^^^XJZIEL 
 
 Hf 
 
 tMeMffr 
 
 FyVBBI 
 
 SAMSOK 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 
 HIHSCH 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 F^V-DI^BEHNAf^ Dl^ACHMAN 
 
S.i^.il 
 
 Mtqmntitth hg J|tm to 
 
 tlj0 ICtbrartf of 
 
 Prtnrrton SljMlogtral g^^mtttarg 
 
 BM 560 .H4813 1899 
 
 Hirsch, Samson Raphael, 180^ 
 
 -1888. . „^_ 
 
 The nineteen letters of Ben 
 
Zhc Bineteen Xetters 
 
 OF 
 
 Ben msicl 
 
 Being a Spiritual Presentation of the Prin- 
 ciples of Judaism 
 
 BY 
 
 Samson IRapbaef IT^trscb 
 
 Laie Rabbi of the Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft 
 of Frankfort-on-the-Main 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 BernarD' Bracbman, iPb.D. 
 
 Rabbi of the Congregation Zichron Ephraim and Dean 
 of the fewish Theological Seminary, New York 
 
 TOGETHER WITH A PREFACE AND A BIOGRAPHICAL 
 SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR BY THE TRANSLATOR 
 
 ffun?^ 8. Ma^nalls Company 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 1899 
 
Copyright, 1899, by 
 
 FUNK & WAGNAI,I,S COMPANY 
 
 [Registered at vStationers' Hall, England] 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
tikis'? i<hi Ti'trjr nin^S xStr yisb pnn 'i'?:? 
 Sxnc'n npSn?3 nni nSb^ in'ssS x'^k k^k nn 
 
 ' ' Be/ore Thee it is revealed and known that not for 
 my glory or the glory of my father' s house have I done 
 this, but for Thy glory that discord m,ay not increase 
 in Is7'ael.'' — Megillah, p. j. 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEI. HIRSCH 
 
 I.ate Rabbi of the Lsraelitische Religionsgesellschaft (Israelitish 
 
 Society for Religion) of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany 
 
To the 
 Ever Cherished Memory of 
 
 My Mother 
 
 This Book is Dedicated in Filial 
 Love and Devotion 
 
 The Translator 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Translator's Preface, v 
 
 Samson Raphael Hirsch. — A Biographical 
 
 Sketch, , . ix 
 
 Author's Preface, xxxv 
 
 First Letter. 
 Complaint, I 
 
 Second Letter. 
 Standpoint, Method, 9 
 
 Third Letter. 
 God, The World, 17 
 
 Fourth Letter. 
 Man, 31 
 
 Fifth Letter. 
 Education, 42 
 
 Sixth Letter. 
 History, 53 
 
 Seventh Letter. 
 Skib^S The Consecrated People, 66 
 
 Eighth Letter. 
 pxn, 12na, nnsa, mnx, The Patriarchs, Egypt, 
 
 the Wilderness, the Land, 71 
 
 iii 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 Ninth Letter. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 mSj, Israel in Exile, 79 
 
 Tenth Letter. 
 Division of the Commandments (nna), ... 98 
 
 Eleventh Letter. 
 D'pn, n'QSK>r3, nmn, Laws, Judgments, Statutes, 107 
 
 Twelfth Letter. 
 mSD, Commandments, 113 
 
 Thirteenth Letter. 
 nnj?, Word and Deed Symbols, 118 
 
 Fourteenth Letter. 
 muy, The Service of God 127 
 
 Fifteenth Letter. 
 Answer, 135 
 
 Sixteenth Letter. 
 Emancipation 159 
 
 Seventeenth Letter. 
 Reform, 169 
 
 Eighteenth Letter. 
 Reform, continued, 178 
 
 Nineteenth Letter. 
 Outlines of Purpose (Essays), ...... 210 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In giving to the English-reading Jewish 
 public this English version of the maiden effort 
 of the late great Frankfort Rabbi, Samson Ra- 
 phael Hirsch, the * ' Nineteen I^etters of Ben 
 Uziel, ' ' I am strongly conscious that I have per- 
 formed a dif&cult task very imperfecftly. The 
 work, though limited in extent, and sketchy 
 in proportions, is of great importance, both as 
 legards its, own intrinsic value, and its effecft 
 upon the history of Judaism. It was epoch- 
 making in its time, powerfully influencing 
 contemporary Jewish thought, and paving the 
 way for the development of a mighty and im- 
 posing school in German Judaism; but its 
 merits are not shown in their just light by a 
 mere translation. To properly elucidate the 
 remarkable and original concept of Judaism 
 which Samson Raphael Hirsch employed for 
 the rebuilding of the ancient faith upon modern 
 lines, in noble spiritual harmony with its tra- 
 ditional foundations, would require an elabo- 
 
VI I.KTTERS OP BKN UZIKIy. 
 
 rate and detailed commentary or treatise, an 
 effort for which the translator does not, at this 
 time, feel prepared, and yet without which the 
 work is necessarily incomplete. The difficul- 
 ties, too, of the mere translation have been 
 very great. The author's German style is 
 terse, energetic, and laden with thought, but 
 it is a di(5lion all of his own, complicated, and 
 involved in parts, condensed to the extreme of 
 brevity in other parts, and full of special terms 
 and peculiar writings derived from the author's 
 particular conceptions in regard to Jewish relig- 
 ious notions, or Hebrew philology. It can 
 easily be seen that to render such a style into 
 clear, intelligible, and idiomatic English, and 
 yet to preserve, in some measure, the striking 
 charaaeristics of the original, was a task of im- 
 mense difficulty. I have endeavored to per- 
 form this task to the best of my ability. I 
 have aimed to produce a version which should 
 refledl, however faintly, the beauties of the 
 original — its solemn earnestness and fiery elo- 
 quence, its thought-profundity and rugged di- 
 re(5lness, and yet should not be too alien in form, 
 
translator's prkfack. vii 
 
 nor too far removed from the customary speech 
 and di(5lion of KngHsh literary style. In this 
 effort I have sometimes reproduced with literal 
 exacftness terms and expressions used by the 
 author, and have again ventured to deviate 
 widely from the original text. Such terms as 
 "The All-One," '' Man-Israel," and ''Deed- 
 Symbol," I have rendered literally, because, 
 although unfamiliar to English readers, they 
 are essential concepts in the theologico-philo- 
 sophical system of our author; on the other 
 hand, I have'disregarded his peculiar writing of 
 Hebrew words — ' ' Yissroel, " " Mitzwauss, ' ' 
 "Kdauss," "Yaakauw," and his use of the 
 colloquialism ' ' Haschem " for " the Lord, ' ' 
 '' T'nach " for '' the Bible," and have substi- 
 tuted in their stead the forms familiar to us; 
 for while Hirsch had good reasons, in his 
 time, for introducing these peculiar forms, 
 to use them in a modern English work would 
 simply be to introduce an entirely unnecessary 
 element of uncouthness and bisarrerie. I have 
 also taken the liberty to add words and phrases, 
 and to divide involved and complicated sen- 
 
Vlll I.KTTBRS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 tences whenever I thought such adlion neces- 
 sary to add to the perspicuity and intelligibil- 
 ity of the rendering. 
 
 I now commend my work, which, imperfec5l 
 though I feel that it is, has, nevertheless, oc- 
 cupied most of my leisure hours during the past 
 three years, to the judgment of the English- 
 reading public interested in the thinkers of 
 Israel, and the thoughts they think. If this 
 version succeeds in drawing the attention of 
 some to the life-work of one of the noblest 
 laborers in the vineyard of Israel, ' ' Dreamers 
 of the Ghetto," called by shallow, carping 
 lips; if it cause them to ponder a little upon 
 the meaning of Judaism and its message to the 
 world, my reward will be as great as I have 
 dared to hope. 
 
 Bernard Drachman. 
 New York, Elul, S^S^- 
 September, i8p8. 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAIv SKETCH. 
 
 Samson Raphael Hirsch was, indeed, a 
 "prince and a great man " in Israel; a rare 
 and noble figure in the Judaism of the century 
 now so rapidly nearing its end. Our age, so 
 barren of men of original and profound philo- 
 sophic and religious concepts, of deep convic- 
 tions and burning enthusiasm; so over- fruitful 
 of weak and inane sciolists, who, parrot-like, 
 repeat the semi - comprehended phrases of 
 pseudo-religious materialism, because through 
 them lies the road to place and pelf, and the 
 approval of the rich and worldly; our age, 
 that could so ill afford it, lost in him one who 
 almost alone towered above the dead level of 
 indifference and mediocrity, and waved on 
 high the banner of Jewish science, Jewish 
 loyalty, and Jewish idealism. Ten years have 
 rolled into the abyss of the past since he took 
 leave of earth; but to those who enjoyed the 
 
X I.ETTBRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 inestimable privilege of knowing him, or of 
 entering into spiritual or intelle(5lual commu- 
 nion with him, his loss is as fresh, and the pain 
 as keen, as though but yesterday had witnessed 
 his demise, for the impression which he pro- 
 duced upon his vast circle of congregants and 
 admirers was so profound, and the sentiments 
 of admiration and esteem which he aroused 
 were so sincere and ardent, that death alone 
 could suffice to obliterate them. Samson 
 Raphael Hirsch had also many opponents 
 during his lifetime, and the aims and objedts 
 for which he toiled and fought with all the 
 power of his restless brain and his fiery 
 tongue, were, and still are, subjec5led to severe 
 criticism; but in one point all, enemies and 
 friends, agree, that his life was altogether 
 great, that his view of Judaism was sublime 
 in its intelledlual grandeur and ethical purity, 
 and that the manner in which he sought to 
 realize it was altogether admirable, and 
 adapted to confer glory and honor upon 
 Israel in the eyes of the world. Nor did he 
 live in vain or toil for naught. His life bears 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH. XI 
 
 the charadleristic indication of the truly great, 
 that it has been fertile in enduring results; he 
 was not, like many so-called leaders, merely 
 an eminent representative of principles, not 
 adlually upheld by those theoretically his ad- 
 herents, a general without an army; on the 
 contrary, he possessed the faculty of thor- 
 oughly convincing and winning his followers, 
 of inspiring them with the same enthusiasm 
 which burnt within his breast. The future of 
 Judaism, of the ages-old historical Judaism, is 
 safe in Germany in the keeping of those reared 
 under the influence of his spirit, for he gave 
 them that which alone can secure the well- 
 being of a religion, profound attachment to it 
 as the one priceless treasure of their lives, and 
 an unyielding consistency and fidelity which 
 will render permanently impossible anything 
 like profane or sacrilegious trifling with the 
 precepts of their most sacred heritage. 
 
 Nor is the influence of his spirit confined to 
 the immediate circle of his own congregation, 
 splendid though this latter be; far beyond the 
 confines of the queenly city of Frankfort-on- 
 
xii LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 the-Main, where his chief life-work was done, 
 throughout Germany, Austro- Hungary, and 
 Russia, it has worked wonders upon the minds 
 of Judah's children; and wherever Judaism is 
 threatened, apparently in its very existence, 
 and seems hopelessly delivered over to the 
 twin destrucftive and disintegrating influences 
 of modern anti-religionism and mediaeval 
 superstition and unculture, an approach to 
 the ideal set by Hirsch seems the only way out 
 of the almost insuperable difficulty. 
 
 Samson Raphael Hirsch was born on the 
 24th of Si van, 5568 (1808), in the city of 
 Hamburg, then, as now, an exemplary Jewish 
 community, renowned for the great number of 
 its pious and benevolent men and women. 
 His father was a pious and learned Israelite, 
 who, though a merchant, devoted much of his 
 time to Hebrew studies; his grandfather w^as 
 Rabbi Mendel Frankfurter, who founded the 
 Talmud Torah in Hamburg, and was Assistant 
 Rabbi of the neighboring congregation of 
 Altona, for which service he never accepted 
 any compensation. A grand uncle of his 
 
SAMSON RAPHAKIv HIRSCH. Xlll 
 
 was Rabbi L<oeb Frankfurter, the author of the 
 two Talmudic works, Hi^pD'? D^DD")!! ' and 
 nnin* ^71^ ^ well known in Rabbinical circles. 
 The power of domestic precept and example 
 in shaping the religious disposition of the 
 boy was no doubt great, but there was soon 
 added to it an influence far more potent in at- 
 tuning his soul to piety and to that enthu- 
 siastic faith in God and Judaism, which never 
 left him at any period of his life. Isaac 
 Bernays, of whom Israel's greatest historian, 
 Graetz, says that he understood the impor- 
 tance of Judaism in the history of the world 
 far better than Mendelssohn, and that he pos- 
 sessed the ability to inspire his pupils with 
 joyous devotion to their faith, became, in the 
 3'ear 1822, Rabbi, or, as he preferred to call him- 
 self, following the Portuguese usage, Chacham 
 of the Hamburg congregation, and under the 
 influence of his Biblical and Talmudical in- 
 strucftion and earnest sermons the 3^outhful 
 Hirsch insensibly found himself growing dis- 
 satisfied with the commercial career for which 
 
 The Ridges Levelled. 2 fhe Voice of Judab. 
 
XIV I.KTTERS OF BEN UZIKL. 
 
 his parents had designed him, which dissatis- 
 facflion finally culminated in the definite re- 
 vSolve to choose the Rabbinical vocation as his 
 life task. In fiirtherance of this plan he went 
 to Mannheim, where, under the instrucftion of 
 the venerable Rabbi Jacob Kttlinger, after- 
 ward Rabbi of Altona, he devoted himself as- 
 siduously to Talmudical studies until 1829, 
 when he entered the University of Bonn. 
 Here he came into close connecftion with a num- 
 ber of Jewish students, whose minds were full 
 of restless and skeptical thought, and pulsat- 
 ing with strong ambition for careers of power 
 and distindlion, then, as now, so tremen- 
 dously difficult for Jews to attain in Germany. 
 They organized a debating society, and among 
 the keenest and most brilliant debaters on all 
 subje(5ls, especially religious, was Samson 
 Raphael Hirsch. 
 
 Abraham Geiger was one of those students, 
 and a warm personal friend and admirer of 
 Hirsch, of whose splendid intelle(5lual gifts, 
 remarkable eloquence, strict moral princi- 
 ples and personal amiability, he draws, 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH. XV 
 
 in his posthumous writings, a most attrac- 
 tive pidlure. Strange, indeed, that two warm 
 friends, issuing from very similar family 
 environments, both sincere and both inspired 
 by genuine desire to work for the welfare 
 of their people and their faith, should have 
 sought the realization of their ideals upon 
 roads so utterly divergent, leading to goals 
 diametrically opposed. 
 
 Passing strange, but still a phenomenon 
 which repeats itself in every country and 
 every age, and which we can, without diffi- 
 culty, see in our own surroundings and time. 
 
 Hirsch had hardly passed a j^ear at the 
 University when he was called, in 1830, as 
 I^and Rabbi to the Principality of Oldenburg. 
 In Bonn he had been brought face to face 
 with the Jewish religious problem as it mani- 
 fested itself among the intellecftual classes. In 
 Oldenburg he beheld it in all its difficulty and 
 apparent insolubility among the middle and 
 lower classes, the mercantile and laboring ele- 
 ments of the Jewish people. These twain 
 experiences were undoubtedly hard blows to 
 
XVI I.KTTERS OF BEN UZIEIv. 
 
 his ideal, but, instead of discouraging him, 
 they aroused his latent energy, and strength- 
 ened in him the resolve to do his utmost to 
 secure the wide dissemination and propagation 
 of the true meaning of Judaism, as he under- 
 stood it, and which through hard study and 
 profound refledlion had already at that youth- 
 ful period ripened in him to a firm and solemn 
 convi(5lion. The first fruit of this resolve was 
 one of the most, if not the most, significant 
 and characfteristic of his produ6lions, the 
 epoch-making writing entitled ' ' Neunzehn 
 Briefe fiber Judenthum, von Ben Uziel," 
 which appeared in Altona in 1836, and which 
 is the subject of the present translation. The 
 fa6l that he published it under a pseudonym 
 is charadleristic for his intensity and single- 
 ness of purpose. Youth usually delights in 
 publicity, and loves to concentrate the atten- 
 tion of the world upon itself, but he had no 
 such objecfl in view. He did not seek for 
 fame, neither should his name, although his 
 official position must have lent it some weight, 
 assist in procuring a favorable reception for 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEIv HIRSCH. XVll 
 
 his book. Not the name or position of the 
 author, but what he had to say should attra(5l 
 attention, should give his co-religionists food 
 for thought. But the facft of his authorship 
 did not remain long unknown; the letters 
 made a profound impression in German Jewish 
 circles, and soon all knew that the youthful 
 Rabbi of Oldenburg was the author of the 
 eloquent and original defense of Orthodox 
 Judaism. In the nineteen letters, which 
 assume to be the correspondence between a 
 young Rabbi called Naphtali (01^=Hirsch), 
 and his youthful friend Benjamin, who, though 
 originally religious, had, through contadl with 
 the world and the perusal of non-Jewish writ- 
 ings, lost his early convidlions, Hirsch set up 
 that view of Judaism called in Germany 
 " Denkglaubigkeit," which we may translate 
 as "intelledlual or enlightened Orthodoxy," al- 
 though he himself was intolerant of any name 
 except Judaism or "Torah." The nineteen 
 letters are a sort of modern Moreh Nebuchim, 
 "Guide of the Perplexed," though very differ- 
 ent in form and contents from the famous work 
 
XVlll LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 of the Cordovan philosopher, to whose theory 
 of Judaism, its tenets and its law, Hirsch was 
 strongly opposed. I^ike Maimonides, how- 
 ever, he addressed himself neither to the 
 simple-minded believer, who found in the 
 obser^^ance of his ancestral faith sufficiency of 
 strength and solace for the battle of life, and 
 nourishment for his intelledlual and spiritual 
 cravings, nor to the rehgious Nihilist to 
 whom the whole of theology is but an ex- 
 ploded standpoint, but to the "perplexed," to 
 those whose hearts still clung with warmest 
 attachment to Judaism, but whose minds 
 found much doubtful, incomprehensible, or 
 seemingly purposeless in the faith endeared to 
 them by a thousand ties. 
 
 In classic German, with a style ofttimes 
 highly poetic and eloquent, and always im- 
 pressive, and with masterly argumentation, he 
 proceeded to confute their objedlions. Com- 
 mencing with the demonstration of the neces- 
 sity of the existence of God, as a conditio sine 
 qua non of the universe, he follows with the 
 postulate of the need of a human race to carry 
 
SAMSON RAPHAElv HIRSCH. XIX 
 
 into adluality the infinite potentiality of 
 good in the Deity. But with freedom of the 
 will comes the inevitable confiicft between 
 good and evil; humanity will not devote itself 
 as a whole to the maintenance of the Divine 
 law, the free will left to itself would soon pro- 
 duce an utter confusion of notions concerning 
 good and evil. Hence the need of an entire 
 community which shall dedicate itself entirely 
 to the mission of teaching humanity to .seek 
 for the good, or what is the same, to obey the 
 will of God. Such a people must have dis- 
 tindlive laws and customs to sandlify it and 
 distinguish it from the mass of external 
 humanity as especially consecrated to the ser- 
 vice of God. This duty has been historically 
 assumed by Israel; these distindlive laws form 
 the ceremonial legislation of the Torah. 
 Then follows the analysis of the Torah and 
 the demonstration that every part is essential 
 and necessar}^, either to the furtherance of 
 the ideal of good on the part of mankind, or 
 the establishment of Israel in its characfVer of 
 "servant of the All-One," and that no human 
 
XX I^KTTKRS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 authority has power to abrogate any of the 
 Divine institutions. Hirsch's system of what 
 he calls the ' ' scientific upbuilding of Juda- 
 ism ' ' (wissenschaftlicher Aufbau des Juden- 
 thum's) is somewhat peculiar. While he 
 insists that the dodlrinal and ethical contents 
 of Judaism can only be ascertained by abso- 
 lute objedlivity of investigation into its Bibli- 
 cal and Talmudic sources, uninfluenced by 
 prejudices or notions drawn from extraneous 
 spheres of thought, he utterly refuses to con- 
 sider the question of the authenticity of reve- 
 lation and the binding charac5ler of Jewish 
 codes. For him the Torah is axiomatic, as 
 unquestionably real as nature itself. To 
 doubt or question this would be to put oneself 
 outside of Judaism. Waile the first principle 
 is truly scientific and must, of necessity, be 
 approved by all, the second principle can not 
 but be a serious difficulty to many an honest 
 mind. Nor can it be denied that in the prac- 
 tical application of the first principle, the 
 objedlive investigation of the Torah, he was 
 occasionally guilty of both philosophical and 
 
SAMSON RAPHAKIv HIRSCH. XXI 
 
 philological extravagances, which were sharply 
 and deservedly attacked by his opponents. 
 Nevertheless, as a whole, his work is pro- 
 found and acute, and will have enduring 
 value. 
 
 The publication of this work marked an 
 epoch in the history of Judaism in Germany, 
 and, indeed, in the world. It showed that 
 orthodox Judaism was not maintained solely 
 by the superstitious, or narrow-minded older 
 generation, who had never been initiated into 
 the science and culture of the age; but that it 
 could be warmly, nay, enthusiastically, upheld 
 by one who had thoroughly acquainted him- 
 self with the most daring researches of the new 
 time, and met them with equally bold and open 
 argument. More on this account, even, than be- 
 cause of the convincingness of the general the- 
 ory, or the brilliancy of the special argument, 
 the letters made a sensation, and aroused uni- 
 versal admiration . The lofty idealism which per- 
 vaded his description of the Israel-mission, the 
 emphasis with which he pointed it out as par- 
 ticularly the duty of the cultured and wealthy 
 
XXll I.KTTERS OF BEN UZIKlv. 
 
 to remain attached with entire and unswerv- 
 ing faithfulness to the reHgion and the people 
 charged with so sublime a task, w^ere admirably 
 adapted to reach the hearts of the impression- 
 able and earnest- thinking in Israel. A sensual 
 or worldly-minded person found nothing at- 
 tra(5live in the man or his ideas, but those 
 possessed of higher impulses, and who seri- 
 ously pondered over the problem of life and 
 sought for light and truth, were at once 
 won over by his profundity and evident sin- 
 cerity, and among this best class of Israel he 
 gained numerous and devoted followers. It 
 w^as during his tenure of the Rabbinical office 
 at Oldenburg that he received an unusually 
 gifted and talented student, w^hose name was 
 also destined to shine resplendent in the Jew- 
 ish world. On the 8th of May, 1837, Hein- 
 rich Hirsch Graetz, destined to be known as 
 the father of Jewish historj^, then in his twen- 
 tieth year, became the disciple of the already 
 renowned Oldenburg Rabbi. The impression 
 produced upon the brilliant and earnest young 
 thinker by his new teacher is well described in 
 
SAMSON RAPHAKlv HIRSCH. XXlll 
 
 the memoir of Professor Graetz by Rabbi Dr. 
 Philipp Bloch, recently published under the 
 auspices of the Jewish Publication Society,' 
 and this description gives us an excellent 
 characterization of the personality of Hirsch: 
 ' ' In Samson Raphael Hirsch he met a man 
 whose spiritual elevation and noble charadler 
 compelled his profound reverence, and who 
 fully realized all the expedlations he had har- 
 bored concerning him. Hirsch was a man of 
 modern culture, and his manner was distin- 
 guished, even aristocratic, although he kept 
 aloof from all social intercourse. He was short 
 of stature, yet those who came in contact with 
 him were strongly impressed by his external 
 appearance, on account of his grave, dignified 
 demeanor, forbidding familiarity. With great 
 intellecftual gifts, and rare qualities of the 
 heart, he combined varied theological attain- 
 ments, and an excellent classical education. 
 He was the only teacher from whom 
 Graetz 's self-centred being received scientific 
 
 1 Index volume of Graetz's "History of the Jews." Philadel- 
 phia. 1898. 
 
XXIV LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 Stimulation; perhaps the only man to exercise, 
 so far as the stubborn peculiarit}^ of Graetz's 
 nature permitted it, permanent influence upon 
 his reserved, independent nature." 
 
 In 1838 Hirsch published, as a necessary 
 concomitant of the letters, his * ' Choreb — Es- 
 says on Yissroel's Duties in the Dispersion," ' 
 which is a text-book on Judaism for the edu- 
 cated youth of Israel. Each law, ceremonial, 
 ethical, or devotional, is thoroughly explained 
 according to the part which it takes in the vast 
 edifice of the ordinances designed to protecft 
 Israel in its devotion to the God-idea, or to 
 assist in the diffusion of Jewish spiritual and 
 ethical truth. In 1839 he pubhshed "First 
 Communications from Naphtali's Correspond- 
 ence. ' ' ^ This was a polemical essay against 
 the reforms of Holdheim and others, and in it 
 he showed himself a master of controversy. 
 With incontrovertible reasoning and biting 
 satire he exposed the utter hollowness and 
 unworthiness of the so-called ' * Jewish re- 
 
 1 Versuche iiber Jissroel's Pflichten in der Zerstreuuug. 
 
 2 Erste Mittheiluugeu aus Naphtalis Briefwechsel. 
 
SAMSON RAPHAKly HIRSCH. XXV 
 
 forms," as compared with the old, unadulter- 
 ated Judaism, and that the latter alone could 
 enable Israel to fulfill its mission. In 1841 he 
 was elecfted I^and- Rabbi of the Hanoverian 
 distridls of Aurich and Osnabriick, with his 
 residence in Emden. 
 
 In 1844 appeared "Second Communica- 
 tions from a Correspondence Concerning the 
 most Recent Jewish I^iterature, ' ' ' which con- 
 tained a vigorous polemic against the contem- 
 porary reform movement in Judaism. In 1846 
 he received the highest compliment which 
 could be paid to an orthodox Rabbi by being 
 called to the Rabbinate of Nicolsburg in Mora- 
 via, which such distinguished Talmudists and 
 representatives of the old school as Rabbi Mor- 
 dechai Baneth and Rabbi Nahum Trebitsch 
 had held. That such a community should 
 have at that period selecfted a man of modern 
 culture as their spiritual head, without any 
 suspicion of the genuineness of his piety, was, 
 in itself, exceptional, and a high honor; but it 
 
 1 Zweite Mittheilungen aus einem Briefwechsel iiber die 
 neueste j "idische lyiteratur. 
 
XXVI I^ETTKRS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 was succeeded the next 3^ear by a still greater 
 distindlion, when he was installed as Land- 
 Rabbi of Moravia and Austrian Silesia. This 
 showed the high repute in which both his 
 learning and piet}^ stood in communities of un- 
 questioned orthodoxy. In Austria he passed 
 five busy and useful 3^ears in the reorganization 
 of the Jewish congregations, the instru(5lion 
 of numerous disciples, and also, at one time in 
 public politics, as a member of the Moravian 
 Parliament. In 1851 he did the most heroic 
 deed of his life; a deed which demonstrated 
 most unmistakably that Judaism and truth 
 only, not worldly glory or reward, were his 
 life's single purpose. At that time Frankfort- 
 on-the-Main was, as regards its Jewish congre- 
 gation, entirely in the hands of the reformers. 
 Frankfort, ranking with Worms as the oldest 
 of South German communities, where our an- 
 cestors had, during the dark msedieval days, 
 shown such patient endurance and adlive hero- 
 ism in the cause of the sacred faith, was now 
 given over to the reign of superficial and irrev- 
 erent innovators. Eleven sincerely pious men 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH. XXVll 
 
 only had withdrawn from the general commu- 
 nity and founded the organization which they 
 did not even venture to call a congregation, 
 but modestly styled a society, " Israelitische 
 Religions Gesellschaft." ' These eleven tim- 
 idly and hesitatingly sent a request to the Chief 
 Rabbi of Moravia and Silesia to be their guide 
 and adviser, hoping that his well-known Jew- 
 ish enthusiasm, and his financial position, 
 which permitted him to be independent, would, 
 perhaps^ induce him to accept their call. And 
 he accepted it. The recognized head of Juda- 
 ism in two great provinces, clothed with state 
 authority, loved and honored by his congrega- 
 tions, laid down his brilliant and lucrative 
 position in order to accept a questionable place 
 as Rabbi of a small group in a great city, where 
 the Jewish community at large was thoroughly 
 organized under other, and hostile, leader- 
 ship. It was a wise and far-seeing step. Hirsch 
 recognized that here in the heart of Germany 
 was the spot where the best and most substan- 
 tial work could be done for Judaism, for, if he 
 
 1 Israelitish Society for Religion. 
 
XXVlll LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 could materially elevate the cause of conserva- 
 tism in Germany, it would inevitably be pro- 
 dudlive of the most beneficial results in all 
 those neighboring regions which look up to 
 Germany as the model of culture and enlight- 
 enment. 
 
 His work in Germany was blessed to a degree 
 far beyond what he could have anticipated. 
 
 Ivittle by little, through hard, unceasing toil 
 and struggle, he succeeded in developing new 
 Jewish life, and in organizing a model orthodox 
 congregation, numbering some five hundred of 
 the best Jewish families of the place, and pro- 
 vided with all necessary institutions in the 
 most splendid manner. Nor did he confine 
 his efforts to the synagogue; he succeeded in 
 organizing two schools, ' ' Biirgerschule ' ' and 
 " Realschule," in which a thorough Jewish 
 training goes hand in hand with the secular 
 education demanded by the age, thereby secur- 
 ing the youth and thoroughly preparing them 
 to take the place in the congregation occupied 
 by their parents. As conscientious and care- 
 ful teacher, as eloquent and brilliant preacher, 
 
SAMSON RAPHAKIy HIRSCH. XXIX 
 
 he labored for the advancement of his own 
 congregation, as learned and instruc?tive 
 writer for Judaism in general. As writer his 
 efforts were distributed between contributions 
 to the columns of the ' ' Jeshurun, ' ' established 
 in 1854, and independent works. In the twelve 
 years from 1866 to 1878 he published his 
 masterly ' ' Translation of the Pentateuch with 
 Commentary." ' The leading principle of 
 this great work is to prove the historical unity 
 of Judaism, that it can not be divided into 
 different forms and distin6l periods of develop- 
 ment, but that its latest manifestations are the 
 logical and necessary postulates of Biblical 
 revelation. During all these years he was 
 battling for liberty of conscience to secure the 
 abrogation of the law, designed in the interests 
 of order and system, but iniquitous in its 
 undesigned consequences, compelling Israelites 
 to remain contributing members of the local 
 congregations, even when these latter had 
 departed from the standards of religious duty. 
 These efforts were finally crowned with success 
 
 1 Uebersetzung und Erkliirung des Pentateuch. 
 
XXX LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 when the bill introduced by Lasker in the 
 German Parliament, permitting Israelites to 
 sever their connedlion with the congregation 
 without leaving Judaism, became a law on the 
 28th of July, 1876. Hirsch was forced to this 
 step by the unreasonable acftions of the reform 
 Jewish communal authorities of Frankfort, 
 who refused his congregation absolutely 
 necessary privileges, even after it had swelled 
 to hundreds of families. On this subject he 
 wrote two essays, *' The Principle of Religious 
 Liberty," ' 1874, and " On I^eaving the Con- 
 gregation," "^ 1876. 
 
 He did not find universal approval of this 
 step, however, even among the orthodox. 
 His most notable opponent was Rabbi S. B. 
 Bamberger, of Wiirzburg, with w^hom he had 
 a warm controversy, and a large se(5lion of 
 the orthodox Jews under leadership of Dr. 
 Hurwitz remained in conne(5lion with the 
 main body of the Frankfort community. In 
 1882 appeared his " Translation and Kxplana- 
 
 1 Das Princip der Gewissensfreiheit. 
 
 2 Der Austritt aus der Gemeinde. 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEI. HIRSCH. XXXI 
 
 tion of the Psalms. ' ' ^ This work is carried 
 out in accordance with his estabUshed views, 
 and is distinguished by elegance of rendering, 
 a painstaking attempt to penetrate the inner- 
 most meaning of each psalm, and a scrupulous 
 adherence to the received text. His effort to 
 find sj^mbolical meanings in the enigmatical 
 superscriptions can not, however, be considered 
 particularly successful. In 1884 he published 
 an essay ' ' On the relations of the Talmud to 
 Judaism, " ' to defend the Talmudic literature 
 against the vile slanders which anti-Semitic 
 writers were then already beginning to circu- 
 late. After this he did but little, the state of 
 his health precluding adlive literary or minis- 
 terial work. He left, however, in manuscript 
 a translation and explanation of the prayer- 
 book, w^hich has since been published. In 
 this conne(ftion it is interesting to note, as an 
 illustration of the high repute in which he 
 stood among the vast body of his co-religion- 
 ists in the Russian empire, that shortly after 
 
 1 Uebersetzung und Erkliirung der Psalmen. 
 
 » Ueber die Beziehungen des Talmuds zum Judenthum. 
 
XXXll LETTERS OF BEN UZIElv. 
 
 his death a translation of the ' ' Nineteen 
 lyetters " into classic Hebrew by M. S. Aron- 
 sohn appeared in Wilna, and within a few 
 months several editions were exhausted. He 
 died with the dying year, quietly and pain- 
 lessly, December 31, 1888. Such was the life 
 and such the work of one who was undoubtedly 
 one of the most remarkable figures in Israel's 
 gallery of great men during the present 
 century. Like all great men he had his faults. 
 '' He was an extremist, but only extremists 
 achieve success. The undecided and weak- 
 kneed compromisers can never control, but are 
 always controlled by their surroundings ; but 
 he was a master-mind who led his contempora- 
 ries, and his was a powerful and unyielding 
 will, which stamped upon his time the impress 
 of his ideas and con\-ic'lions. The secret of his 
 success lay, in addition to his owm personality, 
 in the absolute consistency of his religious 
 system. His do(5lrine of consistent obedience 
 to the will of God and the ceremonial law, as 
 a part of that will, in order thereby to accom- 
 plish the mission of Israel, was convincing to 
 
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH. XXXlll 
 
 the minds of thousands, and inspired them with 
 enthusiasm and devotion. 
 
 He covered orthodox Judaism with glory by 
 demonstrating that the old synagogue ritual, 
 so bitterly attacked and decried, not only best 
 expressed the true spirit of Judaism, but could 
 be carried out in a highly dignified, impressive, 
 and aesthetic manner. He has been accused by 
 advocates of the so-called Radical Judaism of 
 making the synagogue service an antiquarian 
 show. This accusation is, how^ever, utterly 
 superficial. Whatever of the antique his 
 synagogue service presented was due, not to 
 his inception, but to the laws which, as a true 
 Israelite, he was bound to hold sacred and to 
 obey. The service in radical temples is 
 undoubtedly not at all antiquarian. It is 
 modern, but because it is a purely modern con- 
 ventional arrangement, with very much of the 
 nineteenth century in it, but very little of 
 Judaism and its sacred heritage of inviolable 
 law. The credit of having boldly taken his 
 standpoint within, not without, Judaism, and 
 having elevated and glorified it by demon- 
 
XXXIV I^KTTKRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 strating its intrinsic beauty and merit, and its 
 own native adequacy for every spiritual want 
 of humanity, will forever belong to Samson 
 Raphael Hirsch, and his name will live 
 imperishable in the history of Israel as one 
 who was in every fiber of his being a Jew, an 
 idealist, and a true friend of mankind. 
 
 The TransIvATor. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 These letters came into my hands as the 
 legacy of a dear friend. Much of their con- 
 tents attracted me greatly, and altogether 
 they appeared to me to consider many subjedls 
 of high importance from such new and unu- 
 sual points of view, that I hope by placing 
 them before my brethren to earn their thanks, 
 even if all of the sentiments therein expressed 
 should not meet with universal approval. 
 
 The essays alluded to in the last letter are 
 also extant; and I desire the publication of 
 these letters to be considered as a sort of 
 question to the public, whether I should also 
 publish those essays. The voices which will 
 be heard in regard to these letters will also 
 determine me in reference to those writings. 
 
 Should the essays appear, then these letters 
 will take the place of the introducftory outlines 
 with which, according to the nineteenth letter, 
 the author had intended to preface his book. 
 
XXXVl LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 As for the letters themselves, I give them just 
 as I found them, and have not even taken the 
 liberty, considering that they are the work of 
 another, to improve here and there occasional 
 awkwardnesses of style, fearing that T might 
 perhaps at the same time obliterate some 
 essential peculiarity. Out of a subsequently 
 found later letter of Naphtali to Benjamin, 
 who appears to have communicated to him 
 the judgment of a friend concerning this cor- 
 respondence, I think it not improper to quote 
 here the following passage : 
 
 " Do not forget, my dear Benjamin, that I 
 did not attempt in the sketches to map out for 
 you an accurate design of the entire ground- 
 plan and superstru(5lure, but only a general 
 outline of the edifice of Judaism. I have only 
 led you through one majestic nave of the 
 edifice, from which you can form a partial 
 conception of the imposing whole. I desired 
 to familiarize 3^our mind and heart at first 
 only with one chief idea of Judaism, one 
 which should lead us most speedily to the 
 sought-for goal, and could not therefore con- 
 
author's PRKFACK. XXXVll 
 
 sider all that which your friend otherwise 
 would be right in missing. ' ' 
 
 To this I would only add the request to 
 reserve one's judgment concerning special 
 points in these letters until one has read them 
 completely, and pursued further the superfi- 
 cially suggested ideas. I, at least, while at 
 first not a little amazed at many statements, 
 learned subsequently to think quite differently 
 concerning them; much, especially of the con- 
 tents of the thirteenth and fourteenth letter, 
 I could only comprehend after I had seen the 
 essays. 
 
 Finally, I would express the wish that I 
 may not be deceived in the opinion that this 
 correspondence may contain the impulse to 
 much good, and that through the judgment 
 of able and sagacious men I may feel myself 
 encouraged also to publish the essays. 
 
 The Author. 
 
THE NINETEEN LETTERS OF 
 BEN UZIEL 
 
 FIRST LETTER. 
 
 My Dear Naphtali : 
 
 When, recently, on the occasion of your 
 trip through the town of my residence, we 
 were privileged to meet again, after many 
 years of separation, for a short fleeting hour, 
 you did not imagine, my dear Naphtali, what 
 interest the subjecft of our conversation had — 
 and, indeed, still has — for me. You found me 
 so changed in my religious views and pra(5lices 
 that, despite your habitual tolerance, you could 
 not suppress the questions which rose, as it 
 were, spontaneously to your lips, ''Since 
 when ? ' ' and ' ' Why ? " As answer I gave 
 you a whole series of accusations against 
 Judaism, concerning which my e3'es had been 
 
 I 
 
2 I^ETTKRS OF BEN UZIKL. 
 
 Opened by reading and contacft with the world 
 since I had left home and parents. 
 
 You listened quietly to my speech, and, 
 when I had done, replied, ' ' Do you believe 
 that you really understand the objecft which 
 you are thus condemning? Have you ac- 
 quired with your own eyes, and by dint of 
 honest, earnest investigation, an adlual under- 
 standing of a matter which, inasmuch as it is 
 the holiest and most important consideration 
 of our life, should at least not be cast aside 
 thoughtlessly and unrefledlingly ? ' ' You 
 showed me that the only sources of my knowl- 
 edge w^ere, on the one hand, the mechanical 
 pra(5lice of parental customs and a few imper- 
 fect and undigested fragments of the Bible and 
 Talmud acquired from Polish teachers, and, on 
 the other hand. Christian writers, modern re- 
 formers, and especially that view of life which 
 our present age has brought forth, and which 
 has, as its chief endeavor, the suppression of 
 the inner voice of conscience in favor of the 
 external demands of comfort and ease. 
 
 I was forced to confess the insufficiency of my 
 
FIRSl" LBTTKR. 3 
 
 knowledge, begged you for instrudlion; then 
 the coachman called, and, in bidding me good- 
 by, you had only time to call " in writing." 
 You have, therefore, made me distrustful, my 
 dear Naphtali, of the opinions I have hitherto 
 held, but you have not refuted them, nor given 
 me better ones in their stead. I, therefore, 
 take advantage of your kind permission, and 
 repeat to you in writing a number of my 
 charges, not for the purpose of defending my 
 present mode of life, but in the sincere desire 
 of information and guidance. Every religion, 
 I believe, should bring man nearer to his ulti- 
 mate end. This end, what else can it be than 
 the attainment of happiness and perfecftion ? 
 
 But if we take these principles as a criterion 
 for Judaism, what utterly depressing results 
 do we not obtain ? To what happiness does 
 Judaism condudl its professors? From time 
 immemorial misery and slavery have been their 
 lot; misunderstood or despised by the other 
 nations, and while the rest of mankind 
 mounted to the summit of culture, prosperity, 
 and fortune, its adherents remained always 
 
4 LETTERS OP BEN UZlEly. 
 
 poor in everything which makes human beings 
 great and noble, and which beautifies and 
 dignifies existence. 
 
 The I^aw itself interdicts all enjoyments, is 
 a hindrance to all the pleasures of life. For 
 two thousand years we are as the plaything of 
 fate, as a ball tossed from hand to hand, even 
 in the present time driven from all the paths 
 of happiness. And as for the perfe(5ling of 
 human acquirements, what culture, what con- 
 quests in the domain of science, art, or in- 
 vention, in a word, what great achievements 
 have Jews wrought compared with Egyptians, 
 Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Italians, French, 
 English, or Germans? 
 
 Robbed of all the charac5leristics of nation- 
 ality, we are, nevertheless, deemed a nation, 
 and every one of us is bj^ his very birth doomed 
 to form an additional link in this never-ending 
 chain of misery. The I^aw is chiefly at fault 
 for all this: by enjoining isolation in life, and 
 thereby arousing suspicion and hostility; by 
 breaking the spirit through the inculcation of 
 humble submissiveness, thereby inviting con- 
 
FIRST I.KTTKR. 5 
 
 tempt ; by discouraging the pursuit of the 
 formative arts; by dogmas which bar the way 
 of free speculation, and by removing, through 
 the separation in life, every incentive to exer- 
 tion in science and art, which, therefore, do 
 not flourish among us. 
 
 As for our own lore, it perverts the mind 
 and leads it astray into subtleties and the 
 7mnuticB of petty distincftions, until it becomes 
 incapable of entertaining simple and natural 
 opinions, so that I have always wondered not 
 a little how you, who have taste and under- 
 standing for the beauties of Virgil, Tasso, and 
 Shakespeare, and who are able to penetrate 
 into the consistent stru(5lures of Leibnitz or 
 Kant, can find pleasure in the rude and taste- 
 less writings of the Old Testament, or in the 
 illogical disputations of the Talmud ? 
 
 And what effedl has it, the Law, upon heart 
 and life ? The broad principles of universal 
 morality are narrowed into anxious scrupu- 
 losity about insignificant trifles ; nothing is 
 taught except to fear God, everything, even 
 the pettiest details of life, is referred diredlly 
 
6 I^ETTERS OF BKN UZIEL. 
 
 to God; life itself becomes a continuous mon- 
 astic service, nothing but prayers and cere- 
 monies; he the most praiseworthy Jew, who 
 lives most secluded, and knows least of the 
 world, though he permits it to vSupport him, but 
 wastes his life in fasting and pra3dng, and the 
 perusal of senseless writings. I^ook yourself 
 at the book which is put into our hands as the 
 " Path of Life," ' and which contains the 
 whole duty of the Jew, what else does it teach 
 except pra3dng and fasting and the keeping 
 of holidays ? Where is there one word of the 
 adlive, busy life around us? And this, too, 
 just in our time ? Why, it is quite impossible 
 to keep these laws intended for an entirely 
 different time. What limitation in travelling, 
 what embarrassment in association with Gen- 
 tiles, what difficulties in ever}^ business ! 
 
 Please, please do not point, for an answer, 
 to the reformistic tendencies of the age, how 
 little by little everything is being cut awa}' 
 which does not harmonize with the conception 
 of the destiny of man or the needs of the 
 
 ' n'^n nmx— 
 
FIRST LETTER. 7 
 
 time. Is not this in itself a step outside of 
 Judaism ? 
 
 Should one not rather, if one is a Jew, con- 
 sistently carry out these notions, instead of 
 attaching oneself to such contradi(5lory prin- 
 ciples, by which nothing can be attained 
 except capricious, fortuitous patchwork ? 
 
 And, besides, for this very reform, every- 
 thing is lacking, unity, legally constituted 
 legislative bodies, authority. All of these 
 efforts are only the doings of individuals, the 
 most divergent opinions prevail among the 
 Rabbis and preachers; w^hile some as enlight- 
 ened men of the time tear down, others hold 
 fast to the rotten building, and wish them- 
 selves to be buried under it. I myself recently 
 saw a young Rabbi who, whenever he travels, 
 in simple-minded piety, contents himself with 
 prisoner's fare, and whom, when one visits 
 him, one may still find poring over the folios 
 of the Talmud; nay, he is even said to grieve 
 earnestly over the fadl that some of the mem- 
 bers of his congregation are so far advanced in 
 enlightenment that they do not close their 
 
8 I.KTTKRS OF BBN UZIEI.. 
 
 places of business on the Sabbath. What 
 shall become of us, dear Naphtali? I am 
 about to marry, but, God knows, when I 
 think that perhaps I shall be called upon to 
 exercise the duties of a father to children, I 
 tremble. 
 
 Excuse me, dear friend, that I have spoken 
 so freely and unreservedly, although I know 
 that you revere all this very much, and, I sup- 
 pose, must do so as Rabbi, on account of your 
 position; still I am confident that you have so 
 much love left for me from former days, that 
 you will, in answering me, forget your office; 
 for what that teaches, I know sufficiently well. 
 Farewell. Your 
 
 Benjamin. 
 
SECOND LETTER. 
 
 Because I answer you so soon, dear Ben- 
 jamin, do not think I have not maturely 
 refledled upon the subjedls which you put 
 before me in your letter. 
 
 You know that in my earliest youth these 
 subje(5ls employed my soul, that, reared by en- 
 lightened but God-fearing parents, the voices of 
 T'nach^ early spoke to my spirit, and that, of 
 my own free will, when my intelligence had 
 already matured, I permitted the T'nach to 
 lead me to Gemara"^ — that not external neces- 
 sity caused me to seledl the vocation of Rabbi, 
 but my own inner life-plan. So much the 
 more do I wonder that you can fear to find in 
 me the hypocrisy of office. I would be angry 
 with you, were you not my friend, were I not 
 yours. But that is the curse of the time and 
 the fatal obstacle to beneficent acftivity on the 
 part of those in official station, that that 
 
 Bible. 2 Talmud. 
 
lO LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 which should be the treasured possession of 
 all, has become the attribute of office, so that 
 people are inclined to look upon the universal 
 rule of life as the mere regulation of an order 
 and say, " Yes, he must be so, must speak so, 
 his position — his bread — demands it." Sad 
 degradation of the age ! It seems quite natu- 
 ral that a man should .sell everything, his 
 most cherished individuality, his inmost con- 
 vi(5lions, for bread, and everything is deemed 
 excusable if it but jaeld bread, bread ! But 
 perhaps you rejoice, Benjamin, and thousands 
 with you, that all of this has been forced to 
 flee for refuge within the limits of an official 
 class, for in this you may see a hope — and 
 indeed a prospecft — that it will soon be expelled 
 even from there, and the consistent process of 
 erec5ling life upon the twin foundation princi- 
 ples of happiness and perfedlion, suspended 
 between heaven and earth, and supported by 
 themselves, may soon begin. 
 
 Excuse me this excitement, dear friend; I 
 will also try to forget that you spoke so. I 
 proceed, therefore, to answer your letter, and 
 
SECOND LETTER. II 
 
 can dispense, I hope, without fear of angering 
 you, with the giving of a special assurance 
 that my official station will not influence my 
 reply. 
 
 You estimate the value of Judaism by the 
 principle of the purpose of human existence, 
 and this, in your view, is found in happiness 
 and perfecftion. I could ask: Is it so sure that 
 happiness and perfe(5lion form the goal and 
 objecft of man's being? I could ask upon 
 what basis you found this opinion, or what 
 could you answer to the careless pleasure- 
 seeker or criminal, who thinks the excitement 
 and sensual lust of the moment a greater hap- 
 piness than all temporal or eternal blessings ? 
 Every one must be permitted to be his own 
 judge of what constitutes happiness for him, 
 for happiness decreed in accordance with any 
 compulsory external standard, ceases to be 
 happiness ! And the perfecting of one's 
 being, the mounting of the highest intellectual 
 heights ! By how few ever attained, by how 
 few attainable ! 
 
 Truth itself is conceived by a thousand 
 
12 LETTERS OF BKN UZIEL. 
 
 thinkers in a thousand different ways. To 
 negle(5l its pursuit is, after all, only a sin 
 against oneself, and, therefore, one can only 
 be accountable to oneself. For to whom would 
 I owe an accounting, if this principle only de- 
 mands the promotion of the happiness and per- 
 fedlion of others as a means of attaining my 
 own, and I relinquish this ? How, I would ask 
 you, is it with the multitude of unhappy and 
 imperfe(5l ones outside of Judaism ? But I will 
 omit all these questions. Let us put aside for 
 a while the standard of measurement, and let 
 us try to know that which we desire to mea- 
 sure — ^Judaism, in its history and teachings. 
 Perhaps, on the way, we may learn to think 
 differently concerning the destiny of man- 
 kind, and may obtain a different mode of dis- 
 cerning the purpose of the existence of the 
 nations, and their duties. But we must become 
 acquainted with it from the source which it 
 itself points out to us; which it has rescued 
 from the wreck of all its other fortunes as the 
 only original document and source of instruc- 
 tion concerning its true essence — from its To- 
 
SECOND i,e:ttkr. 13 
 
 rah. Its history we must learn from it, for 
 Judaism is an historical phenomenon, and for 
 its origin, its first entrance into history, and 
 for a long subsequent time, the Torah is the 
 only monument. And if, at the cradle of this 
 people, we were to hear mystic voices, such as 
 no other nation ever heard — voices announc- 
 ing the purpose of this people's existence — for 
 which it entered into history, should we not 
 hearken to these voices, and try to comprehend 
 them, that we might thus understand it and its 
 history ? It is the only source of its law, writ- 
 ten and oral. Therefore, to the Torah! But, 
 before we open it, let us consider how we shall 
 read it. Not for the purpose of making philo- 
 logical and antiquarian investigations, nor to 
 find support and corroboration for antediluvian 
 or geological hypotheses, nor either in the ex- 
 pedlation of unveiling supermundane myste- 
 ries, but as Jews must we read it — that is to 
 say, looking upon it as a book given to us by 
 God that we may learn from it to know our- 
 selves — what we are, and what we should be 
 in this our earthly existence. It must be to 
 
14 IvKTTERS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 US Tor ah — that is, instrucftion and guidance in 
 this divine world; a generator of spiritual life 
 within us. Our desire is to apprehend Juda- 
 ism; therefore, we must take up our position 
 in thought within Judaism, and must ask our- 
 selves, *' What will human beings be who rec- 
 ognize the contents of this book as a basis and 
 rule of life given to them by God ? " In the 
 same way we must seek understanding of the 
 witzvoth, the commandments — that is to say, 
 we must strive to know their extent and bear- 
 ing from the written and oral law. All of this 
 must take place from the standpoint of the 
 obje(5l of all this procedure, the finding of the 
 true law of life. Only when you have thus 
 comprehended Judaism from itself, as it repre- 
 sents itself to be, and have then found it unten- 
 able and unworthy of acceptance, may you, if 
 you wish, cast upon it the stone of obloquy. 
 We must also read the Torah in Hebrew — that 
 is to say, in accordance with the spirit of that 
 language. It describes but little, but through 
 the rich significance of its verbal roots it paints 
 in the word a picflure of the thing. 
 
SECOND I.KTTKR. 15 
 
 It only joins for us predicate to subjedl, and 
 sentence to sentence; but it presupposes the 
 listening soul so watchful and attentive that 
 the deeper sense and profounder meaning, 
 which lie not upon but below the surface, 
 may be supplied by the independent a(5lion of 
 the mind itself. It is, as it v/ere, a semi- 
 symbolic writing. With wakeful eye and ear, 
 and with soul roused to adlivity, we must read; 
 nothing is told us of such superficial im- 
 port that we need only, as it were, accept it 
 with half roused dreaminess; we must strive 
 ourselves to create again the speaker's 
 thoughts, to think them over, or the sense 
 will escape us. We must follow also the same 
 method in studying the viitzvoth, when they 
 assign a purpose for any particular objedl, or 
 ordain some symbolic pra(5lice. There we 
 Qiust strive to discover analytically the correc- 
 tion of the purpose with this particular obje(5l; 
 here the natural method of pra<5lically express- 
 ing such an idea in consideration of its reason 
 and connedlion. I only point out to you the 
 path which I have followed. To you I shall 
 
1 6 LKTTKRS OF BEN UZIKIy. 
 
 give only dire(5l results, and that only, for the 
 present, in general outlines; later, if you wish, 
 you shall learn the details, and also the rea- 
 sons for the methods of investigation. 
 
 Now, let us read. May you forget all the 
 annoyance which the reading of these waitings 
 caused you in your youth; forget all the preju- 
 dices which you may have imbibed from dif- 
 ferent sources against these writings. I^et us 
 read as though we had never read them ; as 
 though we had never heard of them. Let us 
 arouse in our soul the life questions, "What 
 is the world in me, and around me, to me? 
 What am I; w^hat should I be to it? What 
 am I ; what should I be as man-Israel ? ' ' 
 
 With such interrogative spirit let us read, 
 and receive the answer as Jews, from the mouth 
 of the being who alone can give the explana- 
 tion — from Deity. Farewell. 
 
THIRD LETTER. 
 I have left you time till this letter, so that 
 the life-questions which I touched upon toward 
 the end of the previous letter might grow 
 within you, and that you might perhaps have 
 already taken into your hand in the proper 
 frame of mind the book of life. We will now 
 open it together. You will agree, my Ben- 
 jamin, that what we wish is to become 
 acquainted with Israel, to learn the import 
 and significance of this name, which we bear 
 by reason of birth, what we are and should be 
 as bearers thereof. But Israel is an historical 
 phenomenon among the other manifestations 
 of the world's records, and therefore the next 
 question is, what is the meaning of history ? 
 Historj^, however differently we may conceive 
 it, is without doubt the way to fulfill the des- 
 tiny of man in universal humanity, therefore 
 the next question is, what is man, what should 
 he be ? But man is not isolated, he is a 
 creature amidst the other creatures, affecfted 
 
 17 
 
1 8 IvETTERS OF BEN UZIEE. 
 
 by and affedling them; therefore we must next 
 ask, what is the world ? Israel, history, man- 
 kind, the world — they all can only be com- 
 prehended through God, the creator, as a work 
 of art is only then perfe(5lly understood, when 
 we have an insight into the plans of the 
 master, and to our e3^e God reveals himself 
 only in His works. Thus the Torah — the 
 Divine Book of the I^aw — leads through the 
 concept of Israel and Israel's duties, to the 
 knowledge of God, the world, the missions of 
 mankind, and history. Let us follow the law 
 upon this path. 
 
 The Torah summons us to view heaven and 
 earth and speaks " from heaven to earth, from 
 earth to heaven, everything which thou seest 
 existing, when it came into existence, ri^t^*J»?*^D 
 D^1'7^? N^D in its beginning God was acftive 
 as its creator. Seest thou the heaven in its 
 eternally silent, unchanging course, bearer of 
 light and heat and all the motive forces of our 
 earth, supporter of the earth- world, seest thou 
 it with its millions of starry worlds, or 
 resplendent with the refulgence of the magnif- 
 
THIRD I.ETTER. 19 
 
 icently radiant sun-ball, or the earth, the 
 swift runner,' with its eternal circles of origi- 
 nating and passing away, of blooming and 
 withering, of life and death, eternally strug- 
 gling from ceasing, fading, and death, to ever 
 new existence, bloom, and life; dost thou see 
 it with its millions of produdlions, stones, 
 plants, animals, all of which it produces, 
 nourishes, and again takes back into its bosom; 
 dost thou see the light, the messenger of 
 heaven to earth, which coaxes all to life and 
 leads from life, through which thou seest 
 everything which is, and everything arrays 
 itself for thee in resplendent colors ; dost 
 thou see the firmament spread out around the 
 earth, which receives the ray of light, and 
 alters it to suit the necessity of the earth, in 
 which the clouds move and water the parched 
 earth, the thirsty grasses, and beasts, and men ? 
 Seest thou the universal ocean, with all-encom- 
 passing arm of flood embracing the earth, or 
 the springs which burst forth from the fissures 
 of the rocks and flow on as rivulets, brooks, 
 
 1 A play in the term pN from }*T1 to run. 
 
20 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZIKI.. 
 
 and mighty rivers? Dost thou rejoice in the 
 firm surface of the earth upon which thou 
 walkest safe and secure together with thy dear 
 ones; hast thou pleasure in its meadowy 
 expanse or its leafy trees, or in all the living 
 beings which stir so animatedly in the waters 
 and in the air, or dwell with thee on earth ? 
 Dost thou see sun, moon, and stars, which 
 from their celestial positions above thee regu- 
 late the times of day and month and the 
 seasons of the year, and determine the recurring 
 periods of waking and sleep, of rise and fall, 
 of bloom and decay on earth ? 
 
 " One God exists, one omnipotent Creator," 
 proclaims the Torah; "through His word all 
 which is was created. ' ' Heaven and earth are 
 His work; His are light and air, sea and dry 
 land; His, plants and fishes, birds, insecSls, and 
 all beasts; His, creation sun, moon, and stars. 
 He spake ^^:**.^ and it was. Behold now 
 separately each created thing, from the blade 
 of grass to the vast sun-ball, each with its 
 special purpose and each specially adapted in 
 its form and matter for that purpose; the same 
 
THIRD Iv:e:TTBR. 21 
 
 Almighty wisdom formed and designated each 
 for its special purpose. This Divine wisdom 
 proclaimed to the light, ' ' serve the day ; " to 
 the darkness, * ' serve the night ; " to the 
 firmament, " be the heaven over the earth ; " 
 to the gathering of waters, ' ' be thou the 
 ocean ; " to the dry substance, '' become earth, 
 scene of life and development ; " to the 
 planets, "be ye rulers of the seasons." It 
 determined the purpose, and according to 
 the purpose, it ordained for its objecfl matter, 
 form, force, and dimensions. It spake, p ^*1^1 
 and it was as it is. Infinitesimally small or in- 
 finitely great, all was created by the word of 
 God, determined by His will, formed by His 
 finger. All the forces which thou seest work- 
 ing in everything, and all the laws, according 
 to which they work and which thou noticest 
 and admirest; from the force and the law, in 
 obedience to which a stone falls or a seed of 
 corn grows into a plant ; to the force and 
 the law in accordance with which the 
 planets move in their orbits or thy intel- 
 le(5l expands; to God, the Universal Force, 
 
22 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 they all belong; His word prevails in every 
 law. 
 
 Now, notice again this great throng of 
 beings, tho separated and distinguished by 
 peculiar construcftion and different purposes, 
 yet united in one great harmonious system, 
 each working in its own place, its own time, 
 and according to its own measure of force, 
 none interfering with the other, each bearing 
 the All and born by the All. Who is it that 
 has harmonized all these opposites and united 
 the countless into the All ? D\*1^K ^ly) 
 ^t:^*nn pi nij^n pn. it is the same All-One 
 who has established harmony between light and 
 darkness, between life and death. As His love 
 supplies matter and force to work, so also does 
 the finger of His justice point limitation, goal, 
 and measure. " Harmonizer of Contrasts is 
 His name. ' ' And everything which He created, 
 formed, and arranged — D^*^^^? ^^y) — He also 
 blessed with the blessing of permanence and 
 development. Not only all 7L'as through Him, 
 all zs through Him . His blessing is every bloom 
 and blossom; His blessing every germ and every 
 
THIRD LETTER. 23 
 
 fruit; His blessing the mother's offspring; His 
 blessing the babe pressed to the loving breast. 
 And He — who created, formed, blessed, and 
 ordered — l^^^) — invisible as the soul in thy 
 body — He withdrew from gaze and concealed, 
 like the soul, in His creation He continues to 
 work, preserve and develop, invisible. His 
 work thou seest, His formations thou admirest. 
 His laws thou searchest out, His blessings 
 thou enjoyest, but Him, the Creator, Shaper, 
 Orderer, Benefacftor of the world, Him thy 
 mortal eye shall ne'er behold. Therefore, 
 when thou seest and wonderest, studiest, and 
 enjoyest, bend the knee and adore Him, the 
 Only One, who created and formed, ordered 
 and blessed, and worship Him as power, 
 wisdom, justice, and love universal and 
 eternal. 
 
 ' ' Attribute to God all the offspring of forces. 
 Attribute to God all glory and power! 
 Attribute to God the revelation of His name, 
 Bow down to Him in raiment of the sanc- 
 
 tury ! 
 The voice of God is upon the waters, 
 
24 I.KTTKRS OF BKN UZIEI.. 
 
 The Almighty One of creation thunders, 
 God is upon the mighty floods. 
 The voice of God is in every force, 
 The voice of God is inall beauty. 
 The voice of God breaketh the cedars, 
 God shattereth the forests of I^ebanon, 
 He causeth them to skip like the foal, 
 lycbanon and Siryon as the young Re' em. 
 The voice of God splitteth the flaming fire, 
 The voice of God terrifieth the wilderness, 
 God affrighteth the wilderness of Kadesh ! 
 The voice of God maketh the gazelles give 
 
 birth, 
 And strippeth bare the forests. 
 And in the temple of His worship 
 His All proclaims ' Revelation.' (Psalm 
 
 xxix.)" 
 
 ' ' Even for this doth my heart tremble and stir 
 
 from its place, 
 Hear ye, hear! — the threatening of His voice 
 
 and the word — 
 How it leaps from His mouth ! 
 Under the whole heaven we see Him, 
 
THIRD I.KTTKR. 25 
 
 His light on the pinions of the earth. 
 
 After Him rolls the thunder — 
 
 He thunders in the voice of His majesty — 
 
 But He followeth not the track— e'en though 
 His voice is heard. 
 
 Thus doth Omnipotence thunder — miracles in 
 His voice, 
 
 He doeth great taings, though we notice not, 
 
 Speaketh to the snow, ' ' be upon the earth ! ' ' 
 " And thou rain, be messenger of heaven ! " 
 
 Verily the rain is the embassy of His power. 
 
 Upon the hand of every man He imprinteth 
 
 His seal, 
 Remembereth every member of His creation, 
 Gathereth the wild beasts in their lairs, 
 That they rest in their hiding-places. 
 Storms come from hidden recesses. 
 In its season icy coldness, 
 From the breath of God — He causeth frost. 
 And the broad watery expanse becometh firm. 
 When, also, bright rays dispel the mists 
 He is it, who scattereth the clouds by His 
 
 light. 
 He! Cause of all causes! In wisdom creative 
 
26 I^KTTBRS OF BKN UZIEI.. 
 
 He changeth them that they fit their pur- 
 pose. 
 All is as He biddeth it be for His world of 
 
 men, for the earth, 
 For instru(5lion, for earth-perfedlion, for love. 
 We find Him." (Job xxxvii.) 
 
 Therefore, one creator is! All else, every- 
 thing which thou knowest, is the creation, the 
 revelation of this Only One! Everything is 
 from Him, and subjed to Him, through Him 
 created, existing, adlive! And this world — 
 what may it be? We tread upon holy soil, 
 my Benjamin ; we live in a divine world, 
 God's creature and servant is every being 
 around us! Every force is God's messenger; 
 every portion of matter given it by God to be 
 influenced, modified, and worked upon in ac- 
 cordance with God's omnipotent law. Every- 
 thing serves God, each in its place, in its time, 
 with the quantity of forces and means given it, 
 fulfilling His word, contributing its share to the 
 work of the universe, which He joins together 
 to the whole perfeA edifice — everything serves 
 God. 
 
THIRD LETTER. 27 
 
 *' He, who clotheth Himself with light 
 As with a garment; 
 
 Who spreadeth out the heavens as a carpet, 
 Who ere(5leth over the waters His arches, 
 Layeth the clouds at His feet. 
 Who walketh upon the wings of the wind, 
 He maketh the storms His messengers. 
 The flaming fire His servants. ' ' (Psalm civ. ) 
 Servants are they all, the storm wind, the 
 lightning, the rain, and the snow; a servant 
 is the worm which crawls at thy feet, the blade 
 of grass which nods to thee on the way, the 
 thunder which rolls majestic above thee, and 
 the cool breeze which fans refreshment to thy 
 fevered cheek — all serve the lyord. 
 ' ' For, as the rain and the snow descend from 
 
 Heaven 
 And return not thither until they have moist- 
 ened the earth. 
 And caused it to bear and yield fruit 
 Until it have given seed to the sower 
 And bread to the eater; 
 
 Thus also is My word which cometh forth 
 from My mouth. 
 
28 I.KTTERS OF BEN UZIKL. 
 
 It shall not return unto Me empty : 
 But it shall do that which I desire 
 And accomplish that for which I sent it forth." 
 
 (Isaiah Iv : lo, ii.) 
 
 All things are .servants about the throne of 
 God! " For," say the sages, "not with one 
 creative word did the Almighty summon all 
 things, the universe and the individual, into 
 being, so that all should depend immediately 
 upon His behest for its existence and adlivity, 
 and that nothing should bear and uphold any 
 other thing, but that all should be direcftly 
 born and upheld by God alone. On the con- 
 trary, in a series of ten developments God 
 called His world into existence, created an 
 abundance of forces, and caused them to per- 
 vade each other, and influence each other, 
 in accordance with His will — uniting and 
 separating them in such a manner, that 
 each should assist in maintaining the 
 other ; that none should contain alone the 
 conditions of its existence and adlivity in 
 itself, but should receive from fellow beings, 
 and impart to fellow beings, the potencies 
 
THIRD LETTER. 29 
 
 of life and work." ' He, in His infinite 
 wisdom, ordained this mutual interdepend- 
 ence in order that each individual being 
 might contribute, with its measure of force, 
 whether much or little, to the preservation of 
 the All, so that whatsoever being should des- 
 troy, a fellow creature should thereby deprive 
 itself of a condition of its own life. Thus 
 water, having penetrated the earth, is colledled 
 in cloud, and sea; light, having pierced the 
 earthy crust and brought forth plants, children 
 of light and heat, is concentrated again into 
 sun, moon, and stars; the germ, offspring of 
 earth, is taken from the earth and given to the 
 crown of ripened fruit, which henceforth the 
 earth must receive that it give — thus one 
 glorious chain of love, of giving and receiving, 
 unites all creatures; none is by or for itsel«f, 
 but all things exist in continual reciprocal 
 adlivity — the one for the All; the All for the 
 One. None has power, or means, for itself; it 
 receives in order to give; gives in order to 
 receive, and finds therein the accomplishment 
 
 " Ethics of the Fathers," chapter V, v. i. 
 
30 I.KT'TKRS OF BEN UZIKL. 
 
 of the purpose of its existence. "H," 
 "lyove," say the sages, "love which bears 
 and is born is the type of creation. " " lyove, ' ' 
 is the message which all things proclaim to 
 thee. 
 
FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 Man ^ — what is he in this God-filled world ? 
 What is his place in this throng of creatures 
 of God, this choir of servants of the Lord? 
 Though the Torah were silent, would not the 
 contemplation of creation, would not your own 
 breast tell you ? Man, is he not also a creature 
 of God ? Should he not also be a servant of 
 God ? Every fiber of your body is a creation 
 from the hand of God, formed by Him, 
 arranged by Him, endowed by Him with power. 
 Your spirit, that world of powers, is the crea- 
 tion of God from beginning to end. The 
 divine spark, your personality, which, invisible 
 as Deity, weaves and works in this microcosm, 
 and under whose control stand intellecft and 
 body and the power to use the entire realm of 
 nature for its purpose, this mysterious spritual 
 force in you is itself emanation of Deity. 
 Learn to deem yourself holy as creature of God 
 and, while contemplating heaven and earth 
 
 1 Genesis i : 27 and ii. 
 
 31 
 
32 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZIKI<. 
 
 and the great chorus of servants of the I^ord, 
 consecrate yourself to your mission, and pro- 
 claim yourself with mingled solemnity and 
 joy, " servant of God ! ' ' Since all things, the 
 smallest and the greatest, are God's chosen 
 messengers, to work, each in its place, and 
 with its measure of power, according to the 
 law of the Most High, taking only that it may 
 give again, should man alone be excluded 
 from this circle of blessed adlivity ? Can he be 
 born only to take ? — to revel in lavish plenty 
 or to starve in misery, but not to work? — not 
 to fill any place, nor fulfill any purpose, but to 
 let all end in himself? The w^orld and all 
 
 ^ which is therein serves God; is it conceivable 
 that man alone should only serve himself? 
 No! Your consciousness pronounces you as 
 does the Torah, D\l'?N ti?^ "an image of 
 God." That is what man should be. Only 
 when working out some end canst thou know 
 
 V God in love and righteousness; to work out 
 ends of righteousness and love art thou called; 
 not merely to enjoy or suffer. All which thou 
 possessest, spirit, bod}^, human beings, wealth, 
 
FOURTH I^KTTKR. 33 
 
 every ability and every power, they are means 
 of adlivity; HIDt^'?! mDJ^'? to promote and 
 preserve the world were they given — love and 
 righteousness. Not thine is the earth, but thou 
 belongest to the earth, to respecft it as Divine 
 soil and to deem every one of its creatures a 
 creature of God, thy fellow-being ; to respecft 
 and love it as such, and as such to endeavor to 
 bring it nearer to its goal, according to the 
 will of God. For this reason every being 
 impresses upon thy spirit an image of itself; 
 for this reason thy heart-strings pulsate sym- 
 pathetically with every cry of distress heard 
 anywhere in creation, or with every tone of 
 joy which issues anywhere from a gladsome 
 being; therefore thou rejoicest when the flower 
 blooms and sorrowest when it fades. The law 
 to which all powers submit zmconsciously and 
 ijivoluntarily , to it shall thou also subordinate 
 thyself, but consciotisly ajid of thy owiifrec will. 
 " Knowledge aiid freedom,'" these words indi- 
 cate at once the sublime mission and the lofty 
 privilege of man. All forces stand as servitors 
 around the throne of God, their capacity is hid- 
 
34 I.E'TTKRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 den from themselves and covered are their coun- 
 tenances, so that the}^ can not see the reason of 
 their mission, but they feel within them winged 
 power to acft, and a<Si in accordance with their 
 purpose. Thou, O man, thy countenance is half 
 uncovered, thy capacity is half revealed, thou 
 canst comprehend thyself as creature of God — 
 canst at least faintly appreciate the notion of 
 the mission which He breathed into thy ear; 
 canst thou see thyself encompassed round 
 about by God's adlive servants, canst thou feel 
 in thyself power to a6l and wilt thou not joy- 
 ously join in the cry of the great chorus of 
 servants, yt2C^:i) HCTI^J ''we will do and 
 therefore hearken ? We will obey, and fulfill- 
 ing strive to comprehend the import of the 
 command ! ' ' Consciously and freely ! There- 
 fore thou shalt be first and highest servitor in 
 the company of servants ! 
 
 Not by that which we gain, my dear Benja- 
 min, can our vocation be determined, not 
 according to the extent of external or internal 
 possessions which we gather in external or 
 internal storehouses, should we estimate the 
 
FOURTH LETTER. 35 
 
 value of our lives; what we accomplish, what 
 results proceed from us, these should fix our 
 vocation, and in proportion as we use our 
 external and internal possessions to fulfill the 
 will of God and utilize every capacity, small 
 or great, for a truly human, God-serving 
 deed, will be the measure of our value. The 
 attainment of internal or external possessions 
 has only a value as the means of securing 
 ability for such activity. From the slightest 
 mental power and the nerve ganglia which 
 minivSter to it, to the executive force of your 
 hand with which you alter creation, and to 
 which the entire realm of nature is subjedl, 
 and every being which ever came within your 
 reach — all of these are means lent to you — 
 which one day will appear as witnesses for or 
 against you, before the throne of God, and 
 will testify whether you negledled or used 
 them well, whether j^ou wrought with them 
 blessing or curse. There exists, therefore, an 
 external measure for the deeds of men, cor- 
 respondence to the will of God — and an 
 internal measure for the greatness of men — 
 
36 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZIKI.. 
 
 not the extent of powers conferred, not the 
 amount of results achieved, but the fulfillment 
 of the Divine will in proportion to the power 
 possessed. Life, therefore, may be an utter 
 failure in spite of the purest sentiments, if the 
 deeds done be not right; or may, on the other 
 hand, be most sublime despite infinitesimal 
 results, if the means did not suffice for more. 
 Happiness and perfedlion are, therefore, noth- 
 ing but the greatest plenitude of external and 
 internal possessions which, only when em- 
 ployed in accordance with the will of God, 
 constitute the greatness of man. The angel 
 whose province it is to supervise the coming 
 into existence of man, says one of the sages, 
 takes the germ which is to be a human being, 
 brings it before the Holy One, blessed be He, 
 and asks, "This germ, what shall become of 
 it in life ? Shall he that proceeds from it be 
 strong or weak, wise or simple, rich or poor ? " ^ 
 He does not ask whether he will be good or 
 bad, pious or sinful, for all things depend 
 upon the decree of God, except virtue and the 
 
 1 Treatise Niddah, page i6, B. 
 
FOURTH LKTTKR. 37 
 
 fear of the Lord, the pious reverence of 
 heaven, these the Almighty leaves to the free 
 will of men. I^et us not, therefore, judge 
 man according to that which is hardly half in 
 his hands, but rather according to that which 
 God put entirely into his control, and which, 
 therefore, can alone constitute his greatness. 
 The mission of mankind, thus comprehended, 
 is attainable by all men, in every time, with 
 any equipment of powers and means, in every 
 condition. Whoever in his time, with his 
 equipment of powers and means, in his condi- 
 tion, fulfills the will of God toward the crea- 
 tures who enter into his circle, who injures 
 none and assists every one according to his 
 power, to reach the goal marked out for it by 
 God — he is a man ! He pra(5lises righteous- 
 ness and love in his existence here below. 
 His whole life, his whole being, his thoughts 
 and feelings, his speech and adlion, even his 
 business transactions and enjoyments — all of 
 these are service of God. Such a life is 
 exalted above all mutation. 
 
 Whether enjoyment or privation, whether 
 
38 LETTERS OF BEN UZlEly. 
 
 abundance or need be one's lot, whether tears 
 of resigned sorrow or joy exultant be shed — 
 the truly human personality, unchangeable 
 almost as Deity, sees in every gain or loss 
 only another summons to solve afresh the 
 same problem. Thus man in his earthly frame 
 belongs to earth, and his terrestrial existence 
 is full of significance. As no passing breath, 
 and no ephemeral grass-blade or butterfly 
 exists for nought, but furnishes its contribu- 
 tion, slight though it be, which God's wisdom 
 uses for the upbuilding of the All ; thus also no 
 pleasure, no thought, no deed, trifling though 
 it be, is empty and purposeless; those which 
 are right are finished work delivered into the 
 hand of God that He may employ them for 
 the completion of His universe-plan. Fulfill- 
 ment of the Divine will with our property and 
 our pleasures, with our thoughts, words, and 
 deeds, that should be the contents of our lives. 
 And we should strive to ascertain this will. 
 For that is the special and peculiar greatness 
 of man, that whereas the voice of God speaks 
 in or throiLgh all other creatures, to him it 
 
FOURTH LETTER. 39 
 
 Speaks diredlly that he accept voluntarily its 
 precepts as propelling force of his life-adlivity. 
 Go to, my Benjamin, and examine yourself; 
 examine yourself in comparison with a grass- 
 blade or a rolling thunder-peal, and if you do 
 not, despite all your wealth of property and 
 enjoyment of inner and outer possessions, 
 blush with shame and veil your face in the 
 presence of the angelic grandeur of such crea- 
 tures, because of your selfish pettiness; and if 
 you do not then rouse yourself with all your 
 strength, with every spark of your being, to 
 acquire for yourself such angelic power, then 
 go and lament the degradation which the age 
 has brought upon you. 
 " Bless, O my soul, the Lord, 
 And all my inner parts recognize His holiness ! 
 Bless, O my soul, the Lord, 
 And forget not all which He lets ripen for 
 
 thee.i 
 That He forgiveth all thy perversities. 
 That He healeth all thy ailings, 
 That He redeemeth from the grave thy life, 
 
 So;; 
 
 to ripen. 
 
40 LKTTKRS OF BKN UZlKlv. 
 
 That He crowneth thee with loving kindness 
 
 and mercy, 
 That He satisfieth thee with good things, which 
 
 adorn thee, 
 That thou mayest renew as the eagle thy 
 
 youth. 
 
 Sunken man — as grass are his days, 
 
 As the flower of the field he bloometh; 
 
 The wind bloweth over him, he is no more, 
 
 No more doth his place know him. 
 
 But the loving kindness of the Lord is from 
 
 eternity to eternity 
 Unto those who revere Him, and His mercy 
 
 endureth unto the children's children. 
 Of those who regard His covenant. 
 And remember His commandments, to do 
 
 them. 
 For He — who hath founded His throne in 
 
 Heaven, 
 Ruleth in majesty throughout the All. 
 Bless Him, therefore, 3^e His messengers! 
 Ye who, girded with strength, fulfill His word 
 Obeying the voice of His word; 
 
FOURTH I.KTTKR. 4I 
 
 Bless Him, all ye His hosts! 
 
 His servants, fulfillers of His will! 
 
 Bless Him, all ye His creatures, in every place 
 
 of His kingdom. 
 Bless also thou, O my soul, the Lord." * 
 
 1 Psalm ciii. 
 
FIFTH LETTER. 
 
 I had formed no different conception of you, 
 dear Benjamin, than your recent letter gave 
 me. What youth, still capable of enthusiasm 
 for the noble, could contemplate Heaven and 
 earth and their hosts, or could reflecfl upon 
 their work, or the work of any single creature, 
 without forming a notion of his task in life 
 consonant with his dignity as a human being, 
 or could do otherwise than to cast away with 
 shame and contempt the idols of silver and gold, 
 and particularly the universal idol, ' ' Pleasure ? ' ' 
 The objecft of such insight into the true mis- 
 sion of humanity, and of the consequent renun- 
 ciation of sensual enjoyments, is not, however, 
 indolent withdrawal from the adlive tasks of 
 life, but, on the contrary, manly vigor, and 
 the pursuit of the highest aims, using human 
 possessions and capacities, not, however, as 
 ends, but as means. The richer Heaven makes 
 you in internal and external possessions, the 
 more exhaustive fulfillment of His will He 
 demands of 3'Ou; the wider-extended and all- 
 
 42 
 
FIFTH LFTTFR. 43 
 
 embracing does your duty become. You are 
 right also in saying that the mere contempla- 
 tion of the abilities of man is sufficient to 
 prove it his duty to accomplish some end. 
 Consider, furthermore, how his whole physical 
 and intellecftual constitution clearly indicates 
 the tasks for the carrying out of which he is 
 adapted; his head is borne proudly erecft that 
 his eyes may examine and inspedl the world 
 in which he moves; his hands are equipped 
 with mobile fingers admirably fitted for the 
 work of the artist and sculptor; his intellec- 
 tual power is sufficient to know the things 
 which shall serve him as means to his ends, 
 but beyond that the path of knowledge is diffi- 
 cult and dangerous, and pursued but by few; 
 the development of his mental force is itself de- 
 pendent upon external means, upon words and 
 communications ; but, in contradistindlion 
 thereto, the heart, the source of all adlion, is 
 capable of embracing all beings in regard and 
 love, is capable of the greatest increase, of 
 unlimited progress. 
 
 You are right also in asserting that, thus 
 
44 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 understood, revelation of the Divine will is 
 absolutely required, whether external or inter- 
 nal, or both. I am not at all surprised that 
 you can not follow me in my Biblical interpre- 
 tations. For the present, therefore, accept my 
 outlined statements as though they were mere 
 personal hypotheses of my own; investigate 
 their intrinsic truth; familiarize ^-ourself with 
 the thought: " How would it be if this were 
 \ really the contents of the Torah ? ' ' and leave 
 it to me to demonstrate later that such is really 
 the case. I^et us now continue. We have now, 
 guided by the Torah, ascertained the position of 
 man in creation. Neither as god nor as slave 
 shall he stand in the midst of the creatures of 
 the earth- world; but as brother, as co- working 
 brother, occupying, however, the rank of first- 
 born among his brother beings, because of the 
 peculiar nature and extent of his service; he is 
 to be administrator of the whole Divine estate, 
 the earth- world; to provide and care for all 
 therein according to the will of God. From 
 God alone, source of all might, does man derive 
 the right to take for his own use the earth- 
 
FIFTH LETTER. 45 
 
 world, but with this right comes also the duty, 
 only to appropriate the permitted, and to use 
 that in stri(5l accordance with the will of the 
 Giver. ' ' Good ' ' should be for him only that 
 which agrees with this Divine will and with 
 the disposition fixed for objedls by Divine 
 wisdom; '' evil " only that which stands in op- 
 position to these principles. Not that should 
 be deemed good or evil which is agree- 
 able or disagreeable to him, man; which is 
 pleasant or unpleasant to his sensual nature, 
 or that which harmonizes with, or is opposed 
 to, principles, arbitrarily selecfted by himself 
 without reference to the will of Deity. 
 
 For neither the gratification of impulses 
 and lusts, nor ambitious self-aggrandizement 
 and caprice constitute the task of man, but he 
 shall elevate all his power, desires, and physi- 
 cal qualities to be means of carrying out the 
 will of God, of bringing him nearer to his 
 sought-for goal. Man's freedom, of course, 
 postulates the possibility of mistakes and 
 error. 
 
 Man has the duty to submit willingly to the 
 
46 I.KTTKRS OP BKN UZKAL. 
 
 law which all others are compelled to obey, 
 and this naturally implies that he has also the 
 power to disobey it. Through his animal 
 portion, his body with its desires, he is 
 threatened with sensual lust; that, dazzled 
 by the charm of the pleasant sensations which 
 the Divine love has caused to accompany every 
 a(5l of satisfying his needs, he may no longer 
 regard pleasure as the means but as the end 
 itself. Through the power of his intellecfl he 
 is threatened with pride, that because of his 
 ability to control material things, and to alter 
 them in accordance with a certain perceived 
 purpose, he may look upon himself as master, 
 forgetting thereby God the lyord, forgetting, 
 also, that all things are Divine possessions 
 lent him for specific purposes, and may usurp 
 to himself the right to subje(5l all to the 
 domination of his own will. Deepest degra- 
 dation may result when his entire effort is 
 devoted to the gratification of animal lust, 
 and the mind of the ruler lowers itself to be 
 the slave of the beast, employing all its skill 
 only to secure the gratification of bestial de- 
 
FIFTH LKTTKR. 47 
 
 sires. Then is man the most dangerous 
 beast of prey, for he is armed with intellect, 
 and the whole world is not safe against the 
 caprices of his passions. 
 
 Scripture omits to narrate any revelation of 
 God's will to mankind in general, as it re- 
 serves this for the later history of a special 
 nation, to which all which precedes but serves 
 as a guide and an introdu6lion. ' 
 
 One educational commandment appears, 
 and then man and his education by God are 
 shown. A world is laid at man's feet for him 
 to possess and enjoy, but one enjoyment is in- 
 terdidled, without revealed reason, solely as a 
 decree of the Most High. For man should 
 subordinate himself to his Creator, and for 
 him highest wisdom consists in obeying the 
 will of God as the will of his God. But to be 
 willing to fulfill the behests of that will only 
 when or because they appear also to us right 
 and wise and good, could that be called 
 obedience to God ? Would not that rather be 
 
 1 Except one revelation given after the flood to the sons of 
 Noah. 
 
48 IvKTTKRS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 obedience to oneself? Lust and desire for 
 pleasure tempt us with seducftive words : 
 " How attradlive it is, how agreeable, how 
 sweet ! ' ' Pride of intelledl adds also its con- 
 tribution to the words di(5lated by desire: 
 "Have not we also mind, intelligence, and 
 understanding ? Can we not, like gods, know 
 of ourselves what is good and what bad? 
 Why, nothing is easier ! How sweet it is, is 
 it conceivable that it should not be good? 
 Besides, unto us belongs the earth and the 
 fulness thereof ! ' ' Thus only the sweet is re- 
 garded by man as good, as bad only the bitter. 
 The history of all sin is the same. God re- 
 veals Himself as Judge, but also as Father 
 and Teacher. Verily, judgment is His pre- 
 rogative, for does not the earth, and the ful- 
 ness thereof, belong to Him ? Have we not 
 received from, yea, from Him alone, power 
 and right to acquire and to enjoy ? If we mis- 
 use this power but once, stretch out our hand 
 but a single time toward that which is forbid- 
 den, have we not thereby forfeited all claim to 
 the right of existence on earth ? ' * On the day 
 
FIFTH LFTTFR. 49 
 
 when thou disregardest the prohibition, thou 
 shalt surely forfeit thy Hfe," is the warning 
 of the just Judge. Nevertheless, God does not 
 exadl the incurred penalty of sin from His 
 fallen child, but strives, with paternal love and 
 forbearance, to guide him to the right. 
 
 The path to pleasure is made difficult to 
 discourage the development of the animal side 
 of his being and to render less arrogant his 
 pride; that the real man in him be led upwards 
 to God, through realization of the limitations 
 of his power, and that something else must be 
 his task and his greatness than that which can 
 be thus easily conferred upon him, or taken 
 from him. Thus also every one of us is taught 
 even to-day. In our experience God's pater- 
 nal teaching speaks to us. Into the realm of 
 the temporal each one enters pure and capable 
 of attaining to the highest stage of human 
 greatness. That you are born in this particu- 
 lar hour, in this certain place, amid such and 
 such surroundings, with your own special par- 
 ents, brothers, and sisters, and with the defi- 
 nite measure of intellectual and physical powers 
 
50 I^KTTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 and material possession which you hold; that 
 you find certain teachers, acquaintances, and 
 friends, that is the Eden into which God puts 
 you. But it is not given that 3^ou may in pride 
 forget Him and cling to temporal possessions 
 as tho they were the eternal good. Do that 
 and sorrows jll^l^ will enter into your life- 
 tabernacle, which will throw you back into 
 your own insignificance, and will forcibly in- 
 form you that all, parents and family, friends 
 and acquaintances, wealth and po.ssessions, 
 body and soul, are but gifts — gifts of God, and 
 that you in yourself are not all. You are here 
 to use every possession as an instrument put 
 into your hands to help you fulfill the will of 
 God. 
 
 But freedom delays the success of education. 
 Through labor pride is nurtured, and man 
 calls ' ' his ' ' the soil which he has moistened 
 with his sweat (Tp) ; the necessity of pro- 
 viding for the satisfying of physical cravings, 
 which demand an increasingly large portion of 
 the good things of the world, exalts again the 
 animal in man; he sees in himself only an ani- 
 
FIFTH LBTTKR. 51 
 
 mal, and deems his mind only a means of pro- 
 curing the gratification of physical desires; the 
 human in man sinks (D^'?^^!) That which 
 could lift him up, the acknowledgment of 
 God as the only Ruler and Father, and, there- 
 fore, of everything else as creature and servant, 
 and consequently of himself, as well as ser- 
 vant and child, this acknowledgment has 
 grown dim. For as soon as man ceases to 
 look upon himself as the empowered guardian 
 and administrator of the earth- world, as soon 
 as he endeavors to carry out, not the will of 
 God, but his own will, and ceases to be servant 
 of God; he sees no longer in the strength- 
 endowed beings around him the servitors of 
 Deity, but independent forces which seek pos- 
 session, lust, and power, he has no eye any 
 more for the law of the All-One whom they 
 all serve, and the world divides itself for him 
 into as many gods as he sees forces in opera- 
 tion. For him the sun does not shine, nor the 
 thunder roll, the lightning flash, or the earth 
 deck itself in green; the storm roar, or the liv- 
 ing beings reproduce their kind, because they 
 
52 I.ETTKRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 must, but because they wish, for the conscious- 
 ness of the law is gone from his ow^n breast. 
 He, therefore, desiring only possession and 
 lust, becomes a slave of the beings from which 
 he hopes to obtain that which he desires, he 
 bends the knee to the creatures (t^l^N) until 
 finally, recognizing the omnipotence of his 
 passions, he deifies them; and, furthermore, 
 since all beings seem to him not servants of a 
 great world-plan, but independent forces, seek- 
 ing power and lust, he soon ceases to look upon 
 the pursuit of power and lust as bestial and 
 unworthy of man, but deems it divine, man's 
 most worthy goal. The acknowledgment of 
 the All-One would lift him up, but polytheism 
 becomes the grave of his humanity. The gen- 
 eration seemed incorrigible, and — destruction 
 was its lot. Only one man, the father of a 
 family, who walked before the All-One, sought 
 righteousness, and elevated himself by govern- 
 ing sternly the animal in his nature, offered 
 consolation in this destrudlion of the genera- 
 tion. He was saved, with his family, to found 
 a new edifice of mankind (IJ. 
 
t 5 
 
 i a 
 
 
SIXTH LETTER. 
 
 The new generation, which should have 
 learned to recognize God in holy awe as 
 Judge, Master, and Savior, forgot soon this 
 lesson. In its pride it desires to establish 
 itself as master upon the earth, just presented 
 to it as a Divine gift. Because of the power 
 with which it rules over nature, it believes 
 that it can dispense with God in establishing 
 and maintaining its new life. Thus begins 
 history. God no longer wills the destruction 
 of humanity, but its education. By expe- 
 rience He desires to train mankind to the 
 knowledge of themselves and of Him. Hu- 
 manity must not sink again to the deep degra- 
 dation of the perished generation. Men must 
 be dispersed, lest the human species slowly 
 spreading over the earth form but a single 
 famil}^, and the corruption of one part be 
 quickly communicated to the whole. They 
 must be dispersed in order that mankind may 
 
 53 
 
54 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 rejuvenate itself from its own midst, and when 
 one race has gone through all the stages of 
 the sinful illusions wdiich weaken and corrupt 
 mankind, and is enervated, exhausted, and 
 unfit for the Divine purpose, it shall 3'ield its 
 place to a stronger and hardier race, which 
 shall begin a fresher, purer life. 
 
 Mankind must be scattered, must distribute 
 itself among all the different regions of earth in 
 order that the most divergent and contrary facul- 
 ties of the human mind may find in nature the 
 needed opportunities of development, in order 
 that experience become full and complete. In 
 order to render this plan of education possible, 
 the earth was reconstituted after it had been 
 laid waste and desolated; diversified as regards 
 its soil and climate, and divided into various 
 continents and lands, by seas and rivers, 
 mountains and deserts. This diversity of the 
 , earth was, by the Divine plan, intended to 
 profoundly influence man, vainly fancying 
 himself master of the earth, and to affe(5l, even 
 to their innermost characfteristics, his body, his 
 opinions, his habits, his passions, and his 
 
SIXTH lette:r. 55 
 
 language. Thus should a broad and variegated 
 experience become possible. This experience 
 should make him worthy of God and of him- 
 self; should teach him to recognize the 
 supreme dominion of God over nature and 
 human life; should cause him to reahze that 
 the task of man is higher than merely to 
 possess and to enjoy. 
 
 From this time on nation after nation enters 
 into the arena of history; each presents some 
 new power, some new capacity of the human 
 intellea, and uses these faculties, in battle 
 with nature and with each other, for the pur- 
 pose of obtaining wealth and enjoyment. 
 Gladly would the nations retain for all eternity 
 what they have thus gained, but a higher 
 hand, upon which the conditions of their suc- 
 cess are dependent, dashes what they thought 
 indestru(5lible, by a slight breath of Divine 
 potency, into ruins, and before the eyes of 
 wondering humanity, it brings to pass from 
 unnoticed trifles the most tremendous results. 
 When a people has succeeded in climbing to 
 the summit of material greatness, in its very 
 
56 LKTTKRS OF BBN UZIKI.. 
 
 greatness, nay, even because of it, it crashes 
 down into destrucflion, and forsakes the sphere 
 of its adlivity for similar attempts on the part 
 of the succeeding generations. The time 
 must and will come when the inevitable results 
 of all these efforts will be clearly manifest to 
 the minds of the latest of men. Then, when 
 these attempts are finally completed, when 
 every nation in its rise and fall will have 
 inscribed in the book of history, as its judg- 
 ment of human greatness, " '?DrT " "vanity 
 and folly ; " when ruined are all efforts to at- 
 tain lasting felicity by human possessions and 
 greatness, and crushed all the edifices of vio- 
 lence and the schemes of materialistic cun- 
 ning; when only that permanently endures 
 which men have based upon God-revering 
 righteousness and love; after mankind, which 
 had, in strange delusion, placed all creatures, 
 and even man himself, upon the throne of the 
 Most High, has learned, in the destru6lion of 
 human ambitions, the nothingness of these 
 I puny rivals of Deity, and lifts its eye, unob- 
 scured by superstitious veil, to the All-One, 
 
SIXTH LKTTER. 57 
 
 and comprehends again true human greatness, 
 to which wealth and lust are but means; when 
 this knowledge, this sentiment, pervades re- 
 united humanity; when men are ripe for the 
 question, not '' what should we do in order to 
 be happy and blessed, but, when we are happy 
 and blessed, when we bear the fulness of good 
 in our hands, what shall we do with this 
 blessing ? ' ' then 
 ' ' At the end of days the mount of the I^ord will \ 
 
 be firmly established upon the peaks of the 
 
 mountains,^ 
 And born by the hills — and to it all peoples 
 
 shall stream. 
 And there shall go great nations and speak: 
 " Come, let us go to the mount of the Lord, 
 
 to the house of the God of Jacob, 
 And He will teach us His ways and we shall 
 
 walk in His paths; 
 For from Zion shall come forth the law and 
 
 the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." 
 He will judge between the nations, and teach 
 
 mighty peoples, 
 
 1 Isaiah, Chapter ii. 
 
58 LETl'KRS OI^ BKN UZIEL. 
 
 That they shall beat their swords to scythes 
 
 and their spears to pruning-hooks, 
 That no people shall lift up the sword against 
 
 another, 
 And they shall no more learn war. 
 O house of Jacob! Go before us, that we 
 
 may also walk in the light of the lyord ! 
 For thou hast forsaken thy people, O house of 
 
 Jacob! 
 So that they filled themselves from the East, 
 Became time-servers, like the Philistines, 
 And satisfied themselves with things born of 
 
 strangers. 
 And when His earth became full of silver and 
 
 gold, and there was no end of treasures. 
 And when His earth became full of horses, 
 
 and there was no end of chariots; 
 Then also did His earth fill with gods. 
 They bowed themselves to the work of His 
 
 hands, to that which His fingers had formed. 
 Mankind sank then, humanity fell, and Thou 
 
 didst not lift them up! 
 " Enter into the rock, hide j^ourselves in the 
 
 dust, 
 
SIXTH LETTER. 59 
 
 Before the terror of the Lord, before the great- 
 ness of His majesty. ' ' 
 
 Thus will be lowered the eye of the haughti- 
 ness of man, 
 
 Thus will be humiliated the pride of men. 
 
 And God alone will be great on that day. 
 
 P'or there is a day unto the Lord of Hosts 
 
 Concerning every proud and high thing, yea, 
 concerning all the haughty 
 
 That they sink! 
 
 Concerning all the cedars of Lebanon, though 
 high and exalted. 
 
 And concerning all the oaks of Bashan; 
 
 Concerning all the high mountains and all the 
 elevated hills, 
 
 Concerning every high tower and every strong 
 wall, 
 
 Concerning all the ships of Tarshish and all 
 the edifices of lust; 
 
 That the pride of man may be bowed down 
 and broken human haughtiness. 
 
 And that God alone may be great on that 
 day; 
 
 The gods He will cause to disappear in smoke, 
 
6o LETTERS OF BEN UZIEI.. 
 
 And people shall hasten into the clefts of 
 
 rocks and the cavities of earth 
 From before the terror of the Lord and the 
 
 glory of His majesty, 
 When He arises to rule the earth. 
 On that day man shall cast away the idols of 
 
 his silver 
 And the idols of his gold, 
 Which have caused him to bow to the mole 
 
 and the bat; 
 And will hasten into the fissures of the rocks 
 
 and hollows of stone 
 From before the terror of the I^ord and the 
 
 greatness of His majesty 
 When he arises to rule the earth," 
 
 When you will have read through the pages 
 of history, with the ' ' voice which gathers all ' ' 
 you will exclaim — 
 ' ' Vanity of vanities ! All is vain ! ' 
 What is the end of man with all his toil under 
 
 the sun ? 
 Generations go, generations come, and the 
 
 Ecclesiastes i : 2-15, and xii : 13. 
 
SIXTH LETTER. 6 1 
 
 earth-development marches ever to a hidden 
 future; 
 
 Here rises fortune's sun, there it sinks, e'en 
 while rising, and to its place of setting its 
 course is turned; 
 
 Rises to midday strength — turns to midnight 
 gloom — 
 
 Thus circles the day, and in its circling turns 
 again to its beginning. 
 
 All nation-streams rush to the sea of death, 
 but the sea is not filled; to the spot where 
 the streams are born. 
 
 They return again to follow anew. 
 
 All words are powerless, man can not speak, 
 
 The eyes can not see enough, the ear not fully 
 hear; 
 
 What was is what shall be, what was produced 
 is what shall be produced; 
 
 All new is nought under the sun. 
 
 If thou speakest, " behold, this is new! " ver- 
 ily, in the ages of the past, it came into being. 
 
 There is no remembrance of the former ones, 
 
 Forsooth, of the latest there will be no remem- 
 brance. 
 
62 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 Would I devote my heart to search 
 
 Yea, in wisdom to study all that is done under 
 the sun, 
 
 Useless were the toil; God gave it to the chil- 
 dren of man 
 
 For matter of thought, that they might busy 
 themselves with it. 
 
 I see all that is done under the sun, 
 
 And behold, all is vanity and useless wearying 
 of the spirit ! 
 
 That which is perverse can not be straight- 
 ened; 
 
 The imperfedlions can not be counted. 
 
 This is the conclusion of the matter, 
 
 After all has been heard. 
 
 God thou shalt revere, His mandate obey, 
 
 For in this is the whole task of mankind. ' ' 
 
 " O Lord, a dwelling art Thou. Thou abidest 
 
 with us' 
 Though generation follow after generation; 
 Before the mountains were born, Thou brought- 
 
 est forth the earth: 
 
 Psalm xc : 1-7. 
 
SIXTH LETTER. 63 
 
 Even the inhabited world of men ! 
 
 Yea, from hidden past to veiled future — omnip- 
 otent art Thou ! 
 
 Degraded mankind thou lettest sink to destruc- 
 tion 's verge, 
 
 Then speakest, "Return to human worth, O 
 children of man," 
 
 For a thousand years are in Thy sight 
 
 As yesterday when it hath passed away, 
 
 E'en as a watch in the night. 
 
 Thou causest them to flow away with the 
 stream of life, 
 
 Sleep they become; 
 
 In the morning man is as the fresh grass. 
 
 In the morning he flourishes and blooms, 
 
 But at eventide he is withered and dry." 
 
 " O God! be gracious unto us, and bless us,' 
 Eet Thy guiding light shine e'er upon us! 
 That there be known on earth Thy way, 
 Amongst all nations Thy salvation. 
 That the nations acknowledge Thee, O God, 
 Even the nations altogether. 
 
 Psalm Ixvii. 
 
64 I.ETTKRS OP BKN UZIKL. 
 
 That the nations rejoice and be glad 
 
 When Thou judgest the people in righteoUvS- 
 
 ness 
 And the nations Thou guidest on earth. 
 
 Selah! 
 May the nations acknowledge Thee, O God, 
 Even the nations all together, 
 When the earth shall have jdelded its fruit, 
 God, even our God will bless us. 
 May God bless us and let fear Him 
 All the ends of the earth. ' ' 
 
 " Thus speaketh David, son of Jesse,' 
 
 Thus speaketh the man, high exalted, 
 
 Anointed of the God of Jacob, 
 
 Sweet singer of Israel. 
 
 The spirit of God spoke in me. 
 
 His word was on my tongue, 
 
 There spoke to me the God of Israel, 
 
 To me spoke Israel's rock. 
 
 Among mankind righteousness shall prevail. 
 
 The fear of God shall conquer. 
 
 When salvation's morn shall shine, 
 
 » Samuel II, xxiii : 1-7. 
 
SIXTH LETTER. 65 
 
 Bright as the sun it shall flash. 
 That morn shall know no cloud, 
 Radiant with light, fertile with rain, 
 Grass shall spring from the earth. 
 Is not thus my house with God, 
 For a concealed covenant of eternity He estab- 
 lished unto me. 
 In all ordered and preserved. 
 All embracing is my salvation. 
 All embracing the goal, 
 Though it shine not yet forth. 
 But the deeds of violence, 
 I^ike scattered thorns are they all. 
 Removed b}^ an unseen hand. 
 Would one assault them, 
 'Twould need sword and spear. 
 In fire unseen they shall be consumed, 
 Through invisible diredtion. ' ' 
 
SEVENTH LETTER. 
 
 From the beginning of the passage of Isaiah 
 you have comprehended the place which Israel 
 should occupy in the series of development of 
 the nations, and have not erred, dear Benja- 
 min. 
 
 While mankind, educated by experience, 
 was to learn to know God and itself from its 
 manifold vicissitudes, the final goal of this ex- 
 perience was to be made surer and speedier of 
 attainment by a special ordainment. Because 
 men had eliminated God from life, nay, even 
 from nature, and found the basis of life in 
 possessions and its aim in enjoyment, deeming 
 life the produdl of the multitude of human de- 
 sires, just as they looked upon nature as the 
 producfl of a multitude of gods, therefore, it 
 became necessary that a people be introduced 
 into the ranks of the nations which through 
 its history and life should declare God the 
 only creative cause of existence, fulfillment 
 66 
 
SKVKNTH I.KTTKR. 67 
 
 of His will the only aim of life; and which 
 should bear the revelation of His will, re- 
 juvenated and renewed for its sake, unto all 
 parts of the world as the motive and incentive 
 of its coherence. This mission required for 
 its carrying out a nation, poor in everything 
 upon which the rest of mankind reared the 
 edifice of its greatness and its power; ex- 
 ternally subordinate to the nations armed with 
 proud reliance on self, but fortified by dire(5l 
 reliance on God ; so that by suppression of 
 every opposing force God might reveal Him- 
 self diredlly as the only Creator, Judge, and 
 Master of nature and history. 
 
 Despite its political subordination, however, 
 this people was to receive from the hands of 
 its Creator all the means of individual human 
 and national prosperity, in order that it might 
 dedicate all its wealth of resources to the one 
 purpose — fulfilment of the Divine will. That 
 which universal mankind esteemed weal and 
 woe should also depend on the fulfilment of 
 this will, and thus even the external doings 
 and sufferings of this people should be a means 
 
68 I^KTTKRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 of diredlly inculcating a correcfl understanding 
 of God and human duty, which mankind 
 would otherwise have learned indirecftly by 
 experience. 
 
 "One God, Creator, I^awgiver, Judge, 
 Guide, Preserver, and Father of all beings; 
 all beings His servants, His children, man 
 also His child and servant, from His hand all, 
 and this all to be used only for the fulfilment 
 of His will, since this alone is sufficient for a 
 proper attainment of the purposes of life, while 
 all other human occupations and pursuits are 
 but paths which lead to the goal of the fulfil- 
 ment of the mission of humanity. ' ' 
 
 The proclaiming of these great truths was 
 * to be the chief, if not the sole, life-task of this 
 people. 
 
 It must needs be a people which acknowl- 
 edges " n " ' ' The Ineffable Lord of Love, ' ' as 
 alone D*!!'??^ Omnipotent Master and Judge, 
 that is, which recognizes the God, who calls 
 and trains in love all mankind to His service, 
 as the only Founder, Guide, and Lever of its 
 thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds, which 
 
SEVENTH I^KTTER. 69 
 
 knows that whatever it has is received from 
 Him, and which, with all its power, lives for 
 Him and Him alone. 
 
 A new stone was to be laid upon which 
 could be built afresh the edifice of humanity, 
 into which the knowledge of God and human 
 dut}^ might flee for refuge when rejedled and 
 disowned by others. It should be alike an 
 example, a warning, a model, and an instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Such a mission imposed upon it another 
 duty, the duty of separation, of ethical and 
 spiritual isolation. It could not join in the 
 doings of the other peoples in order that it 
 might not sink to their level and perish in the 
 abyss of their worship of wealth and pleasure. 
 It must remain alone and aloof, must do its 
 work and live its life in separation, until, re- 
 fined and purified by its teachings and its ex- 
 ample, universal humanity might turn to God 
 and acknowledge in Him the only Creator and 
 Ruler. That attained, Israel's mission will 
 have been accomplished. 
 
 ' ' On that day the Lord shall be one and 
 
70 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEI.. 
 
 His name one, for from Zion will go forth the 
 law and the word of the lyord from Jeru- 
 salem. ' ' 
 ' ' The Lord from Sinai came, from Seir shone 
 
 He forth,' 
 Flashed from Paran's mount, with myriad 
 
 holiness came. 
 At His right hand — a fiery law for them. 
 Verily He loved the nations. 
 But His holy ones were implements in thy 
 
 hand. 
 When they shall follow in thy footsteps, 
 They, too, shall utter forth thy words; 
 The law, which Moses commanded unto us. 
 It is the heritage of the congregation of Jacob. ' ' 
 
 Deuteronomy, xxxiii : 2-4. 
 
EIGHTH LETTER. 
 
 ' In Abraham there was chosen as progenitor 
 of this people a man who, in his individual 
 life, already realized the ideal of the people 
 that was to be. The All-One, whom he alone 
 worshipped amidst the multitude of idolatrous 
 seekers after wealth and lust, the All-One 
 called and loving Him alone, Abraham cast 
 from him his native land, his family, his pa- 
 rental dwelling, and all which man loves and 
 cherishes, and followed Him who called him; 
 he accepted the mission to become progenitor 
 of a people from which ' ' blessing should come 
 to all the peoples of the earth which would 
 keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness 
 and judgment," and followed Him; he carried 
 out the ideal of this love to the All-One in his 
 love to his children, to his fellow beings; he 
 cared for them, saved them, instru(5led them, 
 whenever and wherever he could, and prayed 
 
 1 Genesis from chap. xii. 
 
 71 
 
72 I.KTTKRS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 for them to the Judge of all. And He, for 
 whom he left all, and whose call he had fol- 
 lowed into a strange land, He protecfted him 
 upon his wanderings, and blessed him, so that 
 he needed to derive safety and blessing only 
 from His hands, and used them only for the 
 salvation of the world. 
 
 To this *'n!inX," love, was joined 
 *' n^lOK," faith and trust, firm as the immov- 
 able rocks, which beholds life sustained by the 
 All-One, and, therefore, holds fast to His 
 promises, however slightly the present may 
 seem to justify their expe(5lation, and ' ' nN*l\ ' ' 
 that true fear of God which is ready any 
 moment to surrender uncomplainingly the 
 dearest to the Most High, because it realizes 
 that all man possesses is but the free-will 
 gift of God. These sentiments of the .soul, 
 this conscientiously-scrupulous and pious view 
 of life, they were transmitted as an inheri- 
 tance to Isaac, his son, and to Jacob, his 
 grandson, the former more prominently mani- 
 festing the qualities of the attribute of 
 '^n^<'^^" the latter those of '* H^IDK." 
 
EIGHTH LETTER. 73 
 
 * ' They wandered from people to people, from 
 one kingdom to another nation. He permitted 
 no man to oppreSvS them, but punished on 
 their behalf princes, saying, "Touch not my 
 anointed ones ; do no evil unto m}' prophets. ' ' ' 
 
 In the lives of these individuals God revealed 
 Himself as the invisibly ruling Providence un- 
 til they had grown to a family of seventy per- 
 sons. In them was the kernel of the future 
 nation. But the people which grew from this 
 kernel was not spontaneously fitted for its sub- 
 lime mission; it required to be trained, to be 
 taught until it attained the capacity needed for 
 its task. In contrast to other peoples it could 
 find the proper preparation for its national 
 duties only in the school of suffering. It 
 needed to be deprived of all which constitutes 
 ordinarily the glory of nations, even of that 
 which makes the external splendor of individ- 
 ual men, it had to lose all but morality, relig- 
 ion, and hope, in order that it might receive 
 all its life-treasures from Him alone. 
 
 Egypt, which at that time enjoyed the high- 
 
 1 Psalni cv : 13-15. 
 
74 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 est perfedlion of human culture, and wliicli 
 looked upon its soil and its river as its gods, 
 Egypt became the cradle of misery in which 
 Israel passed its infancy of preparation for its 
 sublime mission. As reward for a benefit orig- 
 inating from one of them (Joseph), they were 
 invited to make their home in the Nile-land, 
 they were first guests, then citizens ; but 
 Egypt, revering only material possessions, 
 knew not the All-One, saw not in all human 
 beings His children, and in the arrogance of 
 its power it treacherously disregarded the 
 rights of hospitality and humanity, and made 
 Israel its slaves. Israel sank to the lowest 
 plane of human existence, though its numbers 
 had increased to the proportions of a nation, 
 and Mizraim, once a host, became unto it a 
 tyrant, proud in its might, mocking and scorn- 
 ing the feeble and oppressed. Then appeared 
 the All-One. 
 
 Upon a light cloud He appeared. 
 And there trembled Egypt's gods. 
 
 He revealed Himself as only Creator, as 
 lyord of nature, though human hands had 
 
KIGHTH LETTER. 75 
 
 sought to master it, as God of nations, as Vin- 
 dicator of the oppressed, as Judge of the arro- 
 gant. Mizraim's greatness sank before the 
 majesty of the people which found its all in 
 God. This God spoke — and there sank the 
 walls of the Egyptian prison, and freed from 
 its chains the people marched forth. From 
 the hands of God it received freedom and na- 
 tionality, and as obje(5l of this all, the revela- 
 tion of His will as guidance for human life, the 
 Torah. In Mizraim's school, in the education 
 of the wilderness, "H^I^DN," faith and trust 
 was to become the basal element of its char- 
 a(5ler; it was to acquire that firmness of devo- 
 tion to the All-One which should strengthen 
 and console it in the manifold trials that were 
 to come. 
 
 In the wilderness it received the Torah, and 
 thus in the wilderness, without land or soil, it 
 became a nation. It became a body, whose 
 soul was the Torah, and, therefore, could be 
 truthfully called '' DOHD nD'?00," " a king- 
 dom of priests, ' ' for as the priest in the midst 
 of a single people was this nation to be in the 
 
76 LKTTKRS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 midst of universal mankind, preserving the 
 law of God, and pracfticing and fulfilling its 
 holy precepts. " l^Mp ^1^," " Holy nation," 
 was also to be its appellation, for, through the 
 fulfilment of the Divine law, it was to become 
 holy, not participating in the worldly doings 
 of other nations, but preaching the sacredness 
 of humanity by the example of its life. The 
 Torah, the fulfilment of the Divine will, was 
 to be its soil and country, and aim; its na- 
 tional existence, therefore, was neither depend- 
 ent upon, nor conditioned by transitory things, 
 but eternal as the spirit, the soul and the word 
 of the Eternal One. 
 
 It was to be a people in the midst of the peo- 
 ples; as people it was to show the peoples that 
 
 ' God is the Source, and the Giver, of all bless- 
 ing; that to dedicate oneself to the fulfilment 
 of His will means the attainment of all happi- 
 ness that man can desire; that this sacred 
 
 I resolve is sufficient to give vStability and secu- 
 rity to human existence. It received, there- 
 fore, the blessings of a land and state-power, 
 not, however, as end, but as means of carry- 
 
EIGHTH IvKTTKR. 77 
 
 ing out the Torah, its possession and reten- 
 tion dependent, therefore, upon fulfilment 
 thereof as only condition. It was to be sepa- 
 rate, even in happiness, from the nations in 
 order that it might not learn of them to revere 
 well-being and fortune as the goal of life, 
 and, like them, sink into the worship of wealth 
 and lust. 
 
 How glorious a sight, this people, if it suc- 
 ceed in attaining its ideal! One God, the All- 
 One, one lyord and Father of them all; they 
 all equal brothers, subjedl to the paternal gov- 
 ernment of the All-One; the fulfilment of His 
 will in righteousness and love their only great- 
 ness, and in order to be able to successfully 
 accomplish their task, the Divine blessing 
 poured out unto them lavishly, without stint 
 or limitation. 
 
 " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,' 
 Thy tabernacles, O Israel ! 
 As brooks they are stretched forth, 
 As gardens by the river, 
 As aloes, which the Lord hath planted. 
 
 1 Numbers xxiv : 5-7. 
 
78 LETTERS OE BEN UZlElv. 
 
 As cedars by the water; 
 The water floweth from the vessels of God, 
 'Tis His seed by the rushing streams. 
 Therefore shall His king be exalted above 
 
 Agag, 
 His kingdom shall be uplifted. 
 He saw no wickedness in Jacob, 
 He beheld no violence in Israel; 
 The Lord, his God, is with him. 
 And trumpet blowing, homage to the King. 
 The God, who led him forth from Egypt, 
 Is strength to him as the buffalo's mighty 
 
 horns. 
 Therefore, no sorcery is in Jacob; 
 No wizard-art in Israel, 
 The time cometh when shall be sought 
 In Jacob and Israel what God hath wrought. ' ' 
 
NINTH LETTER. 
 
 Only for a short time was Israel able to 
 attain its ideal, the fulfilment of its mission in 
 prosperity. Even the first leader of the nation, 
 Moses, foretold that upon God's soil they 
 would forget God; that, led astray by the ex- 
 ample of the other nations, they would esteem 
 only wealth and pleasure worthy of seeking, 
 and w^ould become oblivious to their mission. 
 There came the time when, even in Israel, 
 the prophet could lament — ''As the number 
 of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah." 
 It became necessary to take away the abun- 
 dance of earthl}^ good, the wealth and the land, 
 which had led it away from its mission ; it was 
 obliged to leave the happy soil which had 
 seduced it from its allegiance to the Most High; 
 nothing should be saved except the soul of 
 its existence, the Torah ; no other bond of 
 unity should henceforth exist except ' ' God 
 and its mission," which are indestrudlible, 
 because spiritual. Through the annihilation 
 
 79 
 
8o i,KTT:eRS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 of Israel's state-life its mission did not cease, 
 for that had been intended only as a means to 
 an end. On the contrary, this destrudlion 
 itself was a part of its fate; so strangely com- 
 mingled of divine and human elements, in 
 exile and dispersion its mission was to be 
 resumed in a different manner. No other sins 
 had been committed in the Israel-state than 
 appear in the life of other nations, but that 
 which could be tolerated among others could 
 not be excused in Israel ; for its special ofiice 
 was to preserve itself pure from all sin and 
 perversity, since ' ' H " was its God. Destruc- 
 tion and misfortune are therefore no less in- 
 strudlive for Israel than prosperity. The dis- 
 persion opened a new, great, and wide-extended 
 field for the fulfilment of its mission. But 
 before the great wandering through the ages 
 and the nations began, God gathered them 
 again upon their home-soil, as a father, who 
 is forced to vSend his children forth into the 
 world, gathers them together in his house 
 before their departure, to extend to them at 
 once his parental blessing and his fond fare- 
 
NINTH I,ETTe:r. 8 1 
 
 well. There, in their national home, they 
 bound closer to themselves the Torah-bond 
 which henceforth was alone to join them 
 together. On the very eve of the exile, a 
 branch left the parent tree, which was obliged 
 to surrender largely the charadleristics of the 
 parent stem, in order to bring to the world, 
 which had relapsed into polytheism, violence, 
 immorality, and inhumanity, the tidings of the 
 existence of the All-One and of the brother- 
 hood of man and his superiority to the beast, 
 and to proclaim the deliverance of mankind 
 from the bondage of wealth-and-lust worship. 
 Assisted greatly by this offshoot in rendering 
 intelligible to the world the obje(5ls and pur- 
 poses of Israel's elecSlion, the nation was 
 scattered into the four quarters of the earth, 
 unto all peoples and all zones, in order that in 
 the dispersion it might better fulfill its mission. 
 "To the wilderness again," proclaimed the 
 
 Prophet's voice. 
 ' ' Into the wilderness again ; prepare there the 
 
 path of the Lord." ' 
 
 1 Isaiah, chap, xl : 3-5. 
 
82 I^KTTKRS OF BEN UZIKI.. 
 
 Make smooth in evening gloom a way for our 
 
 God. 
 When every valley will be lifted ; when hill 
 
 and mount are lowered ; 
 When the rough ground is smoothed ; when 
 
 the ridges are made even, 
 Then will be revealed the glory of the I^ord, 
 And all flesh shall see that the mouth of God 
 
 hath spoken." 
 
 Israel accomplished its task better in exile 
 than in the full possession of good fortune. 
 Indeed, improvement and corre(5lion were the 
 chief purposes of the Galuth — exile. With 
 its own eyes the nation saw the destru(5lion of 
 the power and the splendor which had dazzled 
 it, and which it had begun to revere as its 
 gods. Could it ever again revere wealth, 
 power, and grandeur as the gods of life? 
 Without power, without splendor, without 
 brilliant show of human grandeur, it pre- 
 served its faithfulness toward the All- One and 
 the spirit and the maintenance of its only res- 
 cued treasure, the Torah — preserved it alive 
 amidst suffering and agony, enabled it to 
 
NINTH LKTTKR. 83 
 
 endure all the blows of savage fanaticism 
 unchained. 
 
 On every side states in all the glory of 
 human power and pride disappeared from the 
 face of the earth, while Israel, upheld only by 
 its fidelity to God and His law, maintained 
 successfully its existence. Could, then, Israel 
 refuse to acknowledge this All-One as its God, 
 or to accept His Torah as its only mission on 
 earth ? 
 
 And, in very truth, it proved that this train- 
 ing was not in vain. A thousand times delu- 
 sions, armed with material power and passions 
 aroused by these delusions, opened to Israel 
 the path to the full enjoyment of earthly hap- 
 piness, if it would, with but a single word, 
 declare its rejection of the All-One — its dis- 
 regard of His Torah; but, as often as temp- 
 tation met it, it would cast away in scorn 
 this easy key, preferring rather to extend the 
 neck to the blow of the executioner. It sacri- 
 ficed its own scanty measure of happiness, the 
 most precious possession of earthly existence, 
 wives, children, parents, brothers, and sisters, 
 
84 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZIKI.. 
 
 life, property, and all the joys of life. With 
 Israel's heart-blood is written on all the pages 
 of history the dodlrine that there is but one 
 God, and that there are higher and better 
 things for mankind than wealth and pleasure. 
 Its entire Galuth history is one vast altar, 
 i upon which it sacrificed all that men desire 
 and love for the sake of acknowledging God 
 and His law. Among all nations and in 
 every region such altars have smoked. Did 
 they not teach, could they fail to teach, a 
 most impressive lesson? Deeply upon the 
 heart of Israel they impressed the convidlion 
 that a more than human power was sustaining 
 them in their unparalleled tribulations. In 
 this power they learned to worship the All- 
 One ; in faithful devotion to Him, they recog- 
 nized their mission. 
 
 And now that these altars have ceased to 
 smoke, and the scattered ones of Israel are 
 tolerated, protedled, even accepted as citizens, 
 how beautiful, nay, how necCvSsary were it that 
 they should, in accordance with the permission 
 of the nations, develop in peace and quietude 
 
NINTH LKTTKR. 85 
 
 all the grandeur of the Israel life. How beauti- 
 ful it would be if Israel, obeying the word of its 
 prophet, should attach itself closely to every 
 state which has accepted its children in citi- 
 zenship, and vShould seek to promote the wel- 
 fare and the peace thereof. 
 
 If in the midst of a world which reveres 
 wealth and lust, it should live a tranquil life 
 of righteousness and love ; if, while every- 
 where the generation is rapidly sinking into 
 sensuality and immorality, Israel's sons and 
 daughters should bloom forth in the best 
 adornment of youth, purity and innocence; if, 
 though everywhere the habitations of men 
 should cease to be the orchards in which are 
 grown human fruit pleasing in the sight of 
 God and man, every Israelitish house should, 
 nevertheless, be a temple of true faith in God, 
 of reverence and love for Him ; if, though 
 everywhere avarice, lust, and greed should 
 become the motives of human adlions, every 
 Jew should still, in despite thereof, be a silent 
 example and teacher of universal right- 
 eousness and universal love — if thus the 
 
86 lktte:rs of bkn uziei.. 
 
 dispersed of Israel should show themselves 
 everywhere on earth the glorious priests of 
 God and pure humanity, O my Benjamin, 
 if we were, if we would become, what we 
 should be — if our lives were a perfecfl reflection 
 of our law — what a might}^ engine we would 
 constitute for propelling mankind to the final 
 goal of all human education! More quietly, but 
 more forcefully and profoundly, would it effedl 
 mankind than even our tragical record of sor- 
 rows, powerfully though this latter teaches the 
 intervention of providence in human affairs. 
 
 In the centuries of passion and scorn our 
 mission was but imperfedlly attainable, but the 
 ages of mildness and justice, now begun, 
 beckon us to that glorious goal ; that every 
 Jew and every Jewess should be in his or her 
 own life a modest and unassuming priest or 
 priestess of God and true humanity. When 
 such an ideal and such a mission await us, can 
 we still, my Benjamin, lament our fate? 
 ** Be pure, O ye that bear the weapons of the 
 
 I^ord, ' 
 
 1 Isaiah, chap. Hi : ii ; chap. Ivi : 7. 
 
NINTH LKTTBR. 87 
 
 For not in lightness should ye go forth, 
 Nor in carelessness should ye walk ; 
 For He that walketh before you is the Lord, 
 And He that guardeth you is the God of 
 
 Israel. 
 Behold, if my servant be but wise, 
 He shall be high and exalted and very great. 
 As many were amazed at thee, 
 Saying, "His appearance is corrupted from 
 
 manly semblance, 
 His likeness from the children of men. ' ' 
 So shall light come to many peoples, 
 And kings shall close their mouths, 
 For what was not told unto them they shall see, 
 And what they never heard they shall con- 
 template. 
 Wondering, they shall say, " Who would 
 
 believe our report ? ' ' 
 ''The arm of the Lord, upon whom is it re- 
 vealed? " 
 He rises as a sapling before him 
 And as a root from arid land. 
 He had nor form nor beauty that we should 
 see him. 
 
88 IvKTTKRS OF BKN UZIEL. 
 
 Nor comeliness that we should desire him. 
 
 He was despised and forsaken of men ; 
 
 A man of sorrows, acquainted with sickness. 
 
 And when God hid His face from him, 
 
 We despised him and considered him not. 
 
 Yet ' twas but sickness from us he bore ; 
 
 Pains we had inflidled were his burden. 
 
 And we deemed him plagued. 
 
 Stricken of God and affli(5led. 
 
 But he, though stricken through our sins, 
 
 Though crushed through our iniquities. 
 
 The bond of our peace he took upon him, 
 
 And in his congregation was healing for us. ^ 
 
 We all had gone astray as sheep ; 
 
 Each one had turned to his own way ; 
 
 But the Lord affli(5led only him — 
 
 Smote him for the sin of us all. 
 
 He was oppressed, was harshly persecuted, 
 
 Silent endured and opened not his mouth. 
 
 As a sheep to the slaughter he was led, 
 
 As a lamb before the shearers was he dumb. 
 
 Nor opened he his mouth. 
 
 Of kingly rule and judgeship was he deprived, 
 
 I The Hebrew for "stripe " is n^ian not n^MiT^ 
 T -; T ~ 
 
NINTH LKTTKR. 89 
 
 And his fate, who could tell it ? 
 
 For he was cut off from the land of life, 
 
 Through the sin of the nation came afflidlion 
 
 unto him. 
 The wicked brought him to the grave, 
 The great and wealthy to his death, 
 Though violence he had never used 
 And deceit was not in his mouth. 
 But the Lord had willed his affliction and sick- 
 ness. 
 That he should yield himself as guilt offering, 
 (Nevertheless destrucftion was not God's plan, 
 
 but that) 
 He should see posterity, prolong days. 
 And the purpose of the Lord through his hand 
 
 should be fulfilled. 
 Through suffering he should gain insight, 
 Should learn to be content. 
 And with this knowledge propagate the right 
 And do My service unto the many whose sins 
 
 he bore. 
 Therefore shall I give him a portion among 
 
 the many. 
 With mighty ones booty shall he yet divide, 
 
90 I^KTTKRS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 Because he laid bare to death his soul, 
 
 And with sinners suffered himself to be counted, 
 
 Whereas he had borne the sin of many 
 
 And for sinners suffered himself to be stricken. ' ' 
 
 " Shout gladly, O barren one, that hath never 
 
 borne, 
 Break forth in gladsome shouting and rejoice. 
 Thou that hath never known the pains of 
 
 child-birth. 
 For more are the children of the desolate one 
 Than of her that hath a husband, saith the 
 
 Lord. 
 Make broad the space of thy tent. 
 The curtains of thy dwellings, let them ex- 
 pand. 
 Keep them not back; 
 
 Make long thy cords, thy pegs make firm. 
 For to the right and to the left shalt thou 
 
 spread forth. 
 Thy seed shall inherit nations. 
 And desolate cities they shall inhabit. 
 Fear not, thou shalt not be put to shame. 
 Be not abashed, for thou shalt not grow pale. 
 
NINTH LETTER. 91 
 
 For the shame of thy 3^outh thou shalt forget, 
 
 The disgrace of th}^ widowhood no more re- 
 member. 
 
 For thy lyord and thy Creator, ' ' Reconciler 
 of Contradidtions ' ' is His name. 
 
 And thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, 
 God of the whole earth is He called. 
 
 For as a wife forsaken and sad, the I^ord re- 
 calls thee, 
 
 And as to the spouse of youth, once rejected, 
 does thy God speak. 
 
 For a short moment I forsook thee. 
 
 But with great love I take thee back. 
 
 In overwhelming wrath I hid my face a mo- 
 ment from thee. 
 
 But in everlasting mercy I have compassion 
 upon thee, 
 
 Saith thy Redeemer, the Lord. 
 
 For as Noah's flood is this unto me ; 
 
 For as I swore that Noah's flood should no 
 more come to pass, 
 
 Thus have I sworn no more to be wroth with 
 thee. 
 
 No more o'er thee my anger hot to pour. 
 
92 I.KTTERS OF BEN UZIEI<. 
 
 Though the mountains vShould be moved 
 And the hills be shaken, 
 My mercy from thee shall not be moved, 
 And my covenant of peace shall not be shaken, 
 Saith He that hath compassion with thee, the 
 
 lyord. 
 O thou poor, storm-driven one, unconsoled. 
 Behold, in rare clay shall I set thy stones. 
 With sapphires will I build thy fundaments. 
 Of crystal shall I make thy windows 
 Of flashing carbuncles thy gates, 
 And all thy boundary -walls of precious jewels. 
 And all thy children shall be disciples of the 
 
 Lord 
 And great shall be the peace of thy children. 
 Only through righteousness canst thou be 
 
 established ; 
 Keep far from oppression, for thou needst not 
 
 fear. 
 From terror, for it will not come nigh unto 
 
 thee 
 None shall fear aught but me, w^ho, therefore, 
 
 among thee 
 Could fear that aught would befall thee ? 
 
NINTH LKTTKR. 93 
 
 Verily, I have created every artizan 
 
 That bloweth in the fire the coal 
 
 And bringeth forth a tool for his work; 
 
 I have created every destroyer 
 
 That begetteth evil and harm. 
 
 But no weapon, formed against thee, shall 
 succeed. 
 
 Every tongue that riseth 'gainst thee in judg- 
 ment, thou shalt refute ; 
 
 This is the inheritance of the servants of the 
 lyord 
 
 And of those whose righteousness is from me, 
 saith the lyord. 
 
 All ye that are thirsty, come to the water, 
 
 Ye that have no silver, come, buy and eat ; 
 
 Come, buy without silver and without price 
 
 Wine that revives and milk that nourisheth. 
 
 Why weigh ye out silver for that which is not 
 bread. 
 
 Your earnings for that which satisfieth not ? 
 
 Hearken unto me and eat that which is good 
 
 And may your soul be delighted with fatness. 
 
 And I will make with you an eternal covenant, 
 
 Even the ever faithful love of David. 
 
94 I.KTTERS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 For, behold, I gave him as a witness to the 
 
 peoples, 
 Communicating and enjoining duty to the 
 
 nations. 
 Behold, a people, which thou knowest not, 
 
 thou wilt call. 
 And nations, that know thee not, unto thee 
 
 will hasten, 
 Kven to the Lord thy God, to the Holy One 
 
 of Israel, that maketh thee beautiful. 
 Seek ye the Lord, the ever present; 
 Call upon Him, the ever near. 
 Let the passionate forsake his way, 
 The man of violence his counsel, 
 Let him return to the Lord, 
 He will have compassion upon him; 
 Kven to our God for He doth much forgive. 
 Verily, my thoughts are not your thoughts 
 And your ways are not my ways, saith the 
 
 Lord. 
 For as the heavens are high above the earth. 
 Thus are my ways high above your ways 
 And my thoughts above your thoughts. 
 For as the rain and the snow fall from heaven 
 
NINTH IvKTTKR. 95 
 
 And return not thither again 
 
 Until it has watered and made it bear 
 
 And caused plants to spring forth ; 
 
 Thus also my word, which goeth forth from 
 my mouth, 
 
 Shall not return empty unto me 
 
 Until it has done what I desired 
 
 And accomplished that for which I sent it. 
 
 In joy shall 5^e go forth, in peace return, 
 
 Mountains and hills shall greet you with joy- 
 ful shouting 
 
 And all the trees of the field shall clap their 
 hands ; 
 
 Beneath the thorn-bush the cedar shall rise ; 
 
 Beneath the thistle the myrtle shall spring 
 forth ; 
 
 Shall remain, as glory to the lyord, 
 
 Reminder of hidden time, shall nevermore be 
 uprooted. 
 
 Thus hath the Lord said, "Take heed of jus- 
 tice ! ' ' 
 
 Practise righteousness ; then will my salvation 
 soon come, 
 
 My righteousness then will soon be revealed. 
 
96 I.ETTKRS OF BEN UZIKL. 
 
 Happy the man that practises this, 
 
 The son of Adam that holds fast to it, 
 
 Who gives heed to the Sabbath that he profane 
 it not. 
 
 Gives heed to his hand that it do no evil. 
 
 Neither should the stranger, that joins him- 
 self to the Lord, 
 
 Say, " Verily, the Lord will separate me from 
 His people ; ' ' 
 
 Nor should the childless speak, " I am a dry 
 tree !" 
 
 For thus saith the Lord to the childless ones 
 who keep my Sabbaths, 
 
 Who choose what I desire and hold fast to my 
 covenant, 
 
 ** Verily, I shall give them in My house, within 
 My walls, 
 
 A place and a name, better than sons and 
 daughters, 
 
 A name eternal, which shall never be cut off; 
 
 And the sons of the stranger, who join them- 
 selves to the Lord 
 
 To serve Him, to love the name of the Lord, 
 
 Even to be unto Him as servants. 
 
NINTH LETTER. 97 
 
 Whosoever gives heed to the Sabbath, not to 
 
 profane it, 
 Whosoever holdeth fast to my covenant, 
 I shall bring them all to My holy mountain, 
 I shall cause them all to rejoice in My house 
 
 of prayer. 
 Their burnt offerings and sacrifices shall be 
 
 pleasing upon My altar, * 
 For My house, a house of prayer shall it be 
 
 called for all the nations. 
 
TENTH LETTER. 
 
 My light and sketchy brush-strokes have 
 succeeded in reconciling you to the fate of 
 your people ; nay, more, you are happy that 
 you belong to this people, in spite of its pov- 
 erty and lowliness — even because of them. 
 What a glorious resulting of our correspond- 
 ence, dear Benjamin ! But, when you conceive 
 yourself exalted to the lofty summit of the 
 idea of our mission and look upon the lyaw, 
 which has as ostensible purpose the realization 
 of this idea, you feel as though a yawning 
 chasm intervened between you and it. You 
 can not repress a feeling of sorrowing disap- 
 proval, a sensation of protesting wonderment 
 when you think, that that is supposed to be 
 the will of God ; nor do you see any real task, 
 any ideal work to which you are called, 
 nothing but praying and a passively-contem- 
 plative life, and in addition, unreasonable de- 
 mands and senseless practices. But what 
 
 98 
 
TENTH I.KTTKR. 99 
 
 would you say, dear friend, if I were to tell 
 you that the excessive pressure of centuries 
 in its accumulated weight had finally only per- 
 mitted the rescue of the externals of the Law, 
 but that the spirit had no longer found room ? 
 What if I were to say that Israel, banished 
 from the society of the rest of mankind, 
 estranged from the world and its life, had lost 
 contadl and sympathy with the world and life, 
 and no longer considered them in comprehend- 
 ing and interpreting the Law, but deemed 
 itself fortunate to have rescued even its, the 
 Law's, externals? Suppose I were to tell you 
 that a dull and prosaic dialedlic had reduced 
 to merest mummies laws full to overflowing of 
 life and spirit, and that Israel, concerned and 
 apprehensive because of the errors and evils 
 which it had often seen follow the efforts of the 
 uncontrolled intellecft, had driven it away from 
 the Law as one drives away a bird of prey 
 from a dearly-beloved corpse ? Centuries of 
 oppression and misery, which offered no 
 opportunity for acftivity, which made patient 
 endurance and resignation the sole duties; 
 
lOO LETTERS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 when only prayer could give strength, and 
 passive contemplation afforded the only con- 
 solation for the ills of life, must they not of 
 necessity depress the spirit and compel the de- 
 velopment of the narrow and restricfted ? If, 
 furthermore, we say that the literary sources 
 of Judaism, in which its spirit is contained, 
 being misunderstood and misinterpreted, them- 
 selves aided in corporealizing and disguising 
 the spirit; that a perverted intelle(5l compre- 
 hended the institutions which were designed 
 and ordained for the internal and external 
 purification and betterment of man as mechan- 
 ical, dynamical, or magical formulas for the 
 upbuilding of higher worlds, and that thus 
 the observances meant for the education of the 
 spirit to a nobler life were but too frequently 
 degraded into mere amuletic or talismanic per- 
 formances; would you not admit, after all 
 this, dear Benjamin, that 3^ou know only ex- 
 ternal Judaism, only an unrecognized, uncom- 
 prehended, misunderstood Judaism, and even 
 that in a most fragmentary and incomplete 
 form ? 
 
TENTH LKTTKR. loi 
 
 Forget whatever you know of Judaism, 
 listen, as though you had never heard aught 
 concerning its teachings, and you will not only 
 be reconciled to the Law, but you will be filled 
 with genuine love for it and willingly will you 
 permit your whole life to be an expression and 
 manifestation of this Law. 
 
 I shall give you now only fundamental 
 principles, general outlines of the component 
 parts of the Jewish do(5lrinal system, hardly 
 anything but the nomenclature of terms and 
 concepts, and shall leave both elucidation and 
 demonstration for the future. Read my state- 
 ments as though they were but hypotheses, 
 but they are none. 
 
 Every opinion which I shall express is the 
 result of many years' study of Ijn \0C* and 
 t^^lD; ' every detail and every step finds its 
 corroboration in the Gemara, if this latter be 
 but comprehended according to the true mean- 
 ing of its words and if, at every point, we put 
 to ourselves the questions, ' ' What have I 
 heard here ? " " What is the underlying con- 
 
 1 Bible, Talmud, and Midrash. 
 
I02 LETTERS OP BEN UZIEI.. 
 
 cept of this statement ? " ' ' What its pur- 
 pose ? " " What the object of this symboHcal 
 act ? " " What its natural meaning under the 
 given conditions and purpose ? ' ' We must, 
 furthermore, carefully distinguish between 
 iXn^niKl' and ]^T\1\ and seek to compre- 
 hend the former by comprehending the essence 
 and nature of the thing enjoined, and the lat- 
 ter by making clear to ourselves the steps and 
 means required for the proper carrying out and 
 fulfillment of the Biblical law; nor must we 
 omit to take account of the peculiarities of 
 the original, which, having been intended pri- 
 marily for oral transmission only, and not to 
 be put into written form, which was expressly 
 interdi(5led as a matter of principle, gives only 
 the special rule, adapted for immediate appli- 
 cation, but omits the universal, the spirit, 
 leaving that for direcft individual instru(5tion or 
 personal effort to ascertain. 
 
 After what has been now explained, I ask 
 you, what do you expecft in the Torah ? You 
 
 1 Biblical ordinances. 
 
 2 Rabbinical ordinances. 
 
TENTH LETTER. 103 
 
 will answer, revelation of condiicft, how you, 
 using the powers and faculties which are 
 yours, may fulfill the will of God towards the 
 beings by whom you are surrounded ; in other 
 words, how you may pracftise justice and love 
 with all and towards all. 
 
 Add to this also the idea of the mission of 
 Israel as a people called not only to accom- 
 plish the fulfillment of these principles in life, 
 but also to preserve and propagate their 
 theoretic concepts for its own education and 
 that of others. Join to it, furthermore, the 
 laws and ordinances which derive their origin 
 naturally from the state-life Israel once led 
 and which, in the absence of land and state, 
 became inapplicable, and you have the essential 
 binding contents of the Torah. ' 
 
 (i)ri1*1iri. In str2ictio7is or doctrines. The 
 historically revealed ideas concerning God, 
 the world, the mission of humanity and of 
 
 1 It is customary to divide the Mitzvoth in ntt'J? and ri"?, 
 commands and prohibitions, but this is not essential for our 
 purpose, for the same command may be, from one point of 
 view, positive, from another, negative. E. g. plt^JfTl X7 and 
 
 nsiy ]nn lavn or nn?3 h^»T-\ and ^nn 'jsk' vh 
 
I04 IvKTTKRS OF BBN UZIKI.. 
 
 Israel, not as mere docftrines of faith or 
 science, but as principles to be acknowledged 
 by mind and heart, and realized in life. (2) 
 D^LD^t^tO. Judgments. Statements of justice 
 towards creatures similar and equal to your- 
 vSelf, by reason of this resemblance and equal- 
 ity, that is, of justice towards human beings. 
 (3) D^pH. Arbitrary statutes. Statements 
 of justice towards subordinate creatures by 
 reason of the obedience due to God ; that 
 is, justice towards the earth, plants, and 
 animals, or, if they have become assimilated 
 with your personalit}^ towards your own 
 body and soul. (4) Dll^tO. Cojumajid^nents . 
 Precepts of love towards all beings with- 
 out distindlion, purely because of the bid- 
 ding of God and in consideration of our 
 duty as men and Israelites. (5) n*)"!i^. 
 Symbolic observances. Monuments or testi- 
 monies to truths essential to the concept of 
 the mission of man and of Israel. These tes- 
 timonies are symbolic words or adlions which 
 bear a lesson for the individual Jew, colledlive 
 Israel, or mankind in general. (6) HTlDJ/, 
 
TENTH LETTER. I05 
 
 Service or worship. Exaltation and sandlifica- 
 tion of the inner powers by word-or-deed 
 symbols to the end that our conception of 
 our task be rendered clearer, and we be better 
 fitted to fulfill our mission on earth. 
 
 As basal principles to these grand divisions 
 of religion we have three concepts, justice, 
 love, and education. 
 
 (i) Justice, that is, consideration for every 
 being as creature of God, for all possessions 
 as arrangements willed by God, of all govern- 
 ments and systems as ordained by God and 
 fulfillment of all duties towards them incum- 
 bent upon us. 
 
 (2) Love, that is, kindly acceptance of all 
 beings as children of God, as brethren; pro- 
 motion of their welfare, and the endeavor to 
 bring them to the goal set for them by God, 
 without motive or benefit, but simply to fulfill 
 the Divine will and command. 
 
 (3) Education, that is, the training of one- 
 self and others to such work by taking to 
 heart these truths as life-principles, by hold- 
 ing them fast and preserving them for one- 
 
Io6 I^KTTKRS OF BEN UZIKL. 
 
 self and for others, and by endeavoring to re- 
 gain them whenever the influences of worldly 
 life have torn them from our possession. 
 
 Let us now go through them in detail and 
 endeavor to comprehend each in the light of 
 the principles upon which it is established. 
 
ELEVENTH LETTER. 
 
 Toroth. — Instruction or doctfdties. — Manifold 
 are the lessons which these important 
 constituents of the Divine system teach 
 us. They comprise the instrudlions de- 
 rived from the historically-revealed mani- 
 festations of Divine truth and which it is our 
 duty to elevate into principles of our life. ' 
 They teach us to know God in his unity and 
 as summoning us to comprehend our existence 
 in all its many-sidedness and to unite all our 
 powers, abilities, and conditions in subordina- 
 tion to the One. - They teach the acftive 
 service-duty of all beings, including man, who 
 must learn to look upon himself as one of the 
 host of ministering attendants of Deity and 
 willingly join their ranks. ^ His will in this 
 respect is revealed as unchangeable for all 
 ages. " Our experience is to serve us as 
 
 1 Ex. XX : 2. 2 Deut. vi : 4; iv : 39; Ex. xx : 3; Deut xviii : 13; 
 Deut. xix : 26. ^ Deut. iv : 19, 20. * Deut. iv : 9; v : 19. 
 
 107 
 
I08 I.KTTKRS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 education; ' the fear of God is to be taught 
 us by the recognition of His illimitable great- 
 ness, the love of God by consideration of His 
 unending mercy and kindness, unshakeable 
 trust in Him by appreciation of His eternal 
 faithfulness. ^ 
 
 They furthermore tend to ennoble thy inner 
 charadler that it become pure and free of all 
 that could drag thee down from the high pin- 
 nacle of thy holy mission. ' They bid thee 
 put aside pride and desire of sensual pleas- 
 ure,^ to respond sympathetically to the 
 sorrow or joy of all beings, and to embrace 
 them all in thy love as children of thy God." 
 These injun(5lions are but the applications of 
 the principles demonstrated as true in the 
 revelations given in the adlions, in the mighty 
 deeds, of God. His commandments are but 
 the expressions of these principles; revealed 
 as concepts, not as mere incomprehensible be- 
 hests; whosoever desires truth will accept them. 
 
 1 Deut. viii : 2. 2 Deut. vi : 12, 13 ; iv : 40; vi : 16; vii : 19. 3 Deut. 
 X : 12-16; I^ev. xi : 44, 20, 7. « Deut. viii : 11; Deut. v : 18. ^Deut. 
 XV : 17; I^ev. xiv : 18. 
 
KI.KVENTH I.KTTKR. lOQ 
 
 Mishpatim. — Judgments or Principles of 
 Justice. — All these ideal theories have only 
 value, however, if thou really livest, as 
 thou hast gained the conception, in a Divine 
 world, with Divine powers, man-Israel. The 
 first requisite is. Justice! Respedl every being 
 around thee and all that is in thee as the crea- 
 tion of thy God; everything belonging to them 
 as given them by God or in accordance with 
 law which He has sancflioned. I^eave will- 
 ingly to each being that which it is justly en- 
 titled to call its own. Be not as regards aught 
 a curse. Especially honor every human being 
 as thy equal, regard him in his essence, that is 
 to say, in his invisible personality, in his 
 bodily envelope and in his life.' Extend the 
 same regard to his artificially enlarged body, 
 his property; ' to the demands which he may 
 be entitled to make upon you for assistance 
 by grants of property or a^s of physical 
 strength; ' in measure and number; * in re- 
 
 1 Exod.xx : 13; Deut. xxv : i; xxvii : 24. T'»,Cn sj^gv. xix: 
 II, 13; Exod. xxii : i; I,ev. v : 21; Deut. xxiv : 14. CH sj^gv. 
 xxv : 14; Exod. xxii : 6, 9, 13. O'TI 4 i^ev. xix : 35 ; Deut. xxv: 
 
 13. o-'^n 
 
no lyETTERS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 compense of injury to his person or posses- 
 sions.' Have regard, also, to his rightful 
 claim of truth; "^ of liberty, happiness, and 
 peace of mind,^ of honor and undisturbed 
 tranquillity." Do not abuse his weakness of 
 heart, mind, or body; ' do not unjustly em- 
 ploy thy legal power over him/ 
 
 Chukkim. — Arbitrary or appareyitly inex- 
 plicable Statutes. — The same thoughtful regard 
 which you show to man, show as well to 
 every lower being; to the earth which bears 
 and sustains all; to the world of animals and 
 plants, to your own body, to your own mental 
 faculties, to your " ego," that which is most 
 of all your own. It is the same justice which 
 you owe to other human beings. What in the 
 case of the Mishpatim results from the con- 
 cept of identical personality, flows here from 
 the fundamental notion of equal subordina- 
 
 ^Exod. xxii : 4, 5, 21, 33, 35; Deut. xxii : 8; Exod. xxi: 18. Cn 
 2 Exod. xxiii : 7; I,ev. xix : 11. \i"T\,Vi"i< 3 Exod. xxii : 20; I^ev. 
 xix : 34; lyCv. XXV : 16; I^ev. xix : 18. CH < j^ev. xix: 16; Deut. 
 xvii : 5. T'' ^ I^ev. xix : 14; Deut. xxvii : 18; xiii : 12. T\"ii,t2"T\,y^ 
 8 Exod. XX : 14 ; I,ev. xix : 15 ; Exod. xxiii : i, 6, 8 ; Deut. i : 16, 
 
BLKVKNTH LETTER. Ill 
 
 tion to God, who defends all which is lower 
 in order and subjedl to you against your 
 caprice and the ebullitions of unregulated 
 will. Your duties towards humanity are more 
 intelligible to you simply because you have 
 only to think of yourself, your own views 
 and feelings, in order to recognize and sym- 
 pathize with the demands and needs of your 
 fellow-man. Could you put yourself as 
 thoroughly in the place of other beings, could 
 you even understand the conditions of the 
 union and the combined a(5livity of your own 
 body and soul, you would find it as easy to 
 comprehend Chukkim as Mishpatim. They 
 ask of you to regard all beings as God's pos- 
 sessions; destroy none; abuse none; waste 
 nothing; employ all things wisely; ' the kinds 
 and species of plants and animals are God's 
 order; mingle t'hem not/ All creatures are 
 servants in the household of creation." 
 Respedl even the feelings and desires of 
 
 1 Deut. XX : 19; r,ev. xxii : 24. DoSo Vti IT'S T"U of the *T"' 
 Talma H^tt', p. 67. n"K 2 j^ev. xix : 19; Deut. xxii : 9, 11. 
 3 Deut. xxii : 6; I,ev. xxii : 2S. l"i 
 
112 LKTTKRS OF BKN UZIEL. 
 
 beasts.' Respedl the body of man even when 
 the personaHty has departed/ Respect your 
 own body as receptacle, messenger and instru- 
 ment of the spirit."' I^imit and subdue your 
 impulses and animal adlions under the law of 
 God that they be used in a manner truly 
 human and holy for the upbuilding of the 
 holy purpose of the human race, that man 
 sink not into a mere beast." Respec?t your 
 soul in nourishing your body; give the latter 
 only so much and such food as will permit it 
 to be a pure, obedient messenger of the world 
 to the soul, of the soul to the world, but not 
 such as to produce sluggishness or sensuality.^ 
 Therefore conceal and elevate, do not esteem 
 too highly thy animal part, in order that in 
 the end all contradidlory dispositions be elim- 
 inated from you, and even the beast-like 
 become truly human. ^ Finally, respedl your- 
 self in your purest emanation, your word.'' 
 
 1 Exod. xxiii : 5. ri'^N C'Tl 2 Deut. xvi : 22. ^''' 3 Gen. ix : 5; 
 Deut. iv : 9. Cn I'^i 4 Deut. xxiii : 10; I^ev. xviii : 4-24. ^ j^gv. 
 xi; Deut. xiv. « I^ev. xxiii : 10; Num. xxi : 21. '' Num. xxx : 2. 
 
TWELFTH LETTER. 
 
 Mitzvoth. — Commandments. — The next re- 
 quirement, which, though second in rank, 
 gives Hfe its completion and perfedlion, is love. 
 Never be the instrumentality of curse or mis- 
 fortune to yourself or your neighbor, but 
 strive, like Deity, to do all your deeds in love, 
 and thus become a blessing to yourself and 
 your surroundings.^ First become a blessing 
 to yourself in order that you may become it 
 to others. Seek to equip yourself with all 
 the capacities and means which can be of good 
 service to the welfare of your fellow beings; 
 make yourself rich with abundant store of 
 good and noble principles, and then devote 
 yourself to the world for perfecft service of 
 blessing. To become the means of blessing, 
 learn first to honor your parents as messengers 
 of God, mankind, and Israel to you; ^ learn 
 
 1 Deut. xxviii : 9; xiii : 4. 2 pixod. xx : 12; Deut. v : 16; I^ev. 
 xix, 3. 
 
114 I.ETTERS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 also to revere wisdom, age, and virtue, as 
 guides and models, wherever and whenever 
 they appear realized in human chara(5ler.' 
 Illuminate yourself with the revealed wisdom 
 of the Torah,^ avoid the evil and seek the 
 good.' 
 
 Strive ever to draw nearer to God, to be 
 more closely united to Him in love and piety, 
 more devoted and faithful to thy sacred mis- 
 sion on earth. Strive also to make the earth 
 a truly human habitation, its creatures truly 
 human possessions, in order that, in addition 
 to your internal resources you may acquire 
 also external wealth as means for carrying out 
 your mission of blessing, and in order to be 
 able independently to establish a house, as a 
 temple in which shall be reared young scions 
 of Adam's race as ideal human beings, ideal 
 Israelites.* For such purpose, to grace such 
 a house, take a wife and bring her into your 
 home.^ Next follows the first task of your 
 blessed mission of love, the first and the 
 
 1 lyCv. xix : 32, T'^ 2Deut. v : i ; iv : 5. ^ Deut. xiiirs; xiii : 8. 
 4 Genesis! : 28; Deut. xxxiv : I ^ Deut. xxv rs; viii: 3. T'S PTX 
 
TWKI.FTH LETTER. II5 
 
 highest; to be all in all to helpless human 
 creatures without claim or demand upon you; 
 even to sacrifice your own welfare in order 
 that they shall be able to attain to both earthl}^ 
 well-being and spiritual ideal; that your child 
 may become man-Israel.' 
 
 Your mission, however, is not limited by the 
 walls of your house; beyond their limits you 
 must assist with every particle of your strength 
 wherever it is necessary to save the life, the 
 property, or the happiness of a human being, "" 
 to assist the enterprise of a fellow man with 
 your strength or fortune,^ or to help suffering 
 creatures of the lower order * wherever you 
 can, by the use of your wealth, your physical 
 or intelle(5lual strength, or your word, sup- 
 port the needy, clothe the naked, feed the 
 hungry, console the mourning, heal the sick, 
 care for the unprovided, advise those in need 
 of counsel, teach the ignorant, reconcile those 
 sundered by anger and quarrel — in a word, 
 
 1 Deut. xxxiii : 4; iv: 9; vi : 6; xi : 17. n"N, 1"^ ^L,ev.' 
 xix : 10; Deut. xxii : i. ^ Rxod. xxiii : 5. n"X O'TI * Deut. 
 xxii : 4; Exod. xxii : 5; ii : 22, 24; I^ev. xxv : 35. O'TI T'' 
 
Il6 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 to be a blessmg whenever and wherever you 
 can. ' 
 
 You must not only yourself fulfill these re- 
 quirements, but see to it, also, that the sources 
 be preserved from which you and your con- 
 temporaries and posterity ma}^ derive en- 
 lightenment and incitement for such life and 
 work — Torah-preservatio7i.' 
 
 Nor should you remain alone and isolated; 
 join yourself to a community, by w^hicli alone 
 your work can be made universal and eternal 
 in its results; on the one hand, the congrega- 
 tion," on the other, the state which harbors 
 and prote(5ls you." Living thus, you will con- 
 tribute your share to sannifying the Divine 
 name\ you will become monument and witness 
 to the sway of God and the duty of man; 
 your Israelitish and non-Israelitish brethren 
 as well, will derive enlightenment and courage 
 from your example, and will learn to serve the 
 only God as their God, and to love Him wath 
 
 1 Deut. xxiii : 9, 15, 7; l,ev. xix : 17; Deut. vi ; 18. 2 Deut. xxxi: 
 19. n"X *T'' 3 Exod. xviii:2i. n"N, T'S D'TI ^jeremiah 
 xxix : 5. Lev. xxii : 31. T'SiD'TI 
 
TWELFTH LETTER. uy 
 
 all their hearts, with all their souls, and all 
 their might. Thus will you be individually 
 and in your restrided circle what it is the 
 mission of your people to be everywhere and 
 
 forever. 
 
THIRTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Kdoth. — Symbolic Observances. — The ac- 
 knowledgment of the essential principles of 
 life in righteousness and love does not suffice 
 to adlually build up such a life, nor is it even 
 sufficient for the accomplishment of your mis- 
 sion as Israelite, as bearer of the law of God 
 to man, adlually to live in accordance with 
 those fundamental principles; there is need, 
 in addition thereto, of symbolic words and 
 adlions which shall stamp them indelibly upon 
 the soul, and thus preserve them for you and 
 for others. A truth, in order to produce re- 
 sults, must be impressed upon the mind and 
 heart repeatedly and emphatically. This is 
 the essential concept of the Edoth. The 
 symbols are chiefly those of anions, of prac- 
 tices which serve as signs of an idea. Thus 
 the do(?trine that God is the creator and pos- 
 sessor of all; that all is His; man the admin- 
 
 ii8 
 
THIRTEENTH I^ETTER. 119 
 
 trator according to His will, and Israel the 
 teacher of the law of humanity's mission, is 
 symbolized in the commandments ^10^, the 
 sandlity of the first-born, H'^H, the giving of 
 the portion of dough, Till^, the prohibition of 
 the use of immature fruit, t^lfl, the prohibi- 
 tion of the use of the new grain previous to 
 the offering of the measure of barley, DDt^, the 
 Sabbath, and in reference to Israel's holy soil 
 through the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, 
 riDDtr '^aVI nonn, the heave-offering and 
 DHIO^, the offering of the first ripe fruits. 
 
 The do(5lrine that God is the Redeemer and 
 Savior of Israel, and also He that revealed 
 His holy law to His chosen nation, is symbol- 
 ized by IID^, the Passover festival, m^^l^tJ^, 
 the Feast of Weeks, TS^^O, the Feast of 
 Tabernacles and m^^ ^^^tT, the Eighth 
 day of Solemn Assembly. That God is to us 
 in exile what He was to our ancestors, is sym- 
 bolized in n^ljn, Hanuccah, the Memorial of 
 the Re-dedication of the Temple and in DHI^, 
 Purim, the Memorial of the deliverance from 
 Haman. Acknowledgment that the spirit 
 
I20 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 vivifies the body and that law is needful as a 
 regulation to freedom is symbolized in the 
 n*1^i3D, the counting of the daj^s between 
 Passover and the Feast of Weeks. Con- 
 sideration of the causes of the exile and 
 warning to shun the sins which have led 
 thereto are inculcated by the jnOi^n, fast 
 days. To keep even the bod}^ and its organs 
 pure and holy, and to shun all that leads to 
 bestiality is taught by (1'?^!D, circumcision. 
 To dedicate all the powers of our mind, 
 heart, and body to the ser\dce of the All-One 
 is the lesson of p'^tDil, the Phyladleries. Re- 
 minder of the presence of the Invincible One 
 and of His revelation in the past, limitation 
 and repression of sensuality as a weapon for 
 battle against evil, are the purposes of HV^y, 
 , the show-threads. Consecration of the Jewish 
 \ home as a temple of God, of the Jewish life 
 ' therein as a perpetual service of God, is the 
 aim of JltltO, the sacred inscription on the door 
 posts. Recognition of the Jacob-state in Israel, 
 that is, of the lack of external might and in- 
 dependence as a requirement of a truly 
 
THIRTEENTH LETTER. 121 
 
 Spiritual conception of the Israel-mission to 
 teach the revelation of God, is symbolized in 
 the nVD, bread of affli^on, and ntr^H y^, 
 prohibition of ^ the sinew of the hip that was 
 lamed. 
 
 A wise appreciation and use of property, 
 equally removed from the two extremes of 
 scorn and over-estimation, is taught by D'?1^, 
 the palm-branch of the Succoth festival, and 
 by niDlD, the symbolic booth. As concerns 
 the land of Israel, the same lesson is taught 
 by r\)1l^^f2, the tithe-offering. Finally, that 
 highest and most solemn thought known to 
 religion, that God is the supreme Ruler, 
 Judge, and Father; that it is our duty to 
 scrutinize our doings in life in order to know 
 whether they really come up to the high de- 
 mands of the Holy Law; that it is our duty, 
 when necessary, to recognize and confess our 
 short-comings, which have deprived us of our 
 claim to life, and made us dependent for exist- 
 ence and preservation solely upon the Divine 
 merc}^ and that it is incumbent upon us to 
 strive to lift ourselves up to a higher plane and 
 
122 IvE^TTERS OF BE^N UZIE^t. 
 
 a purer future ; these sublime and hol}^ truths 
 are taught by y"') MH, the New Year and 
 Atonement-day, by n"1) ^51 1^*, by the .solemn 
 blast of the ram's-horn, by the rites of the 
 New Month.' These symbolic a(5ls and sea- 
 vsons all give expression to ideas, without 
 splitting them up into words as speech must. 
 They come to the mind each a unit, like 
 thought itself, and like the resolve which they 
 should beget; they present themselves with 
 all the force of a single, undivided, and indi- 
 
 ' In giving this sketchy and superficial account of the Mitz- 
 voth (Commandments), and particularly in regard to the Edoth 
 and ^46oda/i (symbolic practices and worship , I must presup- 
 pose that the Mitzvoth are, in general, known to you from 
 your study of Bible and Talmud, or from their pradlical ex- 
 emplification in life. It is not my purpose to describe the Mitz- 
 voth themselves. You will find difficulty in harmonizing some 
 of them with the concepts given here. My intention is only to 
 state the concepts under which I arrange them in my mind, 
 merely as a sort of inscription upon the receptacles, in which 
 they are contained, in order to arouse in you the desire to be- 
 come more thoroughly acquainted with their contents, and also 
 to give you data to settle for yourself the question, "Is this 
 really the concept of the Mitzvoth ? ' ■• 
 
 To demonstrate that this and many other theories of mine 
 are really correc!; and true, I reserve, as I have already fre- 
 quently mentioned, for a future work. 
 
THIRTEENTH LETTER. I 23 
 
 visible appeal to the soul. Therefore they 
 are appropriate vehicles to convey the senti- 
 ments of a single united nation pervaded with 
 one thought, adluated by one resolve, and are 
 intelligible be3^ond the confines of Israelitish 
 nationality. Every single detail of a(5tion or 
 omission in the ^^^///- division of the Law is 
 a writing, a word, a speech addressed to the 
 reverent devotee; they are, all of them, re- 
 minders to the soul or vivid expressions of 
 sentiment by means of significant a(5lion-lan- 
 guage. The greatest and the least of them, 
 even the never-enough-to-be-ridiculed prohibi- » 
 tion of the use of an egg laid on Sabbath or 
 holiday, symbolically teach a lesson, and the 
 stricft attention paid to so-called trifles is not 
 more worthy of ridicule and not less sensible 
 than your care to use a clear and intelligible 
 language or a legible and neat handwTiting. 
 Let us take, for instance, the law of Sabbath, 
 with its prohibition of labor. Many of the 
 minor details of what our Sages technically 
 call nDN'?tD, "labor," we would hardly rec- 
 ognize as such, and yet not even the pettiest 
 
124 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZIKI.. 
 
 and most insignificant thereof but has its 
 reason and definite purpose. 
 
 The day upon which the newly-created 
 world first lay extended in its completeness 
 before man that he might possess and rule 
 over it, this day was to be to him an eternal 
 monument of the great truth that all around 
 him was the possession of God, the Creator, 
 and that God it was who had conferred upon 
 him the power and the right to rule it, in 
 order that he should not grow overweening 
 in his dominion and should administer his 
 trust as the property of God and in accordance 
 with His supreme will. In order to retain this 
 idea ever fresh and vivid, he should refrain on 
 this day from exercising his human sway over 
 the things of earth, should not place his hand 
 upon any objedl for the purpose of human 
 dominion, that is, to employ it for any human 
 end; he must, as it were, return the borrowed 
 world to its Divine Owner in order to realize 
 that it is but lent to him. On this account 
 the labor forbidden on the Sabbath is chiefly 
 r\2l^nf2 ri^N'^D, that is to say, prodiiftive ac- 
 
THIRTEENTH I^ETTER. 1 25 
 
 tivit}^, executed consciously, with purpose and 
 proper means, in order to produce a certain re- 
 sult, an adlion, therefore, which is the outcome 
 of human will and conscious force, not, how- 
 ever, '?1p'?p, "an action which produces no 
 desired result," pDi^Hf^, "purposeless occu- 
 pation," pDilD I^^J^t^*, "unintentional work," 
 n^):!? nOny nr^tr, "in itself unnecessary," 
 1* ^nN'?^, " indiredlly performed," or not 
 in 1)}^l^, "proper measure and proportion." 
 Do you not see that every moment of the 
 Sabbath that you restrain your hand from 
 labor you proclaim God the only Creator 
 and Master and yourself as his servant ? Do 
 you not see that even the slightest, least ardu- 
 ous, produ6live action on the Sabbath in- 
 volves the denial of God as Creator and I^ord, 
 and the usurpation on your part of the throne 
 of God? The desecration of the Sabbath is 
 therefore equivalent to the entire rejedlion and 
 negation of the Israel-mission. Do you not 
 recognize that the Sabbath is not a mere day 
 of physical recuperation, but that it is nH^, 
 "a covenant," pl^t, " a sacred memorial," 
 
126 I.KTTERS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 niN, " a profoundly instrucflive .sign? " It is 
 C^TIp, a sacred day which is not instituted 
 solely that man may rest after the labors of 
 the week which is past, but may consecrate 
 himself to the tasks of the week which is to 
 come. 
 
 The Sabbath is thus an institution of vast 
 significance, but not it alone, every one of the 
 many ordinances which constitute the Edoth 
 is similarly laden with great and invaluable in- 
 strucftion, and both those ordinances deducible 
 from the plain word of Scripture, NH^niJ^I, 
 and those established by Rabbinical interpre- 
 tation, p^*)1, are equally instructive and im- 
 portant. 
 
FOURTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 The last division of the Holy Law, Abodah 
 (service or worship), remains for our con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Abodah, the service of God; it means to 
 turn away from the ambitions, the occupa- 
 tions, and the sins which mainly constitute our 
 material existence, and to strive to regain the 
 eternal verities of the higher life when they 
 have gone astray from us in the deceptions, 
 errors, conflidls, and temptations of the world. 
 ^^'2C^ nilDi^, heart service, our Sages love 
 to call true devotion; that is, to fulfill the will 
 of God towards our inner parts by purifying 
 and ennobling our unseen power, our char- 
 acter . 
 
 n'?5n, prayer, is our chief form of serving 
 the Supreme One in the present age, but the 
 Hebrew conception of prayer is not the mere 
 request or petition for Divine aid, nor even a 
 mere ecstasy of devotion and adoration; it 
 
 127 
 
128 IvKTTKRS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 means the possession and expression of proper 
 conceptions and resolutions concerning our 
 own personality and our duties toward God, 
 the world, and mankind. In former days the 
 ^ sacrificial rite was the expression of our ser- 
 vice of God; its ordinances and ceremonies 
 were symbolic adlions of profound significance. 
 The Temple, the dwelling of the Torah, itself 
 Israel's most sacred possession, taught the 
 lesson that the Law was God's gift to Israel 
 (p")N), and that for its fulfillment God had 
 given unto man the power of body and mind. 
 (\Ti7t^ and n")1JD.) The sacrifices, each in- 
 culcates its individual meaning, the suppres- 
 sion of sensuality,' of selfishness, "" the con- 
 secration of life,^ of the sentiments," of one's 
 entire personality,^ to God for the fulfillment 
 of his Law. Some of them typify the en- 
 deavor to consecrate oneself to God through 
 the Torah," others the effort to regain lost 
 purity of life by the suppression of .sensuality 
 and selfishness, equivalent to return to the 
 
 
FOURTEENTH I^ETTER. 1 29 
 
 lyaw; ^ others, again, the recognition of God 
 as the Giver of the great good things of life 
 or the Preserver of our peace and happi- 
 ness/ This recognition of the Divine be- 
 nevolence must be complete, sincere, and 
 free from every material and sensual thought. 
 Our gratitude must be extended to Him be- 
 cause He has given us so much which we 
 can consecrate to the fulfillment of His holy 
 will as revealed in the Torah. These sym- 
 bolic acftions were all accompanied by the 
 living word of fervent devotion. (See Mai- 
 monides D^^On ill^'^n, Chap, vi.) The 
 temple is sunk into ruins, but the living 
 word of worship and instrucftion remains, com- 
 pleter even than in former times, because the 
 symbolic rites of sacrifices must be represented 
 also by it. The aim of our worship, ti7^r\ 
 from ^^^r\il, is the purification, enlighten- 
 ment, and uplifting of our inner selves to the 
 recognition of the Most High and our duties 
 towards Him in truth; not mere stirring up 
 of the emotions, swiftly- vanishing devotion, 
 
 ^ DB>K and DNtDn ^ D'I3^B> and mm 
 
130 I^KTTKRS OF BFN UZIKL. 
 
 empty sentimentalism, and unreasoning tears, 
 but the cleansing of thought and heart. 
 
 Life robs us of the corre(5l judgment con- 
 cerning God, the world, man, and Israel, and 
 concerning our own relation to them. I^eaving 
 the disturbing influences of life and turning 
 to God, you can approach and find Him in the 
 mystic contemplations of the TefiUah. AU 
 the various component parts of the Hebrew 
 worship subserve this great purpose, the bring- 
 ing of man into communication with Him 
 who is concealed from view in his (man's) 
 daily life, ni/rrn, the psalms or praises; they 
 show us ecstatic visions of God in nature, the 
 world of man and in Israel. Dl'^^n, the 
 prayers or devotions; they stir up our nature 
 to its deepest depths and lift us up to com- 
 munion with the Divine. rHIIH, thanks- 
 givings and n)C*'p'2, supplications ; they ex- 
 press our profound gratitude for all that Deity 
 has wrought and our full and unrestricfted ac- 
 knowledgment that everything past or future 
 proceeds from His hands, and our humble 
 petition that He may continue His bounty 
 
FOURTEENTH LETTER. I31 
 
 unto US, though we be unworthy. DIJIlD, 
 humble appeals to His unfailing mercy to heal 
 our weaknesses and backslidings. The scien- 
 tific foundation and basis upon which all this 
 edifice of worship is raised is the riNHp 
 niinn, "reading of the Law," which im- 
 parts unto us the instrudlion and wisdom 
 which we require ; its utmost summit and 
 goal, the perfe(5l fruit of our piety, are the 
 ni^*^D, benedidlions, which supply us the firm 
 resolution adlively to promote the fulfillment 
 of the Divine will in the midst of life, so 
 busy with transitory cares and devoted pre- 
 eminently to material aims. Retain these 
 sketchy outlines in your mind, and bearing 
 them in memory contemplate afresh our 
 prayers, our service as a whole, and see if 
 you do not find it more dignified, fuller of 
 meaning and importance than you had ever 
 before imagined. 
 
 '' S/ioo/s," that is, schools, we call our 
 houses of worship, and that is what they 
 should be, schools for the grown-up, for 
 those who have long since exchanged the 
 
132 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 tasks of the schoolmaster for the problems 
 of life. 
 
 And now, my dear Benjamin, a law which 
 bids us recognize God in the world and in 
 mankind, which teaches that the fulfillment of 
 His will is our mission, which .shows us in 
 Him the Father of all beings, of all men and 
 in every creature, every human being our 
 brother; a law which makes our whole life 
 service of God through the pracflice of right- 
 eousness and love toward all beings and the 
 proclaiming of these truths for ourselves and 
 others; can this be a law which stunts the 
 mind and the heart, limits every joy of life 
 and turns men into secluded monks ? Can it 
 be that the study of this law, when pursued 
 earnestly and intelligently, perverts and 
 deadens the mind, narrows or restri(5ls the im- 
 pulses of the heart ? 
 
 Its true description is found in the words of 
 the sweet singer of Israel: 
 ' ' The heavens declare themselves 
 Revelation of God's glory; 
 The thin sheet of space (declares) 
 
FOURTEENTH I^KTTKR. 1 33 
 
 That it is His handiwork. 
 
 Day proclaims to day 
 
 That God has spoken; 
 
 Night after night revives 
 
 The thoughts of Deity. 
 
 No speech we need, 
 
 No words are spoken, 
 
 Without them the voice is heard. 
 
 Through all the earth their voice goes forth, 
 
 To the end of the earth-world their words. 
 
 In them He hath set the tent of the sun. 
 
 Which it leaves as a bridegroom his canopy; 
 
 It rejoices, as the Almighty, to run its course. 
 
 And yet fixed in heaven is its issue, 
 
 Its circuit reaches ever the same end. 
 
 None are hidden from his sun. 
 
 But only the law of God is complete, 
 
 Giving answer to th' inquiring soul; 
 
 The testimony of God alone is faithful, 
 
 Giving wisdom to th' unlearned; 
 
 Th' ordinances of God are righteous, 
 
 Giving joy to the heart; 
 
 The commands of God are clear, 
 
 Giving light to the eyes; 
 
134 IvETTe:rs of bkn uziki.. 
 
 The fear of God is pure. 
 Existing forever; 
 The judgments of God are true, 
 They are right altogether, 
 Better than gold and much ore, 
 Sweeter than honey and dripping comb. 
 O, that Thy servant might be illumed by them! 
 To keep them is the great path of life.'* 
 (Ps. xix.) 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 You tell me, my dear Benjamin, that you 
 have taken as your device the utterance of the 
 Psalmist, " O, that Thy servant might be 
 illumed by them, to keep them is the great 
 path of life; " that you have vowed to know 
 no rest until you have gained this inner light; 
 to establish not your house until you have 
 added to your rich store of external goods the 
 internal treasures of the Torah, in order that 
 you may be able to use your possessions 
 worthily and in accordance with the will of 
 God, and in order that your house be estab- 
 lished in the Torah-spirit for Israel — humanity. 
 
 These words are to me proof and guarantee 
 that I have not written in vain. 
 
 Do come to me in accordance with your res- 
 olution; you have my most cordial invitation, 
 and I shall endeavor to explain to 3^ou ver- 
 bally and in detail what you now have become 
 acquainted with in mere sketchy outlines. Do 
 
 135 
 
136 LETTERS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 not expedl, however, to find in me an infalli- 
 ble master. I shall confess to you honestly 
 whenever I myself am in doubt and darkness, 
 and shall endeavor to incite you thus to inde- 
 pendent research. You wish me to spare my- 
 self the trouble of refuting your first letter; 
 you have examined it thoroughly in the light 
 of your new knowledge and answered it your- 
 self. I am, indeed, overjoyed that you have 
 done so. I have, however, already prepared 
 my answer, although only in the first rough 
 cast. I send it to you so that you may com- 
 pare it with your own thoughts; you need ex- 
 pedl nothing more than fragments of thoughts. 
 It was but natural that you found Judaism in 
 contradidlion to your conception of the pur- 
 pose of human existence, inasmuch as your 
 conception was one which Judaism reje(5ls, 
 and against whose lower elements, desire of 
 pleasure and deification of material possessions, 
 it wages unceasing warfare. 
 
 These lower potencies in the materialistic 
 view of the world are somewhat refined and 
 spiritualized by the higher professors of that 
 
FIFTEENTH I.KTTER. 137 
 
 system, but are not essentially altered or abro- 
 gated. The essential notion of this system is 
 either that of the world without an acftive 
 God or of God without a world that serves 
 Him. Judaism takes another and a higher 
 view, and predicates even the highest and best 
 as means only to that higher end. Doubtless 
 you now comprehend our national misfortunes 
 as the produdl of our national shortcomings, 
 shortcomings which do not, by any means, 
 however, lower us in point of righteousness 
 below the standard of the other nations. 
 Israel never committed a sin which the other 
 nations of the world did not also commit. 
 But the standard applied to Israel was a higher 
 one; what Deity readily pardons to others He 
 would not forgive to us; the destrucftion of the 
 Israel-state, which had fallen short of its high 
 ideals, was the diredl consequence of these 
 universal sins; it was a part of the Divine 
 administration of Israel's career. 
 
 "And God punished in him the sin of us 
 all." 
 
 Israel's material weakness and deprivation 
 
138 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEI.. 
 
 of worldly joys and glory seem to you now a 
 part of the scheme of its God-revealing exist- 
 ence; you realize that the external humilit}^ 
 of the nation's lot did not disturb its mission 
 nor diminish its greatness. It simply ex- 
 changed one kind of greatness for another, 
 and in dispersion there was opened to it a new 
 and broader field for the fulfillment of its 
 mission. 
 
 And as for the Law, is it really a preventative 
 of all the joys of life, a hindrance and an 
 obstacle to the gratification of the natural 
 human craving for pleasure ? Examine once 
 the precepts and ordinances of the Law from 
 beginning to end and tell me what legitimate 
 desire it forbids to gratify, what natural im- 
 pulse it would destroy or extirpate. 
 
 On the contrary, it purifies and sancftifies 
 even our lower impulses and desires by apply- 
 ing them with wise limitation to the purposes 
 designated by the Creator. 
 
 Righteousness is the Law's typical end and 
 aim, the gratification of physical lust and pas- 
 sion is never its objedl. Therefore are the 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 139 
 
 lower cravings subordinated to higher law 
 and limited by the Creator's wisdom for His 
 infinitel}^ wise purposes ; but as means of 
 attaining proper and necessary ends, the I^aw 
 recognizes these desires as perfedlly moral, 
 pure, and human, and their carrying out as 
 just and as legitimate as the fulfillment of 
 any other human task or mission. 
 
 What the I^aw, however, firmly and un- 
 yieldingly opposes is the deification of wealth 
 and lust as the sole aim and controlling im- 
 pulse of our lives; but it not only permits 
 their pursuit within the limits set by Divine 
 wisdom, but declares the effort to gain them a 
 duty as sacred and binding as any other 
 human obligation, and condemns the purpose- 
 less and unreasonable abstinence from per- 
 mitted indulgences as sin.' How could the 
 reverse of this be possible ? Is it conceivable 
 that God would bestow upon man any power 
 or capacity and then, by utter prohibition of 
 its use, legally annihilate it? Highest and 
 truest worship is it to be " joyous before the 
 
 'n"3 and K"' H^i^n 
 
140 I^KTTKRS OF BKN UZIKL. 
 
 L,ord; " to pass one's life in gladsome light- 
 ness of spirit because of the consciousness 
 that we live under the eye of God and that 
 His protedling hand is ever outstretched to 
 guide and guard us in every danger and trial; 
 to think and feel, to speak and work, to enjoy 
 and to endure. Then, through a higher com- 
 prehension of them both, shall we be reconciled 
 to suffering and happiness alike, realizing that 
 all our varied experiences belong to our task, 
 and that our onl}^ eternal purpose in life is 
 joyously to solve its problems. 
 
 Has this people furnished no contribution 
 to the great edifice of human civilization ? I 
 shall not ask whether any of the other peo- 
 ples ever consciously did anything with a view 
 to the furtherance of universal human happi- 
 ness. I shall not ask whether they did not 
 all seek only their own welfare, nor whether 
 they ever performed any deed of general value 
 except unconsciously, as blind instruments in 
 the hand of God; neither shall I inquire 
 whether all was indeed produ6live of blessing, 
 but I shall, indeed, challenge the world to 
 
FIFTEENTH I^ETTKR. 141 
 
 deny that Israel, consciously, and at the sacri- 
 fice of its earthly peace and well-being, saved 
 as a palladium from the shipwreck of its for- 
 tunes the only thing through which science, 
 culture, art, and inventive skill could become 
 the means of bringing true blessing and salva- 
 tion to the world. Is there any truer great- 
 ness for men than to be the bearers of revealed 
 instru6lion concerning God and the duty of 
 man, and to show by example and life that 
 there are higher things than wealth and 
 pleasure, than science and culture, to which 
 these should be but subordinate means of ful- 
 fillment ? 
 
 Does not this law ere(5l a wall of separation 
 between its adherents and the rest of man- 
 kind ? It does, I admit, but had it not done 
 so Israel would long since have lost all consci- 
 ousness of its mission, would long since have 
 ceased to be itself. Do you not perceive what 
 struggles the preservation of the true Israel- 
 spirit in our midst requires, despite this separa- 
 tion ? How, then, could the holy flame have 
 been kept burning in our breasts had there 
 
142 LETTKRS OF BEN UZIKI.. 
 
 been no distin(ftive laws and ordinances to re- 
 mind us that we are consecrated to a sacred 
 duty, a Divine mission? But whosoever honestly 
 thinks that our isolation is the result of pride 
 or of hostility to our fellow beings is the vic- 
 tim of a deplorable delusion. Is not God the 
 loving Father of all creatures, of all human 
 beings ? 
 
 Has Israel an}^ other task than to teach all 
 the races of man to recognize and worship 
 the Only-One as their God ? Is it not Israel's 
 unceasing duty to proclaim through the ex- 
 ample of its life and history Him as the Uni- 
 versal Lord and Sovereign ? The Bible terms 
 Israel n'?JlD, "a peculiar treasure," but this 
 designation does not imply, as some have 
 falsely interpreted, that Israel has a monopoly 
 of the Divine love and favor, but, on the con- 
 trary, that God has the sole and exclusive 
 claim to Israel's devotions and service; that 
 Israel may not render Divine homage to any 
 other being.' Israel's most cherished ideal 
 
 ' n 7JID means a property belonging exclusively to one owner, 
 to which no other has any right or claim. Compare T"B p"2 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 143 
 
 is that of tlie universal brotherhood of man- 
 kind. Almost every page of the prayers we 
 utter contains supplication for the hastening 
 of this consummation. We are all helping to 
 rear a great edifice, Divinely ordained for the 
 well-being of man; all nations that were or 
 are anywhere upon the surface of the earth, 
 whether in the east or the west, the north or 
 the south, each with its life and its disappear- 
 ance from the stage of history, with its suc- 
 cesses and its failures, with its virtues and its 
 vices, its wisdom and its folly, its rise and its 
 fall, in a word, with whatsoever it leaves to 
 posterity as the sum total of the results and 
 produ(5ls of its existence. 
 
 All of these efforts and a(?tions are bricks 
 contributed to the edifice of human history; 
 all tend to the carrying out of the plan of the 
 one, same God.' 
 
 This is the lesson of the life of all the good 
 and virtuous of all nations, of whosoever 
 
 ' xan n'^iy'? nnS phn nnS tt'' n"N n^an is a saying of the 
 
 sages which may be interpreted as meaning that all nations 
 will help to work out the historical destiny of humanity. 
 
144 I.KTTKRS OP BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 gave the example of unselfish righteousness 
 and the true dignity of humanity; this is 
 what has been striven for by all whose souls 
 have been illumed by light from on high and 
 who, by word or deed, have helped to lift 
 their brethren up to the All-One, to diffuse 
 respecfl for justice and to elevate man above 
 the beast; the same result is attained by the 
 art of the Greeks when morally pure and 
 devoted to the refinement of the mind, and of 
 their science, when sharpening the intellecft to 
 the better apprehension of truth; even the 
 sword of the Roman and the peaceful com- 
 merce of the European have united nations in 
 brotherhood for the working out of the same 
 ideals: — and Israel has done and will do its 
 share of the glorious task. 
 
 Is not the spirit prostrated and degraded by 
 the absolute devotion which this law requires, 
 so that the observant Jew loses the courage 
 and the strength w^hich free contael with the 
 world and participation in its affairs give? 
 The question is a familiar one and often put, 
 but I ask you, ' ' Whom do 3^ou respecft more, 
 
FIFTKKNTH I.ETTKR. 1 45 
 
 who is really the stronger, the downtrodden 
 Jew, who possesses in the dust of humility 
 sufficient strength of mind and characfler to 
 pity his opponent and to accept the scorn 
 heaped upon him as a trial sent by God and 
 as a part of the destiny of his nation, or the 
 ruffian, who, in his overweening pride, abuses 
 the weakness of his fellow man, seems to con- 
 sider himself privileged to revile the feeble 
 and impotent and to find therein his claim to 
 greatness ? ' ' 
 
 Do not say thav this conception of God, the 
 world, and humanity clogs the progress of 
 science, and as for art, the plastic arts, why, 
 since men began to forget the All-One and to 
 deify His creatures, even to worship their own 
 animal impulses, whose omnipotence they felt, 
 and to glorify them in symbols of stone, so 
 that every god statue became a sad memento 
 of human degradation; since then, truly, 
 Judaism interdidls the making and possession 
 of such images, for to it truth is higher and 
 greater than art. Certainly, no artist in- 
 spired with the true spirit of Judaism would 
 
146 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZlElv. 
 
 take the chisel, the brush, or the pencil in his 
 hand to form an art-work adapted only to stir 
 up impure imaginations and to rouse the 
 animal in man; for, if such produdlions of art 
 be deemed useful and proper, then are morality 
 and virtue mere empty words and not, as we 
 conceive them to be, in reality the standard 
 and the measure of our acflions. 
 
 You speak of dogmas, dogmas of faith ! In 
 answer thereto, I would briefly say that Juda- 
 ism enjoins six hundred and thirteen duties, 
 but knows no dogmas. The sublime truths 
 which lie at its basis, it reveals as axioms, 
 clearly intelligible to all who have ears to hear 
 and minds to comprehend, and in this way 
 opens a field for the broadest investigation and 
 profoundest research into the essence and rela- 
 tions of all things to each other; it rouses us 
 10 the endeavor to understand the world, man, 
 human history, and God's plan operating 
 therein. In this effort personal study and 
 thought, universal human experience and the 
 Torah are to be alike utilized, for the latter is 
 as real and a(ftual a source of instru(5lion as 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 1 47 
 
 the two former. True speculation does not 
 consist, as many would-be thinkers suppose, 
 in closing the eye and the ear to the world 
 round about us and in construcfting out of our 
 own inner Ego a world to suit ourselves; true 
 speculation takes nature, man, and history as 
 fadls, as the true basis of knowledge, and 
 seeks in them instrudlion and wisdom; to 
 these Judaism adds the Torah, as genuine a 
 reality as heaven or earth. But it regards no 
 speculation which does not lead to a(5live, pro- 
 du(5live life as its ultimate goal; it points out 
 the limits of our understanding and warns us 
 against baseless reasoning, transcending the 
 legitimate bounds of our intellecftual capacity, 
 however brilliantly put together and glitter- 
 ingly logical it may appear to be, for all such 
 intellecftual pyrotechnics are, after all, but 
 puerile sport, useful chiefly to still the con- 
 scientious scruples of a sensual^ nature, 
 oblivious alike to the limitations and the ideals 
 of humanity. To be sure, the Jewish spirit, 
 in its most recent form, was chiefly devoted to 
 abstra(ft and abstruse speculation; a vivid con- 
 
148 I<KTTKRS OF BKN UZIEL. 
 
 sciousness of the real world was lacking, and 
 therefore the objedl of study was not what it 
 should chiefly have been, the attainment of 
 knowledge of duty, for use in the world and 
 in life. Study became the end instead of the 
 means, the subje(5t of investigation became a 
 matter of indifference, the dialecftic subtleties 
 thereof the chief concern; people studied 
 Judaism but forgot to search for its principles 
 in the pages of Scripture. That method is, 
 however, not truly Jewish; our great masters 
 have always protested against it; many pages 
 of the classic works of Jewish literature are 
 filled with the objedlions of their authors to 
 this false and perverted method. Bible and 
 Talmud are to be studied with one sole objedl 
 in view, to ascertain the life-duties which they 
 
 inculcate, ni:r;^'?niD:r'? id'?'?*) nn'?'?, "to 
 
 learn and to teach — to observe and to do," 
 and every topic treated of in the I^aw should 
 be viewed objedlively or a comprehension 
 thereof obtained from science. There is no 
 .science which trains the mind to a broader 
 and more practical view of things than does 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 1 49 
 
 the Torah, pursued in this manner. That the 
 Law, which lays down Reverence, lyOve, and 
 Faithfulness as its three foundation-stones, 
 does not cripple the heart, but that, when 
 comprehended and assimilated to the mind, 
 its fulfillment becomes a new power, a life 
 from within, not a mere barren and external 
 dwarf of existence, stimulating all the facul- 
 ties to a freer development and a more in- 
 tense use — you have already demonstrated by 
 your adhesion. 
 
 "Chasid," pious one! a glorious name, 
 but misunderstood and deformed through 
 ignorant or malicious misconception coming . 
 from without; the true "l^DH is he who devotes 
 himself in love entirely to the service of the 
 Higher Power, who does not seek for himself 
 aught, but relinquishes his claims upon the 
 world in order that he may live more adlively 
 and carry out more thoroughly works of love 
 for the world; he does not withdraw from its 
 midst, but lives in it, with it, and for it. The 
 Chasid is for himself, nothing; for the world, 
 everything. David, therefore, who labored 
 
150 I.KTTKRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 from his earliest youth continuously and ex- 
 clusively for the internal and external well- 
 being of his people, and who left the repara- 
 tion of the injury done him by Saul and the 
 disposal of his own affairs to the wisdom of 
 Deity alone; he, indeed, deserves to be called 
 I^Dn. You know the Rabbinical definition 
 of the term " TDH y?^ ^'^C^l "]'7C^ "j^tT." 
 He who says, " That which is thine is thine 
 and mine is also thine, is a Chasid," but a 
 life of seclusion devoted only to meditation 
 and prayer is not Judaism. Study and wor- 
 ship are but paths which lead to work, ^TO'?]! 
 ntr^^D 'y^ N^DDt:* '7ni "Great is 
 study, for it leads to pracftical fulfillment of 
 the precepts," is a saying of our sages, and 
 the flower and fruit of our devotions should 
 be the resolve to lead a life of adlivity, per- 
 vaded with the spirit of God. Such a life 
 is the only and universal goal. 
 
 As for the causes which produced these 
 errors in the theory and pracftice of life, we 
 shall speak of them, perhaps, on some later 
 occasion. 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 151 
 
 But how about the difficulty of obeying this 
 law in our time — the trouble which it causes 
 while travelling, in intercourse with Gentiles, 
 and in business ? I will admit, for the sake of 
 argument, that all the complaints which the 
 children of the age give utterance to concern- 
 ing the difficulty and trouble of obeying the 
 Jewish law are true. If our view of life is 
 earnest and serious; if we comprehend Juda- 
 ism as the charge with which we are en- 
 trusted, and which we are to bear through 
 time and tribulation; if we realize that it is 
 our life-code of duty, can the difficulty, the 
 burdensomeness of an obligation dispense us 
 from its fulfillment? Should it not rather 
 make the duty of fulfillment more solemn and 
 urgent ? 
 
 But let us examine the alleged difficulties 
 more closely — from the standpoint of the spirit 
 of Judaism — and they will disappear alto- 
 gether. We will take up your last first — bus- 
 iness. 
 
 O! son of age, do you really think that you 
 cannot fulfill the Law because it commands 
 
152 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEI.. 
 
 youi business to cease during one-seventh of 
 your time, in order that you should thereby 
 manifest your convi6lion that in God is the 
 source of your strength and your right to the 
 possession of the world; that from Him comes 
 the blessing, and in. order that you may conse- 
 crate yourself and make yourself worthy to 
 use His blessings as sacred, Divine gifts ac- 
 cording to His desire ; do you really deem 
 yourself unable to obey the Law, because it 
 asks you to reserve another seventeenth of 
 your time, not for the ordinary tasks of daily 
 existence, but to lead your thoughts again to 
 your mission as an Israelite, and to strengthen 
 you to fulfill properly 3- our nation's allotted 
 task on earth ? 
 
 Son of the present ! do you not blush to 
 utter such a complaint? Certainly, if j^ou 
 consider yourself born only to possess and to 
 enjoy; if the quantity and extent of your pos- 
 sessions and enjoyments are for 3^ou the meas- 
 ure of your importance ; if you look upon 
 these things, not as a means, but as ends in 
 themselves; if you think that your business 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 1 53 
 
 a(5livity is essentially different from that of the 
 agriculturist, who can do no more than to 
 place the seed in the earth, but must look to 
 the blessing of God's sun and God's rain to 
 ripen and develop it; if you believe that your 
 strength and the power of your hand can carry 
 the edifice of your prosperity to its summit; 
 not God, but you alone, and that all other 
 considerations must yield to this one ambition, 
 
 then — then, indeed ! 
 
 Not so is the spirit of Judaism ! If you 
 would comprehend the Sabbath and its beauti- 
 ful, ideal lessons; if you would realize that in 
 and through it are given to you at once the 
 basis of your earthly task, and its sublimest, 
 most spiritual fulfillment; that it proclaims 
 you a witness that a God, that one God is, and 
 that man is created for His service; if, on the 
 other hand, you would thoroughly refle<5l on 
 all the insane monstrousness of the thought, 
 * * for the sake of gain to desecrate the Sab- 
 bath;" in order to gain my daily bread or to 
 increase my wealth, that I may possess the 
 means better to fulfill my duties to God, I 
 
154 LETTERS OI^ BKN UZi:^!,. 
 
 deny that there is a God to whom belongs the 
 world and the fullness thereof; I deny that 
 from Him come life and its blessings, I affirm 
 that wealth and the gratification of desire are 
 my only purpose, fulfillment of my will my 
 only objedl; I negate both God and the mission 
 of humanity; . . . surely, these refle(5lions 
 should cause you to let fall again the hand 
 which lust for gain had raised to desecrate 
 the Sabbath. Yes, if you would but contem- 
 plate your life in the spirit of the Sabbath, 
 if you would for but one single moment com- 
 prehend yourself as viewed by the eternal 
 gaze of God, as the Sabbath teaches that you 
 are; if you would comprehend yourself as viv- 
 ified of God, in a God-filled world, the totality 
 of its life direcfted by God; if you would feel 
 yourself child and servant of the All-One; all 
 your existence dependent upon the will of the 
 All-Only Father and Lord, every breath His 
 gift, every faculty His offering, every event in 
 your history His doing; you. His serv^ant, 
 your whole life fulfillment of His command- 
 ments ; — would you then still comprehend 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 1 55 
 
 your present complaint? You would then 
 comprehend that your longing to possess is 
 but one of your duties, and essentially the 
 same as any of the others, and esteem your 
 possessions, not according to the amount of 
 the property you have acquired, but according 
 to the degree of compliance with the Divine 
 commandments you have observed in accumu- 
 lating it, as well as in using and applying it; 
 you would understand that though the six 
 days bring you the external means of fulfilling 
 your mission, the seventh alone can afford you 
 the inner means, spiritual power and consecra- 
 tion, and that these blessed results can only 
 be attained if both gain and disposal be in 
 accordance with the Divine precept; you would 
 see that since God it is who has given you 
 power to earn and blessing in the accumula- 
 tion, He is also rich and strong enough to 
 shower upon your dwelling so much manna in 
 six days that on the seventh you would not 
 lack, then you would feel that you do not, 
 because of that complaint, cease to be a Jew, 
 but that you must have ceased to be a Jew, in 
 
156 I.ETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 the only true and real sense, before you could 
 utter such a complaint. " But how about 
 intercourse with non-Jews ? One makes one- 
 self so conspicuous, is recognized at once as a 
 Jew ! " Son of the present, who tells you to 
 deny or conceal the facft that you are a Jew ? 
 Be a Jew; be it really and truly; endeavor to 
 attain to the ideal of the true Jew in fulfillment 
 of the law of justice, righteousness, and love, 
 then will you be respedled, not in spite of the 
 fa(ft that you are a Jew, but because of it ; 
 comprehend yourself as Jew, and disseminate 
 that comprehension by word and deed among 
 your non- Jewish brethren, and j^ou will have 
 no occasion to complain that your Judaism can- 
 not travel incognito. ' 'But one cannot become 
 truly intimate, truly sociable, if one does not, 
 at least, eat and drink with them at their ban- 
 quets ! " Again, I would say, pra(5lise right- 
 eousness and love as the Holy I^aw bids you; 
 be just in deed, truthful in word, bear love in 
 your heart for your non -Jewish brethren, as 
 your lyaw teaches you; feed his hungry, clothe 
 his naked, console his mourners, heal his vsick, 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 157 
 
 counsel his inexperienced, assist him with 
 counsel and deed in need and sorrow, unfold 
 the whole noble breadth of your Israeldom, 
 and can you think that he will not respedl and 
 love you, or that there will not result as great 
 a degree of social intimacy as your life can 
 concede ? 
 
 But you would have more; the right to 
 enter into his family as a member thereof ! 
 Do you not see that, until the advent of the 
 age of universal brotherhood, you should not, 
 cannot, desire that? Not, however, on ac- 
 count of enmity or hostility, but because of 
 your Israel-mission. You cannot be angry 
 with the Law, if it interdidls for you marriage 
 alliance outside of Israel, because you should 
 rear your children, the most precious pledges 
 of the Divine love, only for His Torah, and it 
 would mean to lead them away from the 
 Torah, if you would not be to them an Israel- 
 itish father, or would give them other than an 
 Israelitish mother. You must be grateful, 
 therefore, to the Law that it seeks to prevent 
 the sons of Israel from amorous attachment to 
 
158 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 iion-Israelitish daughters or non-Israelitish 
 vSons to the daughters of Israel. 
 
 Comprehend the objecft of 3^our life, compre- 
 hend the Israel-duty, and there will disappear 
 as a thin mist all the alleged difficulty of up- 
 holding Judaism, felt vSO keenl}' in our time 
 only because the Israel-spirit has vanished, or 
 because Israel's sons know not nor respedl 
 themselves; because they even, in part, de- 
 mand the violation of the Israel-dutj^ 
 
SIXTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 You ask me for my opinion on the question 
 which at present agitates so greatly the minds 
 of men, emancipation; whether I consider it 
 feasible and desirable, according to the spirit 
 of Judaism, our duty to strive to attain it. The 
 new conception of Judaism which you have 
 gained, dear Benjamin, has rendered you un- 
 certain as to the reconcilability of Gentile 
 citizenship with the eternal ideals of our faith. 
 You have begun to doubt whether the accep- 
 tance of these new relations be in harmony 
 with the spirit of Judaism, inasmuch as it ap- 
 proximates to a close union with that which is 
 different and alien, and a severance of the ties 
 
 1 This letter is explained through the circumstance that at 
 the time of its composition the emancipation of the Jews was 
 not yet an accomplished fact in most European states, though 
 everywhere proposed and discussed. It is remarkable with 
 what accuracy Hirsch comprehended the nature of his brethren 
 and how literally his apprehensions of a misunderstanding of 
 the purpose of emancipation by a great section of the Jewish 
 people have been fulfilled. (The Translator.) 
 
 159 
 
l6o I.KTTKRS OF BKN UZIBI<. 
 
 which bind us to the Israel lot; 3^ou doubt its 
 desirability, because through over much in- 
 timacy with the Gentile, Israel's peculiar 
 characteristics could easily be obliterated. I 
 respe(5l your scruples, and will communicate 
 to you my own opinion. I^et us first examine 
 whether it be in harmony with the spirit of 
 Judaism. 
 
 When Israel began its great wandering 
 through the ages and nations, Jeremiah pro- 
 claimed the following as its duty: 
 
 * ' Build houses and dwell therein ; ' plant 
 gardens and eat the fruit thereof ; take wives 
 unto yourselves, and beget sons and daughters, 
 and take wives for your sons and give your 
 daughters in marriage that they bear sons and 
 daughters, and that you multiply there and 
 diminish not. And seek the peace of the city 
 whither I have exiled you, and pray for it to 
 the lyord, for in its peace there will be unto 
 you peace." 
 
 To be pushed back and limited upon the 
 path of life is, therefore, not an essential con- 
 
 1 Jeremiah xvix : 5-7. 
 
SIXTEENTH LETTER. l6l 
 
 dition of the Galuth, Israel's exile state among 
 the nations, but, on the contrary, it is our 
 duty to join ourselves as closely as possible to 
 the state which receives us into its midst, to 
 promote its welfare and not to consider our 
 well-being as in any way separate from that 
 of the state to which we belong. 
 
 This close connedlion with all states is 
 in nowise in contradidlion to the spirit of 
 Judaism, for the former independent state life 
 of Israel was not even then the essence or pur- 
 pose of our national existence, was only a 
 means of fulfilling our spiritual mission. 
 
 Land and soil were never Israel's bond of 
 union, but only the common task of the Torah; 
 therefore, it still forms a united body, though 
 separated from a national soil; nor does this 
 unity lose its reality, though Israel accept 
 everywhere the citizenship of the nations 
 amongst which it is dispersed. This co- 
 herence of sympathy, this spiritual union, 
 which may be designated by the Hebrew 
 terms DJ/ and ^*1J1, but not by the expres- 
 sion " nation," unless we are able to separate 
 
1 62 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 from the term the concept of common terri- 
 tory and political power, is the only com- 
 munal band we possess, or ever expecft to 
 possess, until the great day shall arrive when 
 the Almighty shall see fit, in His inscrutable 
 wisdom, to unite again His scattered servants 
 in one land, and the Torah shall be the guid- 
 ing principle of a state, an exemplar of the 
 meaning of Divine Revelation and the mission 
 of humanity. 
 
 For this future, which is promised us in the 
 glorious predidlions of the inspired prophets, 
 whom God raised up for our ancestors, we 
 hope and pray; but aAively to accelerate its 
 coming were sin, and is prohibited to us, while 
 the entire purpose of the Messianic age is that 
 we may, in prosperity, exhibit to mankind a 
 better example of ' ' Israel ' ' than did our 
 ancestors the first time, while, hand in hand 
 with us, the entire race will be joined in uni- 
 versal brotherhood through the recognition of 
 God, the All-One. 
 
 On account of this purely spiritual nature 
 of the national characfter of Israel it is capable 
 
SIXTEENTH LETTER. 1 63 
 
 of the most intimate union with states, with, 
 perhaps, this difference, that while others seek 
 in the state only the material benefits which it 
 secures, considering possession and enjoyment 
 as the highest good, Israel can only regard it as 
 a means of fulfilling the mission of humanity. 
 Summon up, I pray you, before your mental 
 vision, the pidlure of such an Israel, dwelling 
 in freedom in the midst of the nations, and 
 striving to attain unto its ideal, every son of 
 Israel a respedled and influential exemplar 
 priest of righteousness and love, disseminat- 
 ing among the nations not specific Judaism, 
 for proselytism is interdicfted, but pure hu- 
 manity. What a mighty impulse to progress, 
 what a luminary and staff in the gloomy days 
 of the Middle Ages had not Israel's sin and 
 the insanity of the nations rendered such a 
 Galuth impossible ! How impressive, how 
 sublime it would have been, if, in the midst of 
 a race that adored only power, possessions, and 
 enjoyment, and that was oft blinded by super- 
 stitious imaginings, there had lived quietly 
 and publicly human beings of a different sort, 
 
164 I.KTTERS OF BEN UZlKlv. 
 
 who beheld in material possessions only the 
 means of practising justice and love towards 
 all; whose minds, pervaded with the wisdom 
 and truth of the law, maintained simple, 
 straightforward views, and emphasized them 
 for themselves and others in expressive, vivid 
 deed-symbols. 
 
 But it would seem as though Israel was to 
 be fitted through the endurance of harsh and 
 cruel exile for the proper appreciation and 
 utilization of its milder and gentler form. 
 
 When Galiith will be comprehended and 
 accepted as it should be, when in suffering, 
 the service of God and His Torah will be 
 understood as the only task of life, when even 
 in misery God will be served, and external 
 abundance esteemed only as a means of this 
 service, then, perhaps, Israel will be read}^ for 
 the greater temptations of prosperity and hap- 
 piness in dispersion. Just as it is our duty to 
 endeavor to obtain those material possessions 
 which are the fundamental condition of life, 
 so also is it the duty of every one to take 
 advantage of ever\' alleviation and improve- 
 
SIXTEENTH LETTER. 165 
 
 ment of his condition open to him in a right- 
 eous way; for, the more means, the more 
 opportunity is given to him to fulfill his mis- 
 sion in its broadest sense; and no less than of 
 the individual is it the duty of the community 
 to obtain for all its members the opportunities 
 and privileges of citizenship and liberty. Do 
 I consider it desirable ? I bless emancipation, 
 when I see how the excess of oppression drove 
 Israel away from human intercourse, prevented 
 the cultivation of the mind, limited the free 
 development of the noble sides of character, 
 and compelled many individuals to enter, for 
 the sake of self-support, upon paths which, 
 to be sure men filled with the true spirit of 
 Judaism would have shunned even in the 
 extremest necessity, but the temptation to 
 enter upon which they were too weak to with- 
 stand. 
 
 I bless emancipation when I notice that no 
 spiritual principle, even such as are born of 
 superstitious self-deception, stands in its way, 
 but only those passions degrading to humanity, 
 lust for gain and narrow selfishness; I rejoice 
 
1 66 LETTERS OF BKN UZIEL. 
 
 when I perceive that in this concession of 
 emancipation, regard for the inborn rights of 
 men to live as equals among equals, and the 
 principle that whosoever bears the seal of a 
 child of God, unto wdiom belongs the earth, 
 shall be willingly acknowledged by all as 
 brother, are freely acknowledged without 
 force or compulsion, but purely through the 
 power of their inner truth and demand, as a 
 natural consequence, the sacrifice of the base 
 passions, love of self and gain. I w^elcome 
 this sacrifice, wherever it is offered, as the 
 dawn of reviving humanity in mankind, as a 
 preliminary step to the universal recognition 
 of God as the only I^ord and Father, of all 
 human beings as the children of the All-One, 
 and consequently brethren, and of the earth as 
 soil common to all, and bestowed upon them 
 by God to be administered in accordance with 
 His will. But for Israel I only bless it if at 
 the same time there aw^akes in Israel the true 
 spirit, which, independent of emancipation or 
 non-emancipation, strives to fulfill the Israel- 
 mission; to elevate and ennoble ourselves, to 
 
SIXTEKNTH LETTER. 1 67 
 
 implant the spirit of Judaism in our souls, in 
 order that it may produce a life in which that 
 spirit shall be reflecfted and realized. I bless 
 it, if Israel does not regard emancipation as 
 the goal of its task, but only as a new condi- 
 tion of its mission, and as a new trial, much 
 severer than the trial of oppression ; but I 
 should grieve if Israel understood itself so 
 little, and had so little comprehension of its 
 own spirit that it would welcome emancipation 
 as the end of the Galuth, and the highest goal 
 of its historic mission. If Israel regards this 
 glorious concession merely as a means of 
 securing a greater degree of comfort in life, 
 and greater opportunities for the acquisition 
 of wealth and enjoyments, it would show that 
 Israel had not comprehended the spirit of its 
 own Law, nor learnt aught from the Galuth. 
 But sorrowfull}^ indeed, would I mourn, if 
 Israel should so far forget itself as to deem 
 emancipation — increased room for the acquisi- 
 tion of gain and pleasure through freedom 
 from unjust oppression — not too dearly pur- 
 chased through capricious curtailment of the 
 
1 68 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 Torah, capricious abandonment of the chief 
 element of our vitality. We must become 
 Jews, Jews in the true sense of the word, per- 
 mitting the spirit of the Law to pervade our 
 entire being, accepting it as the fountain of 
 life spiritual and ethical; then will Judaism 
 gladly welcome emancipation as affording a 
 greater opportunity for the fulfillment of its 
 task, the realization of a noble and ideal life. 
 
SEVENTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 You are right. The whole question of 
 emancipation, which only concerns our ex- 
 ternal state, possesses but a subordinate inter- 
 est for Judaism. Sooner or later the nations 
 will decide what attitude they should take in 
 the issue between right and wrong, between 
 humanity or inhumanity, and the first awaken- 
 ing of a nobler sentiment than the mere lust 
 for possession and enjoyment, the first ex- 
 pression of a livelier appreciation of the uni- 
 versal lyordship and Fatherhood of God, and 
 of the earth as a Holy Land, given by Him to 
 all men for the fulfillment of mankind's task, 
 will speedily take effedl in the emancipation of 
 all the oppressed, and, therefore, also in that 
 of the Jews. 
 
 Emancipation, like our external state alto- 
 gether, is a matter, religiously speaking, of 
 secondary consideration. We may, indeed, 
 take part in accelerating its coming, but in 
 itself it makes us neither greater nor smaller. 
 
 169 
 
lyo LETTERS OP BEN UZIEI.. 
 
 There is another goal before us, whose at- 
 tainment depends entirely upon our own 
 efforts; it is the refinement and ennoblement of 
 ourselves, the fulfillment of Judaism by Jews. 
 
 This leads to a consideration of the topic 
 which you designate by the term ' ' Reform. ' ' 
 
 Certainl}', dear Benjamin, we are far from 
 being what we should be, and if you compare 
 the life ideal, which the Torah desires us to 
 realize, even according to the scanty outlines 
 which I have drawn for you in these letters, 
 with our adlual life as individuals and as a 
 communit}^ you will at once discern how 
 numerous are the steps which we must still 
 make, and how great the distance yet to be 
 climbed before we can reach the glorious sum- 
 mit of our aspiration and our hope. There- 
 fore, may our motto be — Reform ; let us strive 
 with all our power, with all the good and 
 noble qualities of our charadler to reach this 
 height of ideal perfecftion — Reform. 
 
 Its only objecfl, however, must be the fulfill- 
 ment of Judaism by Jews in our time, fulfill- 
 ment of the eternal idea in harmony with the 
 
se:vente:e:nth ivm'i^ER. 171 
 
 conditions of the time; education, progress to 
 the Torah height, not, however, lowering the 
 Torah to the level of the age, cutting down 
 the towering summit to the sunken grade of 
 our life. We Jews need to be reformed 
 through Judaism, newly comprehended by the 
 spirit and fulfilled with the utmost energy; but 
 merely to seek greater ease and comfort in life 
 through the destru6tion of the eternal code set 
 up for all ages by the God of Eternity, is not 
 and never can be Reform. Judaism seeks to 
 lift us up to its height, how dare we attempt 
 to drag it down to our level ? 
 
 Undoubtedly j-ou recognize the evil defedl 
 of our time ; ignorance or false views of 
 Judaism, combined with a tendency, penetrat- 
 ing from the outer world into our humble 
 habitations, to look upon enjoyment as the 
 chief aim of life, 
 
 Alas ! how widespread is ignorance, how 
 rare the Jew who know\s himself, his purpose 
 in life, and the meaning of his history ! Where 
 are the sons of Israel in whose breast echo the 
 tones of the harp of David and the words of 
 
172 I.ETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 the prophets, and whose mind — but, ah! I 
 should be silent concerning the mind — com- 
 prehends the extent of the Israel-duty ? And 
 what wrong and mischievous notions exist con- 
 cerning the principles, ordinances, and teach- 
 ings of Judaism ? Even that which is known 
 externally and superficially, how little is it 
 known as regards its wondrously profound 
 inner meaning ! For instance, the Kdoth 
 duties, so useful and indispensable through 
 the lessons they teach, are looked upon by 
 some as mere mechanical opus operaticm, or as 
 talismanic jugglery for the prevention of 
 physical evils or the ere(5lion of mystic supra- 
 mundane worlds. Others again look upon the 
 holiest laws of righteousness as matters out- 
 side of Judaism, not, as they should regard 
 them, indissolubly interwoven with its very 
 fabric. 
 
 As for those highly important laws of Ju- 
 daism, which strengthen us to do battle with 
 the sensual lusts of appetite and passion, of 
 indulgence and ease, how little are they under- 
 stood, how often denounced as cruel privation 
 
SEVENTEENTH LETTER. 173 
 
 .beyond the power of human nature to endure; 
 how can they otherwise than succumb in this 
 unequal combat, since their victory is gained 
 by the spirit, and that is either absent or 
 wofully deficient? This inner conception is 
 lacking, comprehension of Judaism, of the 
 significance of its historic mission and teach- 
 ings, and, therefore, love for it has no soil 
 upon which to grow. How extreme the re- 
 sultant danger is can be conceived when we 
 consider that this love is our only counter- 
 balance against internal and external tempta- 
 tion, and the attainment of this love our aim 
 and our only salvation. Compare with this 
 view the tendencies of contemporary Reform. 
 Be wroth with none, respedl all, for they all 
 feel the shortcomings which exist, all wish that 
 which is good, as they conceive it; all desire 
 sincerely the welfare of Israel, and if they have 
 failed to recognize the good and have erred in 
 their comprehension of the truth, not they are 
 chiefly to blame; the entire past bears the res- 
 ponsibility together with them. You should, 
 therefore, respedl their intentions, but 3^ou 
 
174 LETTERS OE BEN UZIEt. 
 
 may well mourn and weep when 3'ou examine 
 the aims to which their efforts are direcfted. 
 Is that the Reform we need, to take a stand- 
 point outside of Judaism, to accept a concep- 
 tion derived from strangers, of the purposes of 
 human life, and the objecft of liberty, and 
 then, in correspondence with this borrowed 
 notion, to cut, curtail, and obliterate the 
 tenets and ordinances of Judaism ? Is that 
 the Reform we desire, to remain within Ju- 
 daism, uncomprehended Judaism, and to con- 
 fine one's effort to modifying the external 
 form of an uncomprehended part of Judaism, 
 the service, in accordance with the demands of 
 an age, abounding in hollow sentimentality, 
 but sadly deficient in sound reflecftion and 
 thought, substituting for things misunder- 
 vStood and abolished other things equally un- 
 comprehended; nothing instituted or originated 
 to emphasize or perpetuate any true inner 
 sentiment of our faith ? And as for the re- 
 ligious education of the young, which should 
 be the bearer of all our hopes for the future, 
 how is it vsituated ? 
 
SKVKNTEKNTH LETl^ER. 175 
 
 Education, indeed, is not lacking; our youth 
 are made thoroughly capable of contending 
 vigorously in the struggle for bread ; handi- 
 work, commerce, art, science — all these are 
 carefully inculcated and the mind developed, 
 although even in this regard more attention is 
 paid to the mere strengthening of the memory 
 than to the cultivation of habits of thought ; 
 but the culture of the heart, the inculcation 
 of Judaism, its emphatic presentation by the 
 school resulting in its consequent infiltration 
 through life, the rearing of human beings 
 who will comprehend themselves as beings 
 living in a Divine world and endowed with 
 Divine powers, which they shall dedicate to 
 the fulfillment of the Divine will ; human 
 beings who shall rejoice in their mission and 
 be filled with fiery love for the name " Jew," 
 which summons them to such a life, to fulfill 
 the Divine law amidst perils, sufferings, and 
 privations ; human beings who comprehend 
 the world, the past and the present and them- 
 selves as corner-stones in the edifice of the 
 future — if we seek such, we find a vacuum. 
 
176 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 Take one of the religious books in your 
 hand and what will you find, a life-principle 
 drawn from outside of Judaism, the thirteen 
 creeds upon which Judaism perhaps stands, 
 but of which it is not composed, and a few 
 moral principles deduced from the Ten Com- 
 mandments, the Chukkim and Kdoth not 
 mentioned, or but slightly, as the so-called 
 ceremonial law in the appendix. It is all 
 more or less the reflection of catechisms, ori- 
 ginated upon a different domain, for totally 
 different purposes. Among those, again, who 
 do not use these catechisms we find taught the 
 merest word-knowledge of the Torah, some- 
 times not even that ; and as for the duties, 
 they are merely taught for pradlice, in the 
 most superficial manner, but without the 
 slightest elucidation or spiritual fervor, to 
 insure their comprehension and retention in 
 life. Whence, in Heaven's name, shall Jews 
 come, Jews inspired with the living spirit of 
 the knowledge of God and their mission, and 
 girded with strength to do battle against sen- 
 suality and error, against the troubles and 
 
SEVENTEENTH LETTER. 177 
 
 sorrows of time ? You see — but why continue 
 the gloomy pidlure? Let us rejoice that at 
 least Israel's youth is not inferior to others 
 in intellecfl and morality, even though far 
 removed from the ideals of Judaism. Let us 
 rejoice at the adlivity within Judaism, even 
 though much of it is but destrudlion or the 
 painting over of rotten parts. This is the 
 pledge of a better time. Let us try to out- 
 line the methods for obtaining a desirable 
 reconstrudlion and a reform which appears to 
 us true. 
 
EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 The very essence of Israel's being rests upon 
 the Torah ; in it is our basis and our goal, 
 from it the vital fluid in our veins. If our 
 relation to it, the law of life and truth, be 
 health}^ and normal, Israel can suffer no ill; if 
 sick, Israel cannot be well. There is no 
 evil, no wrongful development in Judaism 
 which does not owe its origin to an improper 
 or sinful comprehension of the Torah, or at 
 least is perpetuated thereby. Our sages with 
 profound insight point to this as the true cause 
 of the first national downfall, " IDID i<^C* 
 n'7nn rr^liriD, that they did not study the Law 
 with the firm resolve to fulfill it in life and 
 for life ; life, the pracflical daily life of the 
 world, fled from the Law, and the Law 
 could not therefore properly pervade life, 
 could not adequately enlighten it and inspire 
 it with its, the Law's, own genial warmth. 
 
 If you search for the cause of our modern 
 
 178 
 
EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 1 79 
 
 sickne.ss, you will find it nowhere else than in 
 this fatal misconception and misapprehension. 
 Originally only the fundamental teachings of 
 Israel's Law were fixed in wTitten form, the 
 so-called written Law, yy^'T), but the 
 broader application thereof, in particular the 
 spirit, which is the life, was to be preserved 
 only in the living word, the so-called oral law, 
 ^"yt^"r\' The oppressions and afBidlions of 
 the times and the dispersion of Israel threat- 
 ened destruction to the traditional science ; 
 the great and holy men who stood at the 
 nation's head, yielding to necessity, decreed 
 that the Mishnah be written down as far as 
 its mere external word was conceived, but 
 its spirit w^as still left to the traditional ex- 
 position of the living word. Increased ex- 
 ternal sorrows demanded more; they put into 
 writing the spirit of the Mishnah in the 
 Gemara, but the spirit of the Gemara was 
 still reserved for oral interpretation. The 
 afflidlion increased, making further safeguards 
 necessary; they put the spirit of Bible and 
 Gemara into the Aggadoth or allegorical in- 
 
l8o LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 terpretations, but disguised and veiled so tnat 
 personal research should still be required to 
 discover the true spirit of the traditional 
 teachings thus perpetuated. 
 
 In two academies ^ the Law and the spirit 
 sought refuge, but passion and error soon 
 sapped the foundations of these noble institu- 
 tions and destroyed them; the Law went into' 
 exile, the letter and its external pracftical ful- 
 fillment were saved, but the spirit, preserved 
 only in the symbolical concealment of the let- 
 ter, disappeared. The spirit could only be 
 comprehended by dedu(5lion from the letter 
 and the veiling symbol, together with the 
 higher insight which individuals had pre- 
 served. In that dark time there were not 
 lacking individuals who shone forth conspicu- 
 ous through the true understanding of the 
 spirit of Judaism which they possessed, but 
 they were the exceptions; not all were endowed 
 with such mental elevation. 
 
 Israel's youth, as a rule, trained their minds 
 in non-Jewish schools, in independent, philo- 
 
 • Sura and Pumbaditha, 
 
EIGHTEENTH LETTER . 1 8 1 
 
 sophic studies, and drew from Arabic sources 
 the concepts of the Greek philosophy. As 
 the highest purpose of human existence they 
 learned to consider self-perfedlation through 
 the knowledge of truth. Their aw^akeued 
 minds felt themselves in contradicftion to Juda- 
 ism, whose spirit they did not comprehend; 
 their life-view was opposed to a view of life 
 which la3^s chief est stress upon the deed, upon 
 adlion, and looks upon knowledge only as a 
 means to such adlion. The age gave birth to 
 a man,' a mind, w^ho, the producft of uncom- 
 prehended Judaism and Arabic science, was 
 obliged to reconcile the strife which raged in 
 his own breast in his own manner, and who, 
 by proclaiming it to the world, became the 
 guide of all in whom the same conflidt existed. 
 This great man, to whom, and to whom 
 alone, we owe the preservation of practical 
 Judaism to our time, is responsible, because he 
 sought to reconcile Judaism with the difficul- 
 ties which confronted it from without, instead 
 of developing it creatively from within, for all 
 
 1 Maimonides. 
 
1 82 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 the good and the evil which bless and afflidl 
 the heritage of the father. His peculiar men- 
 tal tendency was Arabic-Greek, and his con- 
 ception of the purpose of life the same. He 
 entered into Judaism from without, bringing 
 with him opinions of whose truth he had con- 
 vinced himself from extraneous sources and — 
 he reconciled. For him, too, self-perfe6ling 
 through the knowledge of truth was the high- 
 est aim, the prac5lical he deemed subordinate. 
 For him knowledge of God was the end, not 
 the means; hence he devoted his intelle(5lual 
 powers to speculations upon the essence of 
 Deity, and sought to bind Judaism to the 
 results of his speculative investigations as to 
 postulates of science or faith. The Mizvoth 
 became for him merely ladders, necessary only 
 to condudl to knowledge or to protect against 
 error, this latter often only the temporary and 
 limited error of polytheism. Mishpatim be- 
 came only rules of prudence, Mitzvoth as 
 well; Chukkim rules of health, teaching right 
 feeling, defending against the transitory errors 
 of the time ; Edoth ordinances, desicrned to 
 
EIGHTEENTH I.ETTER. 1 83 
 
 promote philosophical or other concepts; all 
 this having no foundation in the eternal essence 
 of things, not resulting from their eternal 
 demand on me, or from my eternal purpose 
 and task, no eternal symbolizing of an un- 
 changeable idea, and not inclusive enough to 
 form a basis for the totality of the command- 
 ments. 
 
 He, the great systematic orderer of the prac- 
 tical results of the Talmud, gives expression 
 in the last part of his philosophic work to 
 opinions concerning the meaning and purpose 
 of the commandments which, taking the very 
 pradlical results codified by himself as the con- 
 tents of the commandments, are utterly unten- 
 able — cast no real light upon them, and cannot 
 go hand in hand with them in pra(5lice, in life, 
 and in science. These are the views which 
 have been inherited up to the present day by 
 those who care at all to understand the spirit 
 of the Mitzvoth. But since the precepts, as 
 pracftically fulfilled, stand entirely out of con- 
 ne(5lion with these explanations, it was inevit- 
 able that their ceremonial fulfillment lost its 
 
1 84 I.ETTERS OF BEN UZlElv. 
 
 Spiritual basis, and became despised. You 
 see, instead of taking one's stand within Juda- 
 ism, and asking, "Inasmuch as Judaism makes 
 these demands of me, what opinion of the pur- 
 pose of man must it have ? ' ' instead of compre- 
 hending each demand in its totality according to 
 Bible and Talmud, and then asking, * 'What is 
 the reason and idea of this injundlion? " peo- 
 ple set up their standpoints outside of Judaism, 
 and sought to draw it over to them; they con- 
 ceived a priori opinions as to what the Mitz- 
 voth might be, without disturbing themselves 
 as to the real appearance of the Mitzvoth in all 
 its parts. What was the consequence ? After 
 these opinions had brought about the natural 
 phenomenon that men who believed them- 
 selves the possessors of the knowledge which 
 the commandments were designed to incul- 
 cate, thought themselves absolved both from 
 the fulfillment of the commandment, intended 
 only as a guide, and from the study of the 
 science of the commandments, which had lost 
 for them all intellecftual significance ; other 
 men, possessed of a deeper comprehension of 
 
KIGHTEKNTH I^ETTKR. 1 85 
 
 Judaism, became at first enemies of this philo- 
 sophical spirit, and later, of all specifically in- 
 telledlual and philosophical pursuits in general. 
 Certain misunderstood utterances^ were taken 
 as weapons with which to repel all higher 
 intellecftual interpretation of the Talmud ; 
 no distin(5lion was made between the ques- 
 tion, "What is stated here?" and the ques- 
 tion, ' ' Why is it stated ? ' ' and not even the 
 category of Edoth, which, according to its 
 whole nature, was designed to stir the mind 
 to a(5livity, was excluded from the excommu- 
 nication of the intellecftual. Another misun- 
 derstood passage, (Hn "DIH N "I'D fniH^iD 
 ti^i7'2), even led later to the suppression of 
 Bible study, an error against which Proph- 
 ecy expressly warns ( 1 £D 5 DHDID "D^ 
 D"'?"r?). The inevitable consequence was, 
 therefore, that since oppression and persecu- 
 
 iFor instance, t3"S ?3"K 3"n, r"!2, ih iS *T'2. The injunc- 
 tion not to NIpT Nf3J?U p'tJ^n, which was often held up to me, 
 has no other than the verj^ proper meaning that we should not 
 attach any importance in practical decision to the conjectural 
 reason of a Mitzvah, because it is only conjecture. 
 
 See also p"On to the Torah U"S U"', D'tTHp. 
 
1 86 IvKTTKRS OF BKN UZIEI.. 
 
 tion had robbed Israel of every broad and 
 natural view of the world and of life, and the 
 Talmud had yielded about all the prac5lical 
 results for life of which it was capable, every 
 mind that felt the desire of independent ac- 
 tivity was obliged to forsake the paths of 
 study and research in general open to the 
 human intellecft, and to take its recourse to 
 dialecflic subtleties and hair-splittings. Only 
 a very few during this entire period stood 
 with their intellecftual efforts entirely within 
 Judaism, and built it up out of its own 
 inner concepts. Most distinguished among 
 them are the author of the "Cuzari," and 
 the son of Nachman. This condition of un- 
 comprehended Judaism became particularly 
 prevalent in Germany, where ages of persecu- 
 tion and oppression suppressed every freer 
 upward movement of the mind. The general 
 fundamental principle, God the All-One and 
 the Torah His will, and the fulfillment of the 
 lyaw in the fear of God and with love for, and 
 faith in Him, retained, however, everywhere 
 its living force; and life, with all its posses- 
 
EIGHTEENTH I^ETTER. 1 87 
 
 sions and all its pleasures, was offered with 
 magnificent devotion as a willing sacrifice to 
 it. A form of learning came into existence, 
 concerning which, as a layman, I do not ven- 
 ture to express a judgment, but which, if I 
 comprehend aright the little that I know, is 
 an invaluable repository of the spirit of Bible 
 and Talmud, but which has been, unfortu- 
 nately, misunderstood; and what should have 
 been eternal, progressive development, was 
 considered a stationary mechanism, and the 
 inner significance and concept thereof as extra- 
 mundane dream-worlds. This learning came 
 into existence, and the mind turned either to 
 the external ingenious development of the 
 Talmud, or to this learning, which appealed 
 to the emotions as well. Pracftical Judaism, 
 which, comprehended in its purity, would per- 
 haps have been impregnated with the spiritual 
 became in it, through misconception, a mag- 
 ical mechanism, a means of influencing or 
 resisting theosophic worlds and anti-worlds. 
 
 Little by little there came into the hands of 
 the people a part of a work, originally intended 
 
1 88 I^KTTKRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 only as a compendium for the learned and 
 containing the last results of Talmudic legal 
 science, codified for ceremonial pradlice. It 
 was essentially nothing but a differently ar- 
 ranged edition of the systematic work of 
 Maimonides, by which this latter had become 
 the great preserver of pracftical Judaism in the 
 times of the greatest Galuth-oppression. Un- 
 fortunately, however, it was almost exclusively 
 one part of this work which came into the 
 hands of people, containing only the divisions 
 Kdoth and Abodah, referring to worship and 
 holy days; the other parts, which treat of the 
 other duties, w^ere left for the learned, and did 
 not become the possession of the people. 
 Gradually the unfortunate opinion developed 
 that Judaism meant nothing but praying and 
 keeping holy days; its significance for life in 
 general remained unrecognized. 
 
 Considering all these influences together, 
 you will be able to comprehend the appearance 
 which Judaism presented, say, eighty 3- ears 
 ago. The subsequent events will also be 
 intelligible to you. When the external yoke 
 
EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 1 89 
 
 began to grow lighter, and the spirit felt itself 
 freer, then arose a brilliant, respedl-inspiring 
 personality, Mendelssohn, which by its com- 
 manding influence has led the later develop- 
 ment up to this day. This commanding indi- 
 vidual, who had not drawn his mental develop- 
 ment from Judaism, who was great chiefly in 
 philosophical disciplines, in metaphysics, and 
 aesthetics, who treated the Bible only philo- 
 logically and aesthetically, aud did not build 
 up Judaism as a science from itself, but merely 
 defended it against political stupidity and 
 pietistic Christian audacity, and who was per- 
 sonally an observant Jew, accomplished this 
 much, that he showed the world and his breth- 
 ren that it was possible to be a stricflly religious 
 Jew and yet to shine distinguished as the 
 German Plato.' 
 
 » Do not misunderstand me. I speak here only of the total 
 impression of his work for Judaism. His "Jerusalem," which 
 defends, on Jewish grounds, liberty of thought and faith, em- 
 phasizes also, in contradistindlion to the Moreh, the pradtical 
 essence of Judaism, and gives utterance to an opinion concern- 
 ing the Edoth, which, had it been carried out and intelledlually 
 comprehended by his successors, mighty have revolutionized 
 the subsequent period. But neither the one thing nor the other 
 
190 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEt. 
 
 This ' ' and yet ' ' was decisive. His follow- 
 ers contented themselves with developing Bible 
 study in the philologic-sesthetic sense, with 
 studying the Moreh, and with pursuing and 
 spreading humanistic letters ; but Judaism, 
 Bible and Talmud as Jewish science, were ne- 
 gle(5led. Even the most zealous study of the 
 Bible was of no avail for the comprehension 
 of Judaism, because it was not treated as the 
 authoritative source of dodlrine and instruc- 
 tion, but only as a beautiful poetic storehouse 
 from which to draw rich supplies for the fancy 
 and the imagination. The Talmud thus ne- 
 glecfted, practical Judaism thus completely un- 
 comprehended, it w^as but natural that the for- 
 mer S3nnbolizing and abstract interpretation of 
 Judaism, which had for a time been inter- 
 rupted, again became prevalent, and was 
 carried to an extreme which threatened to 
 
 took place. The science of Judaism was not further developed 
 by him, and his successors, lacking the religious sentiment of 
 the Master, did not rest content under the idea of the eternally 
 binding power of Divine revelation, and could do nothing bet- 
 ter for the intelledlual comprehension of the r,aw, than to sur- 
 render completely to the Maimonidean theories. 
 
KIGHTEKNTH LETTER. I9I 
 
 destroy all Judaism. If that view of life be 
 true, which places the highest mission of man 
 ia the recognition of truth ; and who could 
 venture to doubt it, seeing that Maimonides 
 has declared so; above all, if those views con- 
 cerning the requirements of the Torah be true; 
 and who could dare to think otherwise, since 
 Maimonides, the great authority on Talmud, 
 and himself an observant Jew, had propounded 
 them; then, indeed, the many-foliod Talmud 
 is nothing but a wearisome mass of hair-split- 
 ting subtleties, useful only for the accumula- 
 tion of dust and moths; then, indeed, is prac- 
 tical Judaism nothing but unreasoning weari- 
 ness of the flesh: who could resist this conclu- 
 
 sion 
 
 If, for instance, the sole purpose of the 
 prohibition of labor on the Sabbath was to 
 enable men to rest and recover from the toils 
 of the week, if the Sabbath means only the 
 cessation of corporeal adlivity in order that 
 the mind may be adlive; and who could doubt 
 it, since both Moses interpret it thus, and the 
 Christian Sunday agrees with their conception, 
 
192 I.KTTKRS OP BEN UZIKI.. 
 
 who must not consider it mere pettiness and 
 pedantic absurdity to fill an entire folio with 
 the investigation of the question, what partic- 
 ular actions are forbidden, and what permitted 
 on the Sabbath day? How singular, to de- 
 clare the writing of two letters, perhaps an 
 intellecftual occupation, a deadly sin, while 
 judging leniently many adls involving great 
 physical exertion, and freeing from penalty all 
 purposeless destruction! Why, it even forbids 
 the hen to lay eggs! Or, to go over to another 
 domain, if sacrifice means only to give of one's 
 possessions in grateful recognition that they 
 come from God, or if, in its special Biblical 
 form, it was mainly designed as a protest 
 against the polytheistic sacrificial usages then 
 prevailing; how absurd it is, to fill three or 
 four folios with investigations concerning the 
 manner of offering sacrifice, the part which 
 might be used, the persons who might officiate, 
 and the permissible times ! Do you^not see, 
 that all this is only mind-destroying priest- 
 craft ? Therefore ; therefore — many conclu- 
 sions could be and were drawn, but before 
 
KIGHTKKNTH LKTTKR. 193 
 
 drawing them, people should have asked them- 
 selves, " Is Moses the son of Maimon, or Moses 
 the son of Mendel, really identical with Moses 
 the son of Amram ? " Is there not contained 
 in this dissonance between the theory of the 
 Mitzvah and its reality a proof that the 
 explanation is not right, that it is not based 
 upon the complete conception of the Mitzvah, 
 but is — dreamed into it from without ? 
 
 Does not the Moreh itself say that in form- 
 ing the concept of the Mitzvoth it uses the 
 written I^aw only as the basis, a standpoint 
 which Maimonides himself would have de- 
 clared incorredl for the pracftical fulfillment, 
 and which cannot, therefore, be considered 
 aught else than irrational ? 
 
 Does he not himself say that in considering 
 the significance of the Mitzvoth he has over- 
 looked those details which, in their totality, 
 give the complete idea of the Mitzvoth, and 
 which form the main subjedls of discussion in 
 the Oral I^aw? (Moreh Nebuchim, Chapters 
 XXVI and Xlyl.) There must be sense in all 
 the commandments, in particular as regards 
 
194 I.KTTKRS OF BBN UZIKlv. 
 
 those which announce themselves as instru(5l- 
 ive, which call themselves Testimony, Memo- 
 rial, Symbol. It must be possible to find the 
 indwelling spirit of these; how would it be to 
 try to do so, to make once the experiment? 
 This attempt has hitherto never been made. 
 Many did not wish to make the attempt nor to 
 attain to the result. A spirit had come from the 
 West, which mocked at everything holy, and 
 knew no greater pleasure than to make them 
 ridiculous, and together with it there entered 
 a longing for sensual enjoyments, which 
 eagerly embraced the opportunity to rid itself 
 so easily of burdensome restri(5lions. These 
 motives combined to induce people to tear 
 down the barriers eredled by the Law, until 
 human condudl became one dead, dull level.' 
 
 1 A word here concerning the true method of Torah-investiga- 
 tion. Two revelations are open before us, nature — and Torah. 
 In nature all phenomena stand before us as indisputable fadls, 
 and we can only endeavor a posteri07-i to ascertain the law of 
 each and the connedtion of all. Abstradt demonstration of the 
 truth or, rather, the probability of theoretic explanations of 
 the fadls of nature, is an unnatural proceeding. The right 
 method is to verify our assumptions by the known fadls, and 
 the highest attainable degree of certainty is to say, "The fadls 
 
KlGHTKi^NTH I.ETTKR. 1 95 
 
 And what is our present state? The first 
 delights of the worldly spirit have passed 
 away, other generations have succeeded to 
 
 agree with our assumption "—that is, all observed phenomena 
 can be explained according to our theory. A singly contradic- 
 tory phenomenon will make our theory untenable. We must, 
 therefore, acquire all possible knowledge concerning the objedl 
 of our investigation, and know it, if possible, in its totality. If, 
 however, all efforts should fail in disclosing the inner law and 
 connedtion of phenomena revealed to us as fadts in nature, the 
 facts remain, nevertheless, undeniable, and cannot be reasoned 
 away. The same principles must be applied to the investiga- 
 tion of the Torah. In the Torah, as in nature, God is the ulti- 
 mate cause; in the Torah, as in nature, no fact may be denied, 
 even though the reason and the connection may not be compre- 
 hended; as in nature, so in the Torah, the traces of Divine wis- 
 dom must ever be sought for. Its ordinances must be accepted 
 in their entirety as undeniable phenomena, and must be studied 
 in accordance to their connection with each other, and the sub- 
 ject to which they relate. Our conjectures must be tested by 
 their precepts, and our highest certainty here also can only be 
 that everything stands in harmony with our theory. But as in 
 nature, the phenomena are recognized as facts, though their 
 cause and relation to each other may not be understood, and are 
 independent of our investigation, but rather the contrary is the 
 case; in the same way the ordinances of the Torah must be law 
 for us, even if we do not comprehend the reason and the pur- 
 pose of a single one. Our fulfillment of the commandments 
 must not depend upon our investigations. Only the command- 
 ments belonging to the category Edoth, which are designed to 
 impress the intellectual and emotion&l life, are incomplete 
 without such researclj. 
 
196 I.KTTKRS OP BEN UZIKI^. 
 
 those who witnessed the first change in Jewish 
 sentiment, and to-day two diametrically oppo- 
 site parties confront each other. The one 
 party has inherited uncomprehended Judaism 
 as a mechanical habit, mf2i7f2 D^t^^^N ni^O, 
 without its spirit; they bear it in their hands 
 as a sacred relic, a revered mummy, and fear 
 to rouse its spirit. The others are partly filled 
 with noble enthusiasm for the welfare of the 
 Jews, but look upon Judaism as a lifeless 
 framework, as something which should be laid 
 in the grave of a long since dead and buried 
 past. They seek its spirit and find it not, and 
 are in danger, with all their efibrts to help the 
 Jew, of severing the last life-nerve of Judaism 
 — ignorantly. And to-day, when, despite a 
 thousand shades and variations of difference, 
 these two opposing elements agree in the one 
 great circumstance, that they are both wrong 
 — what shall be done? What is the way to 
 salvation ? Does it suffice for the salvation of 
 Judaism to establish our schools upon such a 
 two-fold basis, and to reform our form of wor- 
 ship? The spirit, the inner harmonious life- 
 
EIGHTKKNTH LKTTKR. 197 
 
 principle, is lacking, and that you cannot sup- 
 ply through polishing the outside frame. 
 
 There is one way to salvation; — where the 
 sin was committed the atonement must begin, 
 — and this one way is, to forget the inherited 
 prejudices and opinions concerning Judaism; 
 to go back to the sources of Judaism, to Bible, 
 Talmud, and Midrash; to read, study, and 
 comprehend them in order to live them; to 
 draw from them the teachings of Judaism con- 
 cerning God, the world, mankind, and Israel, 
 according to history and precept; to know 
 Judaism out of itself; to learn from its own 
 utterances its science of life. With the Bible 
 the beginning should be made, its language 
 should first be comprehended, and then out 
 of the spirit of the speech the spirit of the 
 speakers should be inferred. The Bible should 
 not be studied as an interesting objecft of philo- 
 logical or antiquarian research, not as basis for 
 theories of taste or for amusement; it should 
 be studied as the foundation of a new science; 
 with Davidic vSentiment nature should be con- 
 templated; with the ear of an Isaiah history 
 
1 98 LETTERS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 should be listened to, and then, with eye thus 
 aroused, with ear thus opened, the docftrine of 
 God, world, man, Israel, and Torah should be 
 drawn from the Bible, and should become an 
 idea, or system of ideas, fully comprehended. 
 In this spirit Talmud should be studied, in the 
 Halachah only further elucidation and amplifi- 
 cation of ideas already known from the Bible 
 should be sought for; in the Aggadah only 
 figuratively disguised manifestation of the 
 same spirit. This path you should pursue, 
 unconcerned as to the opinion which the one 
 or the other school of misled ones may hold in 
 reference to your methods of study; uncon- 
 cerned that your simplicity of interpretation 
 wall not permit you to shine among the heroes 
 of hair-splitting, life-ignoring disputations; 
 unconcerned if 3^ou do not shine in the special 
 disciplines which you use only as auxiliary 
 sciences for your general objecft; unconcerned 
 if you are no longer qualified for pretentious 
 appearance. All this should concern you lit- 
 tle, for you are learning what is better, to 
 know the light, the truth, the warmth, and 
 
EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 1 99 
 
 the sublimity of life, and when you have 
 attained to this you will comprehend Israel's 
 history and Israel's Law, and that life, in its 
 true sense, is the refiecftion of that Law, per- 
 meated with that spirit. One spirit lives in 
 all, from the construdlion of the Holy Tongue 
 to the constru(5lion of the universe and the 
 plan of life, one spirit, the spirit of the All- 
 One ! That would be a task for the disciples 
 of science ! But the results of that science 
 must be carried over into life, transplanted by 
 schools. Schools for Jews ! The young sap- 
 lings of your people should be reared as Jews, 
 trained to become sons and daughters of Juda- 
 ism, as you have recognized and comprehended 
 and learned to respecft and love it as the law of 
 your life. The language of the Bible and the 
 language of the land should be theirs; in both 
 they should be taught to think; their heart 
 should be taught to feel, their mind to think; 
 the Scriptures should be their book of law for 
 life, and they should be able to comprehend 
 life through their word. 
 
 Their eye should be open to recognize the 
 
200 I^KTTKRS OF BKN UZIKlv. 
 
 world around them as God's world and them- 
 selves in God's world as His servants; their 
 ear should be open to perceive in history the 
 narrative of the education of all men to this 
 service. The wise precepts of Torah and 
 Talmud should be made clear to them as 
 designed to spiritualize their lives for such 
 sublime service of God, and they should be 
 taught to comprehend, respedl, and love them, 
 in order that they might rejoice in the name 
 ' ' Jew ' ' despite all which that name implies 
 of scorn and privation. Together with this 
 instruc5lion they should be fitted for bread- 
 winning, but they should be taught that bread- 
 winning is only a means, not the purpose of 
 life, and that the value of life is not to be 
 judged according to rank, wealth, or splendor, 
 but according to the amount of good and of 
 service to God with which it is filled. They 
 should be taught not to subordinate the 
 demands of their spiritual mission to those of 
 sensuality and comfort, but the reverse, and 
 while this training was going on, and until 
 Israel's houses were built up of such sons and 
 
EIGHTKENTH I^KTTER. 20I 
 
 daughters, the parents should be implored and 
 entreated not to destroy the work of the school, 
 not to crush or choke with icy and unsympa- 
 thetic mood the tender shoots of Jewish senti- 
 ment in the breasts of their children. The 
 latent germs of a nobler disposition in the 
 breast of parents should also be stirred, and if 
 this be impossible, at least they should be 
 forced to respedl the sentiments they could 
 not comprehend nor share. If these ends 
 should be earnestly striven for, it would be 
 different in Israel. 
 
 It will be different in Israel; our time leads 
 necessarily to such a change. Do not think 
 our time so dark and hopeless, friend; it is only 
 nervous and uncertain, as a woman in child- 
 birth. But better the anxiety which prevails 
 in the house of a woman about to give birth, 
 than the freedom from anxiety, but also from 
 joy and hope, in the house of the barren one. 
 This time of labor may outlast our lives and 
 the lives of our children and grandchildren, 
 but our later posterity will rejoice in the child 
 that has struggled out into light and life, and 
 
202 LKTTKRS OF BE^N UZIKI.. 
 
 its name will be ' ' self-comprehending Juda- 
 ism." 
 
 The age offers one pledge for the accom- 
 plishment of this result ; it is the effort to 
 think, to comprehend and to grasp with the 
 mind that which should be respedled and 
 revered. Truly, when the mind will have 
 realized the futility of this baseless and aim- 
 less striving, of its bargaining with the over- 
 estimated demands of the fleeting moment; 
 when it will have clearly brought to its con- 
 sciousness that the noble life can only be 
 eredled upon ideas inwardly recognized as 
 true, then will arise the question, " What does 
 it mean that I am a Jew ? What is Judaism ? ' ' 
 Nor will the answer to this question be sought 
 at the cathedras or in the writings of non- Jew- 
 ish scholars, who often see Judaism through a 
 distorting glass and who sometimes think it 
 necessary to destroy the teachings of Torah 
 and Judaism in order to establish their own 
 notions. Neither will it be sought in the 
 writings of time-serving reformers influenced 
 by external motives, nor in the writings of 
 
EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 203 
 
 Jewish scholars who take their standpoint out- 
 side of Judaism. But the seekers after knowl- 
 edge will go back to the ancient fountains of 
 Judaism, Bible and Talmud, and the one effort 
 will be to obtain the concept of life out of Juda- 
 ism and to comprehend Judaism as the law of 
 life, and this effort will lead to the transposing 
 of that which holds the theory of truth and life 
 into adlual, pradlical truth and life, in accor- 
 dance with the old adage, now, alas, nearly 
 forgotten, Hlt^*;^'?') ^IDtT'? id?"?) "IIO'?'?, 
 "to learn and to teach, to keep and to do." 
 O, that you all, who mean well with Juda- 
 ism, which you have inherited as a habit, and 
 which you are thinking of handing down as a 
 habit, O, that your eyes might be opened and 
 that you might recognize that only through 
 the spirit can you hand it down ; O, that you 
 might at least hand to your sons and daughters 
 the Holy Writings, the writings of the Torah, 
 the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, so that 
 the spirit which throbs in them might become 
 their light and support in life ; O, that you 
 noble-minded ones, who think that you labor 
 
204 I.ETTERS OF BEN UZIEI.. 
 
 for the weal of Judaism; O, that you might 
 consider that when you strike the chains from 
 hand and foot or don fine clothing and adorn 
 your outward persons, you do not 3^et help to 
 improve or elevate life. lyower again the 
 hand upraised to strike down the battlements of 
 your faith, and consider whether you are not 
 about to destroy an edifice which, even though 
 in its covering of the dust of centuries, it ap- 
 pears to you worthy only of the axe's stroke, 
 may yet contain things holy and eternal, things 
 of life and truth; turn again toward it your 
 averted gaze and examine what it is from which 
 you turn away. Is it the fault of the objecft 
 — should the objedl be held blameworthy, if 
 those who represent it, themselves covered with 
 the dust of the battlefield upon which they 
 struggle against oppression and misery, could 
 only rescue it dust-covered and made repulsive ? 
 Should we, to whom the mildness of the times 
 has given the task of rubbing off the dust, 
 think so little of the troubles and battles of 
 those men as not even to deem it worth while 
 to dust off the jewel for our own benefit, but, 
 
EIGHTKENTH LEJTTER. 205 
 
 regarding only the dust-covered exterior, cast 
 away as worthless the precious possession Tor 
 which our ancestors sacrificed life, and 
 property, and liberty, and all the joys of life? 
 Should — but I forget, my dear Benjamin, that 
 only heaven hears these wishes, that only this 
 paper sees them, and that only to you will 
 they be shown ; I forget that I am writing only 
 to you. lyight and truth and life will emerge 
 from this time of trial; be sure of that, friend, 
 and then you will regard differently that which 
 I was accustomed to lament with j^ou, the 
 apparently chaotic condition of the spiritual 
 affairs of our people; no government, no 
 authority, all efforts solely individual, and, 
 through the lust for reform, the religious 
 service, about which the whole movement 
 turns, has become so variegated that a Jew, 
 travelling through Germany, might almost 
 find it different in every congregation. Do 
 you not see that this also may have its good ? 
 I am convinced that none of those of us now 
 living comprehend Judaism in its true purity 
 and truth. Consider also the divergency of 
 
2o6 LETTERS OF BKN UZIKI.. 
 
 Opinions, quite natural inasmuch as almost 
 every Rabbi strikes out his own path and is 
 led by no schools. Consider furthermore that 
 we are only in the time of labor; it would be 
 unfortunate if an authority tried to establish 
 something — it would only make our sorrows 
 eternal! It would be impossible to selecft 
 proper men. If one-sided, they would per- 
 petuate extravagances; if composed of minglea 
 elements representing various ideas, their crea- 
 tion would be a half-thing, a torso, and would 
 only serve to dam the stream of development, 
 which can only bring pure and living w^ater 
 when permitted to flow to its uttermost end. 
 Time, if left unhindered, will wash away what 
 it itself has brought into existence, and room 
 will always remain for the higher edifice which 
 yet awaits us. I think that if, in the period 
 after Maimonides, anxiety for the maintenance 
 of Judaism in external pra6lice had not made 
 it necessary to suppress antagonistic efforts, 
 centuries ago the improper tendencies of the 
 Jewdsh spirit would, through the very com- 
 pleteness of their fulfillment, have brought 
 
KIGHTEJBNTH I^ETTKR. 207 
 
 about sober refledlion upon the nature and 
 purposes of our faith, and we would now be 
 whither we can only expedl to come in centu- 
 ries. Under present conditions I rejoice that 
 the scales hang free, held by God alone, and 
 that only intellec5lual efforts mutually balance 
 each other, but that no temporal power can 
 interpose the sword to check the freedom of 
 the swinging. If it should be stopped, our 
 great grandchildren would be no better off 
 than w^e. Should we fear to go through the 
 period of anxiety for them ? 
 
 Let the scales swing! The freer they hang, 
 and the more violently now they swing up and 
 down, the truer and purer will be the estimate 
 of the right principle of faith and life which 
 they will finally fix. And when the scales 
 have ceased to swing, and when all luminous 
 will stand in Israel, the Spirit of Understand- 
 ing, tiyZ tlT), the spirit which understands 
 itself, its history, and its law, when its throb- 
 bing impulse of life will have pervaded all its 
 members; when the branch gone forth from 
 Israel shall have performed its mission and 
 
208 I.KTTKRS OF BKN UZIEL. 
 
 fought to victory a battle of another kind in 
 the midst of our non- Jewish brethren; when 
 the free gaze uplifted to the All- One, and the 
 consciousness of inner moral power shall have 
 conquered whatever dims the eye and corrupts 
 noble vigor . . . then will the book of our 
 history have been written, and its final teach- 
 ings will have penetrated all spirits. I^et us 
 comprehend our tim^e, dear Benjamin, and let 
 every one, according to the measure of intel- 
 ledlual and spiritual power vouchsafed him, 
 strive to further the progress to the goal, each 
 in the greater or smaller circle in which he 
 lives. Thousands may forsake the cause of 
 life and light, thousands may tear themselves 
 away from the lot and the name of Israel, 
 whose mode of life they have long since 
 reje(5led — the cause of truth counts not the 
 number of its adherents. If only one remains 
 — one Jew with the book of the law in his 
 hand, with Israel's law in his heart, Israel's 
 light in his spirit — that one suffices; Israel's 
 cause is not lost. When Israel had grown 
 tinfit for its mission, the All-One desired to 
 
KIGHTKKNTH LETTER. 2og 
 
 permit the law and the mission of Israel to be 
 borne by the one Moses, and the prophet tells 
 us timid ones the same truth : 
 ' ' Gaze upon the rock from which we were 
 
 hewn, 
 Upon the fountain-hollowing mallet with which 
 
 ye were dug ! 
 Gaze upon Abraham, your father. 
 Upon Sarah, destined to bear ye. 
 One only was he when I called him; 
 I blessed him and made him many." 
 
 Farewell, dear Benjamin, train yourself to 
 be such a one; farewell. 
 
NINETEENTH LETTER. 
 
 You have prevailed, my Benjamin! On the 
 day when you consecrate unto j^ourself the 
 wife, with whose aid you are to ere6l a house 
 in Israel, I shall offer you the only present 
 you seek; I shall grant the request which you 
 have so often uttered to me. I shall, if God 
 gives me understanding and health, lay upon 
 my people's altar the only offering which, in 
 my weakness, I am able to place thereon. I 
 do not entertain in connedlion with it the san- 
 guine hopes with which you have welcomed 
 this resolve. I have revealed to you in writ- 
 ing and orally what I have cherished for a 
 long time as my dearest treasure, and you 
 have accepted it with warm appreciation as 
 truth ; but I do not imagine on that account 
 that it will be acknowledged by all as truth, 
 or that I may deem it with certainty the pure 
 gold of truth. I know too well both my own 
 limitations and the chara(5ler of the age to be 
 
 210 
 
NINETKKNTH IvETTER. 211 
 
 led astray by such roseate hopes. But I con- 
 sider it the duty of every one, in a time of such 
 solemn import, and in behalf of a cause which 
 is to us the holiest and most sacred, to make 
 known his opinions openly and honestly. And 
 if I should only succeed in demonstrating that 
 the matter has not been thoroughly inves- 
 tigated in all its aspe(5ls, that there is, perhaps, 
 a way by means of which one could reach 
 entirely different results than those hitherto 
 attained, a view in the light of which every- 
 thing would present an appearance quite differ- 
 ent from that hitherto customary and usual; 
 yes, if I should only succeed in staying one 
 hand that had been too swiftly raised in order 
 to tear down, and could induce its owner in- 
 stead calmly to examine; indeed, if I could 
 come no nearer to the goal that I have often 
 picflured to you in letters than to induce 
 another to step upon the road which I have 
 prepared, another, more talented, more richly 
 equipped with intelledlual light and strength 
 than I, and he should demonstrate so clearly 
 the truth and dignity, the life and the light 
 
212 IvKTTKRS OF BKN UZIKIy. 
 
 contained in the edifice of Judaism that my 
 feeble attempts would arouse but a pitjdng 
 smile and be forgotten; friend, my reward 
 would even then be greater than I have dared 
 to hope. Nor do you err when j^ou think that 
 modest difiidence has restrained me so long 
 from undertaking a task which must long 
 since have spoken within me. 
 
 That I have long since devoted my thoughts 
 to this task, the accompanying roll of essays 
 concerning Israel and Israel's duties — or rather 
 concerning the duties alone, for my thoughts 
 on Israel are still only a project of my mind — 
 must convince you. But I have been, and 
 still am, diffident, not on account of myself, 
 but on account of the cause which I have 
 ventured to represent. 
 
 In an age when the contrasts stand so sharply 
 over against each other, and when truth is on 
 neither side, in such an age the man who be- 
 longs to no party, who has only the cause in 
 his heart, and serves it alone, cannot, unless 
 he be a Divine master, who comprehends the 
 Divine truth in its purity, and has the power 
 
NINETEENTH LETTER. 21 3 
 
 to show it SO brilliant in its Divine radiance 
 that all spirits subdued acknowledge its divin- 
 ity and do it homage, such a one cannot, I re- 
 peat, expedl approval or agreement on any side. 
 This I knew and know, and with this 
 knowledge within my mind I first took up the 
 pen to these essays. Fame or acknowledg- 
 ment of my personal merit are not the obje(5ls 
 which I seek, or else they indeed would have 
 been right whose judgment already sounds in 
 my ears as that of the multitude: " He under- 
 stands but ill the world and his time, and what 
 it demands. ' ' No such motive has prompted 
 me to these efforts, but only the inner voice 
 which, though I listen and examine my inmost 
 thoughts a thousand times, speaks ever to me 
 the same words, saying: " There is some truth 
 in your views, some of that truth which, you 
 think, must ultimately struggle forth into the 
 light of vi(5lory ; the way upon which you 
 have begun to walk is perhaps only a by-path, 
 but it leads in the right direcflion, and if one 
 abler than you should begin to pursue it, the 
 cause of truth would surely prevail." This 
 
214 I.KTTKRS OF BE^N UZIKI.. 
 
 voice alone stirred tae on. Surely, friend, a 
 grain of truth is worth the sacrifice of my 
 person, even if I should sacrifice it a thousand 
 times. This care has never made me hesitate, 
 but other cares have filled me with anxiety, 
 when I asked myself whether I would not do 
 harm where I thought to help. The view of 
 the reconstruction of Judaism as a science I 
 have evolved almost alone out of my inner 
 consciousness. Only one dear friend assisted 
 me a little in the smaller, easier, and clearer 
 part, and only one star guided me somewhat 
 in the beginning. I have worked myself 
 through to the point where you found me. 
 But may it not be that upon this way, where 
 at every step thorns and refuse had to be 
 removed, and I, with my limited powers, was 
 called upon alone to take issue with the entire 
 past and the entire present, may it not well be, 
 I ask, that I have entered into a thousand 
 devious paths, and accepted a thousand errors 
 as truths ? Is the edifice, as it stands within 
 me, and as I would show it to my brethren, is 
 it free from defedls? And if the attempt 
 
NINKTKKNTH LETTER. 215 
 
 should fail, would not those who would like to 
 erase from the book of life the cause for which 
 I live, would they not make use of my unsuc- 
 cessful attempts as a means of strangling the 
 dearly beloved cause ? How they would gloat 
 over my failure and say, "See there, some 
 new attempts to rehabilitate Judaism — entire 
 failures! " I am not constituted for a writer; 
 all my life I have thought more than spoken, 
 spoken more than written; wall I be able to 
 write for truth with the clearness which con- 
 vinces the mind, the power which captures 
 the heart? I must, if I would speak to the 
 children of the time, address them in German 
 (/. e. modern) language and German writing, 
 and as surely as I know that Judaism, rightly 
 comprehended and rightly presented, unites 
 all creatures with a band of love and justice, 
 so surely do I also know that evil disposed 
 calumniators can and do take isolated passages, 
 torn out of their connedlion, interpreted in 
 contradidlion to their true spirit, and without 
 consideration of the entire edifice of which 
 they form but an insignificant part, and us^ 
 
2l6 I^KTTBRS OF BEN UZIEL. 
 
 them as pointed arrows and ponderous cudgels 
 with which to smite and wound helpless vic- 
 tims. Will my efforts have a better fate ? Will 
 not some one whose sensitive spirit has been 
 insulted and offended by rude audacity, be 
 able to point to me as the — even though inno- 
 cent — cause ? Many other cares of a similar 
 kind oppressed me. 
 
 " How did you answer all these questions," 
 I hear you ask, '' since after all you did resolve 
 to undertake the work ? " * ' Because, ' ' I 
 thought, ' ' I have climbed alone to a height, 
 from which a new view displays itself to me. 
 On that very account it devolves on me to 
 summon companions, to descend and to begin 
 again the journey with the friends who will 
 join me. I only wish to give what I have 
 until now been able to gather together, not as 
 a perfec5l work, but truly * as essa3^s.' " Can 
 it injure the cause in the eyes of the sensible 
 if a single immature youth has, perhaps, 
 dreamed dreams that are utterly baseless and 
 unreal? Then there is the question of duty. 
 I see a child enveloped in flames; the by stand- 
 
NINKTBKNTH LBTTE^R. 21 7 
 
 ers are timidly inacflive, or seek only to save 
 the building. I see the child, — I rush in; — 
 need I ask first my neighbor whether he, too, 
 sees the child; have I the right to consider 
 whether, in my hasty rush, I may not knock 
 some neighbor bloody; may I even ask whether, 
 in my haste to vSave the child, I am not hinder- 
 ing the task of saving the building or produ- 
 cing a draught, which may start the fire to 
 fresh acftivity? ' 'But suppose you see the child 
 too late, and before you reach it the building 
 falls with hiss and crash upon its poor head ? ' ' 
 
 Even if it should bury me, too, in its ruins, 
 I would but have done my duty. 
 
 Of course, my dear Benjamin, the natural 
 way would have been to have labored first 
 only for the scientific evolvement, and what- 
 ever would have demonstrated in the battle of 
 minds its truth and tenability would have 
 been afterwards quietly transferred into the 
 pradlice of life. That would have been the 
 quieter, the surer, the pleasanter way. 
 
 But our time demands a different course. 
 In Mendelssohn's days, when the new move- 
 
21 8 I^ETTERS OF BEN UZIEI<. 
 
 ment of the spirit had begun but the Jewish 
 life was yet untouched, then it would have 
 been possible to construdl the science of Juda- 
 ism, and to bring to the strong formal life the 
 light and warmth of the spirit, and our condi- 
 tion would be different now. To-day it is no 
 longer possible. The opinions, not derived 
 from true Judaism, have become acftive and 
 vigorous, and labor with hostile energy to 
 undermine that which they pretend to repre- 
 sent. They must be combatted diredlly in the 
 midst of life, so that many who still observe 
 may comprehend what they observe; that 
 many who reje(5l ma}^ hesitate and examine 
 that which they rejecft; that many a hand, 
 now raised, perhaps, in honest zeal to tear 
 down or to build up something new, be held 
 back, and its owner be induced to inquire care- 
 fully concerning that which he had purposed 
 to tear down or to build in other form, and 
 with new additions. Later it would devolve 
 upon the men of science to establish in science, 
 and as science, the principles which we had 
 adlivel}' defended in life. That is the way in 
 
NINETKKNTH LKTTKR. 219 
 
 which I intend to proceed. If Heaven will 
 vouchsafe me health and understanding, I 
 shall endeavor to declare in a first part the 
 views on Judaism concerning God, the world, 
 man, Israel, the Torah; in a second part to 
 expound the Mitzvoth, as far as it is incumbent 
 upon us, deprived of our national soil , to fulfill 
 them; the passages of the Torah shall always 
 precede; then shall follow the views concern- 
 ing them with which the study of several years 
 have furnished me, and then, for the purpose 
 of pradlical fulfillment, extradls from the four- 
 fold code, the Shulchan Aruch, shall follow. 
 Ever>'thing shall be treated popularly, diredlly 
 for life, and its demonstration in Jewish science 
 shall be left as a later task, as you now have 
 this part in your hands. I rejoice that the 
 first impulse to these essays was derived from 
 the necessity of supplying the teachers of the 
 schools under my supervision with a book in 
 which they could read themselves into Jews 
 before they began to rear young souls for Juda- 
 ism; and in elaborating them for larger circles 
 of readers, I alwa3^s thought of the intellec5lual 
 
220 I,e:TTKRS op ben UZlKly. 
 
 youths and maidens of my people as their chief 
 readers. This second part I intend — God will- 
 ing — to publish first. To be sure you are right, 
 in your description of the plan, that the knowl- 
 edge of the general should precede that of the 
 particular, and such is, indeed, the plan of my 
 work. Nevertheless I shall publish the partic- 
 ular first. I know well that I will thereby rouse 
 up more opponents, for people are readier to ac- 
 knowledge principles before they have obtained 
 a full view of the consequences to which they 
 logically lead. Still I cannot do otherwise. 
 
 I recognize as our nearest and most funda- 
 mental evil the false opinions and notions 
 which prevail concerning the extent as well as 
 the contents and meaning of our Mitzvoth. In 
 these isolated, uncomprehended tasks and 
 duties Israel's essence is misunderstood, at- 
 tacked, annihilated. At this spot the great- 
 est stream flows away, and here the first effort 
 should be made to repair the breach. When 
 the demonstration has been given as to the 
 special contents of Judaism, then the gaze may 
 be lifted higher and the question be answered 
 
NINKTKENTH I.KTTER. 221 
 
 as to the position which Judaism, as a whole, 
 occupies in the series of other phenomena, 
 what its relation to mankind, what the posi- 
 tion of man in the world as comprehended 
 from JudaivSm, what the relation of the world 
 to God, of God to it. If the first part ap- 
 peared first, people would look upon that 
 which I say of Israel as a mere dream picflure, 
 a creation of the enthusiastic fancy, nowhere 
 existing in reality. In order, however, to 
 give my readers as much knowledge of the 
 general as is absolutely necessary to the un- 
 derstanding of the special, I shall first sketch 
 out some general outlines, such as I tried to 
 give you in the beginning of our correspond- 
 ence, and I have endeavored in the case of each 
 particular Mitzvah to lead the reader to an un- 
 derstanding of its significance as based upon 
 its relation to Judaism in general. 
 
 So much, perhaps more than too much, for 
 this project in which you take such warm in- 
 terest. May you, if its results be not alto- 
 gether without blessing, remember with joy 
 that in a time when your eye could have been 
 
222 I^BTTKRS OF BEN UZIBIy. 
 
 turned with so many sweet hopes entirely 
 upon your own individual life, you had so 
 much love for the general and universal. May 
 the day on which you receive these lines be 
 for you the founder of a joyful, adlive future. 
 May the wife whom you to-day call ' ' conse- 
 crated," be consecrated to you ever as your 
 holiest possession. May the house which you 
 establish together be pure and holy and godly, 
 as the holy symbol of the ' ' robe ' ' ^ with 
 which you enwrap yourselves. May the * ' cup 
 of life" ^ from which you both shall drink, 
 hold ever so much of the sweet that you shall 
 never despair, so much of the bitter that you 
 shall never grow over-proud; and may you ac- 
 cept all abundance of blessing as means given 
 you by the hand of God, to live a life of 
 righteousness and love. Farewell, my Benja- 
 min, farewell. Your Naphtali. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ti?):; Nnin '^N^ mty 0*72:^:11 an 
 
 " It is finished and done, praised be God, Creator 
 of the world." 
 
 1 The Tallith ri'SlD. 2 xhe cup containing the wine of blessing 
 
J>ate Due