. Here are a few sentences from the article on Judaism in Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics: "Judaism may be defined as the strictest form of[209] monotheistic belief; but it is something more than a bare mental belief. It is the effect which such a belief, with all its logical consequences, exerts on life, that is to say, on thought and conduct. . . . . A formal and precise definition of Judaism is a matter of some difficulty, because it raises the question, What is the absolute and irreducible minimum of conformity? . . . . Judaism denounces idolatry and polytheism. It believes in a universal God, but it is not exclusive. It believes that this world is good, and that man is capable of perfection. He possesses free will, and is responsible for his actions. Judaism rejects any mediator and any cosmic force for evil. Man is free. He is not subject to Satan; nor are his material gifts of life inherently bad. Wealth might be a blessing as well as a curse," etc., etc.

In an encyclopedia we do not expect to find original or striking views. It is not the particular article from which this excerpt is taken that fault is found with. That article is selected simply as representative of the kind of information that is expected to help one grasp the meaning of Judaism. It is typical of the baffling glibness with which Jewish teachers and preachers usually talk about the Jewish religion. One who reads or listens to such statements finds that somehow or other little has been added to his stock of knowledge about Judaism. He experiences how irritating words can be when they either hide thought or betray its absence.

IN the instance quoted, it is both amusing and painful to follow the author's vacillating description of Judaism. At first Judaism is a form of belief. Then it becomes the effect of that belief upon thought and conduct. From that it evolves into some irreducible minimum of conformity, if we can only get hold of it. This being difficult, it gets to be a series of colorless platitudes. Such a definition calls up the image of a streamlet, now leaping over rocks and boulders, now meandering upon level ground, and finally losing itself in the marshes. The fitfulness and inconsistency of the formulation, the picking up of the different threads of thought without following out any one of them to its conclusion, are characteristic of this type of definitions. They are as devoid of vitality as a long drawn-out yawn, and their want of logic is exasperating. The merest tyro can see that one can profess the principles they embody without being a Jew. There are many sects that would heartily subscribe to all of them. Universalists, Deists, Theists, Unitarians, and even Ethical Culturists hold these doctrines. As matters stand at present, these sects engage more actively in spreading them than we do.

What is fundamentally wrong with the above definition and with the entire class of formulations of which it is an instance? The[210] tendency to mistake the shadow of a thing for the thing itself. The main cause for misapprehending the true character of Judaism is the proneness to regard it merely as a form of truth, or, at best, as the effect of a truth upon thought and conduct, and to overlook entirely the fact that it is a living reality, a very strand of the primal moving forces of the world. "Judaism is the truest form of truth," says one writer. "Judaism gives, to truth the most truthful shape," says another. Now and then they speak of it as a "form" of life, but it turns out to be only a lip service, or a homiletical phrase. They fail to follow up the clue which is more than once suggested to them by the difficulty of expounding Judaism as a form of truth. That being a Jew has always involved conforming to certain principles and modes of life is a truism. But these principles or observances by themselves constitute only the outward expression of Judaism. The mathematical formula which states the law of gravitation is not the same as the force of gravitation itself. It is conceivable that further experimentation might make it necessary to qualify the mathematical formula. But the force of gravitation will ever be the same as it has been. The change from looking upon Judaism as a form of truth to that of regarding it as of the very substance of reality calls for a complete transformation in our mode of thinking, or what has been termed "a psychological change of front." We must break completely with the habit of identifying the whole of the Jewish religion with merely certain beliefs and duties, while ignoring completely the living energy which has operated to produce them. They are only the static residue of something that is essentially dynamic.

THE change in attitude which is here advocated is not a departure from all that has gone before in Jewish life. If it were that, Judaism could not possibly survive under it. The fact is that we are only bringing to the fore and translating into modern phraseology an attitude that in one form or another has always asserted itself in Judaism. Simultaneously with the tendency to compress Judaism within certain formulas, there has always shown itself a strong aversion to gathering Judaism within creeds and minima of conformity. To-day that aversion, which has hitherto remained a matter of feeling and intuition, can make itself articulate by availing itself of the results of recent research in the fields of religion. It need no longer entertain the fear of being charged with spiritual anarchy. Discountenancing dogmas in Judaism is not synonymous with intellectual libertinism. It is rather a protest against shallowness and superficiality, much like the chagrin of the artist at having his knowledge of drawing praised and the soul of the picture missed.

[211] We can give in this connection a few cursory examples of the anti-summarizing tendency. The Torah itself, in one instance, seems to set out with a view of reducing Judaism to a minimum, but scarcely finds itself able to do so. "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, and to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of thy Lord and the statutes, which I command thee this day, for thine own good?" "Is this a small matter?" asks the Talmud, in evident surprise at the hugeness of the program. When the would-be proselyte came to Shammai and requested him to sum up the entire Torah in one principle, he received no better treatment than he deserved, when he was made to take to his heels. That Hillel did not rebuff him and gave him the principle, "What is hateful to thee do not do unto thy neighbor," proves that Hillel knew how to be patient and tactful, but not that the Talmud looks upon that summary, or any other, as expressive of the essence of Judaism. The same applies to religious practices, concerning which the Mishnah announces the maxim that it is not for us to estimate which are more important than others. We are told that the custom obtained at one time of having the Ten Commandments read as part of the daily service; but that as soon as it gave rise to the impression that the Ten Commandments were more essential than the rest of the Torah, it was discontinued. It is true that Philo reduces the teachings of Judaism to five essential doctrines, but that was because Judaism to Philo was Platonism divinely revealed.

THE movement to formulate the fundamental teachings of Judaism first gained headway at the beginning of the eleventh century with the Karaites, whose entire conception of Judaism was such as to render their sect hopelessly stagnant and doomed to dwindle. Still, even they would never have thought of emphasizing certain dogmas as indispensable, had they not discerned in the teachings of Mohammedanism a dangerous challenge to Judaism. Thus the dogma-making tendency in Judaism arose during the Middle Ages not as an indigenous product but as a retort to the dominant religions of the time. What might be called the application of the synoptic method to the Jewish religion remained confined mostly to the part of Jewry which came, directly or indirectly, under the influence of Aristotelian intellectualism.

To this trend Judah Ha-Levi (1085-1140) stands out as a notable exception. In him the disapproval of having Judaism subsumed under formulas of a philosophic stamp comes again to the surface. His being a poet even more than a philosopher enabled him to get a better insight[212] into the inwardness of Judaism than that obtained by the intellectualists with their analytic scalpels. This is apparent in his well-known "Al-Khazari." The story goes that the Khazar king, after consulting a philosopher, a Mohammedan, and a Christian as to what he should believe and do, finally turned to a Jewish rabbi. When the king asked him about the Jewish religion, the rabbi replied, "I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, who fed them in the desert, and gave them the land. . . . . Our belief is comprised in the Torah, a very large domain." Upon hearing this, the king grew indignant, and said to the rabbi, "Shouldst thou, O Jew, not have said that thou believest in the Creator of the world, its Governor and Guide, and in Him who created and keeps thee, and such attributes which serve as evidence for every believer?" But the rabbi persists in his mode of stating Judaism. He parries successfully the king's efforts to draw out of him some definition of Judaism in terms of speculative theology. The king in time becomes a convert to Judaism, and it is only then, according to Judah Ha-Levi, that he succeeds in getting the rabbi to teach him concerning the attributes of God, as if to imply that one has first to be a Jew before indulging in any abstract or philosophic study of Judaism. The keynote of Ha-Levi's thought is that the essence of Judaism is not merely to give assent to any general belief, but to belong to Israel and share in its experiences.

EVEN Maimonides (1135-1204), who is usually represented as the chief sponsor of the systematizing and speculative tendency in Judaism, is far from having attached as much significance to the Creed he formulated as the fact of its presence in the prayer book might indicate. He himself strongly deprecates attaching more importance to one part of the Torah than to another. "The Ten Commandments and the Shema in the Torah," he says in the very same chapter of his commentary on the Mishnah which contains the Creed, "are no holier than any of the genealogies that are found in it." Albo (1380-1444) reduces the essence of Judaism to three, yet inconsistently declares that he who denies other articles of faith which are of minor importance is no less a heretic than he who denies any of the essential ones. In fact, he admits that there are as many articles of faith as commandments in the Torah.

Abravanel (1437-1508), though an admirer of scholasticism, and practically the last of the line of Jewish Aristotelians, considers the thirteen Articles of Maimonides' Creed gratuitous, and as not representative of the maturer views of Maimonides. His opinion is that they properly belonged to the commentary on the Mishnah, which was the work of his youth; and that as he ripened intellectually, he changed his mind[213] about their value. We miss them in the Code and in the "Guide to the Perplexed," where we should most of all have expected to find them. In the same connection, Abravanel adds that the fashion of laying down creeds as fundamental in Judaism owes its origin to the method employed in the secular studies which always started with certain indisputable axioms.

The same resistance to the effort to extract Judaism from a few source principles is encountered in Jewish mysticism. Whatever we may think of the particular form which mysticism took on in the Jewish religion, we cannot but regard it as the outbreak of a longing that forms a part of all vital religion. We have good reason, therefore, to treat with respect its opinion of the intellectualizing process of Jewish philosophy. Although it was also addicted to speculative categories and developed a theosophy instead of a theology, it approached Judaism from an entirely different angle. Being impressionistic in its trend, it was bound to look elsewhere than to abstract concepts for the core of Judaism. To put Judaism into the form of a creed appeared to the mystics like combining pure gold with a baser metal, in order to mint it for circulation.

IN modern times the anti-dogmatizing tendency found a vigorous exponent in Mendelssohn. Yet, somehow or other, he has been singled out for attack, as though he had advocated a dry formalism, unredeemed by any inner principle or inspiration. He is charged with having been under the influence of the shallow deism of the English philosophers. The truth is that Mendelssohn only repeats in his way what Judah Ha-Levi had taught before him. He distinctly emphasizes the belief in the existence of God, in providence and in retribution as the sine qua non of Judaism, but he is clear-minded enough to realize that they constitute what he calls "the universal religion of mankind," and not Judaism.

Mendelssohn did not succeed in developing a constructive view of Judaism, whereby it might be enabled to withstand the shock of modernism; nevertheless, he does not deserve the treatment accorded him because of his alleged attitude towards creeds. His position as to the relation of creeds to Judaism is the only tenable one. He maintains that creeds can only be of two kinds; either they oppose reason, and should therefore find no place in Judaism, or are so self-evident that they are not confined to Judaism. This does not mean that to be a Jew one can believe whatever he likes, or not believe at all. It does not mean that Judaism only demands outward conformity. Mendelssohn was aware that certain "Hobot ha-Lebabot," Duties of the Heart, are indispensable to Judaism. But he refused to make of Judaism a mutilated philosophy.[214]

NO sphere of life can be maintained intelligently without some basic principles, particularly so exalted a sphere as religion. Who counts upon any art attaining a high degree of development by mere rule of thumb? Is anything so characteristic of modern life as emphasis upon the mutual interrelation of theory and practice? All our strivings to rehabilitate Judaism are bound to prove futile unless they are made to center about some definite conception of its aims and methods. We need principles, yea dogmas, in Judaism as we need working hypotheses in any great undertaking. But dogmas, in the sense of abstract principles, regarded as immutable, are both superfluous and dangerous. If such dogmas are nothing more than the common denominator of all that has been identified with Judaism in the course of its history, they are sure to be banal and colorless. If they are to be fixed and unalterable, they are bound in time to clash with reason and experience, and to sap the religion of its vitality. Judaism needs principles that can help it to withstand danger, that can give it a lease upon life. This is the criterion to be applied to any articulate conception of Judaism. Can the principles which the text-books on Judaism declare to be fundamental render this service? The reply is an unequivocal No. Hence they are worse than useless.

But we cannot afford to stop at this point. Knowing what Judaism is not, is only half-knowledge, and therefore quite dangerous. We must apply ourselves anew to the task of pondering over the problem of Judaism. We may indulge to our heart's content in lauding the past when one could be a Jew without troubling his head about the question, "What is Judaism?" We may sigh in regret for those days when a Jew upon being asked about his religion was able to reply, "I have no religion; I am a Jew." The danger of the entire economy of the Jewish soul going to pieces is too imminent to permit us to lull ourselves into that blissful unconsciousness, the praises of which Carlyle sang quite consciously. We are treading the narrow ledge of a precipice. Men like Zollschan, Ruppin, and Theilhaber have pointed out the awful chasm that threatens to engulf us. It requires not a little courage to maintain our nerve and avoid being seized with the vertigo. But courage alone is not enough. We must take into account the narrowness of the path and tread over it warily.

WE Jews must do some very hard thinking, of a kind, perhaps, that we have not been called upon to do before. That task dare not be shirked. We must not give in to that tendency which breaks out whenever we have something very difficult to do, of turning to anything except that[215] which we know demands peremptory attention. A task that is thus neglected revenges itself by haunting us and upsetting whatever we undertake. Instead of giving to the problem of Judaism the careful deliberation that it requires, we get busy with a thousand and one things, whereby we hope to escape the need of concentrated attention. We have become fussy and fidgety. We are divided into committees and sub-committees. In place of clearness of thought we have a confusion of tongues. Our case illustrates the truth which Pascal enunciated, that most of the evils in the world can be traced to the inability of a person to sit in his room and think.

Without deprecating any of the undertakings to bring order out of the social chaos in Jewish life, we must place at the present time chief emphasis upon the serious consideration of our inner problem, the problem of the Jewish soul and of the Jewish spirit, the problem of Judaism. We may well envy the thousands of soldiers on the battlefields of Europe to whom it is a joy to meet death for the sake of their respective flags. Each of them has a cause to die for. Most of us, by reason of our Jewish descent, find life, particularly in the higher sense of the word, to be a keener struggle for existence than our neighbors do. Yet it would not be half so wearing if our difficulties were consecrated by an inspiring cause or by a thrilling loyalty. Why need we be poverty-stricken in spirit, bereft of everything that makes struggle sweet and suffering endurable? We must put the very question, What is Judaism? in a new way and in a different spirit. We must have the definite purpose in mind, of so understanding it as to know what to do next, and to strive for that vigorously, so as not to drift like helpless flotsam and jetsam. We need strong beliefs which, as Bagehot puts it, win strong men, and then make them stronger.

IN the Talmud we find the principle enunciated that the Torah adopted the style of language that men were wont to use. A condition indispensable to a religion being an active force in human life is that it speak to men in terms of their own experience. Judaism, to be significant to modern man or woman, can no longer afford to speak in the language of theology. Psychology and social science, history and human experience, have revealed new worlds in the domain of the spirit. The language of theology might have a certain quaintness and charm to the ears of those to whom religion is a kind of dreamy romanticism. But to those who want to find in Judaism a way of life and a higher ambition, it must address itself in the language of concrete and verifiable experience.

The ideas in which Judaism was wont to spell itself out in the past are no longer at home in the Weltanschauung of the modern man. What[216] prevented the Reform movement from becoming a real reformation and a vitalization of Judaism was that it sought to adjust Judaism to a Weltanschauung which had already begun to grow obsolete. We have to reckon with all that has been learned in the meantime concerning human society and the place of religion in it. When one comes to a strange land, and has with him only the coin of his native country, he must calculate in terms of the currency of the land he is in, if he wants to know whether or not he has enough to live on. Can we Jews afford to live spiritually upon our heritage? That can only be answered if we learn what that heritage is equivalent to in the current mental coin of the modern man. If we do not wish to be cut off from the stream of living thought, if we do not want to be spiritually starved, we Jews must know not so much what Judaism meant twenty centuries ago, nor even a century ago, but what it is to mean to us of today.

The Jewish Student in Our Universities

A Menorah Prize Essay

By Morris J. Escoll

THE remarkable adaptability of the Jew to his environment has been at once his strength and his weakness. His strength, in that it provided a variable cloak to shelter him in storm on the one hand,—on the other, to deck him seasonably, as it were, for the onward journey, when days were fair; his weakness, in that it has often led him to forget that the cloak was but raiment;—"and is not the body more than raiment?" Of strength in storm we have had example enough for twenty centuries—such example as is unique in history; of what is more rare, strength in days of fair weather, we are to expect a supreme example today, and in America, in the American Universities let us say, where the cloak of adaptability is most free and seasonable—a supreme example of strength, or of weakness.

ONE is at first reluctant to single out the Jew from his fellows at college. He seems in no manner different from them. He studies with them, eats with them, plays ball with them. He writes editorials for the college paper; he competes in the oratorical contests. One, for example, is a member of the school orchestra; another, perhaps the son or the grandson of an immigrant from Germany, leads the cheers at the track meet; another, himself an immigrant from Russia, plays on the chess team and is one of the brilliant scholars in his class. This last does, at present, have something of the stranger about him, but before long, no doubt, his speech will have become more smooth, his trousers will have begun to show a crease; he will have become quite an interesting and regular figure at the various reform and ethical club meetings at the university, and he will begin to be seen quite[218] frequently in the company of his gentile classmates—even in the company of his German-Jewish cousin. Wonderful, indeed, the country that can so readily attire its adopted children, and, as the saying goes, make them feel at home; wonderful, perhaps, the race that, through centuries of degradation, has kept alive, though often latent indeed, the potentialities of equal partnership with the most enlightened peoples of a twentieth century civilization.

What though it has no long past, America is the great land of the future. Here let the Jew lay aside his burden of the time that has gone and build anew into the time to come. Shall we regret, then, that the Jewish student has taken on the polite address, the proud carriage, the heartiness and the chuckle of his Yankee comrade? Should he now keep the gabardine of his forefathers, yes, and the credulities and ceremonies of a circumscribed and persecuted people? Why not absorb that wholesome ruddiness, denied him so long, that breathes of open American prairies, fair play, and the Declaration of Independence?

"FOXES have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head." Of whom did the great prophet speak more fittingly than of the children of his own race? Homeless for two thousand years, persecuted, ostracized, their backs have become bent and in the eyes of many they have become a nation of religious fanatics and usurers, wily, unkempt. The Jewish youth of to-day cannot look back upon his history of exile and say, as did Æneas of old after seven long years of wandering: "It will be pleasant to remember"—"forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit"; his trials have been but too real and he has not recovered sufficiently to have any desire to recall them. Blame him not then, if, when others from obscure and semi-civilized quarters of the globe hail with pride their ancestry, he alone, with the proudest traditions in history, will sometimes seek to hide his descent. He still feels, moreover, some of the old "wiliness" and "unkemptness" within himself; he thinks they are of the Jews and of none others—and he wants to get rid of them. He still feels some of the old usury in his bones, the clannishness, the distrust of the world, which the squalid ghetto walls the Middle Ages had built around his fathers have bequeathed to him, and he wants to get rid of those. Shall we look askance at him then, if when the American University welcomes him to her hearth—Ithaca, for example, with her kindly professors and laughing girl students, her ball games, her neat cottages and rolling hills that drink Cayuga's stream beside—in the excess of eagerness he should sometimes break with, yes, even forget his past, and dream new things? (Hills, cottages, home and country; superfluous concepts were[219] these to other men, elementary satisfactions which they are born into and take for granted as their inevitable heritage.) Eagerly, therefore, greedily, perhaps, he sees new things; the goal of twenty centuries of wandering stands revealed before him. The Irish have found a home in America, the Germans, the Italians, the Poles, and why not the neediest of all, the Jews? The American University typifies the ideals of the great democracy where "race, creed and previous conditions" are forgotten. Here all men forget their prejudices. All men become brothers.

BUT hold, have we not been expressing a wish rather than a fact? We look into our own hearts, and strife and jealousy and racial antagonism are still there. Can we expect that man who has but lately begun to think of brotherhood can already feel it in his blood; that the age-long superstition against the Jew can be obliterated with a new geographical boundary—though that boundary be indeed serene as the all-washing, all-embracing Atlantic? Oh, that "reality does not correspond to our conceptions," exclaims Wilhelm Meister.

For centuries the Jews had a respected and comfortable home in Spain, but then came the fearful Inquisition, and the ninth day of Ab 1492 saw 300,000 of them exiled out of the country they had helped grow to culture and wealth. There was the Declaration of the Rights of Man during the French Revolution, but then came the Dreyfus affair a century later. There was science and enlightenment in United Germany, but never was anti-Semitism more pronounced, more scientific than there between 1875 and '80. In 1881 the May Laws were passed in Russia. In 1882 there was a ritual murder trial in Hungary. Our statutes and sciences, after all, are but ways and means, improved ways and means, to what?—often to unimproved ends, it seems. Our learning and knowledge are what?—but channels to educate, to lead out (e-duco) the noble qualities in man? yes; perhaps also his jealousies and hatreds. And thus there comes a time of doubt. The courtesies and learning of this university life, reflects the Jewish student, perhaps but cover up these jealousies and hatreds, make them more polite, and all the more painful therefore. However much he will not, he sees cliques and denominational clubs all about him: Catholic clubs, Lutheran clubs, Jewish clubs; in the lecture room the gentiles form their groups and the Jews form theirs; in the election of class officers the Jews have been slighted; at the class dinner a Jew was insulted; one fellow was refused accommodations at a student rooming-house because he was a Jew; and the sensitive young man begins to feel as though there were but two divisions of people at the University after all: Jews and everybody else.[220]

BUT it is unfair and ungrateful to speak thus of the American University. All superstition and prejudice may not have disappeared here; enough it is that they tend to disappear so rapidly. But what of the large country outside the university? What of the growing Jewries in our cities? What of the Jew in the little hamlet carrying his pack of tinware from door to door; he is so eager to earn an honest dollar for a wife, a daughter, perhaps for a son at college; so eager to find him a home like that of the earlier non-Jewish immigrants who buy his wares; yet why must he overstrain his virtues before them, break through the ice, as the saying goes, and clear himself—why? for being a Jew. Evidently, others are taken as good until they prove themselves bad; the Jew is bad until he proves himself good. Should some other Jewish trader come to the same locality and commit some wrong, overcharge a shilling on the price of a kettle, for example, the first Jew must be made to feel ashamed of it, for it was not the other man who did the wrong, but the "Jew in him." Evidently, again, the Jewish problem is not of the individual, but of the race. Must the Wandering Jew bear a perennial burden?

But even if this problem were solved (it is possible for all the Jews in America to be in time regarded on equal terms with their neighbors or even to be assimilated altogether with them), what of the Jews in Russia, in Roumania, in Galicia? How long must we wait for them to assimilate or to become free and equal sons of a fatherland? Surely we shall not suggest that it is well for them to continue forever an alien people in those lands. And even if this problem too were solved, if the Jews of Russia, Roumania, and Galicia were to become free and equal sons of a fatherland, if the Jews all over the world were to be taken in as brothers by their neighbors, is it enough? Are we to be satisfied with this alone? "Hills, cottages, home and country"—is not all this but raiment? What of the body, what of the Jewish soul?

WITH his problems thus put, how shall the Jewish youth face them? Shall he consider body and raiment equally, shall he put body above raiment, or shall he put raiment above body and forget the body? To put it crudely into other words, shall his ready adaptation to American University life tend to make him less of a Jew, more of a Jew, or no Jew at all, and thus tending, to repeat our original thought, wherein will it be for weakness, wherein for strength? Each Jewish student, no doubt, in varying measure, responds to all three of these tendencies; yet, insofar as the response towards one or another of these is more marked in certain individuals[221] than in others, let us group the individuals together accordingly, and for the convenience of our discussion divide them into three separate types.

The no-Jew type is common on the campus. His presence pleases us, perhaps even flatters us. He is carefree, boyish. He makes heroes of the gridiron athletes; he delights in the comedy shows that come to town; he joins his non-Jewish friends in outdoor play in that easy laughter of theirs that bubbles over at a trifle;—and we were beginning to think the Jew had forgotten to play and laugh. We saw him after sundown once, single in a canoe, paddling across the wide unruffled lake and far where purple sky and purple water seem to commingle, and we thought we saw the primitive Indian again, the wholesome child of nature plying those waters as of old. Sail on, brave youth, we are glad to see thee still a lover of the wild, the simple, the calm; we are glad there is still in the Jew something of the wholesome child, the adventurer, the savage, shall we call it? We are almost tempted to say we are glad to have him forget his past, to sail thus away, as it were, from his troubled brethren, away across the unruffled lake where purple wave and purple cloud in peace commingle,—so long have we waited for the mind of the Jewish youth to be youthful, for the moist gleam in the eye of a sorrowful children to disappear.

BUT not always is this drifting out of Jewish life so comely. There is another individual in this type in whom it appears very much strained. The first merges within the American tradition, the second obtrudes into it; the first unconsciously, the second painfully aware of his effort; the first because he has so much of the tradition within him, the second, we are afraid, because he has so little. The second individual is generally of more recent arrival to this country than the first; he considers his Jewishness a misfortune which must be gotten rid of. Both are, indeed, self-centred, unmindful of their people, but the first is more boyish—and a boy should be self-centred. Both put the raiment above the body, and in this there is weakness; but in the first there is not much of body, the roots of Jewish growth have found no depth or proper sap in him, and if in him there is not strength of body, there is at least grace of raiment; in the second there is neither grace nor strength,—he may acquire the superstructure of American character, but where the foundation to build it on? Where is there strength when it is ever a getting and never a giving?

Judaism weighs most heavily upon this latter individual. He will often deny his race, we regret to say, and play for the affection of members of other races. But they somehow will discover his "misfortune" and despise him all the more for hiding it. All this prejudice, he explains,[222] is due to "those other Jews." If they would only learn modesty from the gentile,—not talk so, not walk so, and not keep hanging around the professor's desk after the lecture with all sorts of fool questions,—why then, there would be no more of "this prejudice thing" and he could devote his time to more important problems. (We half suspect those problems would be superficial ones. We would also perhaps give more heed to his urging us to modesty, if only the urging were more modest.) He may even become eloquent and tell us that the Jews do not appreciate the generosities and liberties of American life, that they ought to forget their old religious superstitions and realize that in free America we don't need any religions, for all men are brothers. (Here again we would perhaps give more heed to his sentiment for its boundless idealism, were we not afraid it was but a cover for boundless egotism.)

And which brotherly organization, which fraternity do you belong to up here? We ask, not to criticize those boyish aristocracies but rather to embarrass him, we confess, for we know he must name a Jewish fraternity or none at all. The other fraternities are indeed fraternal—but not to Jews, not even to those who would get away from Judaism. We speak without malice of this individual; we regret only that he gets so little out of the great American tradition. The raiment becomes him badly. Speaking in slang and following the baseball scores does not make an American. If he sells his birthright let it be for something more than a mess of pottage. Even if he should succeed in assimilating himself with the other races, whether it be by the accumulation of wealth or baptism or successful denial of his origin, yet we doubt whether he can become really happy—for he is neither fish nor flesh nor fowl. Again, what can he receive when he has nothing to give? And thus we must leave him, perhaps even now laughing in the company of his non-Jewish acquaintances at some caricature of the Jew presented for their entertainment—that is of one of "those other Jews"—a type for which we are sorry, a coin that is spurious and does not ring true.

OUR second type considers body and raiment as of equal weight; he will make them as one. He will become less of a Jew and more of an American, a better American for being a Jew. Unlike the first type, he sees a little beyond himself. Americanism is good enough for him, but there are other Jews not in America, he realizes, and there are Jews within America who have not reached, perhaps never can reach, his position of comfortable participation in American life, and what of them? There may be more pressing, more important problems in the world, but who else will solve that particular one of the Jew if he doesn't? He therefore will not[223] run away from Judaism; he will try to modify it, of course, to fit in with American progress, but, for the sake of his people, he will stay a Jew, or better an American of Jewish ancestry. This type is the son of the big-hearted givers among Israel. His father subscribes generously to charitable organizations, is a member of a Reform Temple, and owes much indeed to the opportunities of the American republic. The son, therefore, is an American patriot, and what though it seem at times overtaxed, his patriotism, unlike that of the individual under our first type, is genuine, for it is not primarily self-seeking. When he speaks of ideals, it is not to say we have no need of religions at all, but rather that we all in America have more or less the same belief only that we choose to express it differently, each according to his ancestral traditions. The three rings, says Nathan der Weise, may all be true or all be false according to the conduct of those that wear them. "But are there no peculiar values of conduct," we ask him, "bequeathed by the peculiar traditions of the Jew?" "Yes," he answers, "but those values may now be found in the cosmopolitan civilization of America." "We are getting away from peculiar things," he further adds; "we must learn to break down barriers and distinctions and work all together, not as Jews or Americans or anything else, but simply as men. Our only problem is to get the Jews treated everywhere as men." "But aside from that," we go on to ask, "isn't there a something that binds together certain groups of people that have had a common history, a common religion or any such thing in common?" "Yes," he replies, "but that something is the common intellect. The accident of birth does not make us friends; though I must help the Jew in far-off Russia, yet I am more closely identified with my Anglo-Saxon classmate. For me to co-operate with the Jew simply because he is a Jew is as logical as for me to co-operate with a man simply because he has the same shade of brown hair that I have." Words that command our thought—but yet it seems to us the speaker feels better than he knows. Why then did his heart quicken when one Friday night we passed the window of that Galician Jew, the erstwhile butt of many a jest between us, our college second-hand clothes man, and saw the flicker of his Sabbath candles? No flicker within the home of a brown-haired man would move him so. And even while he is speaking to us, though the length of our acquaintanceship is short, we detect an unwonted relaxation in his manner, a confidence that has found understanding and seeks to lay itself bare. Is it not because both of us are Jews?

Be that as it may, the words of this type are sincere. If he forgets his ancestry it is because he thinks of posterity. By blending his thoughts and aspirations with those of free and generous America, he will bequeath to his children a happier heritage than was left him by his forefathers. As for ideals, why call them Jewish rather than American; what though[224] they originated in Judea, cannot they be distributed from America? His Zion therefore will be in Washington. The Jewish soul and the American soul will become as one. He does not deny the soul, then—the raiment has not been put above the body, the flesh above the spirit; and the adaptation of this type to the American environment can therefore make for strength, for a better humanity.

WHAT room have we now for a third type? But there does appear one among his brethren, an extremist, who is not to be satisfied with the promised strength of his fellows of this last type. There may be strength among them, he thinks, but strength not enough. Greater strength is there in becoming not a non-Jew, nor less of a Jew, but simply more of a Jew. Judaism to him is not a mere peculiar thing, but a peculiar great thing, and only by keeping it peculiar can he enhance its greatness. The Jewish genius cannot blend with that of America without loss to its individuality; however much it may borrow from America in outer accoutrement, in "wholesome ruddiness," "fair play," "polite address," and so forth—(and it should borrow what it can to improve its appearance), yet the accoutrement must remain but raiment,—and the body is more than raiment. Apparently he is a very narrow-minded person—and he is; yet he believes with Ahad Ha-'Am that "greatness is not a matter of breadth only, but of depth."

We have found this extremist in the dark-eyed dreamer who came to us but recently from a Russian university, but also in the glad-eyed youth who wears his Americanism most gracefully, it being handed down to him for several generations. Judaism in this case, at any rate, to use a homely expression, does not vary with the length of the nose. This type is small in numbers, but the Jews have never made much of numbers, and even as we observe him we are minded of the words of Joel, "—and in the remnant shall be deliverance." Does he shun the American garment then? No, on the contrary, he evermore seeks it and strives to make it attire him more gracefully. He loves the American tradition; he has much to gather from its sunniness—his fathers had been kept in the dark so long. But, at the breaking of day, when the angel who wrestled with him through the night would let him go, he will say, as did Jacob of old, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me"; America must bless him so that in the light of modern day his people may once again be called "no more Jacob but Israel."

"Many and great are the gifts of the gentile world," he tells us, "but that peculiar greatness within the character of the Jews as a people, it has not. Some have called it religion, some morality; perhaps it is the[225] devotion they have evolved to the unity of things, the אחד חוחי; perhaps it is only a certain sadness of suffering, a certain depth of sympathy they have evolved for all suffering and sorrow, but at any rate it is a racial momentum which our ancestors for four thousand years have been forging and refining in the hottest fires;" and whether it be conceit or inspiration, he adds, "and think not that we, to-day, in the comfortable lassitude of American life, can destroy it." The spirit is greater than the man; the Jew may be lost or be assimilated, but the Jewish race, not yet.

"BUT consider," we say very plainly to him, "the great bulk of the Jews who seem to have lost that old spirit of religion; they pray in a language they scarce understand as though 'they shall be heard for their much speaking'; when you want the Hebrew Bible, moreover, it seems you must go to the gentiles, and have not these added thereto the sublime teachings of Christ?"

"Yes," replies our Jewish friend, with more of grief than of censure in his voice, "and to-day the Christian world is awarding the Iron Cross for excellence in killing. And our people it has made to loathe the name of Christ, because it was his image that was in the hand of the priest who led the mob to massacre at the Inquisition and at Kishineff; though all the time it was that very persecuted people that was itself living the principles and the martyrdom of its greatest prophet." And he continues, and tells us brusquely how he went once to church with a Methodist young lady and how when he was rapt in the music of a Psalm that was being sung, she whispered giddily to him: "Don't that remind you somewhat of the one-step music?" "No," he tells us he replied, "it reminds me that I am the only Christian in this audience."

And we understand in his reply he was not thinking of himself alone (for extremist though he was, he must have known there was many another devout listener in that audience) but rather of his race, of those very Jews of the bended backs, "wily, unkempt," who were elsewhere chanting that same Psalm in a language, 'tis true, they scarce understood, yet with a spiritual zeal and forgetfulness of the "treasures upon earth" which was the very soul of the teachings of Christ. Could his Methodist friend, could even he, with all his university training and American ruddiness, but have the noble spirit of his unlettered grandmother he remembered weeping so bitterly in the old synagogue on Yom Kippur, as though weeping for the sins of all humanity,—Rachel weeping for her children. No, it was not the religion put on and off with the phylacteries that distinguished his fathers; it was never the raiment, but the body. Even in the darkness of the Middle Ages it was the Malkuth Shaddai, the kingdom of righteousness, that the old Jew prayed for on his sacred days.[226]

Narrow-minded, indeed, is this last type of Jew; but yet when rays are concentrated to a narrow radius, the outlook through the lens may be wide and far-reaching. We understand that he, too, thinks of posterity as does his cousin, but only as mistress within its own household does he believe the Jewish race can bequeath great strength to its posterity and the posterity of the world,—not as intruder into the home of others, nor even as their welcome guest. The Bible was the work of a narrow, provincial Israel; the Talmud their work when scattered among the nations.

"WE have made too much," concludes our young friend, "of the cosmopolitan likenesses among nations and men; we must promote their differences, and respect for those differences. That is in the path of peace; it is war, as you know, that levels distinctions. The harmony of an autumn sunset is in its many colors. Our own little handful of people does not wish to make itself great in possessions or strong in arms. We have ever been the meekest among men; while many a Christian nation was taking an eye for an eve, it is we that were turning the other cheek. Yes, we think we have outgrown that boyish fascination for brutal brawn a little more than they. Today, Israel wishes but to express its pent-up soul, to make strong the spirit of its prophets and teachers, its Moses, its Isaiah, its Hillel, so that it may be 'for a light to the Gentiles, (and bear) salvation unto the end of the earth.'"

The Romance of Rabbi Akiba

By George J. Horowitz

AKIBA ben Joseph, deservedly called the father of Rabbinical Judaism, was one of the most original and the most talented of all the great galaxy of ancient Rabbis. In him was typified the great ideal of a Jewish Rabbi—a man of heart, of hand, and of head. But Akiba is still more remarkable for the charm and romance of his life. He is indeed the one Rabbi with a great romance. The story of his life, stripped of all exaggeration or literary artifice, reads more like a tale of "knight and lady" than like the simple facts of a scholar's life. His great love, his sudden rise from the humblest obscurity, his brilliant intellectual and spiritual achievements, and his glorious death, make up the successive scenes of one of the most inspiring chapters in Jewish history.

AKIBA was born about the year 50, at a time when the Roman Empire at its height was about to turn all its mighty forces against his people, the little state of Judea; and he died a martyr to his faith, in about the year 132, on the eve of the last great rebellion against Roman domination. His origin and early years are shrouded in darkness. We know that he was an unlettered shepherd in his youth and mistrustful of Rabbis and their learning. His master, Kalba Sabua—so the story goes—was one of the richest men in Jerusalem, one of the three wealthy philanthropists who offered to prevent the famine occasioned by the last great siege of Jerusalem.

While in the service of Kalba Sabua, young Akiba made the acquaintance of his daughter Rachel. They were immediately drawn to one another, he attracted by her great beauty, and she by his innate refinement and superiority. A deep attachment soon sprang up between them. Akiba was still an illiterate man, however, and Rachel made him promise that if she[228] were betrothed unto him he would go to the Beth Hamidrash to study. In those days this was equivalent to acquiring education and culture. To this Akiba assented and there followed a secret marriage. When her father learned of what she had done, he became furious. He disinherited her, and cast her off, leaving her without a roof over her head and absolutely penniless, and he swore that as long as Akiba remained her husband she would receive no help from her father. Then set in a period of bitter poverty for the young pair. Akiba's heart was rent with pain to see his young wife, who had been accustomed from earliest youth to a home of luxury, pass her days in a miserable hovel, with the barest necessities and sometimes even lacking bread to eat. In winter they slept on a pallet and Akiba would pick the straws out of her wonderfully long and beautiful hair. She was beautiful even in her rags and tatters, and once Akiba was moved to exclaim: "Oh, that I had a fitting ornament for thee: a golden image of Jerusalem the Holy City!" Both indeed were nearest his heart. Once a man came to the door of their hut and asked for some straw, saying that his wife was confined to child-bed and he had no couch for her. "Ah, see," said Akiba to his wife, "there are those even poorer than we. This man has not even straw to lie on." This seeming poor man, the Rabbis say, was none other than Elijah, who had come to comfort them in their misery.

THE incident did indeed give them new heart, for until then Akiba could not summon enough resolution to go off and study while his wife remained behind in such abject circumstances. Nor could she insist. But now her old strength came back to her, and she reminded Akiba of his promise: "Go thou, and study in the Beth-Hamidrash." She must have felt undoubtedly that there were great possibilities in him, and in truth she was not mistaken. Akiba, however, in his modesty, had no confidence that he could master the intricate subtleties of Rabbinic law. How could he, who had now reached forty years of age without once attending even an elementary school, hope to make any progress at all so late in life? One day, musing thus, as he stood by the village well, his interest was suddenly roused by observing that one of the stones had a deep hollow, caused probably by the drippings of the buckets. "Who hollowed out this stone?" he asked; and he was answered: "Canst thou not read Scripture, Akiba? 'The waters wear the stones,'—the water, that falls on it continually day after day, has hollowed out the stone." Immediately Akiba argued a fortiori (Kal Vahomer) with respect to himself. "If what is soft can cut what is hard, then the words of the Torah, which are as hard as iron, will surely impress themselves upon my heart, which is only flesh and blood." So Akiba repaired forthwith to a Melammed Tinokoth, a teacher of children,[229] and, seated beside his own little son, he began learning his letters. Akiba held one end of the A. B. C. board and his son the other.

The elements once mastered, the next step was the Rabbinical academy. Bitter poverty, however, would not permit Akiba to leave home, and he would probably have remained in his little village for the rest of his life, an obscure and unknown man, if it were not for his wife. It was her noble self-sacrifice that enabled him to become the greatest Rabbi of his time and perhaps of all time. Unknown to him, she stole out into the market-place and sold all that beautiful hair of hers, so that he might continue his studies. Indeed no sacrifice, no self-abnegation, was too great for her. She sent Akiba away and for twelve long years dwelt alone in sorrow and in want, a "living widow," and at the end of that period she crowned it with a renewal of the same great sacrifice. As Akiba was crossing the threshold, home again after twelve years of study, he overheard Rachel talking with a neighbor. "It served thee right," said the neighbor, "for marrying a man so far beneath thee. Now he has gone off and forsaken thee." "If he hearkened to me," was Rachel's reply, "he would stay away another twelve years." At these words Akiba exclaimed: "Since she gives me permission, I will go back to my studies,"—and he went and stayed away another twelve years. Such was the noble renunciation of Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiba, for his sake and for the sake of the Torah.

AKIBA studied assiduously at the schools of R. Nahum of Geniso and of R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, both renowned teachers, who in their youth had been favorite pupils of Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai. It is illuminating to consider Akiba's general method of study. He had the habit, the Talmud tells us, of going alone to meditate over every Halakah (law) that he learned. After this bit of hard thinking, as we would call it, he usually came back with some very difficult questions. Only when these questions were answered did he feel satisfied that he knew the Halakah. That this thorough method of study bore fruitful results Akiba's subsequent achievements showed. At first, however, his genius was not evident and R. Eliezer paid no attention to him. But one day Akiba gave him his first answer and R. Eliezer was astounded at its profundity. Said R. Joshua then to R. Eliezer, in a slightly modified Scriptural phrase, "Is not this he whom thou hast despised? Go thou now and contend with him." From that time on Akiba was acknowledged a master of Rabbinic law.

All that confused mass of traditional rules, precepts, laws, discussions and opinions which composed the Oral Law, and which it usually took a lifetime to master, Akiba made his own within the space of a few years, and at an age when the mind is no longer fresh and impressionable. Akiba's genius[230] showed itself even more brilliantly in his subsequent labors in the same field, which were marked by three great achievements. These were his arrangement of the Oral Law into a systematic code, the Mishnah (substantially as later edited by R. Judah Ha-Nasi), his establishment of a logical foundation for each Halakah, and his discovery and formulation of new and original methods of hermeneutics and exegesis. To appreciate the magnitude of these achievements, we must remember that up to and for some time after Akiba's day, instruction in the rabbinical academies was oral. Each teacher taught, as well as he could recall, exactly what he had heard from the lips of his master, and his pupils in their turn did likewise. Every great Rabbi therefore had his own set of Halakic traditions, his own Mishnah.

The results of this system or rather lack of system were mainly two: the reasons for many of the Halakoth were forgotten, and of the laws that were taught an immense number were uncoordinated, confused and often contradictory. The greatest fault, however, of these early Mishnayoth (Mishnayoth Rishonoth) was their general lack of arrangement. The Halakoth were usually strung together without connection and without any logical grouping. It was Akiba who first organized them into an orderly system. He put all the Halakoth dealing with one particular subject in one group, and then he divided the groups into the six general divisions that our Mishnah has today. Besides this he introduced number mneumonics wherever possible, in order to facilitate memorization. The second work that we owe to Akiba's influence is the Tosephta or Supplement to the Mishnah, as later edited by his pupil R. Nehemiah. Akiba's purpose in this Supplement was to give explanatory matter on the Halakoth of the Mishnah in the form of citations of cases, discussions, and opinions. Here there was more room for originality than in the first work, for when the reason for any law had been forgotten Akiba discovered it again.

THE achievement, however, in which Akiba's mind revealed itself in all its brilliant originality, and which more than anything else delighted and astonished his colleagues, was his new system of Biblical, or rather Pentateuchal, interpretation, his Midrash ha-Torah. The importance of these new methods cannot be overestimated. The Oral Law is nothing more than the Jewish interpretation of the Torah, and consequently new methods of Pentateuchal exegesis meant the further growth and development of the Oral Law. Akiba thus gave Judaism the capacity for vigorous further development. He was indeed a firm believer in the principle that the Oral Law, even as life itself, is always in process of evolution—"immer in Werden," as the Germans put it—but never completed. His main exegetical[231] principle is quite simple. The language of the Torah is not like the language of an ordinary book. In the Torah every syllable, every letter is fraught with meaning. It is all essence. Hence every detail in the Torah must be interpreted. There is absolutely nothing superfluous. It was these exegetical methods that excited the unbounded admiration of his fellow-rabbis. They said of him that things that were not even revealed to Moses were revealed unto Akiba. By his preservation of the old Halakoth in the Mishnah and by his stimulation of newer developments with his exegesis, Akiba laid the foundations of Talmudic and Rabbinic learning, and truly earned for himself the title of third founder of Judaism after Moses and Ezra.

Akiba's method of teaching also was extraordinary. The order and system that he had brought into the Rabbinic curriculum coupled with his novel methods of exegesis rendered his lectures clear, simple and most interesting. Multitudes flocked to hear him. With hardly an exception all the prominent Rabbis of the following generation attended Akiba's academy. Notable amongst them was R. Meir, who handed down Akiba's Mishnah to R. Judah Ha-Nasi and through him to posterity.

TOWARDS the end of the twenty-four years thus devoted to study, Akiba turned his steps homewards, accompanied by a large band of disciples, which tradition numbers in the thousands. At the rumor that a great Rabbi was coming, Rachel's heart was all aflutter with hope and expectation. Perhaps it was he at last! The whole village went out to meet him, she with the rest. When she saw that it was indeed he, she fell on her knees before him sobbing and began kissing his feet. The pupils surrounding Akiba wanted to push her aside, but he said, "Let her be. What knowledge I possess and what knowledge you possess belongs to her." When Kalba Sabua heard that a great Rabbi had come to town, not dreaming that it was his son-in-law, he made up his mind to go to him and have his vow absolved, for at the sight of his daughter's misery his heart had softened, and but for his vow he would long since have taken her back. He came to the Rabbi and the Rabbi said to him, "If thou hadst known that her husband would one day be a great scholar, wouldst thou have vowed?" "If he knew even one chapter or even one Halakah, I would not have vowed," was the reply. "I am he," said Akiba simply. At these words Kalba Sabua stared in amazement, and then fell at his feet and begged pardon for all his past unkindness towards both Akiba and Rachel. To make more substantial amends he gave them half his fortune and they lived in comfort ever after. The affluence in which Akiba henceforth lived, contrasted with the poverty of his student days when he used to cut wood for[232] a living, is thus quaintly described in the Talmud: "When he was a student Akiba used to fetch a bundle of wood every day. Half he sold for food and half for clothing. But before Akiba departed from this world, he had tables of silver and of gold, and he climbed into his bed on golden ladders." His wife too had the satisfaction of receiving from him and wearing the "Golden Jerusalem," that Akiba had wished he could give her in the days of their poverty. Indeed the magnificence of Rachel's jewels called forth a protest on the part of the students of Akiba's academy. "Thou hast put us to shame before our wives," they said, "for our wives do not possess any such precious ornaments." "Ah, yes," said Akiba, "but she has suffered much with me in the Torah."

AKIBA'S philosophical speculations were no less famous than his Halakic activities. Just about this time all sorts of hybrid religions made up of decadent Greek philosophy and of dying Pagan creeds were in vogue—the various forms of Gnosticism. Christianity—Jewish Gnosticism, that is—was only one of the many perversions that Judaism had to combat. These religions exercised a particular fascination because they dealt largely in esoteric doctrines and in theosophic speculation. There was great danger that Jewish minds might be led astray, as in fact some were. Of the four great Rabbis, who the Talmud says entered upon theosophic studies, only Akiba came through safely. Upon ben Azzai and ben Zoma, both brilliant young students, and upon Aher (Elisha ben Abuya) it had disastrous effects. Ben Azzai died young. Ben Zoma went mad and Elisha ben Abuyah repudiated Judaism. Wherefore the Rabbis never mentioned his name but always spoke of him as "Aher" ("the Other").

"They err who say I will sin now and repent after. The day of atonement brings no forgiveness to the insincere." This saying is strikingly similar to Dante's famous line in the Inferno: "No one can repent and will at once."

The eternal problem why the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper is answered by Akiba in this way. The righteous are punished in this world for their few sins, so that in the next world they may receive only reward. The wicked on the other hand are rewarded here for what little good they do, so that in the next world they may receive only punishment.

"Beloved are Israel, for they are called children of the All-present, as it is said, 'Ye are children unto the Lord your God.' Beloved are Israel for unto them was given the desirable instrument by which the world was[233] created, as it is written 'For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my Torah.'" Israel is therefore the Chosen People. Nay more. In another place Akiba says, "Even the poorest of Israel are looked upon as nobles," and even R. Ishmael agreed with him that "Every Jew is a royal prince." Our motto to-day of "noblesse oblige" is the same thought in a strange tongue. "By which the world was created" means that Akiba identified the Torah with "Wisdom," which is described in Proverbs, in that famous chapter beginning "Doth not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice?" as having been "set up from everlasting, from the beginning before the earth was." Adapting the opening verse of John, Akiba could very well have said, "In the beginning was the Torah and the Torah was with God," but he certainly would not have said, "and the Torah was God."

"Everything is foreseen," Akiba goes on to say, "yet freedom of choice is given; and the world is judged by grace, yet all is according to the amount of work." His doctrine of "grace" and "works" was that "grace" is acquired through works, or in non-theological language, God's favor goes to the man of good deeds. This was in opposition to the Christian teaching that "grace" came through faith alone. God's justice is tempered with mercy; yet even divine mercy is dealt out fairly, says Akiba. He had such a strong sense of right that he even condemned the action of the Israelites in despoiling the Egyptians. "It is equally wrong to deceive a heathen as to deceive an Israelite," he said. Akiba agreed with Hillel that the chief commandment of the Torah is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev. XIX, 18), which again is nothing more than an application of the principle of justice in our dealings with our fellow-men.

IN spite of his great fame Akiba was the most modest of men. While still a student at Jamnia Akiba was noted for his humility. R. Jochanan ben Nuri told how he had occasion several times to complain of Akiba to the Patriarch and how each time Akiba took his reprimand meekly. Nay more. Despite these reproofs Akiba was all the more affectionate towards R. Jochanan, so that the latter was moved to exclaim in admiration, "Reprove a wise man and he will love thee!" (Prov. IX, 8.) Another notable example of Akiba's modesty is his speech at the funeral of his son, which was attended by a great gathering of men, women, and children from all parts of Palestine. "Brethren of Israel," said Akiba, "listen to me. Not because I am a learned man have ye appeared here so numerously. There are those here more learned than I. Nor because I am a rich man. There are those here far richer than I. The people of the South know Akiba; but whence should the people of Galilee know him? The men know him; but whence should the women and children that I see here know him? But I[234] know full well that ye have not given yourselves the trouble to come but for the sake of fulfilling a religious precept and to do honor to the Torah, and your reward will indeed be great." Practising it as he did, Akiba did not fail likewise to preach modesty. "He who esteems himself highly on account of his knowledge," said he, "is like a corpse lying at the wayside; the traveler turns his head away in disgust and walks quickly by." Again, in words almost identical with Luke (XIV, 8-11), Akiba says: "Take thou a seat a few places below thy rank until thou art bidden to take a higher place, for it is better that they should say to thee: 'Come up higher' than that they should bid thee 'Go down lower.'"

Akiba was likewise famous for his kindness and charity. He was a man of the people. His heart was full of charity and affection for the multitude. His interest in their welfare was so deep and genuine that he ultimately came to be called the "Hand of the Poor." As overseer of the poor, Akiba made many long and arduous journeys to collect funds for their relief. It was his opinion that the funds of charity ought not to be invested, in order that ready money might always be at hand, should a poor man present himself. Once Akiba received some money from R. Tarphon, for the purpose of buying some land. But instead Akiba distributed the money to the poor. When Tarphon asked him where the property was, Akiba showed him the verse in Psalms, "He hath scattered, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth forever; his horn shall be exalted with honor." Thereupon Tarphon kissed Akiba on the forehead and exclaimed, "My master and my guide!"

FOR us to-day, however, the most striking thing about Akiba is his nationalism. Other Rabbis were men of great intellect, other Rabbis were learned, modest, and benevolent, other Rabbis lived, worked and died for Judaism, but no other Rabbi was conspicuously and so zealously a nationalist. Akiba loved "Eretz Yisrael" passionately, not only with the visionary fervor of the pious Jew, but with the practical idealism of a patriot. In all his extended journeys for the collection of alms, he took care to spread and keep alive in the breast of his fellow-Jews the desire for the rebuilding of Zion as a practical and immediate reality.

It was Akiba's spirit that inspired and animated the last great rebellion against Rome. This "final polemos," as the Talmud calls it, was preparing for a number of years. Akiba openly acknowledged Bar Kochba, who was to be the leader of the revolt, as the promised Messiah, as "the star that would come out of Jacob." All the great influence, therefore, of Akiba's moral support was behind Bar Kochba's military preparations. The Jews had indeed much to complain of. Hadrian had broken faith with[235] them; he had failed to rebuild their Temple as he had promised, and now (about the year 130), to make matters worse, he was beginning a systematic persecution of their religion. He forbade circumcision, the study of the Torah, the keeping of the Sabbath, the ordination of disciples, in short everything that went to express the Jewish religion. The Jews determined upon war. But even before the outbreak of hostilities their greatest loss occurred. Akiba and several other great Rabbis were captured by the Romans, imprisoned, condemned to death, and executed. Their crime was simply that they had continued teaching the Torah in spite of the Imperial decree.

THIS was the manner of Akiba's death. When he heard that the renowned R. Ishmael and a certain Simon were captured, he was stirred all the more to persevere in his teaching. "Prepare ye for death, for terrible days are awaiting us," said Akiba to his pupils. A certain Pappos ben Judah met Akiba assembling the people and teaching the Torah in public. "Dost thou not fear the Government?" said Pappos. "Thou art considered a wise man, Pappos," answered Akiba, "but verily thou art but a fool. I shall give thee a parable to the matter. Once a fox was walking along the edge of a stream. He saw the fishes in commotion, hurrying hither and thither. 'Before what do ye flee?' said he to them. 'We are fleeing before the nets of the fishermen that are cast out to catch us.' 'Would ye be willing to come up on dry land and live with me, even as your fathers and my fathers were wont to live?' 'Art thou he who is called the most discerning among beasts? Verily thou art but a fool. If even in the element that means life to us, we are fearful of death, how much more so in the element that means our death.' Even so are we. If even in the time that we are occupied with the Torah, of which it is said, 'For it is thy life and the length of thy days,' we are fearful of death, how much more so if even for a moment we cease its study." Not many days later Akiba was captured and thrown into prison. Pappos ben Judah also found himself imprisoned with Akiba. "How camest thou here?" asked Akiba. "Happy art thou," replied Pappos, "that thou hast been taken prisoner for the sake of the Torah; woe is me, Pappos, that I have been taken prisoner for vain things."

When they led Akiba out to execution it was the hour of the reading of the "Shema." Tinnius Rufus, the governor, caused his skin to be torn off with hot irons; but Akiba was directing his heart towards accepting the yoke of God's kingdom, that he might accept it with love. He recited the "Shema" with a peaceful smile on his face. Rufus, astounded at his insensibility to pain, asked him whether he was a sorcerer. "I am no sorcerer," replied Akiba. "All the days of my life have I grieved that I[236] could not carry out the commandment, 'Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might,'—even unto death. But now that I am able to fulfill it shall I not rejoice?" And with the last syllable of the "Shema"—Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One—Akiba expired.

HEBREWS willingly neglectful of their own inheritance cannot hope to be of much value as Americans. Nor is the republic interested in suppressing this or any other valuable legacy from the past. Our "assimilative process" is far off from being the terrible thing which European critics sometimes charge against us. We do reshape peoples who come to us from the old world, but not at the cost of the things they cherish or of the gifts they bring. Our civilization is enriched, not impoverished, by these diverse race traits, loyalty to which helps to make a loyalty worth having. If the future world order is to be founded on the harmonization of ethnic differences, there should be place enough for such differences in our own peace-aspiring republic.—From an Editorial in The Boston Herald.

Aspects of Jewish Life and Letters

As Revealed in Four Noteworthy Books

AS a rule, Jewish readers approach the works of Christian writers upon Jewish subjects with distrust. They are accustomed to find in them either the misrepresentations of Anti-Semitic hatred or the misrepresentations of conversionist love. The present book, based upon lectures delivered at Oxford upon the Hibbert foundation, is a representative of the rare group of studies belonging to neither class. It embodies an earnest and surprisingly successful attempt to depict justly the religious life of the Jews in the time of the Talmud. The writer is well prepared for his task by thirty years' devoted study of Rabbinical literature; he is known as the author of a careful and scholarly work on "Christianity in Talmud and Midrash."

The book includes a preliminary historical sketch, a study of what the Rabbis meant by Torah, indicating the true nature of Pharisaic legalism, chapters on the attitude of Jesus and of Paul toward the Pharisees, and two final chapters on the Pharisaic theology. The book is valuable as a Christian reply to Weber, the German author of a learned, widely-used, and thoroughly unfair presentation of Jewish theology. Mr. Herford frankly confesses that he is an apologist of the Pharisees, but his book is in no sense an iconoclastic attack upon the ideas received among Christians as to the character of the Pharisees. He freely admits, as any fair-minded Jew would, the dangers of the Pharisaic system, but he is likewise careful to point out that these dangers were by no means destructive of true spiritual life. It is most refreshing to find a book of this sort included in the Crown Theological Library, along with the erudite but anti-Jewish works of Bousset and Harnack.

MR. HERFORD aims to set forth the truth about the Pharisees rather than to present new ideas or conclusions. Nevertheless, his book contains here and there new suggestions. His theory that the men of the Great Synagogue were identical with the Soferim, though it has a certain plausibility, is hardly supported by any great weight of historical evidence. It is interesting to learn that the Synagogue represents the oldest form of congregational[238] worship, and is the oldest human institution that has survived without interruption. The parallel between the Hassidim and the Saints of Cromwell's time (p. 38) is curious. Mr. Herford has the somewhat strange notion (pp. 44-5) that there is a sign of "mutual distrust" in the weeping of the High Priest and the representatives of the Beth Din after the former had taken the oath to observe the regulations concerning the Day of Atonement. To the ordinary reader of the Mishnah the tears seem a perfectly natural expression of the emotional strain under which all the people labored on the great day.

It is hard to part from Mr. Herford's admirable book without quoting a very fine tribute which he pays to the Jewish people. In speaking of the influence of Ezra's ideals, he says (p. 55): "The Talmud is the witness to show how some of his countrymen, some of the bravest, some of the ablest, some of the most pious and saintly, and a host of unnamed faithful, were true to those ideals and clung to those hopes; and how, through good report and ill report, through shocks of disaster and the ruin of their state, ground down by persecution, or torn by faction, steadily facing enemies within, they held on to the religion of the Torah."

SOME years ago I met a certain Russian Jew at a conference called to discuss various problems of education. He was an immigrant who had made his fortune through speculation in real estate, and with his rise in fortune he had, it was evident, thrown off, one after another, the social habits, the religious outlook, and the organization of the daily life which were the heritage he had brought with him from Russia. He was at that time, he told me, president of a large Jewish congregation, whose pillars of support were men like himself. He complained bitterly of their backwardness and illiberality. They would not introduce an organ and refused to change the prayer book or to secure an "advanced" rabbi. For himself, he did not care whether they had a synagogue—I mean temple—at all. He retained no longer any of the superstitions or narrowness of his colleagues, and if it were not for the fact that he felt himself out of place among members of the radically reformed temple he would have attended that long ago. He was a member of it, of course. His wife had made him join some years ago. It was a double expense, to be sure, but his wife wanted to be active in the Women's Council, and the children met other nice children in the Sunday School. He did not think anyhow that synagogal affiliation made any difference.

The remark took me aback, yet the logical development to the point of view that he expressed was inevitable. In an environment where the call of ambition is generally a call toward de-Judaization, the connection between Jews[239] who prosper and the great masses of the Jewish people becomes, perforce, an external and artificial one. It is notorious that the temple has thus far had no appeal to and no message for the Jewish masses, that its membership is recruited from the well-to-do and the successful, and that its relation to the great groups which are destined never to be well-to-do or successful becomes purely a relation of philanthropy. The elements of brotherhood, of a common consciousness and a common purpose, fade or get submerged. Where the masses are concerned the whole corporate essence of reformed Judaism becomes concentrated in the word "charity."

YET it is significant that in Hebrew there is no special word for charity. The term צדקה (Zedakah) meant originally righteousness, and the righteousness which the prophets advocated was the substance of social justice. It was incorporated into the fundamental law of the Jewish state, which differed from that of other ancient states in the fact that its intention was to secure freedom and "life" for each individual man. Charity, as we now understand the word, had no place in the social conceptions of the prophets and was not acknowledged in the Law. The three codes which are preserved to us in the Bible from the covenant in Exodus to the extraordinarily profound legislation of Leviticus express an evolution of the social sense founded on a right appreciation of social justice and democracy. "Life," and its sustenance food, and shelter were regarded as the rights of each and every man and not as gifts from one man to another. The law concerning the tenure of land is particularly significant for its insight into the economic basis of social justice, and the laws concerning indebtedness and slavery only less so. Charity appears only when the state disintegrates. It is coincident with the decay of the social organization and the consequent failings of the sense of corporate responsibility, and consists substantially of the conversion of a right into a gift. This change is registered in the new meaning which the word "Zedakah" receives. For a state in which social justice prevails there is no room for charity, while a social order which involves charity is not one which maintains justice. Thus it may be said that the prophets, because they operated in terms of the reorganization of the whole of society and not of the incidental correction of piecemeal evils, were humanists. Their program was constructive and aimed at the enfranchisement of manhood. The rabbis, on the other hand, were (relatively only) philanthropists. Their program was remedial, and they aimed rather at the relief of suffering than the realization and perfection of human potentialities.

To-day the term "charity" has given way to a new equivalent, with a somewhat different connotation. This new equivalent is "social service." That it should be urged, as Mr. Lewis urges it, upon liberal Judaism is simply another indication of the evanescing adherence of that sect to the corporate life of the Jewish people. Although "social service" carries with it more of the sense of justice than the term charity, it is still, in intention, a charitable thing. It is not a thing done through the inevitable forms of right social organization, but through the gracious good will of a kindly individual. It still maintains the Christian quality of "grace" which is a condescension, a going down, a[240] philanthropy. It stands in contrast to law, which knows no such qualities, and the call which Mr. Lewis makes to liberal Judaists for a special kind of social service is itself a demonstration that "liberal Judaism" thus far has little in common with the substance of Jewish life. Indeed his whole book is a demonstration of this fact, for of the six chapters that it contains only one has anything to say of social service as such in the present day, while four are analyses, not of charity, but of the law of righteousness as it operated in the Jewish polity, both in Palestine and in the Diaspora. Even the actual charity of the Middle Ages carries a quality of obligation and socially ordained necessity which is derived from the basic law of the Jewish people.

BUT to-day, while the great Jewish masses still live, more or less adequately under the basic law and exercise such righteousness as they may in the division of obligation which the laws of the Galuth lands compel, the classes are divorced from its rule altogether. The call with which Mr. Lewis closes his book,—

—is the best indication of this. Liberal Judaism has not touched the minds or hearts of the masses. The radicals despise it as a capitalistic system of compromise with the social environment. To the rest of the working classes, it makes thus far no appeal whatever. It is only upon the radicals that the "Judaism of yesterday" has lost its hold, and to them liberal Judaism can have no appeal. To the rest of the Jewish people it can be significant and really developed into the "Judaism of to-morrow" only in so far as it can succeed in reincorporating itself into the common life. I am an old social service person, and I am prepared to deny categorically that such a reincorporation is possible through social service. What is needed is sympathetic intelligence, insight into the life and aspirations of the masses, return of the classes to the masses, participation in their ideals, their traditions, and their common life. It is not by a cutting off from the past, but by a development out of it that such a reincorporation can be consummated.

If liberal Judaism is to be a living and growing force at all, it can become so only by accepting the inevitable conditions which govern all life. Life is organic; religion is only one of the many organs of human society, even Jewish society. Its health and vitality are dependent upon the health and vitality of the social residuum. The hope of liberal Judaism lies in a reincorporated national life for the Jews. That alone can preserve the Jewish religion, either from petrifying as orthodoxy through resistance against environmental pressure, or from evaporating as reform through submission to environmental pressure.

III

THIS little volume is five years old, but its review is always timely; and for The Menorah Journal very appropriate. The English language is extremely poor in popular, yet scholarly and well-written books and essays on Jewish literature. A great many of those who are thoroughly versed in Hebrew literature, who regard the study of the original Rabbinic sources as a work of love if not a profession and a life work, have not a sufficient command of English or of systematic exposition to be able to present the spirit of these writings in acceptable form to the lay reader. The few scientific scholars in our seminaries and colleges who could if they chose write authoritatively and withal in an interesting manner concerning the course of Jewish thought during the past two or three millenia, prefer to devote their time and energy to the more technical aspects of the subject, which are not designed for the uninitiated reader. And the men of journalistic calibre and inclination, even if we had them, are not the most desirable purveyors of Jewish knowledge. The truth of the matter is, in the words of Nietzsche, that ears are still growing for the intelligent American Jewish people so far as Jewish literature—Hebrew classical literature—is concerned.

The cause of the paucity of works in English on Jewish literary subjects is really economic. There is no lack of young men among the people of the Book whose ideal of a well-spent life is one of complete devotion to a scholarly career in the service of our ancient and medieval classics. But unfortunately the very young men who give promise of presenting in a creditable manner our intellectual heritage for the benefit of the majority otherwise occupied, have no means of their own, and yet are not ready (as it should not be expected of them that they should be) to take the vow of poverty and celibacy and form a Jewish monastic order of St. Haninah. Accordingly not a few of these choose the Rabbinic career as the most likely profession to enable them to keep in touch with Jewish learning—more or less a disappointed hope to the real scholar who has no other fitness for the modern Rabbinate except his scholarship. Others are completely side-tracked and lost to Jewish scholarship.

Thus the lack of interest in Jewish learning and scholarship keeps promising young men away from these unpromising studies. The result is that the field in English remains uncultivated, which reacts again unfavorably in a diminution of interest, and the vicious circle is complete.

I HAVE used my text in good old fashion as a pretext for a little sermon to the intelligent lay reader of The Menorah Journal who may be an influential member of the American Jewish community, pointing out that we are sorely in need of a great many such books as the present one, treating various "aspects of the Hebrew Genius"; and they are sure to come just as soon as[242] there is a real demand for them. The Jewish students in our colleges and universities whose number is rapidly increasing have in their midst a great many talented young men who only need encouragement to devote their best energies to Jewish learning. These will serve as a leaven to raise the entire Jewish community of America to a more intelligent Jewish level. What we need is liberal endowments for Jewish chairs in our universities and for the promotion of Jewish education generally.

And now to proceed to my proper topic: Aspects of Hebrew Genius is a very creditable volume consisting of eight well-written essays on several topics of Jewish history and thought. Norman Bentwich contributes an article in which he gives an interesting sketch of the Jewish Alexandrian period of the first two centuries B. C., whose thought activities culminated in the works of Philo, the first man in history who attempted an amalgamation of Hebraism and Hellenism. It was not a success so far as Judaism is concerned, as is evidenced by the fact that he was neglected and forgotten by his Jewish successors. He was made use of, however, by the early Christian writers in the formulation of the Trinitarian dogma, and by early Christian apologists and theologians in presenting the doctrines of the new religion in a form likely to appeal to the Græco-Roman world, which trained as it was in philosophical thought would have been repelled by the simple narratives of Scripture and the Gospels.

THE next essay by M. Simon deals with the second and more successful attempt to enrich Jewish literature by infusing into it the spirit of rationalistic inquiry originally derived from Greece. This time, in the ninth and tenth centuries, the scene is placed in Babylonia. The place of the Greeks is now taken by their medieval successors, the Mohammedan Arabs, upon whom fell a part of the Hellenic mantle, that represented by Greek science and philosophy. The æsthetic and literary aspects of the Greek genius were left severely alone by the Arabs. The man about whom this sketch centers is the famous Gaon of Sura, Saadiah. And Mr. Simon lays great stress upon his achievements in Biblical exegesis. As the Septuagint was the first Jewish translation of the Bible, so Saadiah's Arabic translation was the second, and it was enriched by introductions and a commentary in which Saadiah leads his co-religionists, the Rabbanite Jews, from the Talmud back to an appreciation of the Bible.

The period of systematic and rationalistic effort culminated in the legal and philosophical works of Maimonides, the greatest Jew of the middle ages. The Rev. H. S. Lewis gives a readable and sympathetic sketch of this pre-eminent Jewish systematizer and rationalist. He defends him against the strictures of Luzzatto and Graetz and points out the great influence his thinking had on Judaism and Jews of his own and subsequent ages, and even on the Christian scholastics.

The following four essays are devoted not to representative men but to brief and interesting sketches of tendencies in Jewish thought and departments of Jewish literature. The Rabbinic legalistic lore of the Mishnah and Talmud, which finds no general treatment in the volume, is partly represented by the[243] article of Dr. S. Daiches, who gives a popular account of the post-Talmudic attempts to codify the immense legal material scattered in Mishnah and Talmud and in later additions. Maimonides' code naturally occupies an important place in this sketch, and a novel feature is the important place assigned to Jacob ben Asher (1280-1340), the author of the Turim, who superseded Maimonides and is popularized by Joseph Caro in his Shulchan Aruch.

THE title of the next paper, written by the competent hand of Dr. A. Wolf, versed in philosophy as well as in Jewish literature, sounds novel; and as the author says, is the first effort of the kind so far made. It is well known that the philosophic movement in medieval Jewry is characterized with few exceptions by the more or less faithful adaptation of Aristotelian thought as represented in the Arabic translations of his works and in the compendia and expositions made by such ardent disciples of the Stagirite as Al Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. Dr. Wolf undertakes briefly and readably to indicate how much the Jewish medieval philosophers owed to the Greek sage and what their attitude to him was, and interestingly summarizes the Aristotelian point of view by the one word rationalism, as distinguished from dogmatism and mysticism. He rightly points out that while the specific doctrines borrowed from Aristotle and read into the Bible by his ardent Jewish disciples are for the most part obsolete, the spirit of systematic inquiry, the use of the reason in elucidating disputed problems, "the exalted conception of the place and function of human thought, the hallowing of intellectual effort," which was the product of this philosophical activity, is a gain of inestimable value for all time.

Rationalism and dogmatism, however, do not exhaust the aspects of Jewish thought and literary endeavor. Parallel with the development of Mishnah and Talmud and philosophy, there is visible, at first feebly and in the background, and later, as circumstances favored it, more aggressively and in full view, the mystic outlook upon life and religion in its various phases. H. Sperling in a very interesting and sympathetic manner traces this mystic element in Jewish literature from the Prophets of the Bible, through the "Maase Bereshit" and "Maase Merkaba" of the Haggadah down to the Sefer Yezira and the Zohar and its successors.

There is no treatment of Jewish medieval poetry, and the volume closes with a brief account of the more critical and historical treatment of Jewish literature created in the nineteenth century by such men as Krochmal, Rapaport, Luzzatto, Zunz, Geiger and others. Rev. M. H. Segal gives a brief but illuminating account of this latest phase of Jewish writing, which is not yet closed, and is likely to stay with us for a long while.

E. M. Adler contributes an eloquent introduction by way of connecting the necessarily independent essays and emphasizing the unity which the collection in a great measure possesses.

The volume, as we are told in the Preface, "owes its appearance to the Union of Jewish Literary Societies" in London, and it does credit to their earnestness and loyalty to the cause of Jewish learning. Let us hope it may serve as an example and incentive to the revival of Jewish interests in this[244] country. It is well that all should read this useful little book and many others of the kind which we hope will follow. But it is more important that such reading shall inspire the student with a desire to study at first hand the original depositories of Jewish thought. For this purpose a serious study of Hebrew is imperative. And let us cherish the hope that we may witness a revival of, and a wide-spread interest in, Jewish literature in this country where next to Russia the greatest number of Jews are found and where, moreover, they enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

THROUGH his Jewish Life in Modern Times Israel Cohen has made a notable contribution to the literature of Jewish life and thought. In a single volume of scarce 350 pages of text there is presented a description and estimate of the Jewish position in the modern world which may well be considered among the most comprehensive and the most authoritative now available in the English language.

Taken as a whole, the volume is noteworthy because of three commendable characteristics. It deals with Jewish life as it appears in modern times, not as it should be in the light of the literature of the ancient Hebrews. It presents Jewish life in all its important aspects and complexities, not on the basis of the theory so widely prevalent that religion, of all human activities, constitutes the sole binding force and the only distinguishing characteristic of the separate Jewish existence. Finally, it aims to picture the life of the Jews in all corners of the Diaspora, and not their problems and activities in a single country or section of the globe.

AN exposition of Jewish life as it is actually lived in modern times helps to clarify a much-beclouded situation. It enables the Jew the better to know himself; it presents to the outside world a clearer outline of a figure who must ever, to some extent, remain "strange" and "unknowable." Moreover, the reader's sense of proportion is adjusted by a work which does not make Jewish life synonymous with Jewish religion. Whether there is sufficient evidence of a biological and anthropological character to support the claim of those who look upon the Jews as a separate race, whether the Jewish people in their dispersion may properly be considered as a distinct national group in spite of the absence of a government and a territory of their own, it is certainly difficult, in all intellectual honesty, to maintain that the Jews are merely a religious community. One of our brilliant young philosophers has strikingly said that a Jew can change his religion, but that he cannot change his grandfather; nor, he[245] might have added can he destroy his more general antecedents, that complex of customs, traditions and ideals which have manifested themselves in the course of thirty-five centuries of recorded history and which create within him an ineradicable historic consciousness. Jewish solidarity is not grounded in religion alone, and the distinctiveness of the Jewish people manifests itself in activities other than religion.

A work which like the present aims to present the Jew in every important phase of life, which describes the social, political, economic, and intellectual aspects of Jewish life, as well as the religious, deserves commendation because of its mere scope and completeness. But Mr. Cohen has gone further. He has not fallen into the error of many of the spokesmen for the cultural or historical unity of Jewry of denying or even minimizing the potency of religion as a factor in Jewish survival. Indeed, he everywhere recognizes that the primary or motor force in the organization of the Jewish community, which is the concrete expression of Jewish solidarity, is religious, springing from the desire for public worship. But while religion is the underlying factor, it is not the only factor. There is a sane coordination of the leading aspects of Jewish life, a clear grasp of the relationship between them.

Finally, the work is significant because it seeks to represent the Jew in all lands, to paint Jewish life in all its diversity. Mr. Cohen, an Englishman intimately acquainted with conditions in his own country, travelled extensively on the continent in preparation for his task. But his knowledge of American conditions was derived from study of American books and newspapers, and from correspondence, instead of from personal experience. This accounts for such minor lapses, with regard to American conditions, as the statement that the Jews are "excluded from . . . . the principal hotels on the east coast of the United States" and hence "take their holiday in the well-known resorts of central and southern Europe" (p. 110). On the whole, however, the attempt to describe Jewish life in all its diversity, as it is lived by Jews in all lands, is crowned with marked success, and the author has ample justification for his claim that he has brought "within the covers of a single book the fullest description yet attempted of all the main aspects and problems of Jewish life in the present day."

A MORE detailed statement of the scope and plan of the work may best be given in the author's own words. "First, a General Survey is presented, showing the dispersion and distribution of Jewry in its countless manifestations, its diversity of composition in political and spiritual respects, and the solidarity that unifies its disparate elements. Then follow five main sections, in each of which a leading aspect of life is investigated—the social, the political, the economic, the intellectual, and the religious. Under the Social Aspect are set forth the growth and constitution of the community, the characteristics and customs of the home, social life and amenities, morality and philanthropy, and racial and physical conditions. Under the Political Aspect are related how one-half of the people acquired civil equality, how the other half is still suffering in bondage, and what services Israel has rendered to so many countries in both their government and their defence. Under the Economic Aspect are reviewed[246] the different spheres of commercial, industrial and professional activity in which Jews are engaged, the contrasts of material welfare and predominance of poverty, and the ceaseless currents of migration from the lands of bondage to the havens of refuge. Under the Intellectual Aspect are considered the advance made by secular education among the Jews, the nature of their national intellectual products in modern times, and the contributions they have rendered to the progress and culture of humanity. Under the Religious Aspect are described their ecclesiastical organization and administration, their traditional faith and observance and the growing divergences therefrom, and then the drift and apostasy that are assuming ever more alarming proportions. Finally, the resultant tendency of all the foregoing manifestations is examined under the National Aspect, the strength of the forces of assimilation and absorption is contrasted with the inherent force of conservation, and the realization of the Zionist ideal is urged as the most effective means of ensuring the perpetuation of Israel" (pp. viii-ix).

The purpose of the author is thus seen to be, first, to present the facts of Jewish life, and secondly, to offer an interpretation of them—"to depict the variegated life of the Jewish people at the present day in all its intimacy and intensity, and to trace the evolution that is being produced by modern forces" (p. viii). He is more successful in the first of these objects than he is in the second.

His shortcomings in interpretation, however, are negative rather than positive; they are due to omission rather than to commission. There is inadequate consideration of the philosophy of Jewish life; external description has crowded out internal analysis; the point of view is too largely objective. While, for example, the conclusion is reached that Zionism is the only permanent and adequate solution of the Jewish problem—with which we do not disagree—insufficient stress is laid upon the distinctive Jewish obligation in the Diaspora; the Jewish contributions to general culture and progress which the author enumerates with such concreteness and detail are not distinctively Jewish contributions. Even if Zion is the ultimate destiny of the Jew, he must, in the meantime, justify his separate existence among the nations; if he is to remain a Jew as well as a citizen of the world, his contribution must be that of a Jewish citizen; in addition to the general obligation of his citizenship, he must fulfil the special obligation of his Jewishness. But these deficiencies of interpretation, like the inadequacies of description arising from the impossibility of treating exhaustively so large a field within so narrow a compass, but reflect the inherent limitations of the task set himself by our author.

JEWISH STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

An Excerpt from Israel Cohen's Book, "Jewish Life in Modern Times," pages 105-106:

"It was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the Jewish students at any of the principal seats of learning were numerous enough to form[247] a society of their own. The first organization was founded in 1882 in Vienna by Jewish students from Russia, Rumania, and Galicia, who entitled their society Kadimah, which means both 'Eastward' and 'Forward,' as an indication of the ideal of a resettlement in Palestine which they advocated. Since then, partly as a result of the advance of Zionism and partly as a result of the anti-Semitic attitude of the general students' corps on the Continent, separate societies have been formed by the Jewish students at almost every university at which they number at least a dozen, and are now found in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Switzerland, France, and Holland. Some of these societies owe their existence simply to the exclusion of Jews from the general corporation, and they adopt a passive attitude on Jewish questions, but the majority are animated by the ideal of Jewish nationalism and actively foster the Zionist cause. The Jewish nationalist societies in Germany are grouped into two organizations, the 'Bund Jüdischer Corporationen,' founded in 1901, with a membership of over 600 (graduates and undergraduates), and the smaller, 'Kartell Zionistischer Verbindungen,' founded five years later, with a membership of 250. The Zionist students' societies in Holland were federated in 1908, but those in other Continental countries pursue an unattached existence. Established to assert and promote the principle of Jewish nationalism, these corporations have nevertheless adopted all the methods and conventions of German corporations; they each have their distinctive colors, and they hold 'beer evenings' at which the students sing spirited songs in swelling chorus around tables which they bang with their beer-mugs, presided over by officers who are accoutred in a gorgeous uniform and armed with a sword that does duty alternately as chairman's hammer and conductor's baton. But their songs tell not of Teuton valor but of Jewish hope, breathing the spirit of a rejuvenated people. Besides these convivial gatherings the members cultivate the study of Jewish history, literature, and modern problems, and also practice fencing so as to be prepared for any duel in which they might be involved in vindication of the Jewish name. The Jewish societies at the universities in English-speaking countries are not, like the Continental corps, the inevitable product of an unfriendly environment, but voluntary associations for the study of Jewish questions and for social intercourse. The Jewish students in England, and to a less extent in the United States, join the societies of their university; but their racial sympathies prompt them also to fraternize with one another. Thus, Oxford has its Adler Society and Cambridge its Schechter Society, whilst at both universities there is also a Zionist Society. Moreover, in the United States, 'Menorah' societies for the study of Jewish history and the discussion of Jewish questions have been formed at twenty-five Universities and organized into an Intercollegiate 'Menorah' Association with over 1000 members."

FOOTNOTES:

[B] R. Travers Herford: Pharisaism, Its Aim and Method. London, Williams and Norgate; New York, Putnam. $1.50. (Any of the books reviewed in this article may be ordered through The Menorah Journal.)

[C] Harry S. Lewis, M.A.: Liberal Judaism and Social Service. New York, Bloch Publishing Co. (The Lewisohn Lectures.) $1.00.

[D] Leon Simon, Editor: Aspects of the Hebrew Genius. Essays by Elkan Adler, Norman Bentwich, H. S. Lewis, S. Daiches, A. Wolf, H. Sperling, M. Simon, M. H. Segal. London, Routledge. $1.00.

[E] Israel Cohen: Jewish Life in Modern Times. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $3.00.

The Symbolism of the Menorah [F]

By Hyman Askowith

AFTER the severe and constantly-expanding test of nearly a decade, the founders of the first Menorah Society may be permitted to felicitate themselves on their choice of the name. For it was far truer of the Menorah than it is of most organizations that the choice of a name was of vital moment, and the founders were impressed by a number of considerations which we can all fully appreciate even today. They were bent upon choosing a name which would not deter any Jewish student from enrolling under it with avidity; which would not excite opposition from any source; which would command respect and reverence, increasing respect and reverence, both from the University public and the general public; which would be voluntarily adopted by similar societies in other Universities in preference to any other that might be suggested; and finally, a name with enough charm and euphony and significant symbolism to stand constant repetition, to bear living with day by day, and all the while grow in our imaginations and yield new beauteous meaning through the years.

From a descriptive standpoint, it would be difficult to find a more appropriate name for a University society devoted to Hebraic culture than the name Menorah. For there is hardly another available word in the entire range of Hebraic history and learning which is so freighted with sentiment and so symbolic of all that Israel stands for.

TAKEN in a general sense, it is evident that the Menorah or seven-branched candelabrum, being the distinctive lamp or light of the ancient Hebrews, serves more distinctively than would the classic torch or the conventional oil lamp to represent Hebrew enlightenment. Our aim being to spread the light of Hebraic culture, it is clearly fitting that we should employ the Hebraic lamp. It should be more effective, too, inasmuch as its light is sevenfold, and our efforts are illuminated with a sevenfold splendor.

The word Menorah, it is worth noting, is among exclusively Hebrew words the only one which would be readily understood by any considerable[249] number of people aside from students or readers of Hebrew. It has been made familiar to all by the representation of the captured Menorah on the Arch of Titus (see Frontispiece).

According to the Bible, the original Menorah was of divine pattern. It was ordained by God in his instructions to Moses for the sacred paraphernalia of the Holy Tabernacle (Exodus XXV, 31 et seq.). The Menorah was thus among the first instruments or tokens of the Hebrew religion, and the only one which in any sense is in our possession today—the only one which can be perpetuated. The divine pattern is still with us and we are repeatedly modeling new copies from it. The Menorah is today, therefore, the most expressive of all concrete symbols of the Hebrew race and religion.

A HALO of symbolism—almost kaleidoscopic in its manifold beauty—surrounds the Menorah in Hebraic literature and tradition. Both the single light or candle, and the distinctive combination of seven, are the favorite objects of metaphor, interpretation, and poetic sentiment. In the Bible the word "ner" (נר)—candle or light, embodied, of course, in the word Menorah (מנורה )—is used metaphorically in many significant senses. God is a light—enlightening, comforting and honoring his people. The rational understanding and conscience are lights which search, inform, direct and judge us. A profession of faith is called a lamp, which renders men shining and useful and instructors of others. The last two interpretations certainly cast an appropriate reflection on our choice of Menorah.

For the number 7, as we all know, the ancient Hebrews had a singular fondness, attributing to it a magic potency. This may have arisen from the traditional story of the seven days of Creation, and the institution of the Sabbath—without a doubt the most important of Hebrew institutions. This certainly enhanced the reverence for the number 7, which soon became the most sacred Hebrew number, bearing nearly always the connotation of holiness and sanctity or mystic perfection. The acts of atonement and purification were accompanied by a sevenfold sprinkling. There were seven trumpets, seven priests that sounded them seven days around Jericho, seven lamps, seven seals, etc. The seventh day was the Sabbath, the seventh year was the Sabbatical (still observed to the well-earned emolument of our professors in the Universities), and seven times seven years brought on the Jubilee. The seventh month was the holiest month of the year (which we appreciate now by regarding September as an auspicious month in which to return to college studies). The number seven soon came to be used also conventionally as an indefinite or round[250] number, indicating abundance, completeness, perfection.[1] Cicero calls seven the knot and cement of all things, as being that by which the natural and spiritual world are comprehended in one idea.

BE that as it may, our ancestral learned men seem to have found no end of significant meanings in the seven lamps of the Menorah. Generally it was held to represent the creation of the universe in seven days, the center light symbolizing the Sabbath. Again, the seven branches are the seven continents of the earth and the seven heavens, guided by the light of God. According to Philo and others, the seven lights represent the seven planets which, regarded as the eyes of God, behold everything.[2] The light in the center, which is especially distinguished, would signify the sun, as the chief of the planets. With this was combined the mystic conception of a celestial tree, with leaves reaching to the sky and fruit typifying the planets.

There would be little difficulty, of course, in extending this symbolistic catalogue ad infinitum. We could easily and perhaps profitably select Seven Wonders of Hebraic history or achievement, seven great epochs in the development of Hebraic culture, seven great leaders of the race, etc. We might also say that the seven lights represent the seven chief studies which make up a liberal education—the Trivium and Quadrivium of the Middle Ages, substantially the foundation of the university curriculum of today [3].

The words יהי אור, "Let there be light," just above the Menorah on our seal, are not only reminiscent of the first great word of God, pregnant in meaning for humanity, but stand also for the purpose of this Society—the relighting of the Menorah in order that it may shed its ancient lustre and once again illumine the minds of men with the glory and uplift of Hebraic ideals.

THE seal as originally drawn for the Harvard Menorah Society (see accompanying illustration of membership shingle) bears two or three other symbols which deserve a word of interpretation. Below the Menorah appears the so-called Star of David—lately revived by the Zionist movement as the only exclusively Jewish figure or geometric symbol of any national meaning. Entwined below the seal proper are an olive branch and a date palm, both of which are intimately associated with the history of the race in Palestine. They are the two most characteristic trees of the promised land, and provided the chief staple foods of the Hebrews during their occupation of the country. The olive, moreover, gave the oil with which the Menorah was lit. There is also much fascinating symbolism in the olive tree and the palm. Both are evergreens—standing for the persistency of the Hebrew race. The date palm, we are told, has a slender and very yielding stem, so that in a storm it sways back and forth but does not break; and throughout its length it bears scars showing where leaves have fallen off. Could anything be more beautifully expressive of the career of the Jewish nation? Finally, the olive branch has always stood for peace—one of the most cherished and distinctive Hebraic ideals; and the palm has always stood for intellectual achievement—and who would deny the palm to the race that gave the world its Bible and all that it stands for?

FOOTNOTES:

[F] This article is based upon a paper delivered at the Seventh Annual Banquet of the Harvard Menorah Society last May.

[1] Cf. Gen. vii, 2; xxi, 28-30; I Kings xviii, 43; Deut. xvi, 9; Ezek. xl, 22; xli, 3.

[2] Cf. Zech. iv, 10.

[3] In the form in which this paper was read before the Harvard Menorah Society, the following paragraphs of a more local interest were added at this point:

"And it certainly adds to the eternal fitness of things that there should be just seven letters in the word MENORAH, just seven letters in the word HARVARD, and just seven letters in the word SOCIETY;—the whole name of the society thus forming three times seven, or a majority.

"That there is something much more Hebraic in Harvard than the mere mechanical coincidence of seven letters in the name, is well known to every one who is at all aware of the part played by Hebrew ideals in the founding, organization and early history of Harvard. The fact that Harvard took root in Hebraic culture and traditions is a welcome and gratifying encouragement to this effort to replant the Hebraic influence on Harvard ground."

The Decennial of the Menorah
Movement

THE Menorah movement enters upon its decennial with the beginning of the present academic year, the first Menorah Society having been organized at Harvard University in 1906.[G] From this Society with an original membership of sixteen, the Menorah movement has grown throughout the country so that at the close of the last academic year there were Societies at thirty-seven colleges and universities with a membership of some three thousand. Every Society has arisen upon the initiative of the students themselves, inspired by a desire to pursue the objects embodied in the Menorah. In January, 1913, the Intercollegiate Menorah Association was formed for the purpose of mutual encouragement and co-operation among the several Societies, and also to carry out enterprises beyond the scope and power of any individual Society—such as the publication of The Menorah Journal.

On the threshold of the decennial, and especially since the present number of the Journal will come into the hands of many new students and readers, it may not be amiss again, in brief terms, to review the purposes of the movement.

THE Menorah Societies have been organized by the students in response to their desire first of all to know more about the history, literature, religion—in a word, the culture and ideals of the Jewish people, and the conditions and problems which confront the Jews in the world today. Being thus educational in primary purpose, every Menorah Society is open to all the members of its university who have an interest in Jewish life and thought. And inasmuch as the great majority, if not all, of the students who have such an interest in Jewish knowledge and Jewish aspirations are themselves Jews, the Menorah organization cherishes the second purpose of strengthening the Jewish idealism and noblesse oblige of the Jewish students, so that by understanding and carrying forward their Jewish inheritance they may become better men and women by becoming better Jews. And from this moral aim there flows still a third purpose,[254] that of patriotic service to the Republic; for by enriching the common treasury of American culture and ideals with the spiritual resources of the Jewish people, the educated Jews of the country may serve America to the profoundest degree. Animated thus with the spirit and broad purposes of our universities, the Menorah Societies have been warmly welcomed and generously assisted by the university authorities.

THE purposes of the Menorah movement will appear in greater relief by comparison with the objects of other types of Jewish organization—social, political, religious—that have arisen at our colleges and universities. The Menorah Societies are all-inclusive, non-partisan, non-sectarian. Hence they are to be distinguished in the first place from the exclusive social organizations, such as the Greek letter or Hebrew letter fraternities. Being rather educational in spirit and purpose, the Menorah Societies make no social test for membership, nor do they pursue any convivial activities except such as are deemed desirable for the most agreeable and efficient pursuit of the Menorah objects. Again, the Menorah Societies are clearly distinguishable from the Zionist Societies, which were united last June in the Intercollegiate Zionist Association of America; whereas the Zionist Societies are devoted to a specific political program in confronting the so-called Jewish Question, the Menorah Societies, being non-partisan, are neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist, but perfectly free and open forums for the discussion of all points of view. The Menorah membership consists of men and women of divers convictions, as well as of those who have not yet made up their minds but come to the Menorah for enlightenment and inspiration. Finally, just because the Menorah appeals to every student who has a liberal interest in Jewish life and thought—to every Jewish student particularly, whatever his present beliefs and ideas—the Menorah Societies are not to be regarded as specifically religious organizations. Therefore the observance of religious services and practices is left to those students who desire them, individually or in appropriate organizations, such as the Jewish Students' Congregation organized recently under reform auspices at the University of Michigan. The Menorah Societies are neither reform, conservative nor orthodox but broadly inclusive of all elements.

INDEED, next to the Menorah idea—the sum of Menorah purposes—the peculiar strength of the Menorah Societies lies in this catholic spirit which determines the Menorah "open door." Thereby the Menorah[255] Societies are enabled to perform more and more an incidental but most important service apart from the objects to which they are formally dedicated. With the growth of various Jewish organizations in our universities—which, whatever the opinion as to their value and propriety, tend to divide the Jewish students rather than to unite them—a most important service performed by the all-inclusive Menorah Societies is to bring the students together, in spite of their various differences, on a common high plane. As stated over a year ago in the Association's book on The Menorah Movement: "Where, as in almost all large universities, there are Jewish students of diverse antecedents, it is one of the most important functions of a non-partisan organization like the Menorah Society to bring all classes and parties together upon an academic plane, in order that they may learn each other's points of view, in order that their prejudices against one another which are founded on misunderstanding and snobbishness may wither away, and in order that they may pursue in generous comradeship the knowledge of their common tradition and the hope of their common future."

IT is becoming increasingly evident, moreover, that such a unifying force is called for outside of the universities among the graduates and other educated Jews; and it is hoped that through the graduate phase of the Menorah movement, this need may be subserved by graduate Menorah groups in various communities. To quote once more from The Menorah Movement: "Such graduate Menorah organizations, while academic and non-partisan in their nature, like the university Menorah Societies, might yet, if properly constituted and conducted, be of practical as well as of ideal service to their communities. They could bring together, upon the lofty basis of Jewish idealism, men of different views in the community, who approach practical Jewish problems in different, sometimes in mutually antagonistic, ways. Devoid itself of any sectarian or fraternal or political bias, a graduate Menorah organization should be ideally fitted to serve as a kind of intellectual clearing house of the Jewish community, and thus promote on all sides a deeper understanding of one another, a clearer vision of the common problems, a greater concord in Jewish life."

In any event, it is hoped during the present year to bring the graduates and other public-spirited Jewish citizens into closer touch with the activities and aspirations of the students. At the fourth annual Convention of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association to be held during the coming midwinter recess, the idea of graduate Menorah committees and other forms of possible graduate association with the Menorah movement will be carefully considered.[256]

IT may be added that at this Convention, which promises to be the most important thus far held by the Menorah Societies, there will also be given a full review of the activities of the Menorah organization since its inception and a survey of the present opportunities and demands for Menorah work throughout the country. More and more emphasis will be laid upon the quality of accomplishment of every Menorah Society; upon the active participation by all Menorah members in one phase or another of Jewish study and labor; and, in general, upon an even greater utilization of the lectures, libraries, study courses, and other means provided for the accomplishment of Menorah ends.

In this terrible time for Jewry, amid the general catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Jewish young men are offering their lives heroically in the contending armies, the members of the Menorah Societies in this favored country cannot but enter upon the new year with a solemn sense of added responsibility. More than ever in this decennial year of the Menorah movement is intellectual and moral consecration to Jewish ideals demanded of Jewish students in America.

FOOTNOTE:

[G] It should be noted that in 1903 a Jewish literary society was founded at the University of Minnesota which was later changed to a Menorah Society and is now one of the constituents of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

Menorah Notes and News

THE Intercollegiate Menorah Association was represented at the International Students' Reunion, which was held in connection with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, the University of California, and Leland Stanford University, under the auspices of Corda Fratres Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, from August 16th to 21st, 1915. Intercollegiate Vice-President Milton D. Sapiro read a paper at the session in the Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, on "The Purposes of the Menorah Movement," submitted by the Chancellor. Dr. Horace M. Kallen, of the University of Wisconsin, delivered a discourse at the session at Stanford University on "The Hebraic Spirit." The following is an abstract of his address:

"A people's spirit is its character, considered not as a cluster of qualities, but as a spring and form of action—action that expresses itself in social institutions, in political and economic organization, in art, in religion and in philosophy; in short, in all that expressive part of human life we call culture. A people's culture is organic. However varied its form and media, the varieties springing from a single source possess an identical and unique quality which is the quality of that source. They express and reveal it, as generative power, a force of creation, having good or evil bearing upon the residual civilization. The process of such revelation is a people's total history; just as the process of revelation of an individual's character is his total biography. To find the Hebraic spirit we must seek its substantial development in the culture and ideals of the Jewish people—in the unfoldment, in the history of their common attitude toward the world and toward man, in their theory of life.

"The Jewish theory of life involves three fundamental conceptions, interdependent, and forming a unit which has no near parallel in civilization.

"The first of these conceptions defines the nature of God. What is significant about it is the fact that it makes no distinction between God and Nature. God is Nature and Nature is God. The two are related to each other as a force and its operation, and what difference there exists between them is a difference in completeness and self-sufficiency, not in kind. God reveals himself thus in and as the cause of Nature, the whirlwind, the process of life and decay, the development of history. His essence is Change, Force, Time. There is hence no Hebrew word for eternal; God's attitude is everlasting. That is, that which changes yet retains its identity, as a man changes from infancy to manhood, yet retains his identity.

"God is one, all-inclusive, everlastingly creative. In consequence, there exists a real distinction between God and man, such that the one cannot be defined in analogy with anything human. Neither wisdom, nor goodness, nor justice apply to him; yet the goodness, wisdom and justice of man depend upon him. Man is a finite speck set over against divine infinitude. His life is a constant struggle for survival with forces which have each an equal claim on divine regard with man. Man's salvation, herein, consists in knowing these facts, in understanding, using them, and guarding against them. The fear of the Lord, sings the chorus in Job, is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.

"To depart from evil is to act as a social being, to be righteous. Righteousness is acknowledgment of the value and integrity of other persons. It is the application[258] of justice in all fields of human endeavor, particularly in fundamental economics. Thus the three historic constitutions of the Jewish state, the Covenant, Deuteronomy and the Levitical code, are all directed toward making impossible other than natural inequalities within the state. Their intention is a social democracy; and all Jewish law, departing from this fundamental intention, aims, under various conditions, to realize it. The prophets, from Amos to Isaiah, preach it; and men like Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl Marx, Jean de Bloch, simply enhance their tradition.

"The Hebraic spirit carries the principle of democracy beyond the individual to the group. Men having a common ancestry, history, culture and ideals, living a common life, have definite contribution to make to civilization as a group. They constitute a nationality and the principles of justice that apply among individuals must apply equally among nationalities. Hence Hebraism, through its prophets, formulates the conception of an internationalism, consisting of a co-operative democracy of nationalities, under conditions of universal peace. The great Isaiah, who flourished in the fifth century B. C., is the first to formulate this national vision. His people have never departed from it. In terms of it, they have been the foremost protagonists of a constructive internationalism, in every land and at all times. Recently, as they have begun to find that their service to civilization as a people grows more and more impaired by the Diaspora, they have formulated a program of national reconcentration in Palestine, and of the free development there of Hebraic culture and ideals such as all European peoples carry out in their own homelands of their culture and ideals. This program is called Zionism. It is the practical and most expressive incarnation of the Hebraic Spirit."

THE California Menorah Society met on Monday evening, August 30th, for its first meeting of the college year. There was an attendance of 125. Mr. Louis I. Newman gave a short talk on the aims of the Menorah movement. Milton D. Sapiro, first President of the California Menorah and now the second Vice-President of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association, spoke on the history of the movement, tracing the development of the Menorah idea and the formation of the Intercollegiate body; and in closing he presented Stanley Arndt, now President of the Society, with a bronze Menorah, which is to be handed down from President to President each year. President Arndt, in accepting the Menorah, said that it suggested the great problem that the Jews are now facing. The great question at the present time is whether this Menorah will be a mere symbol of the past glories, the past achievements of the Jews, whether it is to be a mere monument of a dying race, or the living emblem of a living race, the soul of a living people. As an exponent of the latter doctrine, he introduced Dr. Horace M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin, Intercollegiate Menorah Lecturer.

Dr. Kallen spoke on "The Jews and the Great War." He pointed out that democracy in its essence was the liberation of individuality; that by being most one's self, a person or a nation does the most for his neighbors. First of all, therefore, we should know ourselves. Dr. Kallen then took up the condition of the Jews in Russia. He discussed the frightful persecutions there as the result of a great anti-Jewish conspiracy to cover up the graft, the corruption and the inefficiency of the government. He spoke on the great drive of the Jews from the Pale by the military authorities and then the drive back again by the civil authorities. This, he pointed out, involved not only a Jewish problem, but a great international one besides. The second phase of the Jewish question was that of a free Jewish life in Palestine. There the Jewish colonists have practically an autonomy of their own; they have established a Jewish stage, Jewish art, Jewish music; and the colonies were founded upon a social democratic basis, upon the same fundamental conceptions of social democracy that the Hebrew Prophets had preached. Dr. Kallen[259] concluded with a plea for the Jew's double responsibility. The Jew commits a crime hot only as a citizen but as a Jew. The Jews who in length of service to the world are surely an aristocracy must carry this responsibility.

In the discussion which followed, Professor Simon Litman of Illinois, who was present, took part.

A Menorah prize of $50. was announced at this meeting. The judges will be Professor William Popper and Dr. Martin A. Meyer of the Semitics Department of the University, and Judge Max Sloss of the Supreme Court of California.

A musical program, followed by an informal reception to the new members, completed the evening.

N. M. Lyon, the Treasurer of the Intercollegiate, formerly of Cincinnati, is now a student at California and a member of the California Menorah.

BESIDES his address at the opening meeting of the California Menorah Society and other informal talks with the students, Dr. Kallen delivered a series of three addresses at the University of California, under the auspices of the Department of Philosophy, on the general subject: "The Hebraic Tradition in Europe." On August 31st, he lectured upon "The Rise and Significance of the Hebraic Tradition"; on September 1st, "Hebraism and Democracy"; and September 2nd, "Hebraism and Art."

On August 30th, Dr. Kallen met a company of graduates and other public-spirited Jewish citizens in San Francisco at luncheon and explained the purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

Dr. Kallen addressed the Menorah Society of the University of Washington in Seattle on August 14th, on "The Jewish Question and the Great War." He also met at a dinner a company of graduates and other public-spirited Jewish citizens in Seattle, and explained to them the purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

HARRY AUSTRYN WOLFSON, the author of the articles on "Jewish Students in European Universities," published in the first two numbers of the Journal, has been appointed Instructor in Jewish Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard last June in the field of Semitic Philology, his thesis subject being "Crescas on the Problems of Infinity and Divine Attributes."

During the ensuing year he will give the following courses: Post-Biblical Hebrew, Jewish Aramaic, Jewish Literature and Life From the Second to the End of the Seventeenth Century, and An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Philosophy.

ON August 8, 1915, the Cornell Menorah Society held a meeting for the summer students. There was an attendance of about 50, both Jews and non-Jews. Rev. Dr. H. P. Mendes, of New York, gave an address on "Bible Ideals in Modern Times," and Professor Frank Carney of Denison University, Professor of Industrial Geography in the Cornell Summer School, spoke on "The Inorganic Basis of the Hebrew Contribution to the World." Professor W.A. Hurwitz of Cornell spoke briefly on the scope of the Menorah movement, and Dr. L. L. Silverman played Kol Nidre on the violin.

THE Menorah Society of Hunter College, in New York City, begins its third year with a marked increase in the enthusiasm and the number of its members. A program dealing with various phases of Hebrew culture has been planned for the regular monthly meetings, comprising lectures on the Bible, the Talmud, Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Modern Hebrew Literature, Hebrew Music, and Hebrew Art. In addition, the Society hopes to present a pageant and a reception to freshmen in February (for Hunter College admits two classes during the[260] year). The lectures will be preceded by refreshments, and the singing of Hebrew songs by the Menorah Glee Club.

Besides the regular monthly meetings, the Society is organizing courses in conversational Hebrew, Bible Study, and Zionism—the first to meet weekly, the others on alternate weeks.

It is also hoped to have a general informal meeting every week to discuss modern Jewish problems in connection with the reading of various newspapers and periodicals.

THE Menorah Society of the College of the City of New York closed its activities during the past year with a very interesting meeting held on May 20, 1915. Rev. Dr. H. Pereira Mendes spoke on "Jewish Ideals of Peace," and he was introduced by the new President of the College, Dr. Sidney Edward Mezes, who presided. Dr. Mezes has come to City College from the University of Texas, and it is gratifying to note that he had already been made familiar with the Menorah work through the Texas Menorah Society.

The new year was opened with a forum meeting on September 21st, in the Menorah alcove, when the Chancellor addressed a number of new men as well as old, upon the significance and the increasing scope of the Menorah movement. The week beginning October 3rd will be known as "Menorah Week" at the College. On Monday, October 4th, the study circles will meet for the first time; on Tuesday there will be another meeting of the Menorah forum; on Wednesday a semi-annual smoker will be held in the City College Club; and on Thursday, Mr. Marcus M. Marks, President of the Borough of Manhattan, will deliver a lecture to the student body under the auspices of the Menorah Society.

IMPORTANT matters touching the development of Intercollegiate activities, the work and membership of the constituent Societies, the association of graduates with the Intercollegiate body, the problems and plans of The Menorah Journal, will be among the subjects presented for discussion and decision at the Fourth Menorah Convention, to be held during the coming mid-winter recess. The precise days and place of the Convention will shortly be decided by the Administrative Council, in accordance with Article II, Section 4, of the Intercollegiate Constitution. In addition to the business sessions there will also be a formal dinner and an academic session devoted to the reading of papers by eminent scholars. It is hoped that a large number of Menorah men and women from all parts of the country will be able to attend. Further details will be published in the next number of the Journal.

ON June 21, 1915, there was an informal gathering at the headquarters of the Intercollegiate Association, 600 Madison Avenue, New York City, of Menorah officers who happened to be in New York. There were present, besides the Chancellor, President I. Leo Sharfman, Vice-President Abraham J. Feldman, and Secretary Charles K. Feinberg of the Association, President Stanley Arndt of California, President Jacob Rubinoff of Pennsylvania, ex-President Leon J. Rosenthal of Cornell, ex-President George J. Horowitz, President Moses H. Gitelson, Treasurer Herman I. Trachman of College of the City of New York, President Bernard J. Reis of New York University (Washington Square), ex-President Samuel Sussman of Columbia, President Sarah Berenson, Vice-President Babette Reinhardt, Treasurer Minnie Weiss, and Secretary Ernestine P. Franklin and ex-Secretary Julia Mitchell of Hunter, and Dr. H. M. Kallen of Wisconsin.

There was informal discussion of the activities of the various Societies, the progress of The Menorah Journal, the program of the next Intercollegiate Convention, and the development of the graduate phase of the Menorah movement.

the
Menorah Journal

The Arch of Titus

The Duty of the Hour

By Max Nordau

FOOTNOTE:

What Judaism Is Not

By Mordecai M. Kaplan

The Jewish Student in Our Universities

A Menorah Prize Essay

By Morris J. Escoll

The Romance of Rabbi Akiba

By George J. Horowitz

Aspects of Jewish Life and Letters

As Revealed in Four Noteworthy Books

I

II

III

IV

JEWISH STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

FOOTNOTES:

The Symbolism of the Menorah [F]

By Hyman Askowith

FOOTNOTES:

The Decennial of the Menorah
Movement

FOOTNOTE:

Menorah Notes and News

Index to Complete Volume One

Transcriber's Notes:

the Menorah Journal

The Arch of Titus

The Duty of the Hour

By Max Nordau

FOOTNOTE:

What Judaism Is Not

By Mordecai M. Kaplan

The Jewish Student in Our Universities

A Menorah Prize Essay

By Morris J. Escoll

The Romance of Rabbi Akiba

By George J. Horowitz

Aspects of Jewish Life and Letters

As Revealed in Four Noteworthy Books

I

II

III

IV

JEWISH STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

FOOTNOTES:

The Symbolism of the Menorah[F]

By Hyman Askowith

FOOTNOTES:

The Decennial of the Menorah Movement

FOOTNOTE:

Menorah Notes and News

Index to Complete Volume One

Transcriber's Notes:

the
Menorah Journal

The Symbolism of the Menorah [F]

The Decennial of the Menorah
Movement