DS 
 143 
 H47 
 
 HERTZ 
 
 11 HAPPY IN MY 
 JUDAISM"
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 

 
 HAPPY IN MY JUDAISM 
 
 7# JKU'lHll BRETHREN 
 ON ACTIVE SKR]'ICE. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 F'KKACHKD AT THIO 
 
 BAYSWATER SYNAGOGUE, 
 
 SABBATH BERESHITH, 
 OCTOBER 13th, 56781917, 
 
 THE CHIEF RABBI
 
 "HAPPY IN MY JUDAISM": 
 
 Sermon.
 
 "HAPPY IN MY JUDAISM": 
 
 A PLEA FOR OUR JEWISH BRETHREN 
 ON ACTIVE SERVICE. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACH KD AT THE 
 
 BAYSWATER SYNAGOGUE, 
 
 SABBATH BERESHITH, 
 OCTOBER 13th, 56781917. 
 
 THE CHIEF RABBI

 
 SERMON 
 
 Preached at the BAYSWATEB SYNAGOGUE, 
 On Sabbath Bereshith. October 13th, 1917-5678. 
 
 "And God created man in His own image, in the 
 image of God created He him." GENESIS i. 27. 
 
 Next to God's unity, the most essential and 
 the most characteristic teaching of Judaism 
 is that contained in this twenty-seventh verse 
 of the first chapter of Genesis. It has often 
 been pointed out by Jewish teachers that 
 whereas heathenism degraded man by making 
 him kneel before brutes or the works of his 
 hand, Judaism declared man to be made in 
 the image of God the crown and culmination 
 of God's creation. 
 
 This doctrine is not merely a matter of 
 historical theology, but a vital and timely 
 truth for the men and women of to-day. 
 
 2116337
 
 Let me explain. For the last fifty years 
 there has been a battle between Man and the 
 Universe ; between man his dignity, his 
 freedom, his significance, on the one hand ; 
 and, on the other, the infinite world nature, 
 history, society. From this battle man seems, 
 in the eyes of many, to have emerged with 
 his importance considerably weakened, with 
 his soul shrivelled up to the vanishing point. 
 Instead of lord of creation, he is to-day 
 merely an infinitesimal article in the inventory 
 of the Universe. ' l Man is but a microscopic 
 being relatively to astronomical space, and 
 he lives on a puny planet circling around the 
 sun, a star of inferior rank, one among four 
 hundred million other such stars scattered 
 through the infinite abyss of immeasurable 
 space," says astronomy. The newer studies 
 and latter-day events merely reinforce upon the 
 average man this teaching of astronomy. The 
 widening of the historical horizon by the 
 study of primitive man and by the unearthing 
 of dead civilisations ; political phenomena,
 
 like the rise of democracy with its levelling 
 downwards ; this present worjd-tragedy, when 
 tens of millions of men are arrayed in ghastly 
 combat against tens of millions all emphasize 
 the meaning of mass in human affairs, with 
 the consequent cheapening of the individual. 
 Not so very long ago it was hard to conceive 
 of a universal humanity because personalities 
 
 of men seemed so distinct. People found it 
 
 hard to see the forest on account of the trees. 
 
 In our generation, however, it is almost 
 
 impossible to see the trees for the forest. 
 
 Man is so clear that men become obscure. 
 
 The race is more and more, but the individual 
 
 withers. 
 
 Now we are prepared to see the timeliness 
 of the teaching of : " And God created man 
 in His own image, in the image of God created 
 He him." To-day, when the human soul 
 freezes, shrinks, well-nigh vanishes in the 
 horizon of infinite space ; when personality 
 becomes vague, defective, dwindling ; when
 
 man is in danger of losing himself- Judaism 
 comes, and on the very first page of our Bible 
 proclaims to us : * There is something in thee 
 which antedates birth and outlives death. 
 Though unseen, immaterial, imponderable, 
 there is something in thee greater than 
 towering mountains, heaving seas, or the 
 silent lights that stud the canopy of night. 
 Unlike them, that something in thee has the 
 capacity to feel and think and dream ; to 
 love, to strive, to fall and to rise again ! 
 A tiny atom, thou canst yet rethink the 
 Creator's thoughts, soar to the Divine, labour 
 in the cause of the truth and righteousness,, 
 because thou art a spark of that central Sun 
 which is the Creator, Sustainer and Life of 
 all eternities." 
 
 Such is the perennial message of this first 
 page of our Scriptures. When the Tishri- 
 f estivals are over, and the vast teachings of 
 New Year, Atonement Day, Tabernacles and 
 Rejoicing of the Law are apt to recede from
 
 9 
 
 our memory, Judaism opens our workaday 
 year by giving back unto us our human 
 personality. Our duty as Jews is to proceed 
 to regain our Jewish personality, our Jewish 
 consciousness. 
 
 "Jewish consciousness " much more is 
 meant by this than by the phrase that one 
 hears from the lips of even lax Jews, viz., that 
 they are proud of being Jews. That phrase 
 always recalls to my mind the words spoken 
 recently by a renowned French co-religionist : 
 " I will not say I am proud of being a Jew. 
 I do not see how I am to be proud of something 
 that is not my achievement, but has come to 
 me as a matter of birth ; I would rather say, 
 / am happy in my Judaism" That is the 
 great problem for Jewish ministers, teachers 
 and parents of to-day How to make our 
 children happy in their Judaism. For^ unless 
 they are happy in their Judaism the full 
 measure of Jewish personality will never be 
 theirs. Now they cannot be happy in their 
 Judaism if the}^ do not love it; and they
 
 10 
 
 cannot love it if they do not know it, if 
 they are unfamiliar with Jewish ideals and 
 Jewish teachings, with the martyrdoms and 
 the .triumphs of the Jew throughout the ages ! 
 
 There is one class especially that, above 
 all others, I am most anxious to see, not 
 merely proud of, but happy in, their Judaism. 
 Thousands of our sons are now hourly face 
 to face with death, prepared at any moment 
 to bring the supreme sacrifice. In view of 
 their ordeal, our fears and panics in recent air- 
 raids appear petty, cowardly, impious. Stand- 
 ing in the valley of the shadow of death, 
 they need something to fortify their souls; 
 something to kindle within them into a bright 
 flame the hope that transcends the grave, to 
 bring home to them man's kinship with the 
 Divine, to deepen within them the conviction 
 that fellowship with the Eternal must be an 
 eternal fellowship. Only one agency can 
 accomplish all this religion. Now none of 
 us is willing that such inspiration shall come
 
 11 
 
 to our Jews at the Front from the Churches. 
 But as one of the Church dignitaries rightly 
 said : " If the Christian efforts of proselytising 
 among Jews are resented, why do not Jews 
 do something for their own religious welfare, 
 and circulate among themselves literature 
 appertaining to the tenets of their faith, 
 and thereby try to inculcate a more spiritual 
 outlook in their midst ? " My friends, the 
 sting of this question lies in its unanswerable 
 justice and bitter truth. 
 
 What is wanted is Jewish religious war 
 literature for free distribution among our men 
 at the Front. Nothing strengthens a man 
 more than that which heightens his sense 
 of personality. And only Jewish books can 
 do that for the Jewish soldier ; they alone 
 can waken his Jewish consciousness, and 
 render him happy in the thought of being 
 a member of a great, eternal, indomitable 
 people that has fought and suffered on 
 every battlefield of human thought ; a link
 
 12 
 
 in a chain which all the tempests under 
 heaven could not break. To meet this, vital 
 need, I produced, some months ago, a ' ' Book 
 of Jewish Thoughts," of which 40,000 copies 
 have already been, or are about to be, dis- 
 tributed. The nature of this book can best 
 be seen if I read to you the letter with which 
 T prefaced it : 
 
 To MY JEWISH BRETHREN ON ACTIVE SERVICE. 
 I am sending you this little Book of Jewish Thoughts 
 and hope it will reach every one of His Majesty's Jewish 
 sailors and soldiers. It brings you the undying message 
 of our Holy Faith ; memories of Jewish loyalty and 
 martyrdom in the service of God and Humanity through- 
 out the ages ; as well as reflections on the higher issues 
 of this world-conflict when viewed under the aspect 
 of Judaism. For every Sacred Occasion of the Jewish 
 Year, moreover, you will find in it an echo of some 
 characteristic note of the Festival that will remind you 
 of the deathlessness of Israel and its Teaching. 
 
 May these "Thoughts" help you to realize that 
 every Israelite holds the honour of his people in his hands. 
 May they strengthen your trust in God, and deepen 
 your invincible faith in the justice of the. Allied Cause. 
 " Be strong and of a good courage ; be not affrighted, 
 neither be thou dismayed ; for the Lord thy God is with 
 thee whithersoever thou goest."
 
 13 
 
 My prayers, and those of the whole House of Israel 
 are with you. May your going out and your coming 
 in be blessed. 
 
 The distribution of such a Jewish antho- 
 logy is of surpassing importance, for the book 
 reaches thousands of men who never see the 
 Chaplains. Often a copy falls into the hands 
 of non-Jews, and its contents come to them as 
 a revelation. Henceforth they are filled with 
 a new respect for Jews and Judaism. But 
 a book of selections, no matter how classical 
 these may be, is not sufficient. I have, 
 therefore, in the press a brief survey of 
 Jewish history. Unfortunately, funds so far 
 in hand for this second publication cover the 
 cost of only 5,000 copies, and 40000 are 
 needed. It is, furthermore, necessary tb 
 circulate the Jewish translation of the Psalms 
 amongst our men, and also copies of the 
 Jewish Version of the Bible. It is nothing 
 short of an infamy that in the past only 
 the Christian translation of the Psalms was 
 available for our men. A fortnight or so
 
 14 
 
 ago, I received by cable permission to make 
 use of the new Jewish Version of the Bible 
 recently issued in America. Judging by the 
 splendid manner in which a few wise-hearted 
 men and women have helped me with the 
 first book, I venture to hope that the per- 
 mission given me by the Jewish Publication 
 Society of America will not remain an empty 
 and valueless privilege. 
 
 A year ago, an appeal for Y. JVL C. A. 
 huts was made in the Synagogues of the 
 Metropolis and Provinces. The Jewish re- 
 sponse for that most worthy charity totalled 
 a Very substantial sum. If a similar amount 
 were forthcoming in this Jewish and 
 patriotic cause for the propagation of 
 Judaism among Jews, for the diffusion of 
 Jewish knowledge among our men at the 
 Front it would mark an epoch in the 
 spiritual history of the Anglo-Jewish com- 
 munity. For, remember, the entire generation 
 ol the men of to-day and to-morrow would
 
 15 
 
 then come to know their Judaism, to love 
 their Judaism, to rejoice and to be happy 
 in their Judaism. What nobler monument 
 to the loved and lost could you raise, what 
 nobler thanksgiving offering on behalf of the 
 loved who are still with us could you bring, 
 than the* providing of such religious litera- 
 ture for our Jewish soldiers and sailors ! 
 
 Hy DfiN ' Ye are my witnesses," we read 
 in our Haphtorah of to-day. On this golden 
 text from the mightiest of prophets, an 
 Anglo-Jewish author a generation ago wrote : 
 " Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, Each 
 Jew and each Jewess is making his or her 
 mark, or his or her stain, upon the wonderful, 
 never-ending history of the Jews. Loyal and 
 steadfast witnesses is it, or self-seeking and 
 suborned ones ? A witness of some sort every 
 Jew born is bound to be." May God incline 
 our hearts to help every endeavour to turn 
 the sons of our people into loyal and steadfast 
 witnesses of God and of Israel's truth among 
 the nations. Amen.
 
 WILLIAMS, LEA A CO., LTD., 
 CLIFTON HOUSE. WORSHIP ST.. LONDON, B.C. 2.