THE OEAL LAW 
 
 AND OTHER SEEMONS
 
 THE OEAL LAW 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV. M. HYAMSON, B.A., LL.B. 
 
 DAYAN OF THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DAVID NUTT, 57-59 LONG ACKE, W.C. 
 1910
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMORY 
 OF MY DEAE PAEENTS
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 ANGLO-JEWISH Homiletic Literature, though consider- 
 ably increased in recent years, is still not so bulky 
 that the addition of this small volume should prove 
 unwelcome. 
 
 The Discourse on the Oral Law, which opens the 
 book and gives it its title, defines the writer's standpoint. 
 As the Oral Law constitutes the life and soul of our 
 religion, it is necessary to uphold and emphasize its 
 authority, at all periods and especially in this age 
 with its disintegrating influences, if Judaism is to be 
 preserved and handed down unimpaired. 
 
 The sermons, a few of which have appeared in the 
 Metropolitan Anglo-Jewish Press, fall into two main 
 divisions. Those in the first half deal with the Sabbath 
 and Festivals ; those in the second, with the Essen- 
 tials of the Eeligious Life the foundations on which, 
 as the sage tells us, the edifice of Judaism is reared, 
 Tordh, Avodah, Gemiluih Chassadim, Study, Worship, 
 Loving-kindness.
 
 viii PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 I trust that these addresses may attain their 
 purpose, and promote love of God, attachment to 
 His Law, and goodwill to all His creatures. 
 
 In conclusion, I tender my thanks to the Chief 
 Eabbi, who kindly read the advance sheets. 
 
 M. HYAMSON. 
 
 Ellul 5670. 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 SKptemher 1910.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE ORAL LAW . 1 
 
 THE SABBATH . . ..... 10 
 
 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT ... 18 
 
 THE POISON OF ASPS ....... 25 
 
 ' SET THY HOUSE IN ORDER ' 32 
 
 'LIFE' 40 
 
 THE FOUR PLANTS 50 
 
 THE SEDER 59 
 
 THE LESSONS OF PASSOVER FOR OUR TIMES ... 65 
 
 KABBI JEHUDAH THE PRINCE 71 
 
 THE NECESSITY FOR EEVELATION 79 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEREMONY ..... 87 
 
 HOME INFLUENCE ....... 94 
 
 THE FATHER'S EECOMPENSE 102 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE SYNAGOGUE .... 110 
 
 THE STUDY OF THE TORAH 116 
 
 JEWISH JUDICIAL PROCEDURE IN ANCIENT TIMES . . 125 
 
 INSTALLATION INTO THE OFFICE OF DAYAN . . . 134 
 
 ' HADST THOU STAYED I MUST HAVE FLED "... 140 
 
 THE SABBATICAL YEAR AND THE JUBILEE . . . 149 
 
 HOSPITAL SABBATH 154 
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA IN MEMORIAM 161 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE IN MEMOHIAM .... 168 
 
 REV. S. SINGER IN MEMORIAM . . . 176
 
 THE ORAL LAW AND 
 OTHER SERMONS 
 
 THE OKAL LAW. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 31, 1901. 
 
 JUST a week since all Israel was celebrating the most 
 important event in the history of mankind the 
 Annunciation of the Divine Will on Sinai. Legis- 
 lator, prophet, psalmist, poet, and sage have vied 
 with each other in doing justice to the grand theme, 
 and have painted in the most vivid and glowing colours 
 the glories of that unique event. It should not, however, 
 be forgotten that the Eevelation hailed though it be 
 by all civilization as the simplest and tersest expression 
 of the larger principles of religion and morality does 
 not exhaust the whole of Judaism. It is but the 
 basis whereon a mighty superstructure has been 
 reared. The whole duty of the Jew is not completed 
 when he renders homage and obedience to the Ten 
 Words. Hence it is that while the Decalogue formed 
 a part of the ancient Temple Liturgy being recited 
 every morning before the Shema attempts made at
 
 2 THE DEAL LAW 
 
 various periods to introduce this practice in congrega- 
 tions outside Jerusalem met with strenuous and 
 successful opposition, on the ground that colour might 
 be lent to the pretension that nothing counted or 
 mattered except what was directly revealed by God 
 on Sinai. 1 
 
 I do not propose to speak this evening of the 
 Decalogue, nor even of Holy Writ, which the followers 
 of the Crescent and the Cross revere equally with 
 ourselves. The theme to which I invite your earnest 
 consideration is of specifically Jewish interest. The 
 subject of my discourse may pre-eminently be styled the 
 Heritage of the Congregation of Jacob. To it applies 
 the Psalmist's text, ' He hath not dealt so with any 
 nation : and as for his judgments, they have not known 
 them.' 2 I refer of course to the Oral Law. 
 
 There is a passage in the Talmud which may be 
 thus rendered : ' " And the Lord said unto Moses, Come 
 up to Me on the Mount and stay there ; and I will 
 give unto thee Tables of Stone, the Law and the 
 Commandments which I have written for their instruc- 
 tion." 3 " The Tables of Stone," this phrase refers to the 
 Ten Commandments ; " The Law," that is the Scrip- 
 ture ; " The Mitzvah " means the Mishnah ; " Their 
 Instruction," that is the Gemara. Hence it may be 
 inferred that all these were delivered to Moses on 
 Sinai.' 4 
 
 What a forced comment on a simple text ! What 
 
 1 Berachoth, 12a, 2 Psalm 147 : 20. 
 
 3 Exod. 24 : 12. 4 Berachoth, 5a.
 
 THE ORAL LAW 3 
 
 a strange gloss on words in themselves so plain and 
 simple ! In its bald literamess, the Talmudic passage 
 will hardly be accepted as historically accurate. And 
 yet the general purport is transparently clear. Our 
 wise men wished to impress on us the antiquity of the 
 Oral Law and a fact far more significant its intimate 
 relation, its close connection, one might almost say 
 its organic unity, with the Scriptures of which it claims 
 to be an authoritative interpretation. 
 
 There are many passages of similar tendency. In 
 one of these we read that whatever the prophets 
 prophesied, whatever the sages taught, they learned 
 from Moses. The introductory paragraph in the 
 Ethics of the Fathers is familiar : ' Moses received 
 the Law from Sinai, delivered it to Joshua. Joshua 
 handed it down to the Elders ; the Elders to the 
 Prophets ; the Prophets to the men of the Great 
 Assembly.' The mighty voice heard on Sinai did not 
 cease. It continued to resound and reverberate 
 throughout the centuries. It is thus bad criticism to 
 contrast the so-called legalism of the Pentateuch with 
 the ethical teaching of the Prophets ; for the self- 
 same spirit that breathed in the Master breathed in 
 the Disciples. And the link of connection between 
 the heroes of the Word during the first Temple, 
 and the conservators of Judaism at a later period, 
 between the Seers, on the one hand, and the Scribes, 
 Doctors of the Mishnah and of the Talmud on the 
 other, is constituted by the Keneseth Haggedolah that 
 counted among its members the last of the prophets, 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE ORAL LAW 
 
 Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and among its latest 
 representatives Simon the Just. 
 
 I do not wish to convey by these remarks that 
 the recognized Judaism of the present day is identical 
 in every detail with the religion of the Prophets or 
 with the Law taught by our first Leader. As with 
 every living organism, so here too, a process of growth 
 and development has taken place. But what, it is 
 submitted, may fairly be claimed, is that the growth 
 and development have been of an evolutionary and 
 not of a revolutionary character. They have been 
 slow and gradual. They have not involved sudden 
 changes or violent breaks from the past. 
 
 This too may be urged, that for the beginnings of 
 the Oral Law, for the roots of tradition, we must 
 go back to Mosaic and indeed to pre-Mosaic times. 
 All laws, before they were reduced to writing, were 
 first and for a long time preserved in the living 
 consciousness of the people. Moreover, a Lex 
 Scripta involved from the outset a Lex Non 
 Scripta in the Jewish, no less than in the Roman 
 and English juridical system. Side by side with 
 the XII Tables and the rigid Jus Civile, there grows 
 up the flexible Jus Honorarium of the Praetorian 
 Jurisdiction. In this country, too, though the law 
 has to a considerable extent been directly built up 
 by statute legislation, yet the bulk of the English 
 Common Law not to speak of Equity consists of 
 customs and usages validated by judicial decisions, 
 and a stream of precedents broadening with the
 
 THE DEAL LAW 5 
 
 course of the ages. Of the two sources, judge-made 
 law is certainly not the inferior in importance. Even 
 now, the full scope and limitation of an Act of 
 Parliament are not determined till after a number of 
 pronouncements on its provisions have been made 
 from the Bench. 
 
 One might be inclined to question the propriety of 
 the analogy just drawn between law and religion. 
 The objection would have force if the religion discussed 
 consisted of nought but a system of theology, moral 
 principles, and ethical ideals. But Judaism is more 
 than this. It is institutional. Much of it consists of 
 rites and ceremonies. It claims to regulate the whole 
 of our lives : ' Thy word is a lamp to my feet, a light 
 to my path.' i If this function was to be efficiently 
 discharged, an Oral Law must have been, from the 
 start, an inevitable concomitant of the Scriptures. 
 Of the numerous illustrations that might be given 
 of this principle, the following may be cited. In 
 Exodus xxii. 31, we read : ' And flesh of an animal 
 found in the field, Terefah, ye shall not eat.' 
 As soon as this rule was enacted, questions could 
 not have failed to arise as to the connotation 
 of the term Terefah ; as to the character and 
 extent of a lesion which would render the flesh of an 
 animal affected unfit for food. The motive of the 
 rule would need investigation and discussion, in order 
 to arrive at a definition which would clearly determine 
 the class of cases that fell within the scope of this 
 
 1 Psalm 119 : 105.
 
 6 THE OEAL LAW 
 
 prohibition and those that lay outside it. The tradi- 
 tional definition PiEnn n*n niD3 |'SK> ^3 ' Any lesion 
 of a mortal character renders an animal Terefah ' 
 seems perfect. 
 
 It is sometimes urged that the Oral Law has 
 imposed restrictions never contemplated in the Mosaic 
 legislation. This is true. The principle of safe- 
 guarding the Law of God by Q^D (fences) is undeni- 
 able. On the other hand^ it must be remembered 
 that tradition has, in several directions, lightened the 
 burdens of the Scriptural rules and mitigated their 
 rigour. The ' Lex Talionis ' is the most familiar 
 example. How frequently do we hear the text quoted, 
 ' Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,' to prove the more 
 than Draconian severity of the Mosaic dispensation. 
 Yet every Jew should know that, according to the 
 traditional interpretation of the phrase, the highest 
 interests of justice were met by the exaction of 
 monetary compensation for all injuries except where 
 life had been wilfully taken. 
 
 The aptest instance of the value of the Oral Law, 
 not merely in explaining the Scriptural enactments but 
 also in rendering their observance practicable, is the 
 institution of the Sabbath. The Bible frequently 
 enjoins us to abstain from work on the day sacred 
 to the Lord. But what constitutes prohibited work ? 
 
 Much ridicule has been poured upon the heads of the 
 unfortunate Eabbis for the amplitude and minute detail 
 of their regulations concerning the Sabbath. But take 
 the alternative. If we discarded tradition and elected
 
 THE OEAL LAW 7 
 
 to walk by the light of the Scripture alone, what would 
 we make of such texts as : ' No man shall go forth from 
 his place on the Sabbath day ' ; T or, ' Ye shall kindle 
 no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath 
 day.' 2 Would the Sabbath be a delight if we shivered 
 in the cold and groped our way in the dark on 
 the long Friday evenings of the winter season, as the 
 Karaites are reputed to do, so as not to infringe the 
 latter prohibition; or if, like that sect of Scriptural- 
 ists, we did not stir from our houses the whole of 
 the long summer Sabbath afternoons ? 
 
 There is no need to pile proof upon proof. Not 
 one institution of Judaism could be kept, the date 
 of no festival could be fixed, and no rite could be 
 properly observed without the aid of an authorita- 
 tive tradition supplementary to the Written Law. 
 
 If these traditions are of such supreme importance, 
 why are they oral ? Would not much controversy 
 have been saved, had the text been accompanied from 
 the beginning by an adequate written commentary 
 embodying the practice of Judaism ? The answer is 
 simple. General principles of religion and morality 
 which command universal assent as soon as they 
 are formulated, and are accepted as theological and 
 ethical axioms that need no demonstration, can be 
 engraved on tablets of stone. They are true for all 
 time, eternal and unchangeable. But the detailed 
 applications of such principles in laws that regulate 
 all the relations of human life in the family, 
 
 1 Exod. 16 : 29. - Ibid. 35 : 3.
 
 8 THE OKAL LAW 
 
 society and the state, cannot be equally rigid, 
 or they run the risk of becoming impracticable 
 and impossible. These must be flexible, and retain 
 an adaptability to meet the infinitely complex, 
 kaleidoscopic changes of circumstances that present 
 themselves to each generation as new problems. 
 To preserve this essential quality of flexibility, 
 the practice of Judaism was entrusted to a living 
 tradition. The Oral Law, by its reverence for the past, 
 conjoined with an openness of view, has conferred on 
 Judaism its catholicity, and secured the homogeneity of 
 communities which, differing accidentally in unimpor- 
 tant details, form in regard to the fundamental principles 
 and larger points of practice, ' One People on Earth.' 
 If any one tells me that he is a follower of the 
 Law of Moses but rejects tradition, I give him credit 
 for the genuineness and sincerity of his professions, 
 but take leave to doubt his readiness to suffer incon- 
 veniences and make sacrifices even for that form of 
 Judaism to which he owns allegiance. And the 
 preservation of our faith undoubtedly demands heavy 
 sacrifices. The first of these is devotion of time and 
 mental energy to learn its requirements. Almost at 
 the beginning of the Prayer Book stand two blessings. 
 In the first, we thank God for having sanctified us 
 with His commandments, and commanded us to 
 occupy ourselves with His Law. In the second, we 
 express gratitude to God for having chosen us from 
 among all peoples and entrusted us with His Law. If 
 we are to merit the privileges expressed in the latter
 
 THE DEAL LAW 9 
 
 blessing, we must be able to recite the former without 
 uneasy qualms of conscience because of duty left undone. 
 An appeal to set apart times and seasons for the 
 study of Judaism may be addressed with especial 
 force to Jewish students at a University. Your 
 stay here proves that you value whatever tends to 
 develop the intellect, refine the mind, and build up 
 character. These ends will be furthered by the study 
 of our sacred literature. Learning not deemed 
 beneath the notice of a Selden or a Milton deserves 
 your keenest interest and closest attention. Many 
 of the congregants here will, it is hoped, help one 
 day, as lay leaders of the community, to mould 
 its policy and shape its destiny. They that pilot 
 the ship should know the charts. Those who 
 would scorn to be blind leaders of the blind, and 
 yet are filled with generous zeal to serve the cause 
 of our race, should seek a first-hand acquaintance 
 with the golden treasury which enshrines the principles 
 and practice of our holy faith ; principles and practice 
 which have been as the very breath of life to our 
 people for centuries and millenniums, and for the 
 preservation of which our noblest men and women 
 have toiled, suffered, ay, gladly laid down their lives. 
 With them may you be able to say : ' In Thy statutes 
 I find my delight ; I will not forget Thy words.' l 
 With them constantly pray : ' Open my eyes that I 
 may see marvellous things in Thy Law.' 2 
 
 Psalm 119 : 16. 2 Ibid. 119 : 18.
 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 ST. JOHN'S WOOD SYNAGOGUE, OCTOBER 5, 1907. 
 
 THE cycle of awe-inspiring days and joyous feasts with 
 which the seventh month is crowded is over ; and on 
 this Sabbath we have resumed the even tenor of our 
 ways by beginning the reading of the Torah in regular 
 sequence. The Sedrah of this morning: how replete it 
 is with charm and interest ! As in a panorama there 
 pass before our mental vision the stages of creation, 
 when the Eternal robed Himself in light as with a 
 garment, stretched forth the Heavens like a curtain, 
 set a bound to the waters, covered the earth with 
 verdure, brought into being living things, and Man, 
 the crown of creation. We have a vivid picture of 
 our first parents in Eden ; ' of man's first disobedience 
 and the fruits of that forbidden tree whose mortal 
 taste brought death into the world.' We are held 
 spellbound by the drama of the first contest, a struggle 
 between brothers which began with jealousy and 
 ended in murder. And the Sedrah concludes with a 
 list of the first ten generations from Adam to Noah 
 and the advanced ages they attained. 
 
 10
 
 THE SABBATH 11 
 
 These accounts of the childhood of the world and 
 the early annals of the human race have, naturally, 
 given rise to much speculation and discussion. I will, 
 however, pass by, as topics of purely academic interest, 
 the various problems of Geology and Genesis, the 
 apparently conflicting testimony of the rocks and of 
 the Scriptures, the site of Paradise, the various 
 interpretations literal or allegorical of the story 
 of the Tree of Knowledge, and the commandment 
 connected with it. I will rather invite your atten- 
 tion to a living problem of paramount and pressing 
 importance that may fitly be discussed, not merely 
 on this, but on every Sabbath in the year. I refer 
 to the Sabbath itself and its observance, to which 
 there is an allusion in this morning's portion, in a 
 passage read every Friday evening in the syna- 
 gogue and at home : ' And the heaven and earth were 
 finished and all their host, and on the seventh day 
 God had finished His work which He had made ; 
 and He rested on the seventh day from all His work 
 which He had made. And God blessed the seventh 
 day, and hallowed it, because He rested thereon 
 from all His work which God had created and made.' l 
 
 At the close of the six days of creation, the earth 
 was, in its pristine freshness and beauty, like a bride. 
 It was resplendent with the primeval light that shone 
 on throughout the night to the close of the seventh 
 day. And that day was the predestined Sabbath. 
 
 1 Gen. 2 : 1-3.
 
 12 THE SABBATH 
 
 It was not to be spent in vacuous idleness. The 
 surcease from secular occupations and interests was 
 to furnish the opportunity for refreshment of the 
 spirit, communion with the Soul of the Universe, the 
 hallowing of human life. 
 
 When was the Sabbath first kept by our fore- 
 fathers ? The interpretation of the opening passage 
 in the Sabbath morning Amidah gives the answer. 
 There we read : ' Moses rejoiced in the gift of his 
 portion, for Thou didst call him a faithful servant ; 
 a diadem of glory didst Thou place upon his head 
 when he stood before Thee on Mount Sinai. And in 
 his hand he brought down two tables of stone upon 
 which was inscribed the observance of the Sabbath.' 
 The obvious question is : Why should the Lawgiver 
 have especially rejoiced at the inclusion of the Fourth 
 Commandment in the Decalogue ? Was not the 
 knowledge that he had been chosen God's messenger 
 abundant cause in itself for felicitation ? An ancient 
 tradition throws light on the problem. The Midrash 
 describes Moses' profound grief when, arrived at man's 
 estate, he left the palace and looked upon his kinsfolks' 
 misery. But how alleviate it ? Was he to demand 
 of Pharaoh the release of the Hebrews ? The monarch 
 would have laughed his appeal to scorn. The distance 
 between palace and hut was too wide for mutual 
 understanding and sympathy. The young man's wise 
 head and kind heart evolved a more practical plan. 
 In his audience with Pharaoh he began with congratu- 
 lations to the king on his living sources of wealth.
 
 THE SABBATH 13 
 
 ' These slaves dig your fields, make your bricks, build 
 your treasure-cities.' The monarch looked gratified. 
 ' But,' continued Moses, after a pause, ' what a pity 
 that all this living wealth, all this productive capital, 
 will soon disappear.' ' How so ? ' asked Pharaoh, 
 somewhat perturbed. ' Your Hebrew slaves,' replied 
 the prince, ' labour incessantly from early morn 
 to dewy eve, day by day, week by week, month 
 after month, year in, year out, without pause or 
 intermission. At no distant date they will sink 
 exhausted under their burden of toil.' ' Have you a 
 remedy ? ' ' Certainly. Give the serfs a holiday 
 every seventh day, and you will find that, recuperated 
 by twenty-four hours' complete repose, they will return 
 to their appointed tasks with renewed vigour, like 
 giants refreshed.' Pharaoh adopted the counsel. 
 And thus already in Egypt our forefathers kept a 
 weekly day of rest. Later on, when Israel's Emanci- 
 pator brought his people to the foot of Sinai to 
 receive the Law of God, what joy filled his soul when 
 he found that the concession his sympathetic heart had 
 gained for his people on the banks of the Nile, had 
 been raised to the dignity of a place in the Decalogue, 
 and had become a central institution of Judaism. 
 
 It is indeed impossible to overrate the import- 
 ance of the Sabbath. Its sanctity takes precedence 
 of duty to parents : ' Everyone, revere his father 
 and mother, but My Sabbaths ye shall observe.' 1 
 The narrative of the erection of a sanctuary to God 
 
 1 Lev. 19 : 3.
 
 14 THE SABBATH 
 
 that He might dwell in Israel's midst is introduced 
 with the exhortation to labour only six days and 
 keep the seventh day holy to God. 1 Whoever violates 
 the Day of Atonement is left to the judgment of Heaven. 
 But the profanation of the Sabbath entails the ex- 
 treme penalty of the law. 2 Nehemiah, cup-bearer to 
 Persia's king, and, on the exiles' return, governor of 
 Jerusalem, notes that he closed the gates of the 
 city on Friday afternoons to check trading on the 
 Sabbath.3 
 
 After Biblical times, what an important part the 
 Day of Best has played throughout the Middle Ages 
 down to our own days in preserving Israel's courage, 
 hopefulness, and self-respect. The weary and footsore 
 traveller, arrived home on Friday, flings down the pack 
 that bent his back, and at the same time emerges 
 from the slough of despond and casts off the burden of 
 anxieties which have worn furrows in his face. He dons 
 festival attire and wends his way to the House of God 
 to greet the Bride. Then he returns home no longer 
 a humble dwelling, but a palace glorious with light. 
 The modest repast a rich banquet ; the churl, emanci- 
 pated, a king among men. Who, with fairy's magic 
 wand, has wrought the marvellous transformation ? 
 Who other than gracious Queen Sabbath ? She it is 
 who has filled his dwelling with light and his heart 
 with joy, conferred upon him a broad outlook upon 
 life, a calm and just perception of the harmony of 
 the universe and an appreciation of man's place in it. 
 
 1 Exod. 35 : 2. - Ibid. s Nehem. 13 : 15-22.
 
 THE SABBATH 15 
 
 She has given the humble toiler a foretaste of Heaven 
 upon earth. Two angels, according to the Talmudic 
 legend, one benevolent, the other malevolent accom- 
 pany the Israelite home on Friday evening. If they 
 find the dwelling prepared for the Sabbath, lights 
 kindled, tables decked, the good angel pronounces the 
 blessing : ' May it be so here next Friday even- 
 ing.' And his fellow-spirit confirms the benediction, 
 albeit grudgingly, with an Amen ! But where all is 
 dark and gloomy, where Friday night is not different 
 from other nights, the evil angel sneers : ' So will it 
 be next Friday evening,' and the good angel sadly 
 acquiesces Amen ! The legend, in its garb of Oriental 
 imagery, embodies a psychological truth. No human 
 effort is devoid of consequence. Every act facilitates 
 its repetition. Frequent repetition engenders a habit 
 which becomes part of our innermost self, warp and 
 woof of our soul's very fabric. Just as the stone 
 cast into a pond produces ever-widening ripples, so 
 our influence for good or evil radiates in every 
 direction ; our deeds make or mar not only our own 
 lives, but also those of children, relatives, friends, 
 acquaintances, and even strangers. Where the Sabbath 
 is sacred to the Lord and Friday evening is honoured 
 and revered, where parents by their example foster 
 their children's spiritual growth, they can confidently 
 cherish the hope : ' So will it be next Friday night 
 and many Friday nights.' After they have gone to 
 their eternal Sabbath, their memory will be fragrant, 
 their influence will continue to be felt, for the
 
 16 THE SABBATH 
 
 traditional observances which they practised will be 
 lovingly perpetuated by their descendants. But 
 where the beautiful Friday night home service has 
 been permitted to fall into abeyance, it may be 
 predicted with certainty that as it is this Friday 
 evening so will it be next Friday evening. There 
 is indeed reason to fear, that in the third genera- 
 tion, at the furthest, another branch will have 
 fallen from the ancestral tree, another family be 
 lost to the House of Israel. And evil example is 
 contagious, and spreads from class to class. Thirty 
 and forty years ago, London Jewry enjoyed the respect 
 of the Gentile community for an almost uniform 
 
 observance of the Sabbath. And now ? Mr. Evans, 
 
 the Factory Inspector, recently testified before a 
 Labour Commission that a seven-days working week 
 was not uncommon among a section of the Jewish 
 tailors in Soho. The statement needs qualification. 
 Work in that quarter is neither so plentiful nor so 
 regular as frequently to necessitate seven days' work 
 in the week. But the statement could not have been 
 made had the Sabbath been scrupulously observed. 
 Again, while formerly Jewish firms took co-religionists 
 into service, to the mutual advantage of employer 
 and employes, conforming Jews now have the utmost 
 difficulty in obtaining positions for their children, 
 where they can earn a livelihood without violating 
 their religion. Some heads of firms, realizing the 
 terrible anomaly of Jews insisting on desecration of the 
 Sabbath as a sine qua non condition of employment,
 
 THE SABBATH 17 
 
 cut the Gordian knot by altogether refusing to take 
 Jewish lads. 
 
 The pity is that this violation of a most sacred 
 institution seems so needless. Saturday afternoon is 
 already a recognized half-holiday. The increasing 
 tendency to spend the week-end away from London 
 reduces trade during the few morning hours to a 
 minimum. A combined effort on the part of the 
 decadents to recover the old-fashioned Sabbath, with 
 its precious influence, is worth making and might be 
 blessed with success. A few years ago it was suggested 
 that Sabbath rest should form a plank in the platform 
 of Jewish trade-unions. But in order that a movement 
 in this direction might have a chance of winning, the 
 impulse must come from above. The middle classes 
 must set the example. I am confident that those 
 here present do not stand in need of these exhorta- 
 tions. I trust, however, that my words may travel 
 beyond the walls of this sacred edifice and reach the 
 hearts and consciences of all who now unfortunately 
 feel themselves compelled to break the Fourth Com- 
 mandment, so that they too may endeavour to earn 
 the blessing of the Prince of Prophets : ' If thou wilt 
 turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing 
 thy pleasure on My holy day . . . then shalt thou 
 delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee to 
 ride upon the high places of the earth and feed thee 
 with the heritage of Jacob thy father ; for the mouth 
 of the Lord hath spoken it.' l 
 
 1 Is. 58 : 13-14. 
 

 
 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, KOSH HASHANAH, 5GG2. 
 
 'The nobles of the peoples are gathered together; even the 
 people of the God of Abraham ; for unto God belong the shields of 
 the earth; He is greatly exalted.' J 
 
 How appropriate to the day is this text, and indeed 
 the whole psalm from which it is taken, which we shall 
 recite to-morrow, before the sounding of the Shofar. 
 On this feast, Israel the noblest of nations is 
 gathered together in his tens, hundreds, thousands, in 
 humble rooms and magnificent temples, to acclaim God 
 as the Sovereign of the Universe, to declare that ' to 
 Him belong the shields of the earth, and that He is 
 greatly exalted.' To-day is the Anniversary of Creation, 
 a feast of joy. But the joy is mingled with anxiety 
 and terror, for ' God sitteth on His holy throne.' 2 The 
 fate of nations and individuals, principalities and 
 powers, trembles in the balance. In the homely but 
 touching simile of this morning's liturgy : ' Even as a 
 shepherd counts his flock, causing the lambs to pass 
 one by one under his staff, so on this day, God visits 
 and numbers and marks all His living creatures ; 
 decides the destiny of each ; determines who is to 
 
 1 Psalm 47 : 9. 2 Ibid. 47 : 8. 
 
 18
 
 19 
 
 live and who to die ; who is to languish on the 
 couch of suffering, and who is to enjoy the inestimable 
 boon of health ; who is to endure anxiety, and who 
 be blessed with freedom from care ; who is to be 
 enriched, and who impoverished ; who aggrandized, 
 and who abased.' 
 
 We read in the Talmud * that when Eabbi Jochanan 
 ben Zaccai was on his deathbed, the disciples assembled 
 around him noted his deep dejection, and marvelled 
 exceedingly. ' Light of Israel, firm and upright 
 Pillar, mighty Hammer, wherefore dost thou weep ? ' 
 And the master replied : ' If I were summoned before 
 an earthly tribunal, would I not have cause for alarm ? 
 And yet, at the worst, were I even condemned, what 
 can man do unto me ? The judge might order me 
 to be imprisoned ; but my durance would not last 
 beyond the brief span of my earthly pilgrimage. He 
 might sentence me to be punished with stripes ; but 
 torture, too, has its limits. When pain passes a definite 
 point, blessed unconsciousness supervenes. He could 
 adjudge me to be put to death. My body would then 
 be reduced to dust and ashes, but the nobler part, the 
 immortal soul, would burst its bonds and wing its way 
 to realms of light and bliss eternal. And yet would 
 not alarm be natural under such circumstances ? How 
 much more so, when I am about to appear before 
 the Supreme Judge, the King of Kings, Whose power 
 over me is infinite and everlasting, and from Whose 
 hand I cannot escape.' 
 
 1 Berachoth, 286. 
 
 o 2
 
 20 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT 
 
 If a sage, scholar, and saint like Eabbi Jochanan, 
 the saviour of Judaism after the destruction of the 
 second Temple, whose whole life was devoted to the 
 promotion of religion and morality, to the service of 
 God and mankind, felt so absolutely unprepared 
 to meet his Maker, what shall we say, conscious as 
 we are of our manifold frailties and imperfections, 
 confess as we must that our lives are, for the most 
 part, heedless and careless, wilful, wayward and self- 
 centred ? In the words of the ancient saying : ' If 
 the conflagration has enveloped the cedars, will not 
 the tongues of flame lick the hyssop that grows in the 
 crevices of the wall ? The leviathan of the deep 
 has been caught on the harpooner's hook. The 
 minnows that sport in the mire of the sands on the 
 seashore can they escape their doom ? ' 1 
 
 This aspect of the New Year and the sentiments to 
 which it gives rise find expression in the following 
 passage from the Midrash : ' Wherefore/ asked the 
 ministering angels, ' does not Israel chant the Hallel 
 on the New Year, as on other feasts and new moons ? ' 
 And the Holy One replied: 'The King sits on the 
 throne of judgment ; the laooks of life and death are 
 open before Him. Is this a meet season for singing 
 jooyus songs ? ' 
 
 But there is another side to this day. The New 
 Year is not only the Day of Judgment, the beginning 
 of the awe-inspiring season. It is also a feast. 
 
 1 Moed Katon, 256.
 
 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT 21 
 
 Nehemiah bids the returned exiles who worshipped 
 in the Temple at Jerusalem, not be disquieted nor 
 grieve, ' for to-day is holy to our God.' l Paradoxical 
 though it may seem, the very thought that this day has 
 been set apart for judgment, should fill our souls with 
 joy ; for it is a mark, not of God's anger, but of His 
 infinite love. For, consider, does the Eternal Whose 
 glance sweeps the whole universe in a single instant 
 of time, Who searches the reins and innermost recesses 
 of our hearts does He need a special season for 
 judging His creatures ? Does He require to summon 
 witnesses, sift evidence, and clear up issues ? If, 
 nevertheless, He has appointed an annual Day of 
 Judgment, it is for our sake, not for His. Our 
 Heavenly Father does not desire that His children 
 should stagger beneath the load of sin, the burden of 
 guilt, which, as time rolls on, increases in weight, 
 till at last it threatens to crush us. While we 
 are still on the brink, before it is too late, His loving 
 hand would snatch us from the abyss, place us 
 on safe, firm ground, and set us on the path that 
 leads upward. And therefore has this period been 
 appointed for introspection and retrospection, for 
 looking into our hearts, scrutinizing our past, for 
 quiet meditation, earnest reflection, searching self- 
 examination. 'Sound the Shofar on the new moon 
 at the beginning of the month, on our feast ; for 
 the Judgment of the God of Jacob is an ordinance 
 for Israel,' 2 i.e. for Israel's good. 
 
 1 Nehem. 8 : 10. 2 Psalm 81 : 3-4.
 
 22 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Will we be wise and consider ? Will we take the 
 hand that is lovingly extended to us, and utilize the 
 opportunity presented by this season of grace for 
 repentance and return ? Will we indeed institute a 
 searching self-examination ? 
 
 The task to which we are invited is far from 
 pleasant or flattering to our vanity. Memory will 
 recall many a word that should have remained un- 
 spoken, many a deed that we would wish undone. 
 And these recollections will, like accusing spectres, 
 gibingly point the finger of scorn at us, and mock- 
 ingly ask : ' Do you really believe that this season 
 can effect the miracle of a radical change in your 
 character ? Can you burst the bond of sin and break 
 the fetters of iniquity ? Can you change evil habits 
 that have become a second nature, part of your very 
 selves ? ' And we put the suggestions of the Adver- 
 sary behind us and humbly make reply : ' Conscious 
 are we of our weakness, but strong in our reliance on 
 God's mercy. Though our good deeds be few, and 
 our misdeeds numerous as the hairs of our heads, 
 though our merits be light as air, and our failings 
 heavy as the sand on the seashore, yet, out of the 
 boundless treasury of infinite love reserved for the 
 unworthy, our Heavenly Father will take the attributes 
 of mercy and forgiveness, place them in the scale, 
 arid redress the balance in our favour.' 
 
 But only on certain conditions will He do this, that 
 we make the first move, and take the first step ; that 
 we do not deceive~ourselves, nor extenuate our faults.
 
 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT 23 
 
 Our repentance must be sincere. The test of this 
 sincerity and its reward are indicated in the prophets' 
 exhortations : ' Let the wicked abandon his way, and 
 the man of iniquity his thoughts, and return to God, 
 and He will have mercy upon him ; to our God, for 
 He will abundantly pardon.' l ' Who is like unto Thee, 
 God, Who forgiveth iniquity, and pardoneth trans- 
 gression, doth not keep His anger for ever, for He 
 delighteth in loving kindness. He will again have 
 compassion upon us, suppress our iniquity, cast our 
 sins into the depths of the sea, so that they be not 
 remembered nor recalled, nor brought up against us 
 for ever.' 2 
 
 Almighty Father, send down Thy richest heavenly 
 blessings upon Thy children, who are here assembled to 
 usher in the New Year with joy ; joy mingled with awe. 
 Grant that this year may be a year of peace, plenty and 
 prosperity to us, all Israel, and all mankind. Sustain 
 us with Thy open, holy, liberal hand, that we may not 
 stand in need of the gifts of flesh and blood, nor of their 
 loans. Let thy gracious influence rest upon our work, 
 so that whatever we undertake may be begun in Thy 
 name and completed to Thy glory. Bless the august 
 ruler of this realm. Endow his ministers with the 
 spirit of wisdom and understanding, insight and fore- 
 sight, counsel and might, strength of will and firmness 
 of purpose, to further the best interests of the Empire. 
 
 1 Is. 55 : 7. - Micah 7 : 18-13.
 
 24 THE DAY OF JUDGMENT 
 
 Speedily put an end to the war of class against class, 
 the strife of factions, the jealousies of parties, the 
 antagonism of sects, the enmities of nations. May all 
 mankind form one band, one brotherhood, to serve 
 Thee in sincerity and truth. Let all acknowledge 
 Thee Sovereign of the Universe, and proclaim that to 
 the God of Jacob belong the shields of the earth, and 
 that He is indeed exalted. Amen.
 
 THE POISON OF ASPS. 
 
 THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE, SABBATH OF REPENTANCE, 1908. 
 
 ONCE upon a time, it is related in the Midrash, 1 
 a peripatetic vendor of drugs cried out in the villages 
 near Sepphoris, ' Who wants the elixir of life ? Who 
 seeks the elixir of life ? ' Presently a large crowd 
 gathered about him, eager to secure the marvellous 
 potion that promised perpetual youth. The merchant 
 drew forth from his bosom a tiny but precious volume, 
 the collection of Songs and Supplications that bears 
 the name of Jesse's son ; opened it at the 34th 
 Psalm, and recited the verses : ' Who is the man 
 who desireth life, loveth days to see happiness ? 
 Guard thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking 
 guile. Turn from evil and do good ; seek peace and 
 pursue it.' 2 
 
 >.-. My brethren, human creatures our co-religionists 
 not excepted are proverbially impatient of reproof. 
 When a sage in Israel exclaimed : ' I wonder whether 
 this generation possesses anyone gifted with the 
 capacity for exhortation,' another countered with the 
 
 1 Lev. Rabba, Parshath Metzora. - Psalm 34 : 13-15.
 
 26 THE POISON OF ASPS 
 
 question : ' I wonder if anyone at the present day will 
 accept rebuke. Tell a man to remove a splinter from 
 between his teeth, and he will retort straightway, 
 " Kemove the beam from between thine eyes." ' l 
 Hence, those, it was said, are popular who refrain 
 from fault-finding. There are, however, seasons when 
 the duty of plain speaking cannot, with a clear 
 conscience, be evaded. Such a time is the present. 
 For the past month, the Shofar has called the most 
 listless and heedless to earnest reflection. This morn- 
 ing's lesson from the Prophets begins : ' Keturn, 
 Israel, to thy God, for thou hast stumbled through 
 thy iniquities.' 2 On the holiest day of the year, the 
 Sabbath of Sabbaths, the Feast of ^Reconciliation, 
 which will be celebrated in another seven days, we 
 shall hear the monition of the prince of prophets : 
 ' Cry aloud and spare not : lift up thy voice like a 
 trumpet and declare to my people their transgression, 
 to the House of Jacob their sins.' 3 
 
 Where begin ? General exhortations are ineffective. 
 Hearers take them as little to heart as they do the 
 alphabetical confessions, which are repeated so glibly 
 and applied by so few to their own individual lives. 
 Again, to descend from the general to the particular 
 would be impracticable in a short space of time. 
 For, even as men differ in physical conformation, in 
 lineaments of features, so they vary infinitely in cast 
 of mind, character and disposition, in circumstances 
 and environments, in their opportunities for good and 
 
 1 Erachin, 166. - Hosea 14 : 1. 3 Is. 58 : 1.
 
 THE POISON OF ASPS 27 
 
 evil, in the temptations which they resist or to which 
 they fall victims. 
 
 One class of faults, however, is so comprehensive, 
 is the root of such dire mischief, inflicts so much 
 misery on individuals and families, sometimes even 
 wrecks and ruins entire communities, and, alas, is so 
 general and widespread that, by directing attention to it 
 on the Sabbath of Penitence, the preacher cannot fail 
 to hit the mark, and so fulfil the purpose of the day. 
 These faults may be summarised in one phrase : The 
 abuse of the tongue. 
 
 What a wondrous gift is speech, the distinguish- 
 ing mark of Divine favour that makes man pre- 
 eminent over the brute creation ! rpn PBJ^ in the text, 
 ' Man became a living soul,' 1 is rendered by the Targum, 
 yhbnD nrb, ' a spirit gifted with speech.' Eve was 
 thus called because she was the mother of all that 
 speak. Progress and civilization are due to this faculty, 
 without which ordered thought would be impossible. 
 Without capacity for giving articulate expression to 
 complex sensations, emotions and thoughts, human 
 communication is inconceivable. And by spoken 
 language and its written symbols, knowledge is 
 transmitted, so that children begin where their fathers 
 left off. One generation tells the tale to another, 
 and on the sure foundation of the accumulated ex- 
 periences of the past, new and yet newer storeys are 
 successively added to the magnificent temple of science. 
 
 Marvellous as is this noble endowment, to what 
 
 1 Gen. 2 : 7.
 
 28 THE POISON OF ASPS 
 
 base uses is it not too frequently degraded ! How 
 ignoble is its service when men waste the fleeting 
 hours in idle, frivolous, hare-brained chatter ! And 
 this too is venial compared with the scandal-monger- 
 ing, tale-bearing, and deliberate falsehood, in which 
 some indulge. These pernicious practices are not 
 limited to any class. Mischiefs that proceed from the 
 abuse of the tongue are rampant among poor and rich, 
 high and low, distinguished and obscure. At the 
 tea-table, how frequently is the beverage flavoured 
 with a dish of more or less mild, more or less spicy, 
 scandal. And the disparaging story, as it passes 
 from one to another, is rolled in the mouth with intense 
 gusto, as if it were a dainty tit-bit or toothsome 
 morsel. Individuals with pretensions to culture deem it 
 no offence against good taste and morals to whisper 
 insinuations against the absent, with whom they have 
 broken bread, little recking that the poisoned arrow of 
 slander, lightly shot forth, slays at a distance, and the 
 live coal of calumny, dropped with studied carelessness, 
 can reduce a town to ashes. No need to quote many 
 passages from Holy Writ and Eabbinic lore in con- 
 demnation of these vile practices. David, that sufferer 
 from detraction, brands certain types in terms of 
 biting irony : ' Their inward parts are destruction ; a 
 yawning grave is their throat ; their tongues are 
 slippery.' * Woe to any reputation discussed by such 
 persons. No character once in their mouths can hope 
 for rehabilitation. Again, he says : ' Who speaks 
 
 1 Psalm 5 : 10.
 
 THE POISON OF ASPS 29 
 
 evil secretly of his neighbour, him will I cut off.' l And 
 yet again : ' God will cut off the smooth lips.' 3 I shall 
 refrain from repeating his terrible imprecations on the 
 evil tongue. I will rather deal with the theme on a 
 pleasanter side. The 15th Psalm draws the picture 
 of a good man. Ifc begins : ' Lord, who will sojourn 
 in Thy tent, who will abide on Thy holy mountain ? ' 
 As Judah Muscato paraphrases it : 3 ' How shall a man 
 comport himself that he may win happiness on earth, 
 God's tent and bliss in Heaven His Holy Mount ? ' 
 The reply is first given in general terms : ' He who 
 walks uprightly ' ; that is, fulfils his duty to God, with 
 Whom we are enjoined to be upright ; ' does justice,' 
 which sums up duty to one's neighbour ; ' and speaks 
 truth in his heart,' which comprehends duty to self. The 
 Psalmist then gives detailed illustrations of these general 
 headings. And what does he first say concerning 
 the good man ? ' He has not borne tales on his tongue.' 
 Note that tale-bearing is prohibited even if the tale 
 be true. Truth is no justification for slander, if the 
 public interest is not served by publication. The 
 modicum of truth makes tale-bearing more dangerous 
 than the dissemination of downright, unmitigated 
 falsehood. For it is just this element of truth that 
 serves as the handle which drives the lie home, to the 
 undoing of honourable reputations. 
 
 My friends, if slander and tale-bearing are suffi- 
 ciently heinous, how much more reprehensible is the 
 
 1 Psalm 101 : 5. 2 Ibid. 12 : 4. 
 
 3 In the Nefutzoth Jehudah, Discourse 11.
 
 30 THE POISON OF ASPS 
 
 encouragement of these offences. The receiver is 
 worse than the thief, for his den is a training-school 
 for thieves. And the evil tongue would soon cease to 
 distil venom if there were no ears greedy to receive 
 the poison. Calumny would be silenced if it were 
 checked by the frown of honest indignation. Of 
 equal importance with the prohibition, ' Thou shalt 
 not go about as a tale-bearer among thy people,' l is 
 the injunction, ' Thou shalt not receive an evil 
 report. '2 
 
 Slander slays three persons the slandered, the 
 slanderer, and the listener. Saul is the classic instance. 
 Doeg the Edomite carries the tale to Saul that 
 Ahimelech had succoured David, given him and his 
 men the show-bread, entrusted him with Goliath's sword. 
 The tale is true. The immediate consequence of its re- 
 cital is the massacre of eighty-four priests of Nob. The 
 tale-bearer, according to tradition, meets with a violent 
 death. The king does not escape. On the eve of 
 the battle of Gilboa, Saul inquires of the Lord. But 
 the oracles are silent. The Urim and Tummim give no 
 reply. And after the disastrous defeat, Saul implores 
 his armour-bearer : ' Stand up and slay me, for the 
 terror Hashavatz has seized me.' Hasliavatz is con- 
 nected by the Aggadah with the Hebrew term for the 
 gold-embroidered robes of the priests. The bitterness 
 of defeat was intensified by agonizing remorse. The 
 phantoms of the murdered priests of Nob, the anointed 
 of the Lord, reproach the king, anointed of the Lord. 
 
 1 Lev. 19 : 16. 2 Exod. 23 : 1.
 
 THE POISON OF ASPS 31 
 
 And the original cause of the mischief was the 
 readiness to receive calumny. 
 
 How shall we avoid these faults ? How restrain 
 the active organ, which is so unruly despite ivory 
 bars and coral gates. A vow of perpetual silence is 
 the Trappist device. But that would be to slay a 
 noble faculty given for use, enjoyment, and improve- 
 ment. To flee from intercourse with one's fellows 
 would mean to escape one danger, only to fall into a 
 worse peril. The anchorite in the desert, the solitary in 
 the cell, have their peculiar temptations. The fiends 
 of evil imagination enter the empty chambers of the 
 mind and run riot there. Man is a social creature, 
 sent here not to save his own soul only, but to 
 improve his kind. 
 
 One prophylactic exists against abuse of speech. 
 Fill your hearts with love of God and reverence for 
 His holy name. Exercise your lips and tongues in 
 the recital of His sacred words ; always endeavour to 
 carry out His will. For Satan only finds mischief for 
 idle hands, vacant minds, empty hearts and lives. Do 
 you ' desire life, do you love days to see happiness ? ' 
 Not only guard tongues and lips from guile. Not only 
 turn from evil, but be active in well-doing. So 
 will you seek peace and pursue it, peace with your 
 consciences, peace with your fellow-beings, peace with 
 your Heavenly Father, the Lord of Peace.
 
 'SET THY HOUSE IN OEDER.' 
 
 GREAT SYNAGOGUE, SEPTEMBER 14, 1901. 
 
 A SPEAKER recently made use, on a public platform, 
 of the well-known line, ' A thing of beauty is a joy 
 for ever.' Turning to the chair he added : ' Of course, 
 the noble chairman knows whence this quotation 
 comes.' But the peer smiled sweetly and shook his 
 head in disclaimer. The speaker then addressed 
 the same inquiry to friends on the right and the 
 left, the one a bishop, the other a judge. But the 
 man learned in the law as well as the scholar in 
 divinity mutely disclaimed knowledge of the source 
 of the familiar sentence. Then some one in the 
 audience shouted out : ' It 's in the Bible.' That was 
 wrong, for the line is from John Keats. The error, 
 however, was excusable, for the sacred Scriptures 
 are studded on every page with exquisite gems of 
 thought set in perfect phrase, with sentences replete 
 with wisdom, that have imprinted themselves on the 
 minds and hearts of millions, and become part of 
 the treasury of our common English tongue. 
 
 Tempting though the theme be, it is not germane 
 to the subject of my discourse to expatiate on the 
 
 32
 
 ' SET THY HOUSE IN OEDEE ' 33 
 
 influence which the Bible has exercised on the language 
 of the people. I propose, however, to take one of these 
 popular phrases as my text. 
 
 How often and in what various connections do we 
 not hear the exhortation, ' Put your house in order ' ? 
 Private individuals, municipalities, high officers of state 
 are frequently enjoined to put their houses in order. 
 Whence comes the phrase ? It is found in two places in 
 the Bible : in the Second Book of Kings xx. 1, and 
 in the parallel passage, Isaiah xxxviii. 1. By whom 
 and to whom was it uttered, and on what occasion ? 
 The context furnishes the reply. Hezekiah was 
 stretched on the couch of sickness. By the command 
 of God, the prophet Isaiah visited him and said : ' Set 
 thy house in order, for thou shalt die and not live.' 
 ' Set thy house in order,' that is, settle thy affairs, 
 make thy last will and testament, for thy last hour is 
 nigh. Does Hezekiah follow this counsel? No. In 
 the words of our wise men, he bids the prophet begone 
 with his dark and gloomy vaticinations. ' Thus have 
 I received the tradition from my ancestor, King David, 
 that even when the sword's sharp edge is at a man's 
 throat, he should not abandon hope or give way to 
 despair.' 1 David had been in many a sore plight 
 and dire strait. He had prayed to God and God 
 had helped him. ' That example I shall follow,' said 
 Hezekiah. He turns his face to the wall, and with 
 bitter tears pours out his heart in supplication to 
 God. And again he receives a message that God 
 
 1 Berachoth, 10a. 
 
 D
 
 34 ' SET THY HOUSE IN OEDEE ' 
 
 has seen his tears, heard his cries, answered his prayers, 
 and years would be added to his life. 
 
 Hezekiah is praised by the sacred historian as an 
 exemplary king who purged Judaea of its idolatry, re- 
 stored the worship of the true God, and was especially 
 zealous for religious education, so that it was said, 
 that in his days, from Dan to Beersheba, none could 
 be found unlearned in the Law. 1 Still, good man 
 though Hezekiah undoubtedly was, and weighty as 
 were the services he rendered to Israel and Israel's 
 faith, he was but a human being with a human 
 being's limitations and imperfections. Of six innova- 
 tions only three were approved. 2 Even in the prayer 
 he utters on his sick-bed, he is unduly conscious of 
 his merits : ' See how I have walked before Thee in 
 sincerity and truth, and have done that which is 
 right in Thine eyes.' He recovers. Messengers come, 
 bringing congratulations from Merodach Baladan, 
 king of Babylon, and vanity induces him to show 
 the strangers all the treasures of the House of the 
 Lord. When Isaiah points out to the king that this 
 foolish ostentation must provoke the visitors' cupidity 
 and that Jerusalem would ultimately fall a prey to 
 the Chaldean's lust for conquest and plunder, Hezekiah 
 weakly asks, ' Will there be peace in my days ? ' and, 
 on receiving an affirmative reply, is resigned. The 
 verdict on Hezekiah will be that he was a good man 
 who rendered great services to his people, but that, at 
 the same time, he committed serious mistakes, and 
 that his character was marred by grave defects. 
 
 1 Sanhedrin, 946. - Pesachim, 56a.
 
 ' SET THY HOUSE IN OEDEE ' 35 
 
 Whether the first part of this criticism applies to us 
 or not, certainly the second does. Our lives resemble 
 the life of the king of Judah by reason of the errors 
 innumerable we commit and the flaws that mar our 
 characters. To us as to the king comes the prophet's 
 message : ' Set thy house in order.' The monition 
 should appeal with special force at this season ; a 
 solemn, awe-inspiring season, which is, at the same 
 time, a season of grace. 
 
 On the New Year three books are open before the 
 tribunal of the august Judge. 1 In the first are inscribed 
 the names of the Tsaddikim, the righteous ; in the 
 second are written the names of the reprobates. But the 
 third volume is the bulkiest, for it contains the list of 
 those who belong to neither of the above categories, 
 who are neither white as the driven snow nor black as 
 the raven. The judgment of these last is deferred. 
 Their fate is in suspense. Time and respite are 
 afforded them to set their houses in order. And if 
 they avail themselves, before the advent of the Day of 
 Atonement, of the opportunity and repent, they too 
 are inscribed with the righteous in the Book of Life. 
 
 To this intermediate class, brethren, do not the 
 preponderating majority belong ? We dare not write 
 ourselves down reprobates, beyond the hope of 
 redemption. But we are not so foolish as to call 
 ourselves saints. ' Come to Heshbon.' Let us for a 
 moment consider our modes of life. Assume that 
 the worshippers in this synagogue are strict observers 
 of the Sabbath and hold the feasts of the Lord in 
 
 1 Rosh Hashanah, 166. 
 
 D2
 
 36 ' SET THY HOUSE IN OEDEE ' 
 
 reverence and honour, and that with Ezekiel they 
 can say that forbidden food has never passed their 
 lips. 1 But do these exhaust all the virtues and sum up 
 all the duties of an Israelite ? What of our relations to 
 our fellow-men ? Does the tradesman deal with strict 
 honesty, never taking advantage of his customers' ignor- 
 ance, never betraying or abusing the confidence reposed 
 in his integrity ? Does the workman never scamp his 
 work ? Does the master always remember that his 
 employes are not machines but living beings, not mere 
 'hands ' but fellow-creatures for whose well-being he is 
 responsible to them and to God Almighty ? In the keen 
 race of life, does each one keep strictly to the straight 
 and narrow path marked out for him ? Do we never 
 unfairly trip up our competitors, forgetting that the 
 prize, gained unworthily, is itself worthless ? And in 
 the social sphere, do we always humbly strive to realize 
 the prayers uttered thrice daily : ' 0, my God, guard 
 my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking 
 guile ' ? Do we fasten a bridle on our tongue and a 
 lock on our lips, so that no word of slander, detraction, 
 or disparagement shall escape them; no malicious, 
 thoughtless expression that shall prejudice our neigh- 
 bour's material interests or bring the blush of shame 
 to his cheek ? And if we are so exceptionally fortunate, 
 if our circumstances are so easy and our temperament 
 is so placid, that we can lay the flattering unction to 
 our soul, that we are free from these faults, do we 
 not suffer from spiritual conceit, an overweening sense 
 
 1 Ezek. 4 : 14.
 
 ' SET THY HOUSE IN OEDEE ' 37 
 
 of our own righteousness ? Do we not, like Hezekiah, 
 say : ' See, Lord, how I have walked before Thee in 
 sincerity and truth, and have done what is right in 
 Thine eyes ' ? And this spiritual pride that apes 
 humility is it not a dangerous, because an insidious 
 peril ? How can we improve if we are unconscious 
 of the need of improvement, if we are blind to our 
 faults, have an exaggerated opinion of our merits, 
 and regard ourselves as paragons of all the virtues? 
 ' Lo, I will judge thee because thou sayest, I have 
 not sinned.' l Let us, at this solemn season, set our 
 houses in order, critically and impartially scrutinize 
 our conduct and dispositions, correct and eradicate 
 defects of temperament, resolve in the future to avoid 
 the mistakes of the past. And honest effort at amend- 
 ment and improvement will, by the Divine Blessing, be 
 crowned with success. 
 
 ' Set thy house in order.' Look to the ways of 
 your households. You are responsible not for your- 
 selves only, but for the children God has entrusted to 
 you, your successors and future representatives, the 
 bearers of your names who, when you are no longer 
 here, will, by their lives, cover your memories with 
 praise or blame. 
 
 The Chinese have the custom that if one has 
 deserved well of his country, his ancestors are 
 ennobled. A parallel to this idea is the saying : 
 rism N"Q. Terah the image-maker is saved from 
 
 1 Jer. 2 : 35.
 
 38 ' SET THY HOUSE IN OEDER ' 
 
 Gehennah by his son Abraham, the breaker of 
 images. See to it that your children's lives shall 
 secure you an immortality of bliss hereafter. Shield 
 the eyes and ears of your innocent offspring from 
 polluting sights and sounds that corrupt the mind 
 and heart and lead to ruin. Surround them in early 
 youth with a pure, religious, truly Jewish atmosphere. 
 Accustom them to communal worship, train them to 
 look upon the synagogue as their home, and to regard 
 the home as a sanctuary. For remember that the 
 home is the centre of Judaism. Train them so that the 
 love of God may become a part of their innermost 
 selves, and the observance of His commands a delight 
 to them, an unconscious habit, a second nature. 
 
 Though you try your hardest, you will perhaps 
 not realize your expectations. Hezekiah's son was a 
 Manasseh. But as Isaiah said, ' Into these mysteries 
 of the future, wherefore seek to penetrate. Do your 
 part. Leave the result to God.' l 
 
 Our duty begins with ourselves and extends to 
 those dependent upon us, but does not end with them. 
 The High Priest made atonement not only for himself, 
 for his family, for his tribe, but also for the whole House 
 of Israel. Each of us is responsible for all. Let 
 us put our house our communal house in order ; 
 examine its defects, and repair the breaches in its walls 
 before they come toppling about our ears. ' Surely,' 
 you may say, ' this is the duty of the community.' 
 
 1 Berachoth, 10a.
 
 ' SET THY HOUSE IN OEDEE ' 39 
 
 Yes. But you are the community. For you are 
 the units of which the community consists. ' Do we 
 not pay our dues and give donations to synagogues 
 and charitable organizations ? ' And I ask in turn : 
 ' Can you discharge all your obligations with a money 
 payment ? God requires not the service of your 
 purses, but personal services, not merely gold and 
 silver, but yourselves.' ' We can do so little. We 
 have so little influence. Our time is limited.' No 
 heavier burden, my friends, will be placed on your 
 shoulders than they can bear. No one expects any 
 individual to complete singly the regeneration of Israel. 
 But help to bear the burden. Do your best to set 
 in order the House of Israel, and your efforts will 
 not be in vain. May the New Year be to you, to 
 the whole community, and to the whole House of 
 Israel, a year of peace and prosperity, blessing and 
 happiness. To you, your families, and all Israel may 
 the glad message come as it came to Hezekiah : ' You 
 shall not die, but live.'
 
 ' LIFE.' 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, DAY OP ATONEMENT, 1901. 
 
 ON this, the holiest day of the year, we fervently 
 beseech heaven for the gift of Life. And, indeed, 
 during the last ten days, we have, in our prayers, 
 after the beginning of the Amidah, added the 
 formula : ' Kemember us unto life, King Who 
 delightest in life ; and inscribe us in the Book of Life, 
 for Thy sake, God of Life.' 
 
 Life is indeed a most precious boon. As King 
 Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, ' Sweet is the light, and 
 pleasant is it to the eyes to see the sun.' l Exhilarating 
 it is to draw deep draughts of the sweet, fresh breath 
 of heaven ; feel the breezes fan our cheeks, and fill 
 our lungs, causing the crimson stream to course freely 
 through our veins, vitalizing and invigorating the 
 entire frame. At such moments of exuberance we 
 are conscious that our very existence is a tribute to 
 the wisdom, goodness, and power of the Beneficent 
 and Omnipotent Creator and Kuler. At such times ' All 
 our bones declare, Lord, Who is like unto Thee.' 
 
 But alas! man is not, like the angels, immortal. 
 
 1 Eccles. 11:7. 
 40
 
 'LIFE' 41 
 
 He does not endure for ages, like the spheres that 
 revolve in space. A creature of the dust, he is 
 subject to the law of change, growth and decay. 
 The rosy spring morn of youth, when the world 
 presents so fair an exterior, passes away all too 
 soon, and is succeeded by the noon of middle age. 
 The hot and fierce summer sun beats upon our 
 heads. The fret and fever of the struggle for existence, 
 with its inevitable checks, set-backs, and disappoint- 
 ments, and sometimes even failures and disasters, 
 embitter us and make us say with the prophet of this 
 afternoon's lesson, ' Better for me to die than to live.' * 
 This period of crisis also passes. The autumnal after- 
 noon succeeds with its gold and brown and russet ; 
 with its red and yellow leaf signs of decay. The 
 stalwart guards of the human tabernacle the arms, 
 brawny and strong in the vigour of manhood, become 
 limp and feeble, and drop listlessly to the sides. The 
 pillars on which the tabernacle rests begin to tremble, 
 totter, and deny their office. The sentinels of the 
 soul, the senses, so keen and alert at an earlier period, 
 become dim and dull and drowsy. Kindly nature gives 
 gentle warnings of the approach of the winter's evening. 
 And then the night descends. ' The wheel of life stops, 
 the pitcher and the cistern are shattered. The windows 
 are darkened, the mourners go about in the streets, 
 for man is gone to his home ; the dust is restored to 
 mother earth and the spirit returns to God Who 
 gave it.' " 
 
 1 Jonah 4:3. - Eccles. 12 : 3-7.
 
 42 'LIFE' 
 
 These are the four seasons of human life ; this is 
 the history of the rise, progress, decline, and fall 
 of the earthly career of every human being to whom 
 the natural, and what should be the normal, term 
 is allotted. But how many are cut off in the prime 
 of life ? How many are snatched away in the flush 
 of youth, before promise has become fulfilment? 
 How many young plants are plucked by the Great 
 Gardener, and transplanted ere the buds and blossoms 
 have opened and unfolded their petals ? Truly, none 
 of us has a covenant with the Great Lord of Life 
 for a definite portion of earthly existence. If, then, life 
 is so precious a boon and so uncertain in its dura- 
 tion, ought we not to value it while we have it ? 
 Should we squander or abuse it ? Ought we not 
 rather to make the fullest use of it and employ it 
 to the best advantage ? 
 
 Human experiences repeat themselves, even as do 
 natural phenomena ; but time, once gone, never returns. 
 The clouds greedily drink the mists on the surface of 
 the ocean, and discharge their precious burden on the 
 mountain-tops and summits of hills. The water, ap- 
 parently lost in the earth, emerges in the form of springs, 
 rills, brooks, and rivulets. These join together, gather 
 force and volume, form noble streams and mighty rivers 
 that again find their way to the sea. And the process 
 is repeated an indefinite number of times. But yester- 
 day never returns. An hour wasted is like a cup of 
 costly wine spilt on the ground, not to be gathered up. 
 
 There is a legend that a shipwrecked sailor was
 
 'LIFE' 43 
 
 washed ashore on an island, which he thought deserted. 
 But he was mistaken. To his agreeable surprise, the 
 inhabitants trooped down to 'the shore, greeted him 
 with every mark of respect, escorted him with pomp 
 to a magnificent palace, robed him in royal purple, 
 seated him on a gorgeous throne, set before him a 
 banquet fit for a king, and regaled his ears with sweetest 
 music. The simple sailor accepted it all without 
 question. Days glided into weeks, weeks passed into 
 months. An entire year elapsed. And then those who 
 had crowned him uncrowned him. Those who had 
 set him on the throne deposed him ; stripped him of 
 his royal robes, drove him forth from the palace 
 with contumely, thrust him into the frail craft from 
 which he had landed, and sent it adrift on the raging 
 waters. Such was the fate of many a voyager. One, 
 wiser than the rest, unconscious of any merits entitling 
 him to kingship, asked his courtiers to tell him, at 
 least, how long his rule would last. And when he 
 heard that his authority would not extend beyond a 
 twelvemonth, he bethought him that his kingly 
 office involved duties as well as rights, responsibilities 
 as well as privileges. Ho spent his term in governing 
 his kingdom wisely and prudently. And when the 
 year was over, he too, like his predecessors, had to 
 leave. But his subjects did not drive him forth 
 with scorn. The air was rent with lamentations 
 at the inevitable parting. And long after he had 
 gone, his former subjects remembered him with deep 
 gratitude. The legend is a parable fraught with
 
 44 'LIFE' 
 
 meaning. Its application is surely not difficult. 
 This earth, on which we, strangers sailing the ocean 
 of eternity, land is it not a veritable isle of the 
 blest, a palace of magnificence, an Eden of bliss ? 
 On arrival, loving arms receive us, a wealth of 
 affection is showered upon us. Kings are we, and 
 our parents are our willing subjects. When we 
 grow to the stature of men, the world lies at our 
 feet ; the future is all before us. ' Thou hast made 
 him but a little lower than the angels ; Thou hast 
 crowned him with honour and dignity ; everything 
 hast Thou placed beneath his feet.' 1 But our king- 
 ship is limited to a span. How all-important is it, 
 then, that we should so use this all too brief period 
 that the world should be better for our having lived in 
 it ; how necessary that while we are here we should 
 prepare and provide for the long journey that is inevit- 
 able and cannot be put off. When our last hour comes, 
 gold, silver, pearls and precious stones must be left 
 behind. Eelatives and friends follow, indeed, him who 
 has gone before, but only to the grave, and no further. 
 What will accompany us in our journey through the 
 dark valley of the shadow is the consciousness of lives 
 well spent, devoted to the service of God and humanity. 
 
 On the first day of the New Year I quoted the 
 
 farewell of Kabbi Jochanan ben Zaccai. Let me 
 
 cite an account of a similar scene, not, however, 
 
 tinged with dark and gloomy forebodings, but charged 
 
 1 Psalm 8 : 6-7.
 
 'LIFE' 45 
 
 with cheer fulness, hopefulness, andjoyousness. ' When 
 Eabbi Eliezer fell ill, the disciples who visited him 
 entreated him : " Master, teach us the ways of life, 
 so that thereby we might merit eternal bliss." The 
 teacher replied : " Be heedful of the respect and honour 
 due to your .fellow-men. Keep your children from 
 idle speculation, and place them between the knees of 
 scholars. And when you pray, realize before Whom it is 
 that you are praying. Thus will you enjoy life eternal." ' * 
 
 The passage, edifying as it is, needs elucidation. 
 There is more in it than appears on the surface. The 
 first difficulty it presents is the request : ' Teach us 
 the way of life.' Was it necessary to disturb a dying 
 man's last moments with such a petition ? Every 
 schoolchild surely could have told the disciples : 
 ' Listen to the voice of God, and do His behests 
 this is the way of life.' 
 
 And did not the motive for the request, openly 
 avowed, call for rebuke? We are not servants that 
 work for a hireling's wage. We are children of the Lord, 
 our God, and should love Him with all our heart, 
 with all our soul, and with all our might. In our 
 affections He must have no rival. Our object should 
 not be to secure wealth, pleasure, or advancement on 
 earth or even eternal bliss hereafter, but solely to do 
 our Father's Will and so please our Maker. And yet, 
 strange to say, the Rabbi does not rebuke His disciples, 
 but gives them detailed counsel, and concludes : ' Thus 
 shall you enjoy life eternal.' 
 
 1 Bcrachoth, 286. Aboth d'Rabbi Nathan, c. 19.
 
 46 'LIFE' 
 
 There is one word, however, which we must not 
 overlook : ' Teach us the paths of life, that we may 
 enjoy in them bliss eternal.' Life depends for its 
 value, not on its quantity, but on its quality. The 
 mode in which we spend our days, not their extent, 
 determines their worth. To eat and drink, toil and 
 sleep, and then die like the beasts of the field that 
 perish, is surely not living, but merely existing, and 
 merits the stigma of the liturgist, ' The super-eminence 
 of man over the brute is nought, for all is vanity.' 
 
 ' Teach us the ways of life, so that in them we 
 may enjoy bliss eternal,' that is, tell us how to live 
 the highest type of life so that, while still on earth, 
 we may already catch glimpses of heaven. And the 
 Master replies : Take the patriarchs of the Jewish 
 people as your exemplars. Be heedful of the honour 
 due to your fellow-men. Remember that you are all 
 travellers on the same road. Prove yourselves good 
 comrades to each other. The helper of to-day is 
 the obliged of to-morrow. When aiding another 
 with word of counsel, or deed of kindness, proffer 
 your aid so delicately that the beneficiary shall not 
 feel the burden of obligation. Show yourselves 
 courteous to all rich and poor alike, and then you 
 will be regarded as princes, even as your ancestor, 
 Abraham, was styled a prince of God because of his 
 courtesy and courtliness. 
 
 Take the third patriarch as your pattern. He toiled 
 by day and watched by night to provide for the wants 
 of his household. But he cared for their spiritual as
 
 'LIFE' 47 
 
 well as for their material needs. When Jacob leaves 
 his uncle's house, he charges the members of his family : 
 ' Eemove the strange Gods which are among you ; cleanse 
 yourselves and change your garments, and let us arise 
 and go up to Bethel, and I will build there an altar to 
 the God who answered me on the day of my distress.' l 
 
 ' Keep your children from frivolity ' ; for Satan ever 
 finds some mischief for idle hands to do. ' Place them 
 between the knees of scholars.' Do not be content with 
 providing them with a few scanty hours' religious 
 instruction in the week. Let them breathe a religious 
 atmosphere in the home, as if they were in constant 
 association with scholars and saints. Teach them 
 high principles, not merely in theory but practically 
 by your own examples. 
 
 And as for yourselves, when you pray, realize before 
 Whom it is that you pray. Let Isaac serve as your model. 
 A full-grown man of thirty-seven years, he meekly 
 submits to be bound and laid for sacrifice on Moriah's 
 altar. His life was of no account to him in comparison 
 with the service of God. When you are engaged in 
 worship, bear in mind that all human beings are but 
 grains of sand, specks of dust, their existence a bubble 
 floating on the sea of time. Put away arrogance, pride 
 and self-importance. 
 
 Let us take Rabbi Eliezer's counsel to heart 
 and apply it to our own lives. Let us cultivate 
 meekness and modesty ; look well to the ways of 
 our households ; teach our children the fear and 
 
 1 Gen. 35 : 2-3.
 
 48 ' LIFE ' 
 
 the love of God, and the love of our fellow-men. 
 So shall we, like the high priest in the sanctuary 
 of old, make worthy atonement for ourselves, our 
 families, the whole house of Israel. So shall we 
 have chosen paths of life, walking in which, we 
 shall have a foretaste of bliss eternal. So shall 
 we make provision for our long journey, and fit 
 ourselves to behold hereafter the King in His 
 beauty, and be satisfied, when we awake, with His 
 vision. 
 
 All-merciful Father, we appear before Thee, on this 
 the holiest day of the year, in fear and trembling. 
 Shame and confusion cover our faces. For Thou 
 art robed in light as in a garment. Thou art the 
 source and essence of purity and truth, while we are 
 vessels of clay, drinking iniquity like water. But 
 Thou invitest us to return to Thee ; Thou openest 
 the door of repentance. Thou boldest out Thy hand 
 to sinners. Receive us, we beseech Thee, on this 
 holy Day of Atonement in love and mercy and for- 
 giveness. Remember us unto life, King Who 
 delightest in life ; inscribe us in the Book of Life, for 
 Thine own sake, God of Life. Let none of us be 
 cut off in the midst of his days. Let the promise 
 of youth be fulfilled in maturity. When we attain 
 old age, do not cast us off, do not abandon us when 
 our strength faileth. Give all young and old time, 
 opportunity, capacity, and willingness to retrieve 
 the errors of the past ; create in each of us a pure
 
 'LIFE' 49 
 
 heart, renew in all of us a steadfast will. Kestore to 
 us the joy of Thy salvation ; support us with Thy 
 generous spirit. Fulfil to us the promise made to 
 Thy faithful servant when he besought Thee on 
 behalf of Thy erring people. When we cry, answer 
 us as Thou didst answer him. Keply to us as Thou 
 didst reply to him with the blessed word Tin^D ' I have 
 forgiven.' Amen.
 
 THE FOUK PLANTS. 
 
 CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE, FIRST DAY OF THE FEAST OF 
 TABERNACLES, 1909. 
 
 THE penitential season is past ; the awe-inspiring 
 days are gone ; but our solemn convocations are not 
 yet concluded. The cycle of festivals that began with 
 the first of Tishri is completed by the feast ushered in 
 last night with joy and gladness. And herein is exhibited 
 the excellence of Judaism, which does not permit its 
 adherents to rush from one extreme to another. The 
 rigour and austerities of the White Fast are not followed 
 by a riot of excess ; no bacchanalia succeed our vigils or 
 fasts. The close of the Day of Atonement is celebrated 
 with rejoicing. But our joy is sober, chastened by the 
 consciousness that the eye of God is constantly upon 
 us. We rejoice on this feast, but we ' rejoice before 
 the Lord.' We exchange our well-appointed homes for 
 frail structures roofed with latticed branches, open to 
 the sky ; thus emphasizing the truth that our surest 
 strength is trust in Him ' Who on the day of trouble 
 will shelter us in the secrecy of His tabernacle.' l 
 
 We shall to-morrow take into our hands four plants, 
 the citron, the palm branch, the myrtle and the willows, 
 
 1 Psalm 27 : 5 
 50
 
 THE FOUB PLANTS 51 
 
 and shall rejoice with them before the Lord, waving 
 them in all directions to the north, south, east and 
 west, upwards to the sky and down again towards 
 the ground, thus proclaiming God Sovereign of the 
 Universe : ' In Heaven above and on earth beneath, 
 there is none beside Him.' 
 
 Marvellous is the power of a faith, the observances 
 of which knit us to a glorious past with cords of love 
 stronger than cables of steel, and which transform 
 lives, otherwise prosaic, into the noblest poetry. The 
 bowers we erect, at this inclement season in these chill 
 northern climes, transport us in imagination to the 
 burning sands of the Arabian desert, where our fore- 
 fathers dwelt, surrounded by clouds of Divine glory. 
 The palm branch and the citron handfuls of exotics 
 recall to us a later epoch in our history, when Israel 
 lived in his own land, everyone beneath his vine and 
 his fig tree. 
 
 But there is another a wider, one might say, a 
 universal aspect under which this feast and its 
 observances may be regarded. For the last eighteen 
 centuries Israel has been without a land. A homeless 
 wanderer, driven from country to country, with but 
 intermittent periods of rest, denied the right to till 
 the soil, restricted to trade and commerce, having no 
 direct connection with agriculture, he, nevertheless, 
 celebrates year by year at this season a harvest feast, 
 and thus exhibits community of interest, sense of 
 kinship and sympathy with all mankind, qualities which 
 form the true characteristics of our people rather than 
 
 E2
 
 52 THE FOUK PLANTS 
 
 the cold isolation which our detractors, political and 
 literary, impute to, and would force upon, us. And 
 this universal sympathy runs like a golden thread 
 throughout the observances of Tabernacles. This 
 feast is the season of our gladness. We are bidden 
 to rejoice. With whom ? With our sons and 
 daughters, with our menservants and handmaidens. 
 The Levite, the widow, the orphan must also not 
 be excluded from our rejoicing. Has not one 
 category still been omitted ? Yes, the stranger, 
 that is, the Gentile, who does not belong to our 
 race and does not profess our creed ; he too should 
 not be denied the opportunity of participating in our 
 festivity. To-morrow, and again on the Eighth day 
 of the Festival, we shall read, as lessons from the 
 Prophets, parts of the account in the book of 
 Kings of the dedication of the Temple. When this 
 notable event took place, Israel formed a strong, 
 independent and united kingdom, under the most 
 powerful of Hebrew rulers and wisest of men. Still, 
 the national sympathy with the Gentile world had not 
 weakened since the days when they were wanderers in 
 the wilderness. On the occasion of the dedication of 
 the Temple, Solomon pronounced a stirring and im- 
 pressive prayer, in which the following passage occurs : 
 4 And moreover, for the stranger that is not of our 
 people, that coineth from a far country, for Thy 
 name's sake, do Thou from Heaven, Thy abode, hear 
 his prayer, and do according to all that he asks Thee.' ' 
 
 1 1 Kings 8 : 41-43.
 
 THE FOUE PLANTS 53 
 
 Moreover, as long as the Temple stood, seventy steers 
 were sacrificed on this festival on behalf of the seventy 
 nations into which mankind was in ancient times 
 divided. Again, on the Eighth day of this feast we 
 shall offer up a prayer for rain. We shall implore 
 Heaven to send beneficent showers, not only on 
 the land specially sacred and endeared to us by its 
 early associations, but over the whole surface of the 
 globe, wherever and whenever the gemlike drops 
 are needed. 
 
 But why should I go to the closing days of the 
 Festival for illustrations ? This morning, we read in 
 the lesson from the Prophets a text with which every 
 Jew adult or child is familiar, because it forms the 
 conclusion of our daily prayers : ' The Eternal will 
 be King over the whole earth ; on that day the 
 Eternal will be One and His Name One.' This text 
 voices our aspirations, gives expression to our inner- 
 most convictions. Centuries may elapse before this 
 consummation will be realized ; nations, for yet a 
 period, may settle the issues they deem vital to their 
 interests by the stern arbitrament of war. But 
 sooner or later, all mankind will, we doubt not, 
 form one band, one brotherhood, acknowledging 
 God as the King of the Universe, proclaiming 
 that the Eternal is One and His Name One. 
 
 What can we do to prove the genuineness of our 
 professions, the sincerity of our convictions ? The 
 four plants we take in our hands furnish the answer.
 
 54 THE FOUE PLANTS 
 
 They are types and emblems of qualities we should 
 emulate, virtues we should cultivate, if we are to do 
 our part in furthering the establishment of God's 
 Kingdom upon earth. 
 
 The citron, beautiful in form and colour, delicate 
 in fragrance, and, withal, a luscious fruit, shall serve 
 us as a symbol of gentleness and sweetness of dis- 
 position, of sympathy and love. The citron, chief 
 of the group of plants, recalled to our wise men the 
 hoary figure of the first of the patriarchs Abraham 
 who won all hearts by his kindliness, by his benevolence 
 and beneficence impartially shown to stranger and 
 kinsman. Even as iron sharpens iron, and deep 
 answers to deep, so the chords of human hearts 
 vibrate in unconscious unison. Who can doubt that 
 the patriarch's gentleness softened all those who were 
 in contact with him, or came under the sphere of his 
 influence ? 
 
 The citron is not only a fragrant but also a delicious 
 fruit. Sympathy should not be a barren sentiment ; 
 it should take practical shape and be translated 
 into action. But, even as the citron must be free 
 from blemish, so the practice of charity should 
 not be marred by low personal motives, vanity, 
 self-interest, or hunger for popular applause. The 
 bountiful Provider gives all and receives nought in 
 return. Ought we not to rejoice to follow in His 
 footsteps, if we are so fortunate as to be able to be 
 His almoners ? 
 
 The palm branch, straight and upright, is a symbol
 
 THE FOUE PLANTS 55 
 
 of strict integrity and rectitude. If its top is broken, 
 it is no longer fit for use in Divine service. 1 So let us 
 live that we should not have to bend our heads in 
 shame, that, to the end of our days, we should be 
 able to look the whole world in the face. We 
 should constantly have in mind the text : ' The Lord 
 is righteous, He loveth righteousness, He will look at 
 those who are upright.' 2 
 
 The charge is sometimes made that those who 
 wear their phylacteries broad, who are scrupulously 
 observant of every minute ceremonial detail, often 
 compromise with their consciences, permit themselves 
 latitude of principle, and exhibit looseness in their 
 dealings with their fellow-men. The accusation, we 
 confess with shame, is in some cases too well founded. 
 We do not accuse co-religionists of conscious or un- 
 conscious hypocrisy. But though the Day of Atonement 
 is over, we would again earnestly impress upon the 
 congregation, that wrongs inflicted on our fellow-men 
 are double-dyed crimes against God Who gave to 
 us not one but two tables of the testimony on which 
 the commandments, ' Thou shalt not steal,' ' Thou 
 shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,' 
 ' Thou shalt not covet,' were engraved as distinctly 
 as the prohibition of idolatry or of the taking of God's 
 name in vain, or the duty of setting apart a weekly 
 day of rest. This view is emphasized by our wise 
 men when they tell us that a palm which we have 
 obtained in other than honest ways must not be used 
 
 1 Succah, 2:1. " Psalm 11:7.
 
 5G THE FOUE PLANTS 
 
 in Divine service; l for we are not permitted to resort to 
 illegitimate means even for a legitimate end. So far is 
 the principle carried through the entire range of Jewish 
 law and the Jewish religion that it is forbidden to 
 recite grace over a meal not honestly earned. The 
 benediction in such a case would be not a blessing 
 but a blasphemy. 
 
 The myrtle, fresh and evergreen, retaining its leaves 
 throughout the year, is an emblem of constancy. 
 Not only when the bright summer sun of prosperity 
 is shining above our heads, but also in the bleak 
 autumn and dreary winter of adversity and sorrow, 
 shall we retain faith in God, in ourselves, in human 
 nature. No stroke of fate, however severe, shall 
 make us cynical, sceptical, doubtful of Divine good- 
 ness, callous to human sufferings. The myrtle shall 
 infuse courage and hope in our hearts : ' Weeping 
 may tarry for the night, but in the morning cometh 
 joy.' - The bleakness of each autumn, the dreariness 
 of every winter, will surely be followed by, and 
 forgotten in, the fresh promise of another spring, 
 the glorious fulfilment of another summer. 
 
 And the willows of the brook what have these to 
 teach us ? Their drooping branches, overhanging the 
 still pond and retired stream, are a type of modesty a 
 virtue in which some of us are sadly deficient. The lack 
 of self-restraint and quiet dignity is responsible for 
 much of the prejudice, misunderstanding, and hostilitj 1 - 
 from which the whole nation suffered in the past, and 
 
 1 Succah, 2:1. " Psalm 30 : 6.
 
 THE FOUE PLANTS 57 
 
 still suffers. How frequently do we hear complaints 
 of the Jew's obtrusiveness, his loudness of voice, 
 manner, tone ; his want of regard for the feelings and 
 susceptibilities of his Gentile neighbour, even on the 
 first day of the week, the general day of rest. Are 
 these complaints unfounded or exaggerated ? Can we 
 ask, when we note the deplorable want of decorum 
 in our places of worship on the holiest days of the 
 year ? How many of our young men forget, when they 
 come to this shrine, that the place on which they tread 
 is holy ground, that this is none other than the house 
 of. God, and this the gate to Heaven. 
 
 These, then, are the qualities recommended us by 
 the four plants gentleness and kindliness, strictest 
 integrity, constancy in faith, modesty and humility. 
 But who can attain the ideal ? Who can hope to become 
 the paragon of all the virtues ? We are limited in 
 capacity, varied in temperament. Some are gifted with 
 beautiful and inspiring thoughts which, however, they 
 are powerless to realize in action. Their lives are like 
 myrtles, fragrant, but producing no fruit. Some are 
 active in well-doing, but rough, brusque, and overbear- 
 ing in manner, like the palm which conceals satisfying 
 food amidst swordlike leaves. The majority belong 
 to the common herd and are undistinguished like the 
 willows, which are neither fragrant nor fruit-bearing. 
 Few indeed can claim comparison with the citron, 
 which is beautiful in form and colour, and likewise a 
 fragrant fruit. Still let this thought console us. Wo 
 all have value in the eyes of God even as all plants have
 
 58 THE FOUE PLANTS 
 
 their uses. Let us not unduly depreciate ourselves, 
 for self-depreciation is often the excuse for inertia, 
 but especially let us avoid depreciation of others. 
 As the sage said, ' Despise no man, for there is none 
 but hath his hour.' l Let us seek out the good in 
 ourselves, value the good in others, and strengthen 
 both by a close bond of kinship and union. So 
 shall we further the plans of Him ' Who builds His 
 chambers in Heaven, who has His mansion in the 
 skies and will establish His bond and covenant on 
 earth ' 2 a covenant of fellowship and a bond of 
 brotherhood that shall embrace all mankind. 
 
 1 Ethics of the Fathers, 4 : 3. - Amos, 9 : 6.
 
 THE SEDEE. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, SABBATH BEFORE PASSOVER, 1902. 
 
 TO-DAY recalls the first ^nan rat?, the great Sabbath 
 in Egypt, when Israel first became conscious of himself. 
 In obedience to the Divine behest, our forefathers 
 bade defiance to Egypt's lords and Egypt's gods. On 
 the tenth of Nissan, the head of each household took a 
 lamb, worshipped by the Egyptians as a deity ; kept 
 it for four days in the home ; and, on the fourteenth of 
 the month, sacrificed it, sprinkled its blood on the lintel 
 and the doorposts, braved the peril of death for the 
 sake of God's commandments ; and so our forefathers 
 approved themselves worthy to become God's people. 
 Then did Israel come to birth as a nation. That first 
 Passover in Egypt was a family feast. The command 
 to take lambs was addressed to the heads of families. 
 The paschal sacrifice was to be consumed as a family 
 meal. Only where the number of members in the 
 household was too small, were strangers from another 
 house admitted to the family circle. The lamb was 
 to be roasted whole, and no bone was to be broken 
 rules symbolic of family unity, the only sure basis 
 
 for national unity and strength. 
 
 59
 
 00 THE SEDER 
 
 That first Passover in Egypt had many notable 
 successors in subsequent generations, in biblical and 
 post-biblical times. A Roman eye-witness in the time 
 of the second Temple describes the joyous cele- 
 bration of the Passover in his day. For weeks before 
 the fourteenth of Nissan, the outskirts of Jerusalem 
 were white with countless flocks of lambs and kids. 
 The political constitution of Palestine, in form mon- 
 archical, was in essence democratic. No favour was 
 shown to rank or wealth. The king himself had to 
 wait his turn in the joyous throng of pilgrims ascending 
 the Temple Mount. The precincts of the Sanctuary 
 were guarded by Levites who regulated the entrance 
 and exit of the worshippers. While the Paschal 
 sacrifices were offered up, the Hallel was sung to the 
 accompaniment of instrumental music. 
 
 Like the Passover on the banks of the Nile, the 
 Passover in the Holy City was a family feast as well as 
 a national celebration. For our forefathers, when they 
 appeared before the Lord, brought with them their 
 wives, sons and daughters, their menservants and 
 maidservants. Nor were the poor forgotten. The 
 widow and orphan, the Levite and stranger shared 
 in the general festivity. 
 
 The Temple was razed to the ground and reduced 
 to ashes. Rome's iron heel pressed on the neck of 
 Judaea. Yet the Feast of Passover continued to be 
 observed as a feast of faith and hope. Not without 
 significance is the narrative in the Haggadah of the four 
 scholars who spent the whole night in Bene Berdk
 
 THE SEDEB 61 
 
 discussing the Exodus, till their disciples came and 
 announced to them that the time had come for reading 
 the morning Shema. Just at this period, when the 
 fortunes of Israel were under a cloud and the sun of 
 Judaism seemed eclipsed, when the study and practice 
 of God's Law were regarded with disfavour and even 
 proscribed, the Jew's devotion to his faith and people 
 flamed forth anew. From the memories of the past 
 Israel's leaders and teachers drew strength and inspira- 
 tion for the present and the future. For they felt 
 convinced that the loving-kindness of the Lord had 
 not ceased and His mercies were not spent. He 
 would again show them wonders as in the days of the 
 departure from Egypt. Not the sword nor their own 
 right arms had saved them. God's arm and the light 
 of His face had favoured them, and so would it be 
 again, for His name's sake. 
 
 In the long night of the exile, Passover continued 
 to be a family feast. The Seder night was an object 
 lesson for all, especially for the young. It exhibits 
 a profound knowledge of child psychology. Things 
 seen are mightier than things heard. The teachers' 
 lessons often fall unheeded on their scholars' listless ears ; 
 even parents' monitions fade from the memory. But 
 what Israelite will ever forget the unleavened bread ; the 
 bitter herbs and Charoseth symbols of bitter servitude 
 and sweet freedom ; the roast bone and the roast 
 egg memorials of the Korban Pesach and the Korban 
 Chagigah ? What Israelite will ever forget the loving 
 cup filled in honour of Elijah emblem of hope to
 
 62 THE SEDEE 
 
 Israel, that forlorn wanderer among the nations? 
 What son of Israel can ever forget the quaint 
 old-world rites of the DniiDB' h^, the watch night, 
 the night of observances, or the four questions which 
 introduce its ritual and the nursery catches with 
 which it concludes compositions that are childlike 
 but not childish, for they impress upon the young mind 
 the cardinal principles of Jewish theology, the Unity of 
 God, for which Israel has gladly suffered martyrdom, and 
 Divine Providence, Israel's solace in his tribulations ? 
 The sceptic may mockingly ask, what meaneth this 
 laborious, antiquated service to you ? 
 
 nrn mi on no. D^S nsrn miaun n 
 
 But we are convinced that Judaism would be shorn 
 of much of its beauty and strength, if it were deprived 
 of the Seder. And the same remark applies to all 
 the rites and ceremonies of Judaism. They enshrine the 
 history and legend of Israel's glorious, if tragic, history. 
 They illustrate the sublime truths and doctrines of 
 the Jewish faith. What exhortation from the pulpit, 
 to bend our will to the will of our Father in Heaven, 
 can equal in force and effectiveness the simple command 
 to bind the Tepliillin round our forehead and forearm ? 
 What homily on the sanctity of the Jewish home is 
 so eloquent and effective as the Mezuzdh on the door, 
 by which we consecrate our home life and commend 
 it to the Divine Protection ? The Tzitziih beneath the 
 Jewish soldier's tunic serve to identify him among a 
 thousand Gentiles, so that if he falls on the battlefield,
 
 THE SEDER 63 
 
 his body may be brought to b&o -op. But the Fringes 
 fulfil a higher function, inasmuch as they constantly 
 remind him of the links attaching him to his race 
 and creed. 
 
 I do not forget that rites and ceremonies are not the 
 be-all and end-all of Judaism. Morality plays a large 
 and essential part in our religious system ; and of 
 that morality, with its mingling of justice and love, 
 we must be the practical exponents. We dare not com- 
 pound with our consciences. Pious exercises will not 
 atone for wrongs against our fellows. The last of the 
 prophets, in this morning's lesson, denounces sorcerers, 
 poisoners, adulterers, sweaters who rob the worker of his 
 just wage, wrong the defenceless widow and orphan, 
 and wrest the cause of the stranger. The Psalmist 
 addresses the ytn in the following impassioned ques- 
 tion : ' And to the wicked God has said, " What business 
 hast thou to recount My statutes and to take My 
 covenant on thy lips, when thou hatest morality ? " 
 
 It must also be remembered that the virtue of 
 a rite depends not upon the act, but upon the spirit 
 in which it is performed. The commandments of God 
 are to illumine the mind and rejoice the heart. Mind 
 and heart must therefore co-operate with hand in 
 their performance. Devout Israelites, accordingly, 
 before performing a Mitzvah, meditate upon its 
 spiritual significance. 
 
 Bearing these two qualifications in mind, that 
 rites and ceremonies are only part and not the 
 whole of Judaism, and that their performance must
 
 61 THE SEDER 
 
 not be mechanical and unintelligent, I confidently 
 assert that it is these rites and ceremonies which 
 have secured the continuity of our religion and the 
 solidarity of our people. Not merely during Passover 
 but throughout the year cultivate home worship, 
 scrupulously observe the ordinances of our faith for 
 your own sake, for the sake of your children, for the 
 sake of the religion dear to you, for the sake of our 
 Heavenly Father, till the promise of the prophet will 
 be fulfilled, and the Tishbite will at last herald the 
 advent of the long-expected Guest, when the hearts 
 of parents will turn to their children, and the hearts of 
 the children to their parents, and all mankind will 
 celebrate with Israel a new Passover, a Feast of 
 Universal Emancipation.
 
 THE LESSONS OF PASSOVEE FOE OUE TIMES. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, FIRST DAT OP PASSOVER, 1902. 
 
 LAST night, we ushered in with joy and gladness the 
 Feast of our Freedom, the anniversary of Israel's 
 birth as a nation. 
 
 If we wish to appreciate the momentousness and 
 importance of the event commemorated by this festival, 
 we need but picture to ourselves the slave's hopeless 
 lot his back bent with heavy burdens, his visage 
 marred with cruel sufferings, his physique stunted, 
 his mental horizon narrowed, his intellectual growth 
 arrested ; his complete moral and spiritual degradation. 
 Such was the condition of our forefathers in Egypt ; 
 and from this abject state God in His goodness 
 delivered them, and raised them to the highest pinnacle 
 of human greatness, when He elected them to be His 
 own people. 
 
 We read in the Talmud that once, on the first 
 evening of Passover, Eabbi Nachman said to Doru, his 
 servant, ' What would you do if anyone emancipated 
 you and loaded you with untold wealth ? ' 'I would 
 express unbounded gratitude to my benefactor,' 
 rejoined the servant. ' Then there is no occasion for 
 
 65 F
 
 66 LESSONS OF PASSOVER FOE OUR TIMES 
 
 me to say Mah Nishtanah.' l And certainly, when we 
 think of the wide distance separating Israel's state 
 before and after the Exodus, we need seek no further 
 reasons for celebrating this feast. With heart and 
 soul we will join in the glad refrain : ' This is my 
 God, and I will glorify Him ; the God of my father, 
 and I will exalt Him.' 
 
 But Passover is not merely a feast of gratitude ; 
 it is also a season for earnest reflection. 
 
 It is surely as profitable to inquire into the causes 
 that led to the enslavement of our ancestors as to 
 discuss the merits, for the sake of which they were 
 redeemed. When Jacob appeared before Pharaoh, 
 his 'family numbered seventy souls. They enjoyed 
 the protection of their powerful kinsman, the 
 viceroy and benefactor of Egypt. Settled in the 
 fertile land of Goshen, what wonder that they 
 increased and multiplied and became exceedingly 
 mighty. But they did not observe the prudence 
 for which the third patriarch was noted. They did 
 not remember that they had come to Egypt to 
 sojourn there. They forgot that they were strangers 
 in a strange land. It was consequently easy for the 
 representative of a new and usurping dynasty to divert 
 odium from himself by raising the cry of an alien 
 invasion and inaugurating an era of persecution. 
 
 The enslavement of the Hebrews, however, made 
 their inherent virtues manifest. With fair speech, 2 
 
 1 Pesachim, It6a. 
 
 2 -pSS ="p HS3. Midrash.
 
 LESSONS OF PASSOVEE FOE OUE TIMES 67 
 
 with promises of a rich guerdon, Pharaoh induced 
 our forefathers to toil for him. The promise was 
 broken. Yet his Hebrew subjects did not rise in 
 rebellion. Peaceful, law-abiding, industrious, they 
 bent the back to the burden and turned the cheek 
 to the smiter. They carried patience, meekness, and 
 humility to the verge of spiritlessness, so that one 
 would hardly think that out of such unpromising 
 material a free and independent nation could ever 
 be created. Yet, when the time came, the despised 
 people took its rightful place among the nations. 
 Gold, though fallen into the mire, is still gold. Silver, 
 black with the incrustation of centuries of neglect, 
 only needs a little labour to restore its dazzling 
 radiance. The Hebrews in Egypt were marred with 
 blemishes, physical and mental. The Midrash says 
 that of those who left the banks of the Nile, many 
 were blind, many deaf, dumb, lame and crippled. 
 But what a marvellous transformation had taken 
 place when, three months later, the nation stood at 
 the foot of Sinai ! The blind could see, the deaf 
 hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk. They were 
 made whole and sound by the royal touch, the 
 touch of the King of Kings. 1 It would be incorrect 
 to assert that all the Hebrew slaves were perfect. 
 Only a fifth, tradition records, was emancipated; 
 four-fifths, hopelessly degenerate, perished in the 
 three days' darkness, unworthy of redemption. 2 The 
 
 1 Tanchuma on Exod. 19 : 1. 
 
 2 Ibid, on the word DK'DITl in Exod. 13 : 18. 
 
 F2
 
 68 LESSONS OF PASSOVER FOR OUR TIMES 
 
 mixed multitude, too, that accompanied the Israelites 
 in their wanderings, caused the latter, on more than 
 one occasion, grievously to sin. Yet the nation was 
 sound at the core. ' Its stock was holy seed ' 1 - 
 nrmo Bnp nr 
 
 The vicissitudes of the Jewish people in the Middle 
 Ages is a counterpart of Israel's experiences on the 
 banks of the Nile. It would be a mistake to assume 
 that mediaeval Jewish history presents a dreary vista 
 of suffering, wholly unrelieved by any gleam of happi- 
 ness. In the wilderness of exile there was many a 
 green oasis, with crystal springs and overhanging palm 
 trees. The Iberian peninsula, for example, formed, 
 for a long period, a veritable Goshen to the Jews. In 
 Spain they increased in numbers, wealth, position, and 
 influence. Some even attained the rank of ministers 
 and advisers to the Crown. But prosperity begat 
 corruption. Wealth had, as its concomitants, luxury 
 and ostentatious display. This, in turn, roused envy, 
 jealousy, ill-will, and hatred, which were fanned by 
 fanaticism into a fierce flame. And the fire of persecu- 
 tion, cruel as death, harsh as the grave, devoured and 
 spared not. Then came exile, comparable in its tragedy 
 with the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet persecution had 
 its compensations. The Ghetto walls imprisoned the 
 Jew, but, at the same time, they shielded his children's 
 eyes from horrid sights, his children's ears from dread- 
 ful sounds. Outside, scenes of savage lust and cruelty 
 
 1 Is. 6 : 13.
 
 LESSONS OF PASSOVEK FOE OUE TIMES 69 
 
 might be witnessed. Within the Ghetto, Jewish family 
 life presented an idyllic picture of gentleness, sweet 
 kindliness, and white purity. Outside there was the 
 dense darkness of ignorance ; but unto all Israel there 
 was light in their habitations. It is a truism that in 
 the Dark Ages, rightly so styled, the Jews kept the 
 torch of learning alight. In his latest book on Morocco, 
 Mr. Budget Meakin asserts that even in the domain 
 of art especially architecture much of the credit 
 given to the Moors is really due to Jewish genius. 
 Certainly, no nation in the world can show, in pro- 
 portion to its numbers, so brilliant an array of scholars, 
 poets, philosophers, as can the Jews in mediaeval 
 times. There is, of course, a reverse to the shield. 
 Many dignitaries of Eoman Catholicism were converted 
 Hebrews. Entire congregations preferred the waters of 
 baptism to the flames of the Inquisition. But Judaism 
 was all the stronger for these defections ; like gold 
 passed through the furnace, it was purified of its dross. 
 History repeats itself. We have the virtues of 
 our fathers; let us guard against the defects that 
 wrought their undoing. Since 1791, the civil dis- 
 abilities under which our people so long laboured 
 have, in many countries, been removed, and in a short 
 period Jews have come to the front in literature, 
 science, art, and politics. But the millennium has not 
 yet arrived. Our co-religionists in France, Germany, 
 Austria, Eussia dreamed dreams and suffered the 
 shock of a rude awakening. The golden dawn had 
 at last come, they thought. But it was followed by the
 
 70 LESSONS OF PASSOVEK FOE OUR TIMES 
 
 hideous night of anti-Semitism. Let us pray that 
 these experiences may not be ours. We need fear no 
 such fate if we evince our gratitude for the liberties we 
 enjoy by guarding against their abuse. We should 
 avoid ostentation and idle display, which only aroused 
 the irritation of Gentile neighbours, and which have 
 in the past wrought dreadful havoc. Plain living 
 and high thinking should be our ideal, the simplicity 
 and reserve that distinguished our ancestor Jacob, our 
 guiding principles. 
 
 So will every weapon forged against us fail, and 
 every tongue that unjustly accuses us be itself con- 
 demned, till the advent of the true golden era, when 
 all the world will celebrate with us the feast of a new 
 reconciliation.
 
 RABBI JEHUDAH THE PRINCE. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, MAT 5, 1900. 
 
 THE maxims of the Pirke Aboih, appointed to be read 
 on Sabbath afternoons during the summer months, are 
 valuable not only for their profound wisdom and lofty 
 ethical spirit, but also for the clear light which they 
 throw upon the characters of their authors and the cir- 
 cumstances of the times in which these sages flourished. 
 
 When, for instance, we read the saying of Antigonos 
 of Socho : ' Be not like servants that serve a master 
 for the sake of a wage ; but be like servants that serve a 
 master without expectation of recompense,' l we cannot 
 help admiring the loftiness of this counsel to dis- 
 interested service of God. We also recall the fact 
 that misconception of its true meaning led to one of 
 the Sadducee heresies the denial of reward and 
 retribution hereafter. 
 
 When Simon ben Shetach advises : ' Be sedulous 
 in sifting evidence,' 2 it reminds us of a tragic episode 
 in his own life. Through lending too credulous an 
 ear to suborned witnesses, he, like a second Brutus, 
 condemned his own son to death ; and only when 
 too late did he discover that these witnesses had 
 
 1 Ethics of the Fathers, 1:3. 2 Ibid. 1 : 9. 
 
 71
 
 72 EABBI JEHUDAH THE PKINCE 
 
 perjured themselves ; hence the earnest counsel, 
 which is the outcome of a father's anguish. 
 
 Does not the gentleness of Hillel breathe in his 
 recommendation : ' Be of the disciples of Aaron, 
 loving peace, pursuing peace, loving God's creatures, 
 and bringing all men to a knowledge of His law ? ' l 
 Are not his untiring energy and whole-hearted devotion 
 to duty clearly reflected in his three momentous 
 questions : ' If I am not for myself, who is for me ? ' 
 ' If I am for myself alone, what am I ? ' and ' If not 
 now, when then ? ' 2 
 
 Some years ago, I devoted a discourse to a sketch 
 of the character and career of this great sage in Israel. 
 To-day, I propose to speak of a descendant no less 
 illustrious. I refer to Eabbi Jehudah the Prince, the 
 compiler of the Mishnah. The characters of the two 
 men present some similarities, but more contrasts. 
 Hillel came up from Babylon a poor, friendless youth. 
 Rabbi Jehudah, his descendant, was born in the purple. 
 Hillel surmounted the obstacles which dire poverty and 
 obscurity had placed in his path, and without influence 
 won his way by sheer hard work and merit to the 
 highest position in the Jewish commonwealth, the 
 Presidentship of the Sanhedrin with the title of Nassi. 
 Rabbi Jehudah successfully resisted the more subtle 
 temptations of wealth and rank. He did not yield to sloth 
 nor indulge in luxury. And so, like his ancestor Hillel, 
 he also gained an abiding-place in the temple of immortal 
 fame by his great services to his people and his faith. 
 
 1 Ethics of the Fathers, 1 : 12. 2 Ibid. 1 : 14.
 
 EABBI JEHUDAH THE PKINCE 73 
 
 Kabbi Jehuclah is known by three surnames. The 
 dignity of his office as Patriarch of Palestine conferred 
 on him the title of Eabbi Jehudah, the Prince. By 
 reason of his position as the most distinguished 
 teacher of his day, he is frequently styled, in the 
 Mishnah, ^n, ' Master.' After his death he received 
 the designation : ' Our Teacher, the Saint, or Eabbi 
 Jehudah, the Holy ' a title fully merited by the sage 
 who, throughout his life, consistently strove to realize 
 the ideal expressed at the beginning of this morning's 
 Sedrah : ' Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.' l 
 
 He came into the world at a period fraught with 
 dire trouble and anxiety for the Jewish people. Fifty 
 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the down- 
 fall of the Hebrew state, an attempt was made to regain 
 the lost independence. Bar Cochba, the Son of a Star, 
 as he was styled, raised the standard of revolt. Eabbi 
 Akiba, the great light of Israel, lent his countenance 
 and support to the movement, and hailed Bar Cochba 
 as the promised Messiah. But the nation's hopes 
 were doomed to disappointment. The rising was 
 crushed, Bar Cochba was slain, and Eabbi Akiba 
 cruelly martyred. A period of repression and proscrip- 
 tion followed. On the day, however, when Eabbi Akiba 
 died, a child was born to Eabbi Simeon ben Gamliel 
 the Second Jehudah. And this coincidence was 
 hailed as an auspicious and happy omen, an augury 
 that the dark cloud had a silver lining, and was about 
 to pass away. The well-known text in Ecclesiastes, 
 
 1 Lev. 19 : 2.
 
 74 EABBI JEHUDAH THE PEINCE 
 
 ' the sun rises, the sun sets,' was applied. 1 Scarcely had 
 one sun set when another sun had already dawned. 
 
 Kabbi Jehudah had the advantage of many teachers 
 of different schools of thought, among whom it is 
 sufficient to name Eabbi Simeon ben Jochai, 2 formerly 
 believed to have been the author of the Zohar ; and 
 Eabbi Meir, 3 disciple of Elisha ben Abuyah, who became 
 an unbeliever, and was subsequently known under the 
 name of Acher, the Heretic. 
 
 This variety of instruction, which deepened Jehudah's 
 scholarship, broadened his mind, and widened his out- 
 look, unconsciously fitted him for his life's work the sys- 
 tematic arrangement of the Traditional Law, the Mishnah 
 which enshrines impartially the most diverse views. 
 
 It would be an error to assume that Jewish education 
 in those days was one-sided. Eabbi Jehudah was 
 thoroughly versed not only in Hebrew learning, but 
 also in Greek, Latin and Syriac. 4 The Mishnah is written 
 in pure Hebrew, and the Eabbi made strenuous efforts 
 to substitute the use of the sacred tongue in Palestine 
 for the corrupt Aramaic vernacular. ' Why Aramaic?' 
 he asked. 'Either pure Hebrew or pure Greek.' 5 
 Eabbi Jehudah was an astronomer, and he had the 
 candour to admit that, on some points, the views of 
 the Gentile scientists appeared more reasonable than 
 those of their Jewish confreres. 6 
 
 Scholarship, alone, however wide or profound, 
 will only command cold respect, or at most, high 
 
 1 Midr. R. on Eccles. 1:5. 2 Sabbath, 1476. 
 
 3 Erubin, 136. 4 Pesachim, 61a. 
 
 5 Baba Kama, 83a. 6 Pesachim, 946.
 
 EABBI JEHUDAH THE PEINCE 75 
 
 admiration. To win warm affection, one must cultivate 
 qualities of heart as well as mind. Eabbi Jehudah 
 gathered around him a vast circle of friends by his 
 modesty, affability, and courtesy. Like Hillel, he was 
 the humblest-minded of men. 1 He showed deference 
 to the opinions of his seniors. When a legal point was 
 once put to him, he replied : ' The question is settled ; 
 the master (Kabbi Jose) has already given his de- 
 cision.' 2 He frankly acknowledged his obligations to 
 his colleagues, and even to his disciples. ' Much have 
 I learned from my masters ; more from my fellow- 
 students ; most from my scholars.' 3 
 
 His courtesy was not a surface politeness. It 
 sprang from genuine kindliness and goodness of heart. 
 He maintained a large number of poor disciples. At 
 a time of scarcity he made no distinction between 
 gentle and simple, learned and ignorant. The account 
 of his wisely indiscriminate charity and his generous 
 help to all in need, without exception, deserves telling. 
 
 In a year of famine, Eabbi Jehudah opened his 
 store-houses and treasuries, and issued a proclamation : 
 ' Let all who have read the Scriptures, or studied 
 the Mishnah, enter.' A youth forced his way into the 
 master's presence and asked for help. ' Hast thou 
 read the Mishnah ? ' ' Nay,' replied the youth. ' Art 
 thou versed in Scripture ? ' ' No ! ' ' What, then, can I 
 do for thee, my son ? ' '0 master, feed me, as one feeds 
 the hound and the raven. God makes no distinctions. 
 
 1 Jerushalmi Kilaim, chap. 9, paragr. 3. - Sabbath, 516. 
 
 3 Taanith, la. (According to Hamburger ; but in the reference 
 the saying is attributed to B.. Chanina.)
 
 76 EABBI JEHUDAH THE PEINCE 
 
 His mercies are extended to all His creatures. Should 
 we not walk in His footsteps ? ' The master yielded 
 to the youth's importunities. And then his heart 
 smote him. ' Have I given of my bread to one 
 unworthy of it ? ' Simeon, his son, consoled him : 
 ' Possibly this was Jonathan ben Amram, who refuses 
 to derive any material profit or temporal advantage 
 from his devotion to God's law.' The surmise proved 
 correct. The applicant, who had had the singular 
 interview with the Patriarch, was indeed Jonathan 
 ben Amram. And then it flashed across Eabbi 
 Jehudah's mind that he had been wrong, and he issued 
 a second proclamation : ' Let all who are in want enter, 
 whether they are learned or untutored ; all who are 
 hungry have a right to be fed.' 1 
 
 Eabbi Jehudah was a great administrator and 
 educationalist as well as a philanthropist. From all 
 parts of Palestine, and even from Babylon, scholars 
 flocked to learn wisdom from his lips. From the 
 latter country came Aba Areka, known as Eav, and 
 his colleague Samuel Yarchinai, Eabbi Chia, his two 
 sons, and many others. 
 
 He not only taught at Tiberias, Sepphoris, and 
 Beth Shearim. He also paid pastoral visits through- 
 out the length and breadth of the land. Many 
 congregations, he found, were apathetic through 
 the lack of spiritual guidance. To correct this 
 evil, he ordained some of his disciples, and ap- 
 pointed them religious heads of communities. But 
 in order to obtain ordination from Eabbi Jehudah the 
 
 1 Baba Bathra, 80,
 
 RABBI JEHUDAH THE PRINCE 77 
 
 Prince, learning alone was not sufficient : unblemished 
 character and love for the vocation of a religious 
 teacher were also essential requisites. 
 
 Thus, Bar Kappara never obtained the Semichah, 
 not because of want of knowledge, but because he 
 was endowed with the dubious gifts of a mordant 
 wit a pungent and scathing sarcasm that spared 
 none. Samuel also, for reasons not stated, never 
 obtained this honour. He was an eminent astronomer, 
 who could say, ' The paths of the sky are as familiar to 
 me as the streets of Nehardai.' 1 He was likewise a 
 skilful physician whom the Patriarch, on one occasion, 
 summoned to his bedside. When Samuel obeyed the 
 call, his former teacher excused himself for having with- 
 held the coveted Rabbinical diploma from the medical 
 practitioner, and the man of science philosophically 
 replied : ' I assume that it was foreordained. It must 
 have been written in the book of Adam, " Samuel 
 shall be known as a sage, not as a Rabbi."' 2 
 
 When Rabbi Jehudah breathed his last, the inmates 
 of his house feared to announce the sad event. At 
 last Bar Kappara stepped before the multitude, and 
 conveyed the sad tidings in the following parable : 
 ' Angels in heaven and men on earth strove for the 
 possession of the Ark of God. The angels gained the 
 day, and the Ark of God is no more with us.' * Rabbi 
 is dead,' was the cry of the sorrow-stricken crowd. 
 ' You have said it, not I,' replied Bar Kappara. The 
 veneration in which the departed teacher was held 
 found expression in the eulogy of his disciples at the 
 
 1 Berachoth, 585. 2 Baba Metzia, 856.
 
 78 RABBI JEHUDAH THE PRINCE 
 
 end of Massecheth Sotah : ' When Rabbi died, humility 
 and true reverence departed with him.' 
 
 I have said that the characters of our great men 
 find their best expression in the sayings which they 
 have left as a legacy to future ages. Let us cull some 
 of Rabbi Jehudah's gems of thought and phrase. As 
 an educationalist, he laid special stress on the import- 
 ance of sound religious instruction in childhood and 
 early youth. ' The world exists by the breath of school- 
 children.' l ( Even for the building of the Temple youthful 
 scholars should not be taken away from their studies.' 2 
 
 He valued every part of Judaism equally. ' Be as 
 heedful in the fulfilment of what you may regard as an 
 unimportant commandment as in the observance of 
 thoseyou deem weightier precepts, for you are not able to 
 judge the relative value of God's laws.' 3 'Live in the 
 consciousness that the eye of God is ever upon you.' 
 ' Meditate upon these things and you will not sin. Know 
 that above thee there is an eye that sees, an ear that 
 hears, and that all thine acts are recorded in a book.' 4 
 I Perhaps the maxim that most comprehensively sums 
 up Rabbi Jehudah's mental attitude and outlook is that 
 which forms the introductory paragraph to the second 
 chapter of the Ethics : ' What is the course that a man 
 should choose ? That which is honourable in his own 
 view, and will secure him honour from his fellow- 
 men.' 6 May we act on this counsel, so that our lives 
 may be honourable in our own eyes and command our 
 neighbour's respect. 
 
 1 Sabbath, 119&. - Ibid. 
 
 3 Ethics of the Fathers, 2:1. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.
 
 THE NECESSITY FOE REVELATION. 
 
 D ALSTON SYNAGOGUE, FIRST DAY OP PENTECOST, 1907. 
 
 BRIGHT and beautiful is the fulfilment of summer 
 after the promise of spring. The garden aflame with 
 colour, a feast for the eyes ; the cornfields, vast seas 
 of golden grain, a recompense for weeks of toil and 
 months of anxiety. Yet far brighter, more beautiful 
 and satisfying than the produce of field, garden, and 
 orchard, is the spiritual harvest reaped by Israel on 
 this Day of First Fruits. For Pentecost is the 
 natural sequel to Passover ; Sinai was the goal and 
 objective of the Exodus. When Moses was vouch- 
 safed his first Revelation, when God spoke to him 
 from the lowly thorn bush which was ever burning, 
 never consumed a type of the eternity of the Jewish 
 people the Almighty promised his faithful servant 
 that those whom he would bring forth from Egyptian 
 servitude would not become a tumultuous horde, a wild 
 disorderly rabble, but a nation, disciplined, refined, 
 elevated by the hallowing influence of religion. ' When 
 thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye 
 shall serve God by this mountain.' l 
 
 Faithfully was the promise kept. Fifty days after 
 our forefathers left Egypt, they stood at the foot of 
 
 1 Exod. 3: 12. 
 79
 
 80 THE NECESSITY FOE KEVELATION 
 
 Sinai. The covenant between God and His people 
 was sealed, and, as a token, the most valued treasure 
 in Heaven was entrusted to the sons of men. 
 
 Concerning this momentous event, Deborah, the 
 Prophetess, exclaims : ' Lord, when Thou wentest 
 out of Seir, when Thou marchedst out of the field of 
 Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens dropped, yea, 
 the clouds dropped water. The mountains melted from 
 before the Lord, even that of Sinai, from before the 
 Lord, God of Israel.' 1 
 
 And so the Psalmist sings : ' The voice of God 
 cleaves flames of fire. The voice of God makes the 
 wilderness tremble. ... In His temple, everything 
 declares His glory.' 2 
 
 The Midrash, speaking of this day, says : When God 
 descended on Sinai, accompanied by myriads of angels, 
 to give the law to His people, Heaven came down upon 
 earth ; earth rose to meet Heaven. When He was 
 about to announce His will, the kine in the meadows 
 ceased to low, the lambs in the fold to bleat ; the birds 
 of the air hushed their melody, the very choir of 
 angels paused in their hymnody. The whole universe 
 was breathlessly silent and expectant. One voice alone 
 was heard, the voice of God, uttering the Ten Words, 
 each of which filled the world with fragrance as of para- 
 dise, each of which resounded to the ends of the earth. 
 
 What is the sum and substance of this marvel- 
 lous revelation that was accompanied with so many 
 portents deafening thunders, blinding lightnings, 
 
 1 Judges, 5 : 4-5. ~ Ps. 29 : 7-9.
 
 THE NECESSITY FOE EEVELATION 81 
 
 terrifying convulsions of nature. The contents of the 
 Decalogue are exceedingly simple. They impress 
 upon us the existence of one God ; forbid the worship 
 of anyone beside Him ; enjoin reverence for His name, 
 bid us set apart one day in seven for. bodily rest, 
 spiritual refreshment and renewed self-consecration ; 
 command respect for parents as the representatives of 
 God upon earth ; uphold the sanctity of human life, and 
 reverence for family purity and honour ; assert the rights 
 of private property ; teach respect for truth ; and finally, 
 as a summary, exhort us to restrain the wayward long- 
 ings and impulses of the heart, and check greed and lust. 
 Here there is nothing difficult or mysterious. The 
 principles and precepts enunciated fall within the 
 department of natural religion. Was a special revela- 
 tion needed for commandments which, we might sup- 
 pose, the human reason would, by its own unaided 
 efforts, have been capable of evolving ? ' Lift up 
 your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these, 
 who bringeth out their host by number, callefch them 
 all by names ; from Him that is infinite in power 
 and mighty in strength not one is missing,' exclaims 
 Isaiah. 1 ' The heavens declare the glory of God ; and 
 the firmament sheweth His handiwork,' David sings in 
 the 19th Psalm. Anyone who observes the more than 
 clocklike regularity with which the worlds circling 
 in space keep their appointed times and orbits, notes 
 the stately procession of the seasons, the ebb and flow 
 of the tide, watches the growth of the tender leaf 
 
 1 Is. 40: 26. 
 
 o
 
 82 THE NECESSITY FOE BEVELATION 
 
 and slender blade of grass, studies the smallest insect, or 
 considers how wonderfully his own frame is made, must 
 have the conviction irresistibly forced upon his mind 
 that there is one Creator who called the universe into 
 being, keeps it in harmony, stills the roar of the waves, 
 and bids the ocean abide within the limits appointed it. 
 Surely, also, the pressure of social environment would, 
 of itself, have taught men that each individual must 
 respect his neighbour's rights if his own are to be re- 
 spected. Did principles so simple and elementary need 
 to be announced by the awful majesty of God Himself, 
 at the sound of whose voice all Israelites swooned with 
 mingled bliss and terror, so that they implored their 
 leader : ' Speak thou with us, and we will hear ; but 
 let not God speak with us, lest we die.' l 
 
 History furnishes the answer. Bemember the 
 days of old ; consider the annals of early times. 
 Conjure the spirits of antiquity ; bid the hoary figures 
 of the past rise from their graves and give their 
 testimony. Think of the innumerable deities with 
 which human fancy peopled every dale and hill, 
 every stream and rivulet, every grove and thicket. 
 Think of the frailties, weaknesses, and degrading 
 passions which perverted imagination attributed to 
 these deities ; recall the orgies of cruel and licentious 
 rites with which men served their gods : the first- 
 born offered up as propitiatory sacrifices ; the children 
 passed through the fire to Moloch ; the obscene worship 
 of Peor and Ashtoreth ; consider the riot of lust and 
 
 1 Exod. 20 : 19.
 
 murder, the moral anarchy, the spiritual darkness and 
 corruption in which mankind weltered before the 
 revelation, and indeed long after it ; and you will see 
 the paramount necessity of a special annunciation of 
 what we now regard as the elementary principles of 
 religion and morality. You will recognize that the 
 greatest boon conferred upon the human race was the 
 Divine Revelation a spiritual creation, counterpart 
 of the physical creation of the universe. Even as, 
 at the beginning, chaos gave way to order, and 
 the command, ' Let there be light,' brought into 
 existence harmony, beauty, organized life ; so, when 
 a spiritual light was kindled on Sinai's summit, the 
 spectres of moral anarchy and chaos gradually melted 
 away and vanished. 
 
 The power of the human intellect to discover 
 truth for itself is frequently asserted ; and so also, in 
 discussing the documents of Judaism, critics some- 
 times employ the terms ' progressive revelation ' and 
 ' increasing purpose.' We must not forget, however, 
 that in one department only has the claim been 
 made good. In the physical world we have widened 
 the area of knowledge and conquered new kingdoms. 
 Here the advance has been gradual, steady, and 
 sometimes even phenomenally rapid. There has been 
 little need to retrace one's steps. But in what concerns 
 the knowledge of God, the soul, conduct, duty, ideals, 
 the human intellect has not marched, but has simply 
 marked time. Theories have been laboriously built 
 up and accepted in one age, only to be discredited 
 
 o 2
 
 84 THE NECESSITY FOE BEYELATION 
 
 in the next. Systems, apparently coherent and irre- 
 fragable, framed by ingenious thinkers and hailed by 
 contemporaries as the last word, the ultimate 
 expression of the truth, have been riddled by critics, 
 demolished and overthrown like a house of cards. 
 Hypotheses and their refutations sum up the his- 
 tory of large portions of philosophy. If, then, the 
 sentences of the Decalogue are universally accepted 
 and regarded as self-evident axioms propositions that 
 need no demonstration that is a tribute to their 
 Divine truth. Their essential and unique value con- 
 sists in their having been revealed. They are not 
 human speculations, theories of limited thinkers to 
 be cavilled at and criticized. They are the terse and 
 pregnant expressions of the Almighty will. 
 
 ' I did not speak to you in secret,' says the 
 prophet. 1 The Torah was not given at night, in 
 some obscure corner, to one or two persons. It was 
 announced on a summer's morn, in broad daylight, 
 from the summit of a hill, to an entire nation number- 
 ing three million souls. The Decalogue was declared 
 not in a settled land but in the wilderness ; not 
 to Israel only, but to all mankind. Israel's merit 
 consists in the fact that while others rejected the Law, 
 Israel accepted it. This constitutes our sole right to 
 the title, ' The Chosen People.' God loves all peoples. 
 But our fathers alone submitted to the Divine will ; 
 they alone assumed the obligations of the Divine words. 
 There is a legend that, before the Kevelation on Sinai, 
 
 1 Is. 45 : 19.
 
 THE NECESSITY FOE EEVELATION 85 
 
 the Torah was first offered to the Edomites. These 
 cautiously inquired : ' What is written in the Law ? ' 
 ' Thou shalt not kill.' ' How can we accept such a code ? 
 Was not the founder of our race told by his father, 
 " By thy sword shalt thou live ? " It was then offered 
 to the children of Ishmael. These too asked : ' What 
 is written in the Law ? ' ' Thou shalt not steal.' ' Then 
 the law is unsuitable to our conditions and circum- 
 stances, for we get our livelihood by plundering the 
 wayfarer,' replied the wild son of the desert. And so 
 each nation, in turn, carefully weighed and balanced 
 profit against loss, clearly saw that the acceptance of 
 the Torah involved a conflict between the higher and 
 lower self, necessitated self-restraint and renunciation, 
 and felt unequal to making the necessary sacrifice. 
 Israel alone, with eager enthusiasm, took an unlimited 
 responsibility. 'Whatever the Lord saith, that will 
 we do and hear.' Our forefathers did not pause to 
 measure the extent of their obligation, to count the 
 cost of obedience. Greatly daring, they achieved great 
 things. At that moment of enthusiasm they ranked 
 with the angels, whose obedience to the Divine behest 
 is so prompt, unhesitating, and instantaneous that 
 it seems almost to anticipate the command, just as 
 the lightning flash appears to precede the thunderclap. 
 For thus the Psalmist addresses the Heavenly hosts : 
 ' Bless the Lord, ye His angels, mighty in strength, 
 that do His word, hearkening unto the voice of His 
 word.' 
 
 It is noble to assume a trust. It is nothing bat
 
 86 THE NECESSITY FOE REVELATION 
 
 common honesty to discharge ifc. On this day, we should 
 not only rejoice that God has chosen us from among all 
 peoples and entrusted us with His law. The words of 
 His law should be sweet in our mouths, as if they had, 
 this day, been delivered for the first time. Lip service 
 to the Decalogue is rendered by everyone. From 
 the Jew something more is required. The prophet's 
 call is not yet obsolete : ' Ye are my witnesses, saith 
 the Lord, and I am God.' 
 
 In the discharge of our trust lies our salvation. 
 Every nation, its mission once accomplished, has 
 passed away. Unless we bear testimony for God, we 
 too lag superfluous upon the stage. Loyalty to the 
 Law, whole-hearted and enthusiastic devotion to it, will 
 alone preserve us, for the Torah is our life and length 
 of days. The lowly thorn-bush will burn and not be 
 consumed only as long as God speaks from it and 
 through it. So let us live that we may be worthy of 
 the assurance : ' I, the Eternal, do not change ; and 
 ye, children of Jacob, will not be destroyed.' l 
 
 1 Mai. 3 : 6.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEREMONY. 
 
 HAMPSTBAD SYNAGOGUE, JANUARY 25, 1907. 
 
 ON the placards of some of the Metropolitan newspapers, 
 during the last ten days, you might have observed in 
 bold type the headline ' The New Theology.' 
 
 On turning to the columns of one of the journals in 
 question, you would have seen that the reference was to 
 pronouncements made by Sir Oliver Lodge, the Principal 
 of the Birmingham University, 1 and more recently by 
 the Rev. R. J. Campbell, of the City Temple. These men, 
 one an eminent scientist of European reputation, the 
 other a distinguished Nonconformist minister with a 
 large following, have openly discarded and repudiated 
 tenets which lie at the foundation of the dominant 
 creed as commonly accepted. 
 
 It is not my business here to discuss the doctrines 
 under review. But we may express satisfaction that 
 dogmas borrowed from heathen mythologies, con- 
 cerning some of which a Father of the Church was 
 driven to the confession, ' Credo quia impossibilia 
 sunt,' dogmas which, instead of promoting peace 
 and goodwill, have fomented discord and hatred, 
 
 1 Reported in the Hibbert Journal, July 1906. 
 87
 
 88 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEEEMONY 
 
 and the propagation of which has caused endless 
 misery, are loosening their hold on thoughtful 
 people. 
 
 We rejoice, too, that in Judaism dogmas such 
 as these have no place nor parallel. ' I am the first, 
 I am the last, and beside Me there is no God,' l 
 said the prince of prophets. On this the Midrash 
 comments : ' I am the first, I have no father. I 
 am the last, I have no brother. Beside Me there is 
 no God I have no son.' The Jew has been spared 
 mental perplexity and anxious heart-searchings con- 
 cerning the fundamentals of his faith. We are asked 
 to accept the existence of God, infinite in wisdom, 
 goodness and power, One and Incorporeal ; the revela- 
 tion of His will to man ; His providence, justice, 
 and love. These doctrines are so simple that, as soon 
 as they are stated, their reasonableness carries convic- 
 tion to the candid mind. They need no modification 
 and no restatement by the light of modern thought. 
 Judaism is not devoid of dogma. But its dogmas are 
 not forced upon us. The appeal is to reason, not to 
 blind faith : ' Know the God of thy fathers.' ' Hear, 
 Israel,' that is, understand, Israel ' that the 
 Eternal, our God, the Eternal is One.' 
 
 Judaism accordingly lays stress not on theory but 
 on practice. ' To learn and to teach, to observe and 
 to fulfil all the words of God's law ' is the Jew's 
 ideal of duty. Practice falls into two departments, 
 ethics and ritual ordinances. 
 
 1 Is. 44 : 6.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEKEMONY 89 
 
 Like Jewish theology, Jewish ethics is admirable 
 for its sweet reasonableness. The duties to our fellow- 
 men, enjoined in the Bible, do not exalt poverty into 
 virtue nor brand wealth as a vice. Our Scriptures 
 do not teach that it is harder for a rich man to 
 enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to 
 pass through the eye of a needle. Wealth is regarded 
 as a blessing of God, provided it be honestly acquired 
 and wisely used neither hoarded in miserly fashion, 
 nor riotously squandered, but employed for our good 
 and that of our fellow-men. We are not told that before 
 we are worthy to be of the elect, we must divest our- 
 selves of our possessions and give away all that we have. 
 We are, however, commanded to share the prosperity 
 God has bestowed upon us with those less fortunate ; 
 a tithe of our income must be given to the poor. Our 
 Bible does not command us, when struck on one cheek, 
 to turn the other to the srniter. But we are exhorted 
 not to bear a grudge, not to hate our brother in our 
 heart, and to remember that the wrongdoer, too, is 
 our brother. Justice is to be tempered with mercy. 
 Especially is loving-kindness to be extended to the 
 friendless and forlorn, the fatherless, the widow, the 
 destitute, the stranger. 
 
 Jewish theology and ethics are of a universal 
 character and intended for all mankind. But the 
 ritual ordinances of our faith are for the Jew 
 alone. The Gentile world is exempt from their 
 obligation. For this reason, and also because the 
 environment in which the Jew finds himself in
 
 90 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEKEMONY 
 
 the Dispersion is antagonistic to their observance, 
 there is need to lay special stress on this part of 
 Judaism. 
 
 The Sedrah of this morning, after concluding the 
 account of Israel's slavery in Egypt and his miraculous 
 deliverance, sets forth not theological doctrines or 
 moral principles, but rites and ceremonies. It en- 
 joins us to observe the Passover, redeem the first- 
 born, and put on Tephillin. What is the purpose 
 of these and similar institutions ? The observance 
 of Sabbath and Festival, Passover, and the Day of 
 Atonement, the fixing of a Mezuzah on our door, the 
 wearing of Tzitzith and Tephillin do not affect the 
 Supreme, but are of infinite moment to ourselves. 
 The object of these commands is our discipline, our 
 purification, our sanctification. And how admirably 
 these functions are discharged ! 
 
 Let me deal briefly with one rite, that of Tephillin. 
 There are two references to this precept. In the last 
 section of the weekly portion it is said, ' It shall be a 
 sign upon thy hand and a memorial between thine 
 eyes, that the law of God shall be in thy mouth.' 1 
 And again the last verse of the Sedrah reads : ' It 
 shall be for a token upon thy hand and for frontlets 
 between thine eyes, for by strength of hand God brought 
 us forth from Egypt.' 2 What a wealth of beautiful 
 symbolic meaning clusters round this rite ! The word 
 Tephillin is the plural of Tephillah, and means Medita- 
 tion. The Tephillin are called rn, a sign of the 
 
 1 Exod. 13 : 9. 2 Ibid. 13 : 16.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEREMONY 91 
 
 Covenant between God and His people, nstiB, an 
 ornament, for which Ezekiel employs as a synonym the 
 word IKB, Glory. The Greek translation is Phyldkteria, 
 protectors and defences against mischief. The four 
 passages of the Pentateuch contained in the Tephillin 
 set forth God's unity and His providence, and recall 
 Israel's lowly origin and exalted destiny as the servant 
 of God and witness to His truth. The first letter 
 of the word Shaddai, the Almighty, embossed on the 
 K>N1 ^ n!?sn, impresses upon us, when we bind the 
 Tephillin round our heads, that we are soldiers 
 of the army of the Lord of Hosts. When we wind 
 the thongs of the T ^ r6sn round our arms, we repeat 
 the text, ' And ye that cling to the Lord your God 
 shall all of you live this day/ for to cling to God is life 
 in its highest form. When we wind the thongs round 
 our fingers and hands, we recite the sentences from 
 Hosea : ' And I betroth thee unto Me for ever ; yea, I 
 will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness and in 
 justice, and in loving-kindness and mercy ; I will be- 
 troth thee unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt love 
 the Lord,' 1 a beautiful assurance of the indissoluble 
 union between God and the Kenesefh Israel. And to 
 this union, this all-embracing love of God for mankind 
 and His special favour to Israel, our Rabbis possibly 
 refer when they say that God showed Moses, when 
 he stood in the cleft of the rock, the knot of the 
 Tephillin. What importance our wise men attached 
 to this rite ! Rav Ada bar Ahavah was asked by his 
 
 1 Hosea, 2 : 19-20.
 
 92 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEEEMONY 
 
 disciples : 'By what merit hast thou attained long life ? ' 
 And the teacher replied : ' I never walked four cubits 
 without Tephillin or Torafi.' He added : ' I neve* gave 
 way to outbursts of temper, nor attempted to take 
 precedence of my seniors, nor rejoiced at another's mis- 
 fortune, nor called anyone by a nickname.' J Another 
 dictum tells us : ' He who wears Tephillin and Tzitzith, 
 reads the Shema and recites the prayers, may rest 
 assured that he will have a portion in the world to 
 come.' Abaia says : ' The fires of Gehinnom will not 
 prevail against him.' Resh Lakish tells us that ' such a 
 man will live long ; for it is said : God is upon them ; 
 they will live.' 2 
 
 These are not idle promises. Whoever fulfils this 
 precept of Tephillin, not mechanically nor perfunc- 
 torily but in a spirit of true devotion, meditating on 
 the significance of the rite, concentrating his mind on 
 the Almighty's love for all His creatures and His good- 
 ness to His people, bending his will in subordination 
 to the will of His Master, purifying his heart and mind, 
 consecrating his thoughts, feelings, and activities to 
 the services of His Maker, will surely be abundantly 
 recompensed here and hereafter. The Tephillin will 
 be true phylacteries, guardians and protectors against 
 adverse influences, physical and spiritual. Gracious 
 influences will descend upon him from on high. Holy 
 sentiments and aspirations will fill his mind and heart. 
 In the ardour of his love for God, the consuming flames 
 of fierce passions, that are worse than fires of Gehinnom, 
 
 1 Taanith, 206 ; Megillah, 28a. 2 Menachoth, 44a.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF CEREMONY 93 
 
 bo quenched. Those who lay TeplLillin in the 
 right spirit will live long, whether their years on earth 
 are few or many. They will live long, for God is upon 
 them ; their lives will be full of beauty and worth. 
 And when they shall have passed away, their memory 
 will continue fresh and fragrant in the hearts of their 
 children, of their friends, of all whom they have in- 
 fluenced for good. They will live long, for they will 
 have contributed to the progress of mankind onwards 
 and upwards.
 
 HOME INFLUENCE. 
 
 NEWPORT (MON.) SYNAGOGUE, SEPTEMBER 5, 1908. 
 
 I DEEM it a great privilege to occupy this pulpit to- 
 day. It recalls memories and associations dating back 
 nearly a quarter of a century. Twenty-three years ago, 
 when I commenced my ministry in a neighbouring 
 town in this part of Great Britain, the Newport 
 Congregation was already equipped with all requisite 
 institutions, and by its efficient management and the 
 unbroken harmony that prevailed among its members, 
 served as an example to many a sister community, 
 numerically and financially more important. It is a 
 pleasure to learn that you have not gone back nor 
 stood still, that, in the last twenty years, the member- 
 ship of your synagogue has doubled. I am yet more 
 delighted to observe that the cordiality which made of 
 you one happy family is maintained, and that, in this 
 vital respect, you may still claim your old repute as 
 a model congregation. 
 
 Pursuing, as you do, the even tenor of your ways, 
 unvexed by communal problems, happily free from 
 stormy crises, my mind was somewhat exercised as 
 
 94
 
 HOME INFLUENCE 95 
 
 to the topic on which I should address you. The 
 season certainly calls for serious thought. Our wise 
 men point out that exactly one hundred and twenty 
 days intervene between the Feast of Pentecost and 
 the Day of Atonement. This period of four months 
 falls into equal divisions of forty days each : from 
 the Feast of Shavuoth to the Fast of Tammuz ; thence 
 to Rosh Chodesh Ellul ; and thence again to Kippur. 
 Each of these periods is fraught with significance. On 
 the sixth of Sivan, God made a covenant with Israel, 
 who solemnly promised : ' Whatever the Eternal com- 
 mandeth, that will we do and obey.' Quickly _was the 
 promise forgotten and broken. On the seventeenth 
 of Tammuz, Moses descended from the Mount, and 
 finding that the people had reverted to the worship 
 of Apis, the Egyptian bull-god, shattered the tables 
 of stone on which the Divine commandments had 
 been inscribed, and of which the nation had shown 
 itself unworthy. Yet the heart of the leader yearned 
 for those he had delivered, and for forty days and 
 forty nights he wrestled in prayer on their behalf. 
 His prayer was heard. On the first of Ellul he was 
 bidden to ascend Sinai once more to receive anew 
 the Decalogue. He stayed on the Mount forty days. 
 On the tenth of Tishri he brought back the blessed 
 message, nr6o ' I have forgiven.' Ever since, the 
 tenth of Tishri has been the holiest day in the 
 Jewish year. And the preceding ten days that usher 
 in the New Year, together with the whole of Ellul, 
 form a period of introspection and retrospection,
 
 96 HOME INFLUENCE 
 
 self-examination and heart-searching, a period of 
 earnest preparation for the most sacred day of days, 
 on which we prostrate ourselves at the foot of the 
 throne of Divine grace and pour out our hearts before 
 the Father of Mercies in contrition, confession and 
 repentance, when we in return receive the blessed 
 assurance of Divine forgiveness and hear the blessed 
 word >nnta 
 
 To mark the importance of this season, the Shofar 
 is sounded, arousing the sleepers, awaking the slum- 
 berers, stirring the sluggish, and calling all Israelites 
 to their duty and their God. 
 
 What theme is of sufficient gravity befitting the 
 character of this month ? What theme is, at the 
 same time, sufficiently practical that its treatment 
 will leave, one may hope, an impression that is not 
 fleeting and evanescent, but lasting and permanent ? 
 One note there is which should call forth a responsive 
 echo in your hearts. One subject is of perennial 
 interest religious education. Of all topics, this is, 
 indeed, the most momentous. It lies at the very root of 
 our religion. When our forefathers stood at the base 
 of Sinai, they were asked, our wise men say, for a 
 pledge that the faith entrusted to them would be safe in 
 their keeping, jealously guarded and lovingly cherished. 
 They pointed to the patriarchs Abraham, the friend 
 of God, the first teacher of monotheism, his son, who 
 was bound on the altar for sacrifice, his grandson, 
 the simple man dwelling in tents, the gentle shepherd 
 and herdsman. But it was rejoined that noble sires
 
 HOME INFLUENCE 97 
 
 sometimes have degenerate descendants. Our fore- 
 fathers then solemnly promised to give special heed to 
 their children's religious training. And this promise was 
 accepted as an all -sufficient guarantee for the safety of 
 the Divine treasure entrusted to man. 
 
 The fulfilment of this pledge, to train the young in 
 the fear of God and the observance of His command- 
 ments, devolves primarily upon parents. ' Thou shalt 
 teach them (the commandments of God) diligently to 
 thy children.' The obligation rests upon the parents 
 because they have their children continuously with 
 them. ' Thou shalt speak of the commandments when 
 thou sittest in thy house, when thou walkest by the 
 way, when thou liest down, when thou risest up.' 
 In the evening before retiring to repose, in the 
 morning before leaving the house, ay, whenever we 
 are with our little ones, within the home or outside 
 it, we should use the opportunity for training them 
 religiously. Of all ages, childhood is the most im- 
 pressionable, ' like wax to receive, like marble to 
 retain.' Of all influences, the most potent and 
 enduring are those of parents. Much that we learn, 
 we soon forget. But the simple prayer taught at the 
 mother's knee, the words of counsel uttered by the 
 father's lips, are recalled with the last breath. 
 
 Do you, fathers and mothers, realize your respon- 
 sibility to the little ones with whom God has blessed 
 you ? Your privilege it is to mould their characters, to 
 watch over their spiritual growth. Your duty it is 
 to implant in their young hearts piety and moral
 
 98 HOME INFLUENCE 
 
 principles, to sow seeds that will in due season bring 
 forth a rich harvest of noble and exemplary lives. 
 
 What is it that you can specifically do ? You have 
 well-organized and efficiently-conducted Hebrew and 
 religion classes, which, I am glad to learn, your children 
 attend regularly and punctually. That is good as far 
 as it goes ; but does it go far enough ? Something 
 more may surely be expected. I would ask you to 
 second the teachers' efforts, by exhibiting a keen and 
 intelligent personal interest in the progress your off- 
 spring are making in their religious no less than in 
 their secular studies. Some may reply that they are 
 not competent to supervise their children's education. 
 Well, make yourselves competent. You haven't the 
 time ? You are busy the whole week earning bread 
 for the bairns ? But what of Friday evenings, Sabbaths 
 and Sundays ? What more profitable way of spend- 
 ing an hour of your leisure than to open Prayer Book, 
 Pentateuch, Bible, and revise with your children the 
 work they have been doing during the week ? This 
 would be no startling innovation. It would simply be a 
 revival of an institution with which an earlier genera- 
 tion was familiar under the designation of the weekly 
 Verhoren. You will be surprised to find how the adop- 
 tion of this method will quicken your children's interest 
 in their sacred studies and accelerate their progress. 
 
 There is another way in which you should discharge 
 your responsibility to your offspring. Learning is 
 not everything. Study is but a means to an end, 
 the path to a goal. And that goal is practice. Before
 
 HOME INFLUENCE 99 
 
 reciting the Shema in the morning, we first thank God 
 for the glorious orb of day, whose rays fill the earth 
 with light and warmth, brightness and cheerfulness. 
 Then we express our gratitude for the still more 
 glorious luminary, the Torah. And we pray : ' Put it 
 into our hearts to comprehend, and understand, to 
 hear, learn, teach, observe, do, and fulfil all the words 
 of Thy Law in love.' The object of understanding, 
 hearing, learning, teaching is observance. Teachers 
 can, at best, only impart theoretical instruction. The 
 essential supplement of practical teaching must be 
 provided by the parents. There is little use in a child 
 learning the Shema at school unless mother and father 
 see to it that in the evening, before it closes its eyes, 
 and in the morning, when it awakens to new life and 
 vigour, it recites the declaration of God's unity, Israel's 
 watchword, for which our race has endured so much 
 travail. The best method of familiarizing older 
 children with our sublime liturgy is by accustom- 
 ing them to regular attendance at public worship, 
 not sending them to synagogue, but taking them there. 
 I fully realize the difficulty in the case of parents 
 who go to business on what should be the day of 
 rest. Sabbath desecration is not merely a formidable 
 obstacle to the religious training of the rising generation. 
 It is the cause of much besides that is perilous 
 in the condition of latter-day Judaism. Still, if some 
 co-religionists unfortunately deem themselves precluded 
 by business exigencies from the strict observance of 
 the divinely appointed Day of Best, this dereliction 
 
 H2
 
 100 HOME INFLUENCE 
 
 of duty should not lead to further laxity. For 
 their children's sake, parents should strive to 
 observe other institutions of Judaism all the more 
 strictly. The breach of the Fourth Commandment 
 is not to be condoned. But while the heart is not 
 hardened and the mind has not become quite callous, 
 so long as the conscience is still tender, recognizes and 
 regrets wrongdoing, there is no ground for apprehend- 
 ing that children will become quite indifferent to the 
 claims of race and religion. On the contrary, what scien- 
 tists term reversion to the ancestral type may take place. 
 There may be a throw-back, and the children, when 
 they grow up, may unconsciously copy their grand- 
 parents and be stricter Jews and Jewesses than their 
 fathers and mothers but on one condition, that 
 parents themselves do not snap the link that binds 
 them to the past, that the home influence is good, the 
 home atmosphere Jewish. Earnestly strive, therefore, 
 to write on the tablets of your children's hearts 
 the love of God and loyalty to His law. 
 
 Set your children, likewise, a good example in the 
 counting-house, shop, warehouse, and market-place. Do 
 not merely train them in the practice of the rites which 
 bring man into closer communion with his Maker. 
 Teach them also those principles of truth, justice, mercy 
 and love which knit God's children into one brotherhood. 
 What a wealth of ethical exhortations do we not find 
 in this morning's Sedrah. At its close we are warned 
 against unjust weights and measures. 1 Earlier we are 
 
 1 Deut. 25: 13-16.
 
 HOME INFLUENCE 101 
 
 bidden, in pathetic language, not to oppress the 
 labourer, not to withhold his just wage. ' At his 
 day shalt thou give him his hire, neither shall the sun 
 go down upon it, for he is poor and setteth his heart 
 upon it, lest he cry against thee unto the Lord and it 
 be sin unto thee.' l 
 
 We are not greedily to keep God's bounty for 
 ourselves. The farmer had to set apart the corner 
 of the field for the poor, who were to be permitted to 
 follow the reaper and take the forgotten sheaf and 
 the gleanings. We are to be helpful to all, raise our 
 neighbour's ox or ass that has fallen by the way, 
 restore the lost property which we have found to the 
 rightful owner. Guide your lives by the light of the 
 principles enunciated in these texts and show that 
 Judaism is an ethical as well as a doctrinal and 
 institutional system, that in Judaism conduct is three- 
 quarters of life. Inculcate, by your example, in your 
 children love of God and love of Judaism, a sense of 
 justice to equals, tenderness towards dependents, pity for 
 the weak, helpfulness for the helpless, love for all God's 
 creatures. Conscientiously redeem your pledge to train 
 your offspring in the right path, and you may confi- 
 dently cherish the hope that God will fulfil His promise : 
 ' This is My Covenant, saith the Lord, My spirit which 
 is upon thee, and the words which I have put into thy 
 mouth shall not depart from thy mouth, nor from thy 
 children's mouth, nor from the mouths of thy chil- 
 dren's children from now and for evermore.' 
 
 1 Deut. 24 : 15.
 
 THE FATHEK'S EECOMPENSE. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, JANUARY 5, 1901. 
 
 THE concluding chapters of Genesis narrate the closing 
 scenes in the career of the third patriarch. An eventful 
 life was his, chequered with vicissitudes. The incidents 
 in his biography, that stand out like rugged peaks, are 
 his precipitate flight from his brother's vengeance ; 
 his lengthy and toilsome exile in his uncle's home ; his 
 anxieties on his homeward journey on account of his 
 daughter ; his heartrending grief for the supposed 
 death of his favourite son. 
 
 Not wholly without justification was his seemingly 
 querulous reply to Pharaoh's kindly inquiry as to his 
 age : ' Few and evil have been the days of the years 
 of my life.' l The prediction unconsciously implied in 
 the continuation of the answer : ' They have not 
 reached the days of the years of my fathers' lives,' 2 
 was, alas, realized. While Abraham lived one 
 hundred and seventy-five years, and Isaac exceeded 
 that limit by five years, Jacob was a hundred and 
 thirty years old when he stood before the king 
 of Egypt, and only survived another seventeen 
 years. But what a rich recompense were those last 
 
 1 Gen. 47 : 9. 2 Ibid. 
 
 102
 
 THE FATHEE'S EECOMPENSE 103 
 
 seventeen years for the sorrow-laden period that 
 preceded them. Those blissful days, in their calm 
 placidity and absolute freedom from carking cares, 
 resembled a long, golden summer afternoon which 
 follows a storm-swept day, and itself gradually, im- 
 perceptibly, and all too swiftly melts into the dark, 
 silent night. During the evening of his life the 
 patriarch was relieved of sordid anxieties concerning 
 his material wants. His daily bread he received from 
 the loving hands of his son, and to be maintained by 
 him was certainly no degradation to the father. 
 
 Without the least loss of self-respect, he might 
 show deference and even do homage to his bene- 
 factor, for was not Joseph Viceroy of Egypt ? He 
 prepares to yield up his spirit, in fullest reliance on 
 Joseph's solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that 
 his remains would not be suffered to rest in alien 
 soil, there to be worshipped by the superstitious 
 Egyptian as holy relics, but would be borne to sancta 
 terra, to the ancestral sepulchre, the exclusive right to 
 which he had, according to tradition, acquired by the 
 payment of a large sum of money to his twin-brother. 
 
 Jacob's principal reward, however, was not 
 his freedom from material anxieties during his life- 
 time, nor the assurance, in his last moments, that 
 his earthly remains would be interred in the 
 cave of Machpelah. His chief recompense was 
 his children's lives and characters, wherein his good 
 fortune exceeded that of his fathers. Only one of the 
 two sons of the first teacher of monotheism continued
 
 104 THE FATHEK'S RECOMPENSE 
 
 his life's work ; the other was a wild man ' whose hand 
 was against everyone and everyone's hand against him.' 
 Of the second patriarch's twin children, the depraved 
 conduct of the father's favourite aged him with grief 
 and dimmed his vision, for Esau became chief of a 
 robber band to whom the only appropriate benedic- 
 tion was, ' By thy sword shalt thou live.' Jacob, on 
 the other hand, is blessed with twelve sons, all worthy 
 of their sire, all deserving the noble designation, 
 iT nans? TBtf DiB>, ' founders of the twelve tribes of God.' 
 
 His beloved wife's first-born is torn from him at 
 an impressionable age. But cruel circumstances, that 
 might have embittered, and alien influences that would 
 have warped, a less noble nature, do not destroy the 
 deep piety, the strong sense of justice, the spirit of 
 gentleness which the slave, elevated from a dungeon to 
 a palace, had learnt from his father. Joseph's own sons 
 are trained as he himself had been trained ; Ephraim 
 and Manasseh ancestors respectively of Joshua, the 
 conqueror of Palestine, and of Gideon, Israel's emanci- 
 pator from the cruel yoke of Midian are deemed 
 worthy of being included with Reuben and Simeon 
 among the tribes of the Holy Nation. 
 
 This supreme blessing of good children is finely 
 indicated in the ancient rabbinical paraphrases 
 of the lesson for this Sabbath. When Jacob felt 
 his end approaching, he gathered his sons about 
 his couch ; his desire, in his last hour, was to lift 
 the veil of the future and reveal his race's final 
 destiny. At the critical moment, the patriarch's
 
 THE FATHEK'S EECOMPENSE 105 
 
 supernatural gifts failed him ; the seer's spiritual sight 
 became blurred and obscured. His purpose was out of 
 harmony with the Divine plan. The aged prophet's 
 heart misgave him. ' Are any of my sons unworthy 
 of the Divine grace ? ' he asked himself. ' Do they 
 cherish strange gods ; secretly approve of their uncle's 
 lust of blood, and their grand-uncle's lawlessness ? ' 
 ' Gather yourselves together,' he exhorts his children. 
 ' Eally your spiritual forces, summon your moral 
 energies. Cleanse your minds ; purify your hearts.' 
 The twelve sons understand the covert rebuke, and 
 with one accord they exclaim : ' Hear, our father 
 Israel, the Lord our God is one God. The God you 
 worship we adore. Your faith is our faith. Your 
 hopes are our hopes. Your aims, aspirations, and 
 ideals are ours too.' And the patriarch, reassured 
 that his sons' hearts beat in unison with his, 
 in his gratitude, utters the sentence which, ever 
 since, has formed the complement to the Shema. 
 ' Blessed be the name of His glorious Sovereignty for 
 ever and ever.' ' 
 
 The patriarch is not afraid to mingle rebuke with 
 eulogy. Reuben's infirmity of purpose loses him the 
 double crown of kingship and priesthood, as well 
 as the first-born's right to a double portion of the 
 heritage. The mischief occasioned by Simeon and 
 Levi's turbulent dispositions will be checked by the 
 dispersion of these tribes. And tradition reports that, 
 as Simeon's territory was exceedingly limited, the 
 
 1 Pcsachim, 5fia.
 
 106 THE FATHEE'S EECOMPENSE 
 
 members of that tribe were, in fact, compelled to eke 
 out a scanty livelihood by acting as teachers to their 
 more fortunately circumstanced brethren. The Levites, 
 too, roamed through the land collecting their tithes 
 from threshing-floor and sheepfold. Dependent on the 
 goodwill of their neighbours, pride was humbled, hot 
 passion cooled. 
 
 After addressing the tribes individually, they are 
 blessed collectively. ' And this is it that their fathers 
 spake unto them and blessed them. 1 1 A lesson, appar- 
 ently trite, and yet one that cannot be repeated too 
 often, that all advantages are but Dead Sea fruit, turning 
 to ashes in the mouth, unless they are accompanied by 
 the supreme blessings of unity and harmony, the sense 
 of kinship, brotherly sympathy, the resolve that the 
 benefits possessed by each shall be shared by all. 
 
 Jacob not only blessed his children. His life was 
 a blessing to his neighbours as well as to his family. 
 During his stay in Egypt, there was no recurrence 
 of the terrible scourge that had not even spared the 
 granary of ancient times. To use the oriental trope, 
 the Nile rose to greet the good man, and irrigated the 
 Delta's length and breadth ^ith fructifying streams. 
 Nor, despite his protracted absence, had he been 
 forgotten in his homeland. At the threshing-floor 1 
 of Atad, Canaan's princes doffed their crowns, placed 
 them on the points of their spears, and formed a 
 guard of honour round the remains of their old 
 friend. The presence of the illustrious dead was the 
 
 1 Gen. 49 : 28.
 
 THE FATHER'S EECOMPENSE 107 
 
 signal for a truce to strife and combat ; earthly 
 dignities, principalities, and powers, and the differences 
 and jealousies they engender, were temporarily in 
 abeyance. 
 
 With a flash of true poetic insight, our sages say 
 that Jacob did not really die. 1 Superfluous were the 
 delicate and costly processes of embalming. Dust 
 indeed returned to dust ; but the patriarch's spirit 
 lived on in his children and children's children ; lives 
 in the Jewish people and blesses it to the present day. 
 
 How is Jacob's spirit to be perpetuated ? How 
 else but by imitating his quiet, unassuming methods ; 
 looking well to the ways of our households ; recog- 
 nizing that our first duty is to the inmates of our 
 homes. The most important factor in the moral 
 development of the young is home training and home 
 influence. Where the atmosphere of the home is 
 Jewish; where the table is an altar before the Lord; 
 where parents realize their sacred, unique privilege as 
 ministers, guides, teachers to their children, and set 
 them an example of uprightness and integrity ; exhibit 
 a spirit of genuine religion and unostentatious piety ; 
 show that Sabbaths, festivals, and the beautiful 
 observances of our faith are indeed a delight to them ; 
 they may rest assured that their descendants will 
 unconsciously become imbued with the conviction 
 that ' the chiefest wisdom is fear of the Lord,' 
 and, in their turn, will grow up ' a seed blessed of the 
 Eternal.' 
 
 1 Taanith, 56.
 
 108 THE FATHER'S RECOMPENSE 
 
 But for the intelligent practice of Judaism, 
 knowledge, as well as example, is needed. The first 
 petition in the daily Amiclah is for grace of understand- 
 ing. The synagogue has, accordingly, for a long time 
 past, not merely served as a meeting-house for worship, 
 but has also, literally been a Schule, a school where 
 the rudiments of religious instruction are imparted. 
 
 The present system of education exhibits, how- 
 ever, one defect. It is incomplete. When our 
 children attain Bar Mitzvah, parents, taking the 
 formula nt hw iKOyD 'JTOBB> "|m in too wide a sense, 
 consider themselves exempted from all further re- 
 sponsibility for their boys' religious training. The lad, 
 too, called, for the first time, to the reading of the 
 Law, often regards that honour as emancipating him 
 from the status of pupilage. What are the conse- 
 quences ? When the children grow up, the old 
 legend receives a fresh application. The angel of 
 oblivion seems to have touched them a second time 
 on their lips and made them forget almost all the 
 scant Hebrew and religious knowledge toilsomely 
 acquired by them in childhood. 
 
 The mischief is obvious ; the remedy, equally clear. 
 The gap between the child's religion class and the 
 adult's study circle should be filled by advanced 
 classes where, during the critical period of adolescence 
 those all-important years of growth and development 
 the minds and hearts of the rising generation shall 
 continue to be carefully nurtured, so that their 
 future lives and characters may resemble, not fields
 
 THE FATHEK'S RECOMPENSE 109 
 
 cultivated for a short interval and then neglected 
 and suffered to be overrun with noxious weeds, but 
 well-tended gardens blossoming like the rose, and 
 fragrant as the myrtle. 
 
 ' The reader of the letter should execute its 
 message.' It is proposed to establish in connection 
 with this synagogue continuation classes, which will not, 
 however, be restricted to the children of the members. 
 The only stipulations insisted upon will be regular 
 and punctual attendance on the part of those who 
 join, an earnest desire to learn, and a spirit of rever- 
 ence. With these requisites, God's grace will rest on 
 the work which, it is hoped, will help to promote the 
 true spiritual welfare of the descendants of Israel, 
 and further the advancement of our holy faith.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OP THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 FINSBURT PARK SYNAGOGUE, OCTOBER 12, 1901. 
 
 I GLADLY welcome the opportunity accorded me, on 
 the first Sabbath after the Festivals, of heartily con- 
 gratulating the entire congregation leaders as well as 
 rank and file on the successful accomplishment of an 
 arduous and difficult undertaking the erection of a 
 sanctuary to the service of the Most High. 
 
 What a crowd of memories and associations cluster 
 around the conception of a Jewish sanctuary ! For 
 the first use of the term we must go back to the dawn 
 of Israel's history. Three thousand years ago, when 
 our forefathers were redeemed from their long Egyptian 
 servitude and had safely emerged from the perils 
 of the deep, they sang a song of gratitude for their 
 marvellous deliverance. In that song the following 
 notable sentence occurs : l imiKI ^>K nt, which is 
 variously rendered : ' This is my God and I will glorify 
 Him,' or ' This is my God and I will build a habitation 
 for Him,' or combining both versions, ' This is my 
 God and I will build Him a glorious habitation.' 
 Speedily was the promise fulfilled. Scarcely a twelve- 
 
 1 Exod. 15 : 2. 
 110
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE SYNAGOGUE 111 
 
 month had elapsed when, on the first day of the first 
 month in the second year after the Exodus, a taber- 
 nacle was erected in the wilderness, a visible token 
 of God's presence in Israel's midst. On that occasion, 
 Moses, according to tradition, offered up a prayer 
 which we can always appropriately repeat : ' May it 
 be the will of the Supreme to cause His Shechinah 
 to rest on the work of your hands.' To this should be 
 added the High Priest's petition : ' May it be His will to 
 cause the spirit of brotherhood and love, friendship and 
 peace to abide with you from now and for evermore.' 
 
 On the second day of the recent feast of Taber- 
 nacles, and again on the Eighth Day, we read, as 
 lessons from the Prophets, selections from the book 
 of Kings, descriptive of the festivities in Jerusalem, 
 which celebrated the dedication of the First Temple. 
 
 The place occupied, and the functions fulfilled, by 
 the Tabernacle in the wilderness and the Temple in 
 Jerusalem, the synagogue occupies and discharges at 
 the present day, in the lands of our dispersion. Like 
 the sanctuary of old, the synagogue is a house of 
 prayer, and should be a rallying-centre for Jews and 
 Judaism. As in the Tabernacle and Temple a per- 
 petual fire was kindled on the altar, so here too the fire 
 of spiritual fervour should be tended, so that it may 
 continually burn with a pure, bright, and steady glow. 
 
 In Judaism there are no mysteries ; there is nothing 
 in our ritual that we need conceal, or of which we need 
 be ashamed. Our people, therefore never, except 
 under the stress of active persecution, worshipped
 
 112 THE INFLUENCE OF THE SYNAGOGUE 
 
 in catacombs, crypts, or subterranean halls. Our 
 synagogues have always had windows and have always 
 been flooded with light. To them applies the invocation : 
 ' Open, ye gates, and let the righteous nation that keeps 
 faithfulness, enter,' or, ' Open, ye gates, and let the 
 pHV 13, the righteous Gentile whose motive is pure and 
 sincere, enter.' To all, without distinction of race or 
 creed, the synagogue extends a hearty welcome. All 
 it greets with the familiar Jewish invitation, ' Blessed 
 be he who comes in the name of God.' 
 
 But if the synagogue is open to all, does it not 
 behove us to keep watch and ward over our attitude 
 and demeanour, over our behaviour and conduct, when 
 we wend our way to the house of God, and while 
 we are there ? Do not take it ill, if I impress upon 
 you the importance of not only attending regularly, but 
 also of arriving at the commencement of the service. The 
 practice that has grown up, in several congregations, 
 of permitting members to stroll in and out at their own 
 sweet will, while public worship is proceeding, has no 
 counterpart, and would not be tolerated, in church 
 or chapel, and must not be permitted to obtain a 
 footing in a newly erected synagogue. And while you 
 are here, not only observe decorum but cultivate also 
 devotion. Bemember that the place on which you 
 stand is holy ground : ' This is none other but the house 
 of God, and this the gate to Heaven.' l Over the ark, in 
 several Jewish places of prayer, is inscribed the solemn 
 monition, which I would ask you to bear in mind, 
 
 1 Gen. 28 : 17.
 
 THE INFLUENCE OP THE SYNAGOGUE 113 
 
 ' Know before Whom thou standest.' While the Temple 
 on Mount Zion was still in existence, pilgrims were not 
 permitted to ascend the hill leading to the shrine 
 with shoes on their feet, staves in their hands, or 
 purses in their wallets. 1 Let me entreat you to observe 
 the spirit of this rule. Before you cross the threshold 
 of this minor sanctuary, shake off the dust of the street ; 
 leave worldly thoughts outside. Forget, for the time, 
 your personal importance, whether it be due to wealth 
 or position. Let your hearts be uplifted by the 
 thought of God's infinite greatness. Let your eyes 
 look down towards the ground when you reflect upon 
 your own utter insignificance. 
 
 One other error I would warn you against. Do 
 not think that the whole duty of a Jew is completed 
 when he has assisted in the building and maintenance 
 of a synagogue, and even when he joins regularly, 
 punctually and devoutly in public worship. The 
 synagogue will have utterly failed of its purpose if 
 you do not carry away its holy influence, to sanctify 
 and bless your homes, your vocations, and the whole 
 of your lives. Your dwelling-houses, on the doorposts 
 of which Mezuzahs are fixed, with the name 1B>, 
 Almighty God, exposed to view, shall be temples of 
 holiness. Your tables shall be tables before the Lord ; 
 your meals, sacrifices ; and you yourselves, officiating 
 priests who, by the silent eloquence of your example, 
 shall teach your children the nobility of duty. Not 
 only solemn religious rites, but every act, however 
 
 1 Mishnah, Berachoth, 9 : 5.
 
 114 THE INFLUENCE OF THE SYNAGOGUE 
 
 humble, apparently insignificant and commonplace, 
 shall be sanctified and raised to the dignity of a 
 Mitzvah by the spirit in which it is performed and 
 the motive that inspires its performance the greater 
 glory of God and so the whole of your lives will 
 be one continuous consecrated service. 
 
 Sanctify the name of God not only in the synagogue 
 and the home, but also in the market-place, the 
 factory, and the counting-house, by the strictest in- 
 tegrity and uprightness, by the refusal to take any 
 unfair advantage whatever be the temptation in 
 the relations of master and workman, employer and 
 employed, customer and competitor. So will you justify 
 the prophet's lofty claim on our behalf : ' The remnant 
 of Israel will do no wrong and speak no falsehood.' 
 
 This morning we again commenced to read the 
 Torah. Rashi, in his commentary on the first verse 
 of the Pentateuch, points out that the Law does 
 not begin with the twelfth chapter of Exodus, 
 which contains the first ordinance addressed to the 
 Israelites as a nation the institution of the paschal 
 sacrifice. The first chapter of Genesis commences 
 with a description of the marvels of creation. 
 The first lesson of religion which we should 
 never forget is that the dome of sapphire above 
 our heads, the pavement of emerald beneath our 
 feet, the lamps of purest ray serene set in the 
 sky, the countless objects of beauty and utility 
 which we see around us, are not the results of 
 accident. They were all called into being by the will
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE SYNAGOGUE 115 
 
 of an All-wise, All-good, Omnipotent Creator and 
 Kuler, our Heavenly Father, Whose desire is our 
 improvement and happiness, and to Whom we are 
 accountable for the use we make of our existence, and 
 for the way in which we deal with each other. The 
 order and beauty in the universe is a perpetual 
 exhortation to us to cultivate moral order and spiritual 
 beauty in our lives. 
 
 ' The just man is the foundation of the world.' 
 For the sake of Israel and the Torah, for the sake of 
 the fulfilment of the Law and the practice of religion 
 and morality, were Heaven and earth created. 
 
 Let the Torah be a lamp to our feet and a light to 
 our path. Let us cling to it as to a tree of life, and 
 find our happiness in its maintenance ; so will its ways 
 be ways of pleasantness, and all its paths be peace. 
 
 i 2
 
 THE STUDY OP THE TOEAH. 
 
 OPENING OP THE LEEDS BETH HAMEDBASH, MARCH 23, 1908. 
 
 UNDENIABLY valuable and important as are the 
 functions of the synagogue the rallying-centre of 
 Judaism and Jewry, the counterpart of the ancient 
 Temple, the minor sanctuary where the individual 
 pours out his soul at the foot of the Throne of Divine 
 Grace and joins his praises and petitions to those of the 
 entire community they are transcended by those of 
 the Beth Hamedrash. Hence, on the principle that 
 objects employed in the service of religion may be raised 
 to higher, not degraded to lower, uses, it is laid down in 
 the Schulchan Aruch, on the authority of a passage 
 in the Talmud, 1 that a public synagogue may be con- 
 verted into a Beth Hamedrash, but not vice versa, and 
 it is further expressly stated that a Beth Hamedrash 
 is more sacred than a synagogue. 
 
 These dicta reflect the spirit of Judaism, which 
 has always emphatically insisted on the necessity of 
 cultivating the intellect equally with the heart, and 
 developing the mental faculties as well as stimulating 
 the emotions in the service of God. In the Shema, 
 
 1 Megillah, 266, 27a. 
 116
 
 THE STUDY OF THE TOEAH 117 
 
 repeated twice daily, we are exhorted : ' These words 
 which I command thee this day shall be upon thy 
 heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently to thy 
 children, and shalt speak of them when thou sittest 
 in thy house, when thou walkest by the way, when 
 thou liest down, and when thou risest up.' This 
 duty is not relegated to a section of the people, for in 
 Judaism there is no division between clergy and laity, 
 between the professional classes and men of affairs. 
 ' This book of the Law shall not depart out of thy 
 mouth, and thou shalt meditate therein day and night,' l 
 was addressed to a soldier, the commander-in-chief 
 of Israel's forces, who led the descendants of the 
 liberated serfs to the Promised Land and helped 
 them to conquer Palestine. The Psalms, which 
 sound the entire gamut of human emotions, and in 
 which the varying moods that sway human nature 
 passionate joy and poignant grief, quaking fear 
 and confident hope, profound despair and high- 
 souled courage all find adequate expression, begin 
 with felicitations to him ' who delights in the law 
 of God and on His law meditates day and night.' 
 In the nineteenth Psalm, the sweet singer of Israel 
 passes from a magnificent account of the revelation 
 in Nature to the nobler, because more explicit, revela- 
 tion in the Divine Word, and bursts forth into 
 the rhapsody : ' The law of God is perfect, restoring 
 the soul ; the testimony of God is faithful, making 
 the simple wise ; the ordinances of God are right, 
 
 1 Josh. 1 : 8.
 
 118 THE STUDY OF THE TORAH 
 
 rejoicing the heart ; the commandment of God is 
 clear, making the eyes bright ; the fear of God is 
 pure, enduring for ever ; the judgments of God are 
 true, altogether righteous.' l 
 
 If we turn to the Mishnah, Talmud and Midrash, we 
 find that they lay still greater stress upon the duty of 
 studying the Torah. In the familiar passage from 
 Mishnah Peak, a list of duties is enumerated, the per- 
 formance of which will secure recompense here and bliss 
 hereafter. Honouring parents and practical benevo- 
 lence in its various forms hospitality to the wayfarer, 
 visitation of the sick, dowering the bride, showing the 
 last respects to the departed are named, and the 
 passage concludes : ' The study of the Law is equal 
 to them all,' or more correctly 'corresponds to 
 them all.' For two and a half years, we read, 
 the schools of Shammai and Hillel debated as to 
 which was the more important study or practice : 
 and the final decision was, ' Great is study, because it 
 leads to right practice.' There is a beautiful allegory 
 in the Talmud, that when our ancestors stood at the 
 foot of Sinai, the Eternal held the mountains over 
 them, like an upturned cask, and said : ' If you accept 
 the Torah, well and good. If not, here will be your 
 burial place.' 2 The meaning is that the whole raison 
 d'etre of the Jewish people, the sole justification for 
 our separatism, is that we are depositaries of the Torah. 
 The wealth accumulated by individual members of 
 our race is not a tower of strength to the Jewish people. 
 
 1 Psalm 19 : 7-8. - Sabbath, 88a.
 
 THE STUDY OF THE TORAH 119 
 
 Nor are even the solid contributions to science, litera- 
 ture, art, politics, made by Israel's sons, set down to the 
 credit of the stock whence they have sprung. But readily 
 or reluctantly, eagerly or grudgingly, foes as well as 
 friends are bound to acknowledge the infinitely valuable 
 services which the Hebrew race has rendered in the 
 sphere of religion ; and no one can help admitting that 
 the advance of the civilized world in humanity and 
 morality, purity and kindliness is directly and indirectly 
 due to the influence of our sacred literature. But we 
 must not rest on our laurels. The main duty of the 
 people of the Book is to preserve the Book, and per- 
 petuate the knowledge and practice of the glorious 
 literature which has developed from it. This duty 
 devolves upon all, rich and poor, as is beautifully set 
 forth in the following Talmudic passage : x 
 
 When an Israelite, after the close of his earthly pil- 
 grimage, will stand at the bar of Heavenly Judgment, 
 and on being asked, ' Why hast thou neglected the study 
 of the Torah,' will reply, ' Because I was poor,' he 
 will be met with the retort, ' Wast thou then poorer 
 than Hillel?' That student's wages were but half a 
 dinar a day, of which small sum he gave half to the 
 porter of the college for the right of admission. One 
 day he had earned nothing. As he could not hand the 
 janitor the customary gratuity, Hillel clambered to the 
 roof of the college, pressed down his ear to the sky- 
 light, so as not to miss a single syllable of the 'words of 
 the living God,' expounded by Shemaiah and Abtalion. 
 
 1 Yoma, 356.
 
 120 THE STUDY OF THE TOEAH 
 
 It was a short Friday afternoon in the mid-winter month 
 of Tebeth. There was a heavy snowstorm. The next 
 day, when the Sabbath morn had dawned, She- 
 maiah said to his colleague, ' Brother Abtalion, usually 
 in the early morning the hall is flooded with light ; to- 
 day it is exceptionally dark.' They looked up and 
 saw the figure of a man athwart the skylight. They 
 immediately mounted to the roof, swept away the mass 
 of snow that had covered the student to a depth of 
 three cubits, tenderly brought down his almost inanim- 
 ate form, and, notwithstanding that it was the Day of 
 Best, prepared a hot bath, kindled a fire, and so saved 
 Hillel's life. 
 
 This incident is not unique. It is a typical 
 illustration of the sacrifices that have frequently 
 been brought on the altar of the Torah. Enthusiasm 
 for sacred learning lived in Hillel's descendants and 
 disciples. It inspired Eabbi Jochanan ben Zaccai, 
 at the destruction of Jerusalem and downfall of 
 the Jewish State, to ask as a boon from the Eoman 
 General and Emperor, Vespasian, that he might 
 spare Jamnia and its teachers. It emboldened the 
 martyr, E. Akiba, to gather assemblies in defiance of 
 Hadrian's edict and teach them Torah. It determined 
 B. Jehudah the Prince and friend of princes to under- 
 take the laborious task of compiling that marvellous 
 Encyclopedia of oral law and tradition, the Mishnah. 
 This zeal for Torah travelled to Babylon and was the 
 abiding inspiration of the schools of Sura and Pum- 
 baditha from the davs of Eav, founder of the former
 
 THE STUDY OF THE TOEAH 121 
 
 academy, to those of Kavina and Eav Ashi, who com- 
 piled the Babylonian Talmud, and later on to the close 
 of the Gaonic period. It winged its flight across the 
 Mediterranean to Western Europe and North Africa. 
 Hence the galaxy of scholars in Spain and Egypt 
 Alfasi, Maimonides, Nachmanides. It spread north- 
 wards, and the glossators on the Talmud in France and 
 England, by their marvellously acute critical notes, 
 opened a new path in Talmudic study. This spirit 
 inspired the teachers in Germany : E. Elazar of 
 Worms, author of the ' Eokeach ' ; E. Judah Chassid, 
 whose sweetness and kindliness are abundantly mani- 
 fest in his ' Book of the Pious ' ; E. Meir of Eothenburg, 
 who languished in prison, till his death, because he 
 would not permit ransom to be paid for him, so as not 
 to encourage the rapacity of German robber-barons 
 and tyrant-princes. The same spirit has animated 
 thousands and tens of thousands of students in Eussian 
 Poland and Lithuania, Galicia and Hungary, who turn 
 night into day in their devotion to Jewish scholarship. 
 
 There was a current gibe : ' The Torah is not on the 
 other side of the sea. It has no representatives on 
 this side of the English Channel.' The gibe was never 
 quite true. In the last generation it has completely lost 
 its point. The persecutions in Eussia in the last thirty 
 years brought thousands of co-religionists from that 
 step-motherly country to these hospitable shores. Many 
 settled in the Metropolis. Of those who went to the 
 provinces, a large number came to Leeds and^brought
 
 122 THE STUDY OF THE TOKAH 
 
 with them their traditional love of learning. They 
 recognized that public worship was not the sole requisite 
 of a community, that religious instruction was as neces- 
 sary for young and old as devotion in prayer. The 
 settlers in Leeds who started a Beth Hamedrash in a 
 small room in Templar Street in the early 'seventies had, 
 owing to increasing numbers, to remove successively to 
 St. Alton's Street in 1877, to Upper Hope Street in 1886, 
 and to premises occupied in 1895, and only recently 
 vacated. In 1901 it was felt that the ship must have 
 a captain, and a call was given to the distinguished 
 and venerable scholar whose presence in Leeds confers 
 honour not only upon the congregation to which he 
 ministers, but on the entire Jewish community. 
 
 If we dwell for a few minutes upon the useful work 
 performed by the Beth Hamedrash, it is to enlighten 
 the visitors, and induce communities in other large 
 centres to take a leaf out of your book. 
 
 The Beth Hamedrash is open for seventeen hours 
 daily, from 6 in the morning till 11 at night. As 
 soon as the doors are unlocked, the rooms are filled 
 with working men, who, before going to their 
 tasks, begin the day as it should be begun, with a 
 service of praise and prayer to Him Who restores 
 vigour and vitality to the weary and toilworn. At 
 noon, released from the factories for the midday meal, 
 many turn into the Beth Hamedrash for a few minutes' 
 spiritual refreshment. In the evenings, the rooms 
 are thronged with those who realize that for complete 
 development, intellectual is as much a necessity as
 
 THE STUDY OF THE TORAH 123 
 
 physical exercise ; that, if we are not to sink to the 
 level of the brute, the mind and soul must be nourished 
 as well as the body. Classes in Talmud are held by 
 your minister every evening. In an adjoining room, 
 there are regular readings in Bible, Mishnah, and 
 Schulchan Aruch. In the lecture hall, Rabbis and 
 preachers who visit Leeds frequently give religious 
 addresses to large audiences. 
 
 The features of the old Beth Hamedrash will be 
 continued in the new. But there is a distinction. The 
 old Beth Hamedrash was an old Beth Hamedrash, 
 dingy, cramped, incommodious, and, from an archi- 
 tectural point of view, far from ornamental. The new 
 Beth Hamedrash will be one of the finest communal 
 edifices in Leeds, a palace of truth, fit habitation for 
 that beauteous queen, the Torah, whose worth is above 
 rubies. 
 
 A stately building with suitable fittings neces- 
 sarily involves a large outlay. The amount received 
 from the Leeds Corporation, under the award 
 of Sir Hugh Owen, the arbitrator, will fall short of 
 the cost of the new Beth Hamedrash by between 
 two and three thousand pounds. This heavy liability 
 must necessarily clog and hamper development, and 
 I hope that you will soon be enabled to clear off, if 
 not the whole, at all events a large portion of this 
 debt. Though scattered and dispersed in the provinces 
 of this kingdom, we are one people ; and, on the ground 
 of this essential unity of Israel, I make an earnest appeal 
 to the Jews of Leeds, of other provincial towns, and
 
 124 THE STUDY OF THE TOEAH 
 
 even of the Metropolis overwhelmed though it is 
 with its own perplexing problems to come to the help 
 of the Leeds Beth Hamedrash. All cannot profitably 
 pore over the folios of the Talmud or follow intelli- 
 gently the discussions of the Mishnah ; but all can, 
 and should, encourage Jewish learning, which is the 
 salt and savour of Judaism and Jewry. Many, I trust, 
 will, by their assistance, show that they realize that 
 the Torah is a tree of life, not only to those who 
 learn it, but also to those who maintain and support 
 its study.
 
 JEWISH JUDICIAL PEOCEDUEE IN 
 ANCIENT TIMES. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, SEPTEMBER 1, 1900. 
 I. 
 
 AMONG current fallacies, none is more common than 
 the contrast drawn between Eeligion and Morality. 
 This usually takes the form of a disparaging 
 criticism of one's neighbour. The remark is often 
 made : ' So-and-so may be a good Jew, but he is 
 certainly not a good man. He is scrupulous in the 
 observance of his duties to the Almighty ; but he is 
 not equally regardful of the obligations which he owes 
 to his fellows. Pious he may be, but he lacks 
 trustworthiness and reliability.' Such criticisms, it is 
 submitted, involve a contradiction in terms. No one 
 deserves the designation of good Jew, unless he is, at 
 the same time, a good man. We cannot be said to 
 fulfil our duties to God, unless we strive, with might 
 and main, to carry out conscientiously those duties to 
 our neighbour which God has imposed upon us equally 
 with our duties to Himself. For religion is not the 
 antithesis of morality, but includes it. This truth finds 
 a splendid illustration in the three verses with which 
 
 125
 
 126 JEWISH JUDICIAL PKOCEDUBE 
 
 the Sedrah of this morning opens : ' Judges and officers 
 thou shalt appoint unto thyself in all thy gates which 
 the Lord thy God giveth unto thee according to thy 
 tribes ; and they shall judge the people with a righteous 
 judgment. Thou shalt not pervert justice ; thou shalt 
 not show partiality ; nor shalt thou take bribes, for a 
 bribe blindeth the eyes of the wise and perverteth 
 the words of the just. Justice, justice thou shalt 
 pursue in order that thou mayest live and possess the 
 land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' l Here, as 
 in so many other passages of the Bible, righteousness and 
 equity are indicated as the sole basis on which the 
 security of the State and the prosperity of its individual 
 members can be firmly and safely established. We Jews 
 claim the quality of mercy. We are said to be Each- 
 monim Vne Bachmonim. But Israel is gifted with an 
 equally fine sense for Justice. Early in his history, 
 he developed a system of jurisprudence and judicial 
 procedure unsurpassed by any nation of antiquity, 
 and that can bear favourable comparison with the 
 most advanced legal systems of the present day. I 
 propose to sketch briefly some of the principal points 
 of Jewish judicial procedure in olden time, and to 
 compare this ancient system with the English method, 
 which may be taken as representing the highest 
 standard of modern civilized practice. 
 
 II. 
 
 ' Judges and officers thou shalt appoint in all thy 
 gates.' In accordance with this injunction, every 
 
 1 Deut. 16 : 18-20.
 
 IN ANCIENT TIMES 127 
 
 townlet in Judaea, however small and unimportant, 
 had its court of three judges, who met at least twice 
 every week, on Mondays and Thursdays, the ordinary 
 market-clays. In addition to these petty courts with 
 which the whole land was dotted, there were twelve 
 tribunals, one in the chief town of each tribal territory ; 
 and each of these comprised twenty-three expert judges. 
 The highest court of all, the Supreme Court of Appeal, 
 was the famous Sanhedrin, or Synhedrion, consisting of 
 seventy-one members, which held a continuous session 
 at Jerusalem, within the precincts of the Temple, in a 
 hall known as the Lislicliatli Haggazith ' the hall of 
 hewn stones.' 
 
 Civil causes, affecting rights to property, are in this 
 country usually brought before a judge or group of 
 judges. Less frequently are such cases decided by a 
 judge and jury. On the other hand, anyone accused of 
 a criminal offence is tried by a judge and jury of his own 
 peers. The judge directs the proceedings and lays down 
 the law ; the jury considers the facts and gives the ver- 
 dict. On the whole, this system works well. But it 
 is conceivable that a jury, which has in its hands 
 the life and liberty of a human being, may some- 
 times be composed of ignorant and unintelligent folk, 
 by no means qualified to weigh evidence and render a 
 true verdict. In Judaism the rule was reversed. A tri- 
 bunal of even three laymen was competent to decide in 
 civil cases where questions of property were concerned. 
 Criminal charges, however, came within the exclusive 
 jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, or at least of 
 one of the twelve tribal courts consisting of twenty -three
 
 128 JEWISH JUDICIAL PKOCEDUKE 
 
 expert jurists. In English courts circumstantial evi- 
 dence is admitted, for want of better. And many an 
 innocent man has suffered unjust punishment, and some- 
 times even the extreme penalty of the law, because of an 
 unfortunate concatenation of suspicious circumstances 
 which pointed to the perpetration of a crime by the 
 accused, evidence which, too late, was discovered to have 
 been wrongly interpreted. Such a miscarriage of justice 
 was impossible in Jewry, for only the direct testimony of 
 eye-witnesses was accepted. Again, the evidence of one 
 trustworthy witness is regarded in this country as suffi- 
 cient. Not so in Jewish Law. As we read in this 
 morning's portion : ' One witness shall not rise up to 
 testify against a man. . . . By the mouth of two wit- 
 nesses or of three witnesses shall a matter be established.' 1 
 Before witnesses can be heard, they must in this country 
 be sworn. And frequenters of the law-courts have the 
 opportunity of observing how perfunctorily the oath 
 is sometimes administered. The Jew had too much 
 reverence for God to take His name unnecessarily. 
 Witnesses were therefore not sworn, but they were 
 earnestly exhorted to speak the truth. It was solemnly 
 impressed upon them, that the fate of a fellow- being 
 depended upon the accuracy and exactness with which 
 they discharged their duty. 3 In this country the 
 verdict of a jury must be unanimous, to secure acquittal 
 or condemnation. According to the Jewish system, the 
 decision followed the opinion of the majority of the judges. 
 But while a bare majority of one was sufficient for 
 
 1 Deut. 19 : 15. 2 Sanhedrin, 3 : 6, 4 and 5.
 
 IN ANCIENT TIMES 129 
 
 acquittal, a clear majority of at least two was necessary 
 for condemnation. 1 Curious and noteworthy it is that 
 when all the judges were against the accused, he was 
 declared not guilty ; the unanimous voice of condem- 
 nation, thought the Rabbis, argued a latent bias, an 
 unconscious prejudice in the minds of the judges. As in 
 English law, once acquitted, a man could not be re-tried 
 on the same charge. But, if convicted, the discovery 
 of fresh evidence or new arguments in his favour was 
 ground for moving for a new trial. 2 And in order that 
 the reprieve might not come too late, a horseman was 
 stationed at some distance from the place of execution, 
 with a flag in his hand, with which he might, even at 
 the last moment, signal to the executioner to stay the 
 gruesome proceedings. 3 Thus was justice tempered 
 with mercy in the Jewish system. 
 
 III. 
 
 The efficacy of judicial procedure, as of any other 
 department in the State, depends not merely upon 
 the perfection of the system administered, bufc on the 
 capacity of the administrators. England glories in a 
 long line of occupants of the Bench who have shed 
 lustre on their exalted office by the breadth and depth 
 of their learning, their acumen, keen penetration, 
 sound judgment, integrity and fearlessness. But who 
 can compare with Israel's judges ? Who deserves to 
 be placed on the same pedestal with the first of our 
 
 1 Sanhedrin, 1:6. ~ Ibid. 5:1. Ibid. 4:1. 
 
 K
 
 130 JEWISH JUDICIAL PKOCEDUEE 
 
 judicial officers, the Law-giver, Moses, who, as soon 
 as he had led forth the hosts of Israel from the land 
 of their long and bitter servitude, chose ' men of 
 courage, God-fearing, men of truth, hating covetous- 
 ness,' and placed them over tens, over hundreds, over 
 thousands, over ten thousands, not in order to lead the 
 people in battle array against their foes, but to judge 
 the nation truly. Where shall we find ethical direc- 
 tions to the judge more succinct than the texts : 
 ' Thou shalt not wrest justice ; thou shalt not show 
 respect to persons ; thou shalt not take bribes.' l 
 And the Jewish law-giver was a living exponent of his 
 teaching. ' Not an ass of any one of them have I taken ; 
 nor have I done evil to any of them,' he was able to 
 say on a memorable occasion. Truly he deserved the 
 eulogy, ' The justice of God he executed, and his 
 judgments with Israel.' 2 
 
 Worthy to rank with Moses and Aaron is Samuel 
 the prophet : ' Moses and Aaron among his priests ; 
 and Samuel of those who call upon his name.' 3 Samuel 
 did not stay under his roof-tree to administer the 
 law. He brought justice to every man's doors. He 
 introduced circuit assizes, an institution adopted into 
 English legal practice by Alfred the Great, and re- 
 introduced under the Plantagenets. Samuel, too, was 
 a model of integrity. In his valedictory address, 
 when he laid down the reins of office, he challenges 
 the people : ' Whom have I oppressed ? Whom have 
 I defrauded, and from whose hand have I taken aught, 
 
 1 Deut. 16 : 19. 2 Ibid. 33 : 21. 3 Psalm 99 : 6.
 
 IN ANCIENT TIMES 131 
 
 and hid my eyes from him ? ' (that is, overlooked his 
 offences). And the people answered : ' Thou hast not 
 oppressed us nor defrauded us, nor taken aught from 
 any one of us.' * 
 
 David earned the gratitude of his subjects by his 
 victories over their enemies. His memory is preserved 
 for ever in the Service of Song, which resounds in 
 places of worship all over the world. But he has another 
 claim on our regard. In the book of Chronicles we 
 read that ' David executed righteousness and justice 
 for all his people.' His descendant Jehoshaphat 
 cleared Judaea of idolatry. Of him it is said that ' he 
 strengthened himself against Israel.' ' His heart was 
 lifted up in the ways of God.' 2 Do these expressions 
 mean that this good king was arrogant, tyrannical, 
 or arbitrary ? Certainly not. They are intended to 
 convey that he was not only pious, but just, superior 
 to all personal considerations, never truckling for the 
 sake of cheap popularity, but exalted by the fearlessness 
 with which he executed justice. 
 
 Nor were the Eabbis who administered justice un- 
 worthy of their predecessors. Two illustrations may 
 be given of the spirit in which the sages of the 
 Talmud conceived and carried out the duties of their 
 judicial office. 
 
 Simeon ben Shetach was the head of the Sanhedrin 
 in the days of his brother-in-law, King Alexander 
 Jannseus. One day a man brought a plaint to the Court 
 of Appeal against the Sovereign. The head of the 
 
 1 1 Sam. 12 : 3 and 4. 2 2 Chron. 17 : 1 and 6. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 JEWISH JUDICIAL PEOCEDUEE 
 
 Sanhedrin sent for his august relative. The lackeys 
 of the palace carried in the royal throne and placed it 
 next to the bench. ' Stand before the court, King,' 
 exclaimed the Jewish judge, ' even as it is written 
 " the two men who have a dispute shall stand 
 before the Lord." l Not before this court art thou 
 asked to stand, side by side with the complainant, and 
 on a footing of equality with him, but before the King 
 of Kings, the Supreme Judge.' 2 
 
 A man came before E. Elazar ben Chanina and 
 complained that the branches of his neighbour's trees 
 overhung his garden and deprived him of a portion 
 of the light and air which he would otherwise have 
 enjoyed. ' Come to-morrow,' said E. Elazar, ' when 
 I will announce the decision.' ' Master,' expostulated 
 the applicant, ' thy judgments are always so prompt, 
 why dost thou put me off ? ' The Eabbi made no reply. 
 As soon as the court had risen, he carefully went over 
 his own grounds, and any branch that he found 
 straggling beyond the boundaries of his property, he 
 ruthlessly lopped off. The next day he gave his 
 decision. Turning to the defendant, he bade him 
 abate the nuisance and cut down the offending boughs. 
 ' But, Master,' retorted the defendant, ' the branches 
 of thine own trees straggle into thy neighbour's 
 garden.' ' Go to my grounds,' replied the Eabbi, 
 ' and as I have done, do thou.' If one wishes -to deal 
 justice fearlessly, one's own conduct must be beyond 
 reproach. 3 
 
 1 Deut. 19 : 17. 2 Tanchuma on Shofetim. 3 Ibid.
 
 IN ANCIENT TIMES 133 
 
 For over eighteen centuries Israel no longer possesses 
 an independent criminal jurisdiction. And of civil 
 jurisprudence, the merest fragment of arbitration has 
 in practice survived. Jews bring their disputes before 
 the secular law-courts of the countries in which they 
 dwell. Let me earnestly exhort you not to assert a 
 claim, be it against a brother Jew or against a Gentile, 
 nor to resist a claim, unless you are fully convinced of 
 the moral justice of your cause. If we are to be worthy 
 exponents of our religion, we must scrupulously uphold 
 its ethics. We should not give the scoffer cause for 
 the sneer : ' Before you bid me extract the tiny mote 
 from my eye, remove the huge beam from your own.' 
 
 Especially in this solemn month of preparation, 
 should we purge ourselves of faults in our dealings 
 with our fellow-men, before we dare ask forgiveness for 
 sins against God. Ourselves our severest censors and 
 sternest critics, not wresting judgment, nor showing 
 favour, we will calmly await the Great Assize on the 
 First Day of Tishri, in the full confidence that our 
 judgment will come forth as the dawn, our righteousness 
 shine forth as the noonday sun.
 
 INSTALLATION INTO THE OFFICE OF DAYAN. 
 
 GREAT SYNAGOGUE, MAT 13, 1902. 
 
 THE service for the installation of Dayanim is a 
 unique and unprecedented feature in our communal 
 life. The appointment of such officials is another 
 instance of the recognition, on the part of the 
 United Synagogue, of the duty of the community 
 to the teeming Jewish population in the East End. 
 May this ceremony, on a day concerning which 
 the text, ' And God saw that it was good,' occurs 
 twice, inaugurate an era of unclouded prosperity 
 and happiness in the history of English Jewry. 
 It is, indeed, a high privilege to be entrusted with 
 functions first discharged by that noble pair of 
 brothers, the great leaders of the Jewish people, 
 Moses the Teacher and Aaron the High Priest. Of 
 them the Midrash tells that they went in and out 
 among the people, making peace between man and 
 man, restoring harmony between husband and wife, 
 turning the hearts of children to their parents, and 
 of parents to their children. Can one conceive a 
 nobler task than that which may earn the encomium : 
 ' The Dayan who discharges his duty conscientiously 
 becomes a fellow-worker of the Almighty Himself ' ? 
 
 134
 
 INSTALLATION SEEMON 135 
 
 For, by unravelling the tangled skein of conflicting 
 evidence and clearing up obscure issues, he too sub- 
 stitutes order for chaos, and creates light where 
 previously darkness existed ; and so, in his humble 
 way and limited sphere, does God's work on earth. 
 
 High, however, as are the privileges, commensur- 
 ately grave and solemn are the responsibilities of the 
 office. The Dayanim are ' the eyes of the congregation.' 
 Their duty it is to exercise vigilant supervision over 
 the moral, religious, and spiritual interests of their 
 flock ; by wise foresight to prevent scandal, remove 
 legitimate cause for dissatisfaction, and deprive 
 detraction of its sting of truth. Their functions are 
 not merely negative. They will rightly be expected 
 to act as unifying forces and rallying- centres for all 
 good movements ; to help forward with hand, heart, 
 and brain every effort for the physical, intellectual, 
 social, spiritual uplifting of Jewry, the glorification 
 of Judaism, the sanctification of God's name. 
 
 For these tasks special qualifications are necessary. 
 When Jethro advised bis son-in-law to appoint co- 
 adjutors, he, at the same time, indicated the qualities 
 such leaders should possess. They are wisdom, 
 reverence, humility, courage, unselfishness, truthful- 
 ness, popularity. The Midrash adds that Moses found 
 it difficult and well-nigh impossible to discover men 
 possessing this rare combination of virtues. It is no 
 affectation to say that, called to a high dignity in the 
 most important Jewish community in the world, I am 
 painfully conscious of shortcomings and deficiencies,
 
 136 INSTALLATION SERMON 
 
 and clearly recognize the wide interval that separates 
 me from predecessors who shed lustre upon their 
 office by their profound learning and piety, and 
 who were deservedly venerated for the sterling 
 qualities that graced their characters. But I am 
 grateful to the Almighty for the blessings of youth and 
 vigour. Animated by the sincere desire to do useful 
 and valuable work in a new sphere, I do not under- 
 rate the difficulties that lie before me, and recognize 
 that the present is a time not for leisured ease but for 
 strenuous effort. 
 
 Judaism and Jewry are passing through a critical 
 phase. The spirit of the age, which analyses, dis- 
 integrates, and dissolves everything, does not spare 
 beliefs. The keen stress of competition makes the 
 observance of Sabbath, Festivals, and the Dietary 
 Laws increasingly difficult. The liberal and hospitable 
 policy, which had become a tradition of England, and 
 enabled the Jewish community to receive with open 
 arms co-religionists fleeing from oppression and 
 persecution, is being fiercely challenged. It is urged 
 that the flood of immigration in recent years has 
 been far from an unmixed benefit. In these dis- 
 quieting times, it is especially necessary for every 
 spiritual guide of the community to do what lies in 
 his power to turn the edge of adverse criticism ; 
 resist and neutralize pernicious tendencies, within and 
 without our ranks, and stimulate our brethren 
 cheerfully to make sacrifices for our faith and race. 
 For the success of this enterprise, robust health of body
 
 INSTALLATION SERMON 137 
 
 and intellectual strength and alertness are requisite. 
 Needed also are the goodwill and active co-operation 
 of all sections of the community, and particularly of 
 those who dwell in the district where one's sphere of 
 labours mainly lies. Without this co-operation nought 
 can be achieved ; with it much will be accomplished. 
 
 In appealing, not to one class, but to all sections of 
 the community, the Sedrah read last Sabbath furnishes 
 an excellent precedent : ' Speak to the whole con- 
 gregation of Israel ' ; T not only to the priests or Levites, 
 princes, elders, or judges, but to all. All Israelites, 
 men, women and children, are exhorted to be holy, 
 not because the arm of the law is strong enough to en- 
 force holiness, but because the Lord, their God, is Holy. 
 
 Holiness implies a high standard of morality as 
 well as a scrupulous observance of religious cere- 
 monies. The Sabbath has to be kept, we are told in 
 the 19th chapter of Leviticus ; but in the same chapter 
 we read, ' Ye shall not deal falsely with one another ' ; 2 
 ' Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour ' ; 3 ' Thou 
 shalt not go about as a tale-bearer.' 4 Twice in this 
 Sedrah it is said : ' Ye shall do no unrighteousness in 
 judgment.' 5 The first time it is the Dayanim who 
 are exhorted to hold the scales of justice even. The 
 second time it is the tradesman who is the subject 
 of the homily. He, too, as our wise men quaintly 
 express it, is a Dayan. His scales, weights, and 
 measures must be just. His transactions, however 
 
 1 Lev. 19 : 2. 2 Ibid. 11. 3 Ibid. 13. 
 
 4 Ibid. 16. ' Ibid. 15 and 35.
 
 188 INSTALLATION SEKMON 
 
 small, must be distinguished by fair dealing. Holiness 
 is to be evinced not only in deed and speech, 
 but in thought and sentiment. ' Thou shalt not 
 hate thy brother in thy heart,' is an injunction, 
 the neglect of which has wrought Israel incalculable 
 harm. 
 
 The prophet Ezekiel, after unfolding his magnificent 
 vision of the Valley of Dry Bones which were transformed 
 into a mighty army, takes two staves, writes upon 
 one of them the name of Judah and on the other the 
 name of Joseph, and joins them so that they are one 
 in his hand. Truly a much needed lesson! For of 
 what use is a mighty army if the elements of which 
 it is composed, instead of uniting against the common 
 foe, engage in mutual destruction. The supreme need in 
 the hosts of the Lord of Hosts is the first virtue of 
 soldiers discipline. To the rank and file I appeal, to 
 live in peace and harmony, to avoid conflict and 
 dispute, and, above all, not to burden the county court 
 and police courts with trivial quarrels and petty squab- 
 bles. Some months ago, a magistrate publicly said 
 in my presence : ' We are obliged to the Chief Eabbi's 
 Court of Arbitration for assisting the administration 
 of justice. The Beth Din possesses facilities for 
 arriving at the truth, as its members are familiar with 
 the language and mode of thought of foreign Jews, 
 whom we therefore earnestly advise to resort to that 
 tribunal.' And certainly the Beth Din, by the care 
 and deliberateness with which it deals with each case, 
 strives to secure substantial justice, so that, frequently, 
 litigants, who come before it embittered antagonists,
 
 INSTALLATION SEEMON 139 
 
 are reconciled by its friendly offices, and leave staunch 
 friends. 
 
 The men of light and leading in the East End, they 
 who stand out prominently by reason of their know- 
 ledge, energy, and initiative, are earnestly implored 
 not to retire to their tents, or build every one a high 
 place for himself, but to accord the valued assist- 
 ance of their loyalty and goodwill. Combination is 
 better than competition. The latter, though cer- 
 tainly stimulating energy, involves enormous waste 
 of force ; the former secures the same results with a 
 maximum of efficiency and economy. I ask you to 
 aid in the worthy task of welding the community into 
 one harmonious whole. Cherish tenaciously the specific 
 virtues of the Jewish character, but at the same time 
 assimilate, and help others to assimilate, the best ele- 
 ments of English life, so that our separateness may not 
 be a reproach ; and that the criticism of the heathen 
 prophet, ' Behold the people that dwells apart, and 
 among the nations it is not counted,' l shall be not a 
 censure but a eulogy. May God, delighting in our 
 ways, cause our enemies to be at peace with us. 
 May there be ' no breach, no surrender, no outcry 
 in our streets,' 3 no breach of continuity in the quiet 
 and peaceful development of Anglo- Jewish life, no 
 surrender or betrayal of the sacred principles dear 
 to us, no outcry against us, within or without the 
 community. May all have cause for the congratula- 
 tion : ' Happy the people who are in such a case. 
 Happy the people whose God is the Lord.' 3 
 
 1 Num. 23 : 9. 2 Psalm 144 : 14. 3 Ibid. 15.
 
 ' HADST THOU STAYED I MUST HAVE FLED.' 
 
 BAYSWATER SYNAGOGUE, OOTOBEB 26, 1907. 
 
 SOME of you will doubtless remember a poem in 
 Longfellow's ' Tales of a Wayside Inn,' called ' The 
 Theologian's Tale,' with the sub-title, ' The Legend 
 Beautiful,' and beginning with the line : ' Hadst thou 
 stayed, I must have fled.' It tells how an almoner 
 at a religious house is visited by a vision celestial at 
 the hour when ' in shine or shower, summer's heat or 
 winter's cold, all the blind and halt, all the beggars 
 of the street ' came to the gates to receive their daily 
 dole of food. The poet describes the almoner's per- 
 plexity, the agony of conflict that racks his soul. 
 'Should he go or should he stay? Should he leave 
 the poor, hungry at the gate till the vision had passed 
 away ? Should he leave the vision celestial for a crowd 
 of ragged, bestial beggars at the gate ? At length, he 
 hears a voice, low and clear, audible as to the ear : 
 ' Do thy duty. That is best. Unto God leave all the rest. ' 
 He obeys the call of conscience, and when he returns he 
 finds to his delight the vision still waiting. Then he 
 fully comprehends the import of what he had heard : 
 ' Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled.' 
 
 140
 
 'HADST THOU STAYED' 141 
 
 This ' legend beautiful ' fully deserves its title. It 
 is indeed exceedingly beautiful. It has, however, a 
 still finer prototype in the narrative at the beginning 
 of this morning's Sedrah : ' And the Lord appeared 
 to him [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre ; l and he 
 was sitting at the door of his tent in the heat of the 
 day. And he lifted up his eyes, and lo, and behold, 
 three men were standing by him. And when he saw, 
 he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and 
 he bowed down to the ground. And he said : 
 Lord, if I have now found favour in Thy sight, do 
 not, I entreat Thee, pass away from Thy servant.' 2 
 There is a difference of opinion as to the exact 
 meaning of the first word in this text, and as to who 
 was addressed in it. According to one interpretation, 
 Adonai is a secular word. It means Master, Sir. The 
 sentence was a request to the leader of the band of 
 angels, that he and his companions might break their 
 journey, and rest awhile under the patriarch's roof. 
 According to another explanation, Adonai is a sacred 
 term and is an appellation of the Almighty. The 
 patriarch appealed to the vision celestial that had 
 favoured him, not to leave him till he had discharged 
 the duties of hospitality to his visitors. And if this is, 
 indeed, the sense of the text, his petition was granted. 
 For we read further on : ' And after the men had turned 
 thence and gone to Sodom, Abraham was still standing 
 before the Lord.' 3 The celestial vision had not dis- 
 appeared. Or, as Rashi still more explicitly has it, here 
 
 1 Gen. 18 : 1. 2 Ibid. 3. Ibid. 22.
 
 142 'HADST THOU STAYED' 
 
 there is a Tikkun Soferim, an intentional transposition 
 by the scribes to prevent an erroneous anthropomor- 
 phic misconception. The text originally read : ' The 
 Eternal was still staying with Abraham.' 
 
 So far the parallel between the secular poem and the 
 sacred narrative. The contrasts are still more striking 
 and instructive. Noble was the conflict of emotions 
 that racked the almoner's soul. But far nobler was the 
 patriarch's freedom from conflict, his prompt decision. 
 He does not hesitate, even for a single moment. He 
 has no doubt whatsoever w T here his duty lies. He knew 
 full well that practical philanthropy stands on a higher 
 plane than ecstatic contemplation of the Infinite, than 
 the striving of the human soul to commune with the 
 Soul of the universe. Another antithesis may be noted. 
 The poet represents the almoner as looking down upon 
 the needy and indigent ; they are to him ' a crowd of 
 ragged, bestial beggars at the gate.' But the patriarch 
 regards his visitors as worthy of all honour and receives 
 them with distinguished courtesy. Despite the oppres- 
 sive heat of an Eastern summer's noon, he sits at the 
 door of his tent, looking out for strangers whom he 
 might entertain. As soon as he espies them, notwith- 
 standing his advanced age and weakness, he runs to meet 
 them, and entreats them to accept his hospitality. Like 
 all truly good people, he promises little but performs 
 much. Some water will be fetched, so that they may 
 wash off the dust from their feet. He will bring them 
 a morsel of bread to stay their hunger, strengthen 
 them, and enable them to continue their journey.
 
 'HADST THOU STAYED' 143 
 
 When they had signified their assent, the patriarch sets 
 before his guests a sumptuous repast. 
 
 This is not an isolated instance of Abraham's 
 hospitality. It is typical of his entire career. At the 
 close of this week's Sedrah, we read : ' He planted an 
 ^trx in Beer-Sheba and he called there on the name of the 
 Eternal, God of the Universe.' 1 The word ^s has been 
 variously rendered, a grove or a tamarisk tree. Our wise 
 men take it to mean an inn or an orchard. The three 
 letters of the word ^>B>K form the initials of the three 
 words ru^ fTW ntatf, food, drink, lodging. Abraham, 
 according to an ancient tradition, established a hostel 
 for the reception of wayfarers, not for private pecuniary 
 gain, but from motives of humanity, for love of man- 
 kind. His house was open on all four sides, so that from 
 whichever direction the weary, footsore wanderer might 
 come, the open door would bid him enter and offer him 
 a ready resting-place in the patriarch's home. No dif- 
 ference was made between believer and infidel, between 
 worshipper of the true God and idolater. All human 
 beings were made in the image of the Almighty and all 
 were equally welcome. Ordinary courtesy would prompt 
 his guests, as they were about to resume their journey, 
 to acknowledge the hospitality they had enjoyed. But 
 the patriarch refused to accept even their bare thanks. 
 'I am not the master here, but only the servant.' 
 ' Who, then, is the master to whom we should express 
 gratitude ? ' the guests would ask. ' Who else,' the 
 patriarch would reply, ' but the Lord, God of the world, 
 
 1 Gen. 21 : 33.
 
 144 'HADST THOU STAYED' 
 
 Possessor of Heaven and earth, Source of life, Who 
 slayeth and reviveth, bringeth down to the grave 
 and bringeth up again, maketh poor and rich.' Thus 
 Abraham called on the name of the Eternal, the 
 God of the Universe. Thus the patriarch won souls, 
 led human beings to a knowledge of the truth and 
 brought them under the wings of the Shechinah. 
 His gentleness, courtesy, kindliness drew out the 
 same qualities in his guests angelic qualities inherent 
 in human nature and only needing development. 
 
 This large-heartedness, which extended to sinner as 
 to saint, did not find limited expression in hospitality 
 to wayfarers. With what passionate fervour he pleads 
 with the Judge of the Universe for the inhabitants of the 
 doomed cities, for the reprobates of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah : ' Peradventure there are fifty good men in the city, 
 wilt Thou not save the city for the sake of the fifty ' ? 
 ' I would fain speak unto the Lord, though I am but 
 dust and ashes. Peradventure there are forty-five, 
 forty, thirty, twenty, ten. Spare the city for the sake 
 of the ten righteous men.' 1 
 
 Can we wonder that, possessing such generous 
 instincts, exhibiting such wide sympathies, Abraham 
 enjoys immunity from persecution. A stranger in 
 a strange land, preaching a strange doctrine, he 
 passes unscathed through Canaan and Philistia, is 
 acclaimed by the people of the land as a Prince of God, 
 and greeted by a king with the words : ' God is with 
 thee in all that thou doest.' 2 ' According to the kindness 
 
 1 Gen. 18 : 23-32. 2 jfaj 2 i : 22.
 
 'HADST THOU STAYED' 145 
 
 L have shown unto thee, show unto me and to the land 
 wherein thou sojournest.' x 
 
 My brethren, the biographies of our great men 
 are set down in Holy Writ to serve us as patterns. 
 Their sublime lives shall teach us how to make 
 our lives sublime. The third patriarch, Jacob, who 
 toils for twenty years by day and by night to provide 
 for the future of his children, who prays : ' Save me 
 from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, 
 for I fear him lest he come and slay mother and 
 children,' 2 sets us an example of devotion to the family. 
 Abraham, who leaves home and country to help the 
 world, and whose sympathies are not limited to 
 kith and kin, teaches us that charity should not be 
 narrow and restricted. Love of humanity and practical 
 benevolence should extend beyond the bounds of our 
 own community to the larger community of our fellow- 
 citizens who do not belong to our race nor profess our 
 creed. ' According to the kindness which I have shown 
 unto thee, show unto me and to the land wherein 
 thou sojournest.' 
 
 To-morrow is Citizen Sunday. Is it not fitting that 
 we should devote a little thought to our civic 
 duties ? We have, indeed, reason to be proud of this 
 mighty capital in which we dwell, the mother-city of 
 the greatest empire in the world. We do not 
 realize the splendour, the pulsating vitality, of 
 this wondrous metropolis till we have left it awhile. 
 
 1 Gen. 21 : 23. 2 Ibid. 32: 11.
 
 146 'HADST THOU STAYED' 
 
 When we return, our hearts are warm with the feeling 
 that we are once more at home, and that we may well 
 thank God for our home. But does not this great city 
 present great problems which should cause us heart- 
 searchings ? What of the submerged tenth, the 
 thousands who from the beginning of the year to its 
 close suffer from lack of work ? What of the myriads, 
 whose existence is a hand-to-mouth struggle, because 
 of the precarious and intermittent character of their 
 employment ? Side by side with the spectacle of vast 
 wealth and lavish display, there stalk through our 
 streets gaunt spectres of dire poverty and wretched 
 misery, a scathing satire on our boasted civilization. 
 Certainly, we have a Poor Law system established 
 three centuries ago, and no one need starve. But 
 recent government inquiries have revealed appalling 
 waste, extravagance and corruption in the adminis- 
 tration of several metropolitan unions, and competent 
 observers have always deplored the mechanical and 
 soulless working of the Poor Law, which, instead of 
 raising those who claim relief, wrecks their self-respect 
 and destroys their manliness. 
 
 Again, the unemployment which causes so much 
 misery and helps to increase the number of the ' sub- 
 merged tenth ' is it not partly due to the lack of right 
 training ? Since the year 1870, a universal system of 
 elementary education has been in force, which affords 
 every child the opportunity of acquiring the rudiments 
 of learning. Eecently, a ladder has been erected which 
 reaches from the Council school to the university
 
 'HADST THOU STAYED' 147 
 
 itself. For the exceptionally gifted scholars, this is, 
 indeed, a boon. But is our system of elementary 
 education planned on the right lines ? Is it not 
 of too literary a character to meet the needs of 
 the bulk of the scholars who come from the working 
 classes ? Does it not give them a distaste for manual 
 labour and serve still further to overcrowd the already 
 sufficiently congested market of clerks and errand 
 boys ? There is a spirit of unrest at the present time. 
 Much wild socialism is ventilated in a section of the 
 press and at the street corners. Whose is the fault ? 
 Does not the blame lie at the door of the middle 
 classes, who consider that they have discharged their 
 civic duties in full when they have paid the rates and 
 taxes levied on them, and take no further interest in 
 the expenditure of the funds they have provided ? 
 
 If we are to prove ourselves worthy disciples 
 and descendants of the patriarch, we must give 
 not only our money, but our hearts and our brains, our 
 thoughts and our sympathies, towards the betterment 
 of the condition of our fellow-citizens, irrespective of 
 race or creed. Foolish and futile revolutionary social- 
 ism can only be effectively combated by wise, true 
 socialism, the socialism of religion, of Judaism, the 
 law of loving-kindness. The poison of wild doctrine 
 which, in order to create a new heaven upon earth, 
 advocates the destruction of society, as at present con- 
 stituted, will be best counteracted by following in the 
 footsteps of our great ancestor. He did not attempt to 
 make all men happy by preaching the confiscation of 
 
 L2
 
 148 'HADST THOU STAYED' 
 
 private property, which would destroy all incentive 
 to industry and enterprise, but, while recognizing the 
 inevitable inequality in the human lot, he strove to 
 bridge the gulf between rich and poor by justice and 
 integrity, loving-kindness and mercy. We cannot, 
 under modern conditions in big towns, practise the 
 virtue of hospitality as Abraham did of old in the 
 plains of Mamre, but we can show ourselves worthy 
 successors of our illustrious ancestor by adopting his 
 principles and applying them to the great municipal 
 problems of to-day. 
 
 So shall we justify the encomium : ' I love him 
 because he will charge his children and household 
 after him, to keep the way of the Lord, to do 
 justice and loving-kindness in order that God may 
 bring upon Abraham that which He had spoken 
 concerning him.' l 
 
 1 Gen. 18 : 19.
 
 THE SABBATICAL YEAK AND THE JUBILEE. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, MAY 24, 1902. 
 
 A SALIENT distinction between Judaism and its 
 daughter-creed is that, while the latter insists on 
 Faith as necessary to Salvation, the former dwells 
 rather on the importance of Works. To be a good 
 Jew it is not sufficient to have correct views on 
 theology ; one must lead a worthy and noble life. 
 ' Thou shalt do what is good and right in the sight 
 of the Lord thy God.' l Hence, there is no human 
 function, no sphere of activity, that does not come 
 within the purview of our religion. The Torah does 
 not merely enunciate dogmas and principles of faith, 
 or prescribe rites and ceremonies ; it also unfolds a code 
 of morals, a system of jurisprudence, social regulations 
 that make for the well-being of the individual and 
 the prosperity of the state in which he dwells. 
 
 Illustrations are furnished us by the Sedrah of this 
 morning in the laws of the Sabbatical Year and the 
 Jubilee ; ordinances which, for loftiness of conception 
 and comprehensiveness of scope, for wisdom and 
 humanity, have no equal in any other legislation, 
 
 1 Deut. (') : 18.
 
 150 THE SABBATICAL YEAR 
 
 ancient or modern. Let us consider these two insti- 
 tutions which form the coping-stones of a complete 
 system of Sabbaths. 
 
 After six days' toil, one day is set apart as a weekly 
 day of rest, in order to remind us that the universe 
 belongs to the Creator, and that He has especial claims 
 on the homage and service of His redeemed ones. 
 After six months' work ploughing, sowing, reaping, 
 harvesting, garnering, storing the produce of field, 
 vineyard, olive-yard, and orchard the seventh 
 month is set apart for religious festivities ; and the 
 tenth day of that month is styled ' a Sabbath of 
 rest.' And so too, after six years' labour, the seventh 
 year was to be kept as a Sabbatical year. 
 
 Modern agriculture, to save the soil from exhaus- 
 tion, has adopted a system of rotation of crops. 
 One year a field is sown with grain, the next with 
 rape seed, the third it is put under grass. In 
 ancient times, the same result was attained in 
 another way. In successive years, each field was 
 alternately cultivated, and permitted to lie fallow. 
 But Palestine was so rich that its fields could bear 
 similar crops year after year without apparent deterio- 
 ration. Still, the land also has rights which should 
 not be abused by extravagant and wasteful modes 
 of cultivation. Hence we read : ' Six years shalt 
 thou sow thy field, and six years shalt thou prune 
 thy vineyard ; but on the seventh year, there shall 
 be a Sabbath of rest to the land ; thy field thou shalt 
 not sow, and thy vineyard thou shalt not prune.' l It 
 
 1 Lev. 25 : 3-4.
 
 AND THE JUBILEE 151 
 
 was also to be a Sabbath for the people. The increase of 
 the fields in that year, the aftermath produced without 
 human labour, was God's harvest, and was to be enjoyed 
 by all without distinction ; by rich and poor, natives and 
 aliens, residents and strangers, owners and neighbours. 
 It was to be a Sabbath to the Lord. Just as the weekly 
 day of rest is not to be spent in idleness, but devoted 
 to spiritual recuperation, so the Sabbatical year was 
 to be given up to religious meditation and study. 
 And thus we are told in the book of Deuteronomy 
 that on the Feast of Tabernacles, in the Sabbatical 
 year, the Law was read to the people. 1 
 
 Though we are all children of God, yet we are not 
 all equally gifted. Some are more richly endowed than 
 others with physical vigour, mental alertness and 
 capacity. Some are peculiarly handicapped and 
 burdened with encumbrances. Hence the danger that, 
 in course of time, the land ultimate source of all 
 wealth might fall into the hands of a few, and 
 society present the spectacle of two opposing classes : 
 one limited to a few territorial magnates living in 
 idleness and baneful luxury, the other consisting of 
 a vast proletariat forced to toil for bare subsistence. 
 The servile wars and agrarian revolts that agitated 
 the Koman Kepublic, illustrate the gravity of this 
 menace to the social order. To guard against the 
 danger which would certainly result from the widening 
 rift between rich and poor, the Mosaic legislation 
 instituted a system of automatic readjustment. 
 After seven times seven years had elapsed, estates 
 
 1 Deut. 31: 10, 11.
 
 152 THE SABBATICAL YEAR 
 
 that had been alienated returned to their original 
 owners or their families ; and those who had been 
 compelled by poverty to sell themselves into slavery 
 recovered their freedom. 
 
 Were these wise and beneficent laws strictly 
 observed ? In reference to a large portion of the 
 Biblical period, the reply must be in the negative. 
 In the days of the Judges, and during the reigns of the 
 kings of Judah and of Israel, the bulk of the nation 
 was constantly relapsing into the heathendom of the 
 peoples about them, and the Mosaic law for them was 
 a dead letter. Throughout the whole of that period, 
 however, the men of God steadily kept before the eyes 
 of the nation the lofty ideals of the Pentateuch. ' Woe 
 to those who join house to house and field to field, so 
 that there is no more room, that ye may be settled alone 
 in the land,' 1 exclaims the prince of prophets. So, too, 
 Micah denounces those who deprive the peasants of 
 their farms and homesteads. And Jeremiah exhorts 
 his contemporaries to observe the Jubilee and release 
 their Hebrew slaves. 2 A few of the princes obeyed, but 
 soon afterwards called back their former bondsmen to 
 subjection, and Jeremiah, in his indignation, proclaims 
 a new Jubilee, a year of liberty to fire, sword, and 
 famine, to devastate the land and destroy its unworthy 
 inhabitants. 
 
 When our forefathers returned from Babylon, 
 they were completely purged of idolatry. Judaism 
 revived, and Nehemiah speaks of the Sabbatical 
 
 1 Is. 5 : 8. Jer. 34 : 8 ff.
 
 AND THE JUBILEE 153 
 
 Year and the Jubilee. In post-biblical literature 
 there are also references to these institutions. Alex 
 ander the Great and Julius Caesar, we are told, 
 remitted the taxes to their Jewish subjects in those 
 years. Not all Koman Emperors were as kind. 
 Severus rigorously exacted the tribute from his Hebrew 
 subjects, and Eabbi Jannai, the chief authority of 
 that time, was compelled to suspend the operation 
 of the Sabbatical year. 
 
 The Jubilee was always proclaimed on the holiest day 
 of the year, the Day of Atonement. And appropriately 
 so. For the Day of Atonement makes peace between man 
 and God ; the Jubilee restores harmony between man 
 and his neighbour. The Day of Atonement removes the 
 disturbing influence of sin ; the Jubilee, the disturbing 
 influence of social inequality. The Day of Atonement 
 purifies the soul ; the Jubilee revives the State. Both 
 mark the inauguration of a new period of grace. 
 
 Ought we not to take to heart the lessons of the social 
 legislation of the ancient Mosaic code? Energy and 
 enterprise are excellent and commendable. But these 
 qualities are pushed too far, when, in the scramble for 
 wealth, we thrust competitors aside, all too roughly and 
 rudely. Even in things permitted, we should set an 
 example of wise discretion and self-restraint, and thus 
 we shall speed the advent of that glorious period of 
 which the Jubilee is a symbol, when there shall be no 
 feud between class and class, race and race, creed and 
 creed, when all men will form one people, be joined into 
 one brotherhood, worshipping one God.
 
 HOSPITAL SABBATH. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, JUNE 23, 1900. 
 
 THE first three verses of the 41st Psalm have just 
 been recited an exhortation to consider the poor. 
 
 According to one commentator, 1 the Psalm is an 
 invitation to reflect upon the conditions and circum- 
 stances of the needy, and to recognize in those conditions 
 proofs of Divine providence. 
 
 ' The rich man's wealth is his strong city,' 2 says 
 the wise king in the book of Proverbs. But who 
 helps the poor man to tide over periods of depression ? 
 Who else but the good God. ' On the day of 
 evil the Eternal delivereth him ' (the poor man). 
 The wealthy man is in a position to surround himself 
 with material comforts and luxuries. Who keeps the 
 poor man strong, robust and fit for the battle of life ? 
 The psalmist replies : ' The Eternal guards and 
 preserves him.' The opulent merchant's treasure- 
 laden argosies sail on every ocean, bringing back in 
 return untold wealth from the ends of the earth. But 
 the poor man has no such resource. He is forced to 
 
 1 Malbim. " Prov. 10: 15. 
 
 154
 
 HOSPITAL SABBATH 155 
 
 seek his bread in a limited area. Still, ' the poor man is 
 rendered happy in the land,' where his lot is cast. The 
 man of substance has many friends to champion his 
 cause. Nevertheless, the needy man is not altogether 
 forlorn. ' Thou wilt not surrender him into the power 
 of his enemies.' The rich man, when he is prostrated 
 by sickness, can call to his aid the highest medical skill, 
 can command the tenderest and most patient nursing. 
 Yet the poor man is not entirely abandoned. ' The 
 Lord supports him on the couch of languishing. All 
 his bed thou hast changed in his illness.' 
 
 Without attempting to discuss the correctness of 
 this poetical exposition, we will only urge that 
 the psalmist would surely not have us be content 
 with idle musings and empty speculations on the 
 condition of the poor. ' Happy he who wisely 
 considereth the poor.' Happy he who does not 
 relieve an uneasy conscience by indiscriminate and 
 spasmodic almsgiving, but carefully considers how 
 he might afford help to the needy, in the best and 
 most practical form.' The psalmist has in mind 
 the distinction between charity in its conventional, 
 and charitjr m its true sense, a distinction which 
 has been well brought out by our wise men. 
 Charity as conventionally understood will, they 
 point out, only be accepted by those who have 
 fallen so low in the social scale that destitution has 
 robbed them of the last vestige of self-respect and 
 independence. But true charity can be shown to social 
 equals and superiors, as well as to those less
 
 156 HOSPITAL SABBATH 
 
 favourably circumstanced. For conventional charity 
 takes the form of monetary benefactions and doles. 
 But true charity is love and goodwill exhibited in 
 words of wise counsel and kindly encouragement, 
 active sympathy and helpfulness. And so too, while 
 alms only avail the living, charity hi thought, speech 
 and act can also be exercised towards those who have 
 passed away. 
 
 One of the noblest forms of true loving-kindness, 
 that may be shown to all, irrespective of their rank 
 and station, whatever be their position and means, 
 is visiting the sick. ' Happy he who wisely con- 
 sidereth the poor.' Who, indeed, is so poor as 
 the prisoner in his chamber, bound hand and 
 foot, robbed of strength, racked with agony ? 
 But especially pitiable is the state of one weighed 
 down by the crushing double burden of sickness 
 and poverty. How tragic are the circumstances of 
 the family whose breadwinner is disabled ! How 
 chaotic is the condition of the home whose mistress 
 is an invalid ! 
 
 Rightly have our teachers declared : ' He who visits 
 the sick eases him of a portion of his pain, relieves him, 
 to some extent, of his infirmity, and puts new life into 
 him.' ' This is not a figment of the exuberant Oriental 
 imagination, or the exaggeration of poetic licence, but 
 sober, literal truth. Mind and body are so intimately 
 united, that each portion of our dual nature reacts 
 
 1 Nedarim, 396.
 
 HOSPITAL SABBATH 157 
 
 upon the other, and we can quite realize that the 
 welcome sight of a friend would cheer, rouse, stimu- 
 late and exhilarate the depressed patient, almost as 
 much as the bright summer sunshine or the in- 
 vigorating breeze that sweeps across the heath and 
 heather on an early spring morn. 
 
 The advantages are mutual ; a visit to the 
 stricken is of benefit to the visitor as mucli as to the 
 visited. The contrast between the glare and tumult 
 of the noisy, sunny street, on the one hand, and the 
 subdued light and hushed stillness of the sick cham- 
 ber, on the other, cannot fail to impress the least 
 reflective person, and must, if only for a brief while, 
 compel thought and self-examination. ' Am I con- 
 scious,' the visitor will ask himself, ' of the great 
 boons which the good God has bestowed on me ? Do I 
 sufficiently appreciate them ? Am I thankful enough 
 for the health, vigour and vitality that have been vouch- 
 safed me in such abundant measure ? Am I employing 
 my powers, capacities, abilities, to the best purpose 
 and for the worthiest ends, or am I frittering away my 
 energies and wasting my life ? ' Such self-communings 
 are of inestimable benefit. They may raise a man 
 when he is sinking, set his feet firmly on dry land, 
 turn his face in the right direction, help him onwards 
 and lift him heavenward. And thus our sages teach : 
 ' He who visits the sick is saved from Gehinnom,' l 
 or, as one might in modern language paraphrase it, 
 the practice of this virtue, the fulfilment of this religious 
 
 1 Nedarim, 40a.
 
 158 HOSPITAL SABBATH 
 
 duty, will rescue a man from ruin on earth and retri- 
 bution hereafter. 
 
 In a vast metropolis like London, which is not a 
 town, but a province, larger than many a continental 
 kingdom, it is exceedingly difficult, well-nigh im- 
 possible, adequately to fulfil the duty of Bikkur 
 Cholim. All the more reason, therefore, for generously 
 supporting the medical institutions, styled in Hebrew, 
 Hekdesh, sanctuary, in French, Hotels-Dieu, Hostels 
 of God, where the poor find not only sanctuary and 
 refuge, but receive kindly and skilful treatment, and 
 are restored to health, vigour and usefulness. 
 
 The Hospital Fund has a special claim upon us 
 this year, and, strangely, the very circumstance that 
 lies at the base of this claim may cause it to be 
 forgotten. The minds of all British subjects have, 
 for the past eight months, been occupied with thoughts 
 of the campaign now waged in South Africa, to the 
 exclusion of all other topics. Appeals have been made 
 from the pulpit on behalf of the families of those who 
 are upholding the British flag, for those who, in fighting 
 Britain's battles, have been maimed, crippled, disabled ; 
 for the orphans and widows of the heroes reposing 
 in nameless graves on the African veldt. These 
 appeals have met with a generous response, and this 
 notwithstanding slackness of trade, a direct outcome 
 of the war. But generosity has its limits, and there 
 is a risk that the various funds raised this year may 
 materially prejudice the success of the Fund for which 
 I am now pleading. This ought not to be so. The
 
 HOSPITAL SABBATH 159 
 
 War itself should be the best advocate for the Metro- 
 politan Medical Charities. The severe test of practical 
 experience has discovered many a flaw in the national 
 armoury of offence and defence, many defects in 
 its military system which already have been, or, 
 in the immediate future, will be remedied. There 
 is one department, however, which has passed 
 through the ordeal unscathed, its reputation un- 
 tarnished and even enhanced. Need I add that I 
 refer to the Army Medical Service. I will not dwell 
 on the courage of the military and civilian medical 
 officers who, in spite of the hailstorm of shot and shell, 
 rendered aid to the wounded on the exposed battle- 
 field as coolly and calmly as if they were in their own 
 surgeries. But what I wish to impress upon you is the 
 discipline, organization and skill exhibited in the hos- 
 pitals, in camp and at the base. Where did these 
 men acquire the discipline that obeys, and knows how to 
 enforce obedience ? Where did they gain their power 
 of organization and readiness in emergency ? Where 
 else but in the schools attached to the medical insti- 
 tutions which send out, yearly, hundreds of officers, 
 to wage incessant warfare with death and disease, 
 and thus confer a boon not merely on the poor, but 
 also on the wealthy and the middle classes. 
 
 The Jewish community owes a special debt of 
 gratitude to the Metropolitan Hospitals for their 
 undenominational character. They make no distinc- 
 tions between Jew and Gentile, alien and native, being 
 happily free from the virus of Antisemitism. Several
 
 160 HOSPITAITSABBATH 
 
 of the Metropolitan Medical Institutions have even 
 made special arrangements to meet the dietary needs of 
 our suffering brethren, and so, it is contended, have 
 rendered a special hospital for the reception of sick 
 co-religionists unnecessary. 
 
 I therefore heartily, earnestly, and confidently ask 
 for a liberal and generous response to the appeal of the 
 Mansion House Hospital Fund. Even as a coat of mail 
 which protected the warrior on the day of battle was 
 made up of thousands of links, so the accumulation of 
 small gifts will swell the grand total which will help 
 the Hospitals in their arduous fight against disease 
 and death. In an army, the private is as essential as 
 the officer. While large contributions will not be 
 refused, smaller sums from those who cannot afford 
 more will be equally welcome. 
 
 Your reward will consist in the consciousness of 
 duty done, in the assurance that you are following in 
 the footsteps of the Great Physician ' Who raiseth 
 the fallen, healeth the sick, releaseth those that are 
 bound.' Your all-sufficient recompense will be that 
 you have lived in the spirit of the psalmist's exhorta- 
 tions : ' Happy he who wisely considereth the poor ' ; 
 those who are doubly poor in lack of means and loss 
 of health. May God fulfil to you the second half of 
 our text. May He deliver you from evil. May He 
 preserve you and all dear to you in life, health, 
 strength, and happiness.
 
 IN MEMOEIAM : QUEEN VICTOKIA. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, FEBRUARY 2, 1901. 
 
 TO-DAY, the voice of lamentation is heard in the 
 land. Every head is bowed, every heart is heavy, 
 every eye is dim with tears ; for the King of Terrors, 
 no respecter of persons, who knocks with equal impar- 
 tiality at the proud and lofty gates of the prince's 
 palace and at the humble door of the peasant's hut, ' has 
 entered our windows ' and snatched a flower of rarest 
 worth, transplanted it in the garden of God, and left 
 us the poorer. The passing of the illustrious ruler, 
 whose earthly shell was borne some hours since to its 
 last resting-place, is poignantly felt, not only as a 
 national calamity but also as a deep personal loss. 
 Britain mourns, and all civilization sorrows with our 
 sorrow ; shares our grief for her who has entered, 
 thro' the dark portal, the realm of light eternal. Our 
 late Sovereign's life exceeded the limit of fourscore 
 years, which, the Man of God tells us, is the mark of 
 extraordinary physical vigour. And yet few paused 
 to reflect that, in the ordinary course of nature, the end 
 must, at no distant interval, have come. We, born 
 under her gracious sway, regarded Queen Victoria as 
 
 161 M
 
 162 IN MEMORIAM : QUEEN VICTORIA 
 
 a permanent part of the British Constitution. We 
 thought that Death had forgotten her, or been bidden 
 by the Author of Life to pass her by and spare her 
 for an indefinite period. The news of her demise, 
 after a brief illness, thrilled us all with a shock of 
 surprise. It seemed as if a majestic column, that had 
 stood in solitary grandeur long after its fellows had 
 fallen and crumbled into dust, had at length, in its 
 turn, been riven from crown to pediment and come to 
 the earth with a mighty crash. 
 
 Why this universal lament for one who had attained 
 a hoary old age and been gathered to the grave like 
 a shock of corn, ripe for the reaper ? The reason 
 is to be found in the general feeling that the close of 
 this gracious life closes an epoch in English history. 
 Queen Victoria's death rings the knell of the departed 
 century a century in which she was the conspicuous 
 and central figure and of which she was the brightest 
 ornament. 
 
 On the pedestal of the statue of one of her earliest 
 advisers, the Hero of Waterloo, 1 may be read an 
 inscription consisting of three words simple, yet 
 pregnant with meaning ' Wisdom, Honour, Duty.' 
 Of the qualities here named, the Queen was 
 a living embodiment and illustration. Throughout 
 her career, she had a high sense of the dignity with 
 which Heaven had invested her. She possessed, 
 at the same time, a clear perception and keen 
 appreciation of the duties entailed by that dignity. 
 
 i Wellington's statue in the Guildhall.
 
 IN MEMOBIAM : QUEEN VICTOEIA 163 
 
 To her, sovereignty was no mere right of birth, no 
 accidental privilege and prerogative. It was a solemn 
 charge, a sacred trust. It is related that when, a child 
 of twelve summers, she was informed that she stood 
 next in succession to her uncle, the reigning sovereign, 
 she burst into tears and earnestly prayed that God might 
 make her worthy of the high estate. The prayer was 
 answered in the spirit in which it was offered. Six 
 years later, when she ascended the throne, she took 
 all hearts captive by her youthful charm and grace. 
 She was not content, however, with the sweets of 
 her exalted office. She aspired to wield its power. 
 She was not satisfied to be a figure-head ; her ambition 
 was to be captain of the ship of State ; real, and 
 not merely nominal Head of her country. And she 
 honourably realized her ambition. Soon after her 
 accession, Lord Melbourne, her first Prime Minister 
 and trusted friend, once placed a State document before 
 her with the request that it should be immediately 
 signed, on the ground of its urgency and importance. 
 The youthful sovereign rebuked her servant with the 
 dignified reply : ' It is still more urgent and important 
 that I do not sign any paper before I have fully grasped 
 and mastered its import and purport.' 
 
 The position of a constitutional monarch in these 
 isles, amidst the conflict of rival parties with clashing 
 interests and opposing principles, is not an easy one. 
 Yet, with such admirable tact did Queen Victoria fill 
 her office, so evenly did she hold the scales, that none 
 can tell with absolute certainty in which direction 
 
 MS
 
 164 IN MEMOKIAM : QUEEN VICTOBIA 
 
 her own political sympathies lay. Many sovereigns 
 have been fortunate in their ministers. The ministers 
 of Great Britain, for the last six decades, have, it is no 
 exaggeration to say, been fortunate in their sovereign. 
 As years rolled on, they learned to rely with implicit 
 confidence on her mature judgment and store of ripe 
 experience, which gained her, in the opinion of those 
 qualified to decide, the title ' the wisest Statesman 
 and most influential Monarch of modern times.' How 
 much of the progress and development not only of 
 these isles but of the whole of Europe is due to her 
 calm counsels and moderating influence on her brother 
 sovereigns, history has yet to recount. 
 
 She had her supreme reward in the love and 
 affection, in the whole-hearted loyalty and devotion, 
 in the ever-increasing reverence and veneration with 
 which she inspired all sections of her subjects, who 
 felt that the interest that lay nearest her heart was 
 their weal, their permanent prosperity and happiness. 
 They gave back measure for measure. When the 
 hand of affliction lay heavy upon her and she was 
 bereaved of the partner of her youth, and then of sons, 
 daughters, grandchildren, she was ever sustained by 
 the solacing and comforting consciousness that the 
 nation's heart was with her in her tribulation. The 
 people respected her desire for seclusion and privacy. 
 They knew full well that, though the shadow that had 
 fallen athwart her path had indeed darkened her life, 
 blighted her happiness and made all gaiety distasteful, 
 yet the splendid burden of Empire would continue to
 
 IN MEMOEIAM : QUEEN VICTOKIA 165 
 
 be heroically borne and its heavy duties faithfully 
 discharged by that noble woman. 
 
 Her life, unaffected, transparently open and sincere, 
 strenuous and laborious, was a lesson to all how life 
 should be lived. Her home, in its simplicity and 
 purity, was a pattern and model of what an ideal home 
 should be. Her court, unlike the courts of some of 
 her predecessors, was not disgraced by political 
 intrigues. There was no Court Party in the Houses 
 of Parliament ; for all, Commons, Lords, the whole 
 nation, were of the Queen's Party. To her we may 
 apply the psalmist's words : ' Thou didst love right- 
 eousness and hate iniquity ; therefore God anointed 
 Thee sovereign,' l by right human, as well as by right 
 divine. 
 
 We Jews never shall forget that it was during her 
 reign that we lost the Ghetto bend and learned to stand 
 erect. Sixty-four years ago, the Jew, even in this 
 land of enlightenment, was a barely tolerated alien. 
 He was excluded from the boon of a liberal University 
 education. He was ineligible for State Service. He 
 was debarred from Parliamentary representation. 
 What a marvellous change has taken place in two 
 short generations, thanks largely to the example of 
 good Queen Victoria. Nine years after her accession, 
 a Jew received the honour of a Baronetcy, for services 
 rendered not to this country, but to his oppressed 
 co-religionists abroad. 2 Twelve years later, success 
 finally crowned the efforts of the City of London and 
 
 1 Ps. 45 : 7. 2 Sir Moses Montefiore in 1846.
 
 166 IN MEMOKIAM : QUEEN VICTOEIA 
 
 the Borough of Greenwich to be represented by Jews 
 in the House of Commons, 1 and how many co- 
 religionists have sat since then in the august Mother 
 of Parliaments. In the next decade, a Jew was 
 appointed Solicitor- General, 2 and, in due course, was 
 elevated to the dignity of the Bench, where he rendered 
 services admitted by all to be weighty and of permanent 
 value to English Jurisprudence. It is worthy of note 
 that among the signatures appended to the Koll pro- 
 claiming Edward VII, King of Great Britain and 
 Emperor of India, are to be found the names of two 
 Jewish commoners and one Jewish peer. 
 
 Change, Decay, Death are in the inevitable order 
 of nature. Blessed are lives lived on a high plane of 
 noble thought and beneficent activity, wholly con- 
 secrated to duty. Thrice glorious is that career 
 which, even after its close, rendered a service to 
 Empire ; for Victoria's death has knit together Britain's 
 stalwart sons in a still stronger fraternal bond, the 
 bond of a common sorrow, while the sympathy shown 
 by foreign countries reveals ' the one touch of nature 
 that makes the whole world kin.' 
 
 Queen Victoria has fully merited this universal 
 tribute, for she served her own people and humanity at 
 the same time. By example, ever more potent than 
 precept, she taught kings not to extort an obedience in- 
 spired by craven fear, but through love to call forth love. 
 Uneasy need not lie the head that wears a crown, if 
 
 1 Baron Lionel de Rothschild in 1858 and iSir David Solomons 
 in 1859. 
 
 - Sir George Jessel in 1872.
 
 IN MEMOEIAM : QUEEN VICTOEIA 167 
 
 it recognizes, as the late Queen recognized, that to 
 kingship belong duties as well as rights : calmly may 
 the heart of that sovereign beat who resolves to govern 
 not tyrannically or arbitrarily, but in Victoria's spirit 
 a spirit of justice, generosity, clemency, gentleness. 
 States have been taught by her the value of consti- 
 tutional monarchy in securing stability of government 
 and continuity of policy. 
 
 Farewell, beautiful soul ! Thy arduous labours 
 have earned thee repose. As long as the Empire 
 endures, so long will thy name, thy fame, the remem- 
 brance of thy glorious career, not be suffered to fade 
 from the minds of Britain's sons and daughters. 
 Ours be the task to raise to thee a memorial in our 
 hearts ; and on it we shall engrave in indelible 
 characters the three watchwords, Wisdom, Honour, 
 Duty ; so that the glory of the era that will ever 
 be associated with thy name, and be known in 
 history as the Victorian Era, shall not be eclipsed 
 and extinguished with the eclipse and extinction of 
 the light of thy pilgrimage on earth, but shall shine 
 with increasingly radiant splendour under the sway of 
 thy beloved son and worthy successor, who enters into 
 his heritage with the goodwill and good wishes, with 
 the earnest blessings and the fervent prayers of all his 
 subjects. May God prolong his days on the British 
 Throne in health, vigour and happiness, in wisdom, 
 worth and good fortune; and may his dynasty be 
 established for ever.
 
 IN MEMOEIAM : WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 DALSTON SYNAGOGUE, MAY 21, 1898. 
 
 UPPERMOST in the minds of all at the present moment, 
 is the thought of the illustrious statesman who has 
 been recently summoned to his everlasting rest. By 
 very force of contrast, the familiar description, in the 
 90th Psalm, of the average life, irresistibly suggests 
 itself : ' The days of our years are threescore and 
 ten ; even if by reason of strength fourscore years, 
 yet their pride is but travail and nothingness ; 
 quickly it is cut off and we fly away.' l The 
 measure of Mr. Gladstone's days was far beyond 
 the space allotted to most, but his life was extra- 
 ordinary, not so much because of its length, but 
 rather on account of its fulness and intensity. It was 
 crowded with strenuous effort and noble achievement. 
 Who that contemplates that glorious career will fail 
 to echo the sentiment voiced by the heathen seer 
 when he viewed Israel's peaceful encampment : ' Let 
 me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
 be like his.' ~ 
 
 The house of God is not an arena for political 
 
 1 Psalm 90 : 10. - Num. 23 : 10. 
 
 168
 
 IN M1MOEIAM : W. E. GLADSTONE 169 
 
 discussion ; but the statesman we mourn was not 
 merely the leader of a faction or party, but the Grand 
 Old Man of the whole English-speaking race, a 
 citizen of the world, acclaimed by oppressed nation- 
 alities as father, friend, and champion. And the 
 Jewish pulpit would neglect its duty, if it did not 
 join in the universal lament for the great man 
 that has been taken this day, if it did not contribute 
 its meed to the universal tribute of admiration 
 for the character and career of one, whose name 
 is writ large on the page of England's history, and 
 the record of whose work the waters of oblivion will 
 not easily or quickly obliterate. 
 
 There is no occasion to give details of the life of 
 the deceased statesman. The columns of the press 
 have, for the past few days, been filled with his 
 biography. Let me, rather, draw your attention to 
 the salient qualities of mind and heart of his richly 
 endowed personality, the qualities that essentially 
 made him what he was. In the Sedrah, which bears 
 the name of the priest of Midian, and contains an 
 account of the Eevelation on Sinai, it is related that, 
 when Jethro repaired to the wilderness to visit his 
 son-in-law, he was appalled to find that the Lawgiver 
 was sitting the whole day, from early morn till dewy 
 eve, surrounded by the hosts of Israel, judging, advising, 
 and counselling them. The elder man checked the ex- 
 cessive zeal of his son-in-law : ' Thou wilt surely become 
 weary, thou and all the people that is with thee, for the 
 matter is too hard for thee: thou canst not do it
 
 170 IN MEMOBIAM: W. E. GLADSTONE 
 
 alone.' l He earnestly urged Moses to elect coadjutors, 
 who would relieve him of a portion of his onerous task. 
 But only chosen men were to be appointed, men fit 
 to be Moses' colleagues, possessing the necessary 
 qualifications of leaders, ' valiant men, God-fearing, 
 truthful, hating covetousness.' The Talmud tells us 
 that Moses search: d long to find individuals with all 
 the requisite virtu :-., but he was disappointed in 
 his quest. None cor. pletely reached Jethro's high 
 standard. Some had one of the qualities named by 
 him, some had another, none possessed all. Happily 
 for this generation, England's illustrious son was 
 favoured by God with this rare combination of gifts 
 and virtues. 
 
 William Ewart Gladstone was valiant and truthful, 
 God-fearing and absolutely free from the sordid 
 failings connoted by the term ' covetousness.' He 
 was a man of valour, blessed with a marvellously 
 vigorous physical and mental constitution. Powerful 
 as was his brain, equally sound was his physique. 
 Many a giant wastes his vital forces, dissipates his 
 strength, and becomes decrepit ere middle age arrives. 
 Many a man of brilliant parts has frittered away his 
 energies in futilities and disappointed his friends' just 
 expectations. The statesman whom the Empire mourns 
 prized God's precious gifts, which he cultivated, de- 
 veloped and utilized to the fullest extent ; recognized 
 the wisdom of Carlyle's aphorism, ' Genius is an infinite 
 capacity for taking pains/ and, from earliest youth to 
 
 1 Ex. 18 : 18.
 
 IN MEMOKIAM : W. E. GLADSTONE 171 
 
 ripest old age, never spared himself. When a boy 
 at school, he worked heartily and played heartily. 
 When a young man at the University, his industry 
 was extraordinary. The same indefatigable energy, 
 indomitable will, and concentration of purpose brought 
 him early in his political career to the forefront, and 
 enabled him to realize the dream of his boyhood 
 the coveted distinction of a seat in the Cabinet at 
 the age of thirty-three. 
 
 Gladstone did not need the Lawgiver's monition, 
 ' So teach us to number our days that we may 
 apply our hearts to wisdom.' 1 He counted not his 
 days, but his hours, ay, his minutes and moments. 
 The fruits of his rare leisure would, by themselves, have 
 made the reputations of a dozen less gifted men. He 
 was, throughout his life, not only a man of affairs, but 
 also a student a scholar as well as a statesman ; and the 
 high ideals permanently enshrined in Literature, which 
 he brought from the realm of books into the work-a-day 
 world, glorified and ennobled his practical career. Freed 
 from the harness of office, he promptly and eagerly 
 returned to his ' Temple of Peace ' his beloved library ; 
 and from his pen there flowed in rich profusion a 
 succession of essays, addresses, pamphlets and volumes, 
 the titles of which fill many pages of the Catalogue of 
 the British Museum. 
 
 Gladstone possessed a heroic soul as well as a 
 titanic intellect. He was a warrior who, throughout 
 his long life, did incessant battle for the right. It 
 1 Psalm 90: 12.
 
 172 IN MEMORIAM: W. E. GLADSTONE 
 
 needed heroism to transform ' the rising hope of the 
 unbending Tories ' into a Whig, Liberal and Radical. 
 It showed courage in the devoted son of the Church, 
 and a High Churchman to boot, to turn his back on 
 the principles he himself had enunciated in his first 
 book, and to disestablish the Irish Church, because it 
 had, he was convinced, outlived its usefulness and 
 become a source of irritation and a rock of offence to 
 the Roman Catholic population of the sister island. For 
 "a leader of a high-spirited nation to surrender the 
 Transvaal to its occupiers, after the English arms had 
 sustained a reverse, exhibited a lofty moral courage 
 that is not yet generally understood or appreciated. 
 
 It showed the courage of initiative a quality, 
 alas ! too rare in the guides of a nation's destiny to 
 open a new path in international politics, and, at a 
 time when the citizens of this country were on the 
 verge of war with their kinsmen across the Atlantic, 
 to refer the cause of controversy to peaceful arbitration 
 rather than to the cruel and bitter decision of the 
 sword. And what other statesman has ever shattered 
 a party for the sake of principle as Gladstone did on 
 the Home Rule question ? 
 
 I am not suggesting that Gladstone's policy was 
 always right and deserved the unqualified approval 
 of the nation. The purpose of these illustrations is 
 simply to show the metal the man was made of, the 
 mould in which he was cast. Where he felt he was 
 in the right, nothing could move him. He was full 
 well content, if need be, to stand alone.
 
 IN MEMOBIAM : W. E. GLADSTONE 173 
 
 To what shall we attribute his heroic temperament ? 
 To genuine piety and religiousness. His many changes 
 of policy, principle and party were not easily followed 
 by the multitude. His dialectical distinctions were 
 too subtle to be readily understood, and, on more than 
 one occasion, exposed him to the undeserved taunt 
 of insincerity. It is recorded that, when once this 
 charge was heedlessly repeated in the hearing of the late 
 Dean of St. Paul's, that high-minded dignitary, who 
 had had opportunities of closely observing the states- 
 man, exclaimed with suppressed emotion : ' Gladstone 
 insincere ! Do you know, sir, that he goes straight from 
 God to the great affairs of State ? ' In an age which 
 is sorely stricken with the maladies of scepticism, 
 infidelity and, as a natural consequence, pessimism ; in a 
 period of decadence, when critics of the Holy Scriptures 
 have dared deliberately to accuse the inspired writers 
 of pious frauds ; in a generation when, despite the 
 great mysteries of life and death, the reality of a 
 spiritual life is denied and the existence of this glorious 
 and beautiful world is ascribed to a ' fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms,' while its Creator and Kuler 
 is explained away as a ' stream of tendency making 
 for righteousness,' it is refreshing to find that the 
 foremost man of the day believed with heart and 
 soul in a personal God and a Divine revelation, and 
 bore eloquent testimony to the strength and support, 
 solace and comfort, which he derived from his faith. 
 It is gratifying to record that the aged statesman broke 
 a lance for the authenticity of the Scriptures, and it puts
 
 174 IN MEMOKIAM : W. E. GLADSTONE 
 
 our indolence to the blush to read that, up to a very 
 recent period, it was the practice of this octogenarian, 
 whenever he stayed at his country seat, to walk every 
 morning, before eight, a mile and a half to the house 
 of prayer at Hawarden to offer his devotions. 
 
 Gladstone did not always carry the country with him. 
 He frequently made mistakes. Who are free from 
 them ? Those alone never err who are content to vege- 
 tate rather than live, who are satisfied to mark time 
 rather than march onward. The pioneer, who leaves 
 the beaten path, frequently misses the way and has to 
 retrace his steps. The experimenter must expect 
 failures. If Gladstone changed his principles, policy 
 and party, it was because he recognized that stagnation 
 is death, while movement, progress and development are 
 the necessary conditions of healthy life for the nation 
 as well as the individual. If he avowed his changes 
 of conviction fearlessly and openly, it was because 
 his nature was essentially truthful and frank, genuine 
 and transparently sincere. The policy of sphinxlike 
 silence and mystery was repugnant to his simple, 
 straightforward character. 
 
 The last qualification of a leader, according to the 
 Midianite priest, is ' hatred of covetousness.' l Unsel- 
 fishness and incorruptibility were happily not unique 
 qualities in this statesman. He shared them with all 
 who have wielded the destinies of this country in the 
 present century. Neither he nor his celebrated rival 
 used the exceptional opportunities afforded them by 
 their public positions to increase their private fortunes. 
 
 1 Cf. Ex. 18 : 21.
 
 IN MEMOKIAM : W. E. GLADSTONE 175 
 
 ' Happy art thou, land, whose king is free.' l 
 Happy is this country in having been influenced, for 
 the past sixty years, directly and indirectly, by one 
 free from pettiness, by one who fully deserves the 
 designations of scholar, statesman, and true and worthy 
 leader of men. 
 
 The mighty brain is at rest ; the lips from which 
 flowed the music of stately eloquence are mute. The 
 giant has left no equal, and it would be presumptuous 
 in pigmies to hope to emulate his activities ; but the 
 lofty traits of his character, his noble qualities of 
 heart and soul, the virtues that adorned his career, 
 we should not only admire but also cultivate. We 
 should strive to realize his sense of the sanctity of 
 time. His consecration of life and work, his burning 
 indignation against oppression, his warm-hearted sym- 
 pathy with the oppressed, his high moral courage, his 
 old-world courtesy towards the young, just commencing 
 to climb the ladder, his profound humility in the 
 presence of the Universal Father, his sincere and 
 genuine piety these should animate our souls and 
 inspire our lives. 
 
 So shall the silent lips still breathe eloquent mes- 
 sages, and the white flower of a noble life shed its 
 fragrance far and wide, for many a generation ; and 
 concerning us, too, it will be said as may truly be said 
 of him : ' Let ine die the death of the righteous and 
 let my latter end be like his.' " 
 
 1 Eccl. 10 : 17. 2 Num. 23 : 10.
 
 IN MEMOKIAM : EEV. SIMEON SINGER. 
 
 GEEAT SYNAGOGUE, MAY 22, 1909. 
 
 THE great Reaper, ever busy with his sickle, has, 
 within the last few weeks, cut down two veterans who 
 stood at opposite poles of religious thought. David 
 Woolf Marks, who, in another two years, would have 
 attained his centenary, was the protagonist of the 
 Reform movement which, nearly seventy years ago, 
 rent the community in twain, divided families and 
 sundered the hearts of brothers, parents and children. 
 The fears and forebodings, then entertained of the 
 effects of the secession upon the future of Judaism, 
 have, happily, proved unfounded. The breach, if 
 not quite closed, has at all events not widened. 
 The wound no longer throbs and smarts. Between 
 the members of the Berkeley Street Synagogue and 
 the rest of the community, sentiments of mutual 
 toleration, respect, and, one might even say, 
 brotherly regard, prevail. For this consummation, 
 thanks are largely due to the restraining, calming 
 and moderating influence of the veteran minister who 
 has passed away. 
 
 A man of a different type was Ellis Franklin, 
 176
 
 IN MEMOEIAM : EEV. S. SINGEE 177 
 
 whose earthly remains were borne to their resting- 
 place eight days ago. He was a champion, or rather, 
 as the term is too strong for his gentle nature, let us 
 rather say, a representative of conservative Judaism, 
 a firm upholder of traditional orthodoxy. His life 
 presented a harmony of sweetness and light, a 
 felicitous blending of modern culture with old-fashioned 
 piety and religious fervour. His temperament was 
 averse from vehement conflict and controversy, and, 
 because of his quiet conciliatory spirit, he was all the 
 more effective in the furtherance of good causes. The 
 blessing was vouchsafed to him ^ns nfcnh "p^iy- In his 
 green old age, he was surrounded by a circle of devoted 
 friends and affectionate relatives, sons, daughters and 
 grandchildren, whom he had imbued with his tradi- 
 tions, who follow in his footsteps, rendered, and still 
 render, signal services to the community. 
 
 The one who is to form the subject of to-day's 
 discourse occupies a midway position between these 
 two co-religionists. He did not, like them, attain to 
 patriarchal days, but his brief life of fifty-eight years 
 was crowded with work and achievements. A minister 
 of the conservative wing of English Jewry, he was 
 conservative, but with liberal instincts, sympathies and 
 tendencies. I refer to the late Eev. Simeon Singer, in 
 honour of whose memory I have been asked to give 
 a sermon on this Sabbath. 
 
 Some may question the propriety of this mode of 
 perpetuating his memory. Those who did not see 
 eye to eye with him on religious policies may recall
 
 178 IN MEMOEIAM: REV. S. SINGEE 
 
 the custom that, even in the case of the illustrious 
 dead, no Hesped should be delivered after the lapse 
 of a twelvemonth from their demise. 1 While I do not 
 propose to deliver a Hesped, I may say that Mr. Singer 
 was so many-sided that, for some years to come, homilies 
 by those who had the privilege of intimate acquaintance 
 with him will prove useful, if the example of his vigorous 
 strenuousness is made to serve as a stimulus, an in- 
 spiration, a corrective to the flabbiness of a slacker 
 generation. I shall avoid exaggerated eulogy which, 
 our wise men say, is mockery of the departed, refrain 
 from the repetition of hearsay, and only speak of what 
 came within my personal ken. 
 
 I. 
 
 Thirty-five years ago, I first learned to know Mr. 
 Singer when, besides acting as minister of the Borough 
 Synagogue, he was Hebrew and English master at 
 the Jews' College School, where I was a pupil. Without 
 claiming extraordinary depth of erudition or encyclo- 
 paedic range of knowledge, he impressed everyone as 
 an all-round man, without angularities or singularities, 
 with a sane, wholesome outlook upon life. He was 
 always a hard worker. Before he came to school in 
 the morning, it was a matter of common knowledge 
 that he had spent several hours in private study. 
 His literary style, simple and polished, terse, virile, 
 and nervous, free from affectations and conceits, was 
 not a gift of nature like his charming personality, 
 
 1 Joreh Deah, 344 : 20 (Ture Zahab).
 
 IN MEMOEIAM : EEV. S. SINGEE 179 
 
 his grace of manner, coruscating wit and lambent 
 humour. His excellent style was the direct result of 
 close and unremitting application, the sedulous study 
 of the best models of prose and verse in English litera- 
 ture of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth 
 centuries. He was a Hebrew scholar too. To com- 
 petent critics who could look beneath the surface, his 
 sermons, by their allusions, showed a considerable 
 familiarity with Midrashic lore. Nor was he content 
 merely to cull flowers of fancy from the gardens of 
 the Aggadah. He also cultivated the rugged and 
 difficult but useful fields of Halachah. I can testify 
 that he devoted at least two hours daily to the intricate 
 mazes of Talmudic dialectics. He made no secret 
 of it. Every day, after his work as a teacher was over, 
 his pupils saw their master himself assume the role 
 of a pupil. Between four and six in the afternoon, he 
 read ' Gemara' regularly with a Eabbi,whom, be it added, 
 he remunerated liberally out of his scanty earnings. 
 And this habit of study continued with him throughout 
 his life. Mr. Singer presented a shining illustration of 
 the fulfilment of a religious duty, which lies at the base 
 of Judaism, and to which the approaching anniversary 
 of the Divine Eevelation lends special emphasis the 
 duty of studying the Torah, which is incumbent on all 
 Israelites, rich and poor, workmen, merchants, and 
 those engaged in professions, but especially imperative 
 for those who have assumed, or aspire to assume, 
 Mr. Singer's vocation that of a minister of religion. 
 They must ever bear in mind that stores become
 
 180 IN MEMOEIAM : REV. S. SINGER 
 
 rapidly exhausted if not constantly replenished. To 
 teach efficiently, one must continue learning. Those 
 of whom it may be said DrooiK Dmin. that their main 
 occupation should be Torah, when they will be asked 
 by the Almighty, mir6 DTiy niop, ' Have you set apart 
 regular times for study ? ' should be able to reply with 
 a confident affirmative. 
 
 Why do I labour so obvious and trite a common- 
 place ? Because I fear it is no longer obvious. In some 
 quarters, the necessity of scholarship in a minister's 
 equipment has been challenged, and devotion to study 
 is resented as possibly clogging efficiency in parochial 
 work. Let the community always remember, and its 
 ministers never forget, that Mr. Singer, the most 
 popular minister of them all, was, throughout his 
 career, a constant student of sacred and secular lore. 
 
 II. 
 
 ' If a man has learned but not taught, what profit 
 has he of his learning?' ask our sages. The intel- 
 lectual quartz has to be crushed, the precious grains 
 extracted, and the fine gold of noble thoughts presented 
 in a noble setting. On Mr. Singer's powers as a 
 preacher and public speaker, both in the pulpit and on 
 the platform, it were superfluous to dwell. The sway he 
 exercised over his hearers was not due to mere oratorical 
 skill, polished diction and perfect elocution, but to 
 the consciousness that behind the silvery voice there 
 was a man who had real messages to deliver, messages 
 which came from his mind and heart, and therefore went
 
 IN MEMOKIAM : KEY. S. SINGER 181 
 
 straight to the heart and carried conviction to the mind. 
 Apart from his sermons and addresses, his version of 
 the Liturgy, scholarly and accurate, yet simple and 
 devotional, will preserve his memory. When most of 
 us shall have passed away, Mr. Singer, through his 
 'Authorised Daily Pray er-Book,' will, though departed, 
 still speak to our children and grandchildren. 
 
 Let me crave your attention to a side of his life to 
 which sufficient justice has not yet been done; I 
 mean his work as a teacher in the plain and literal 
 sense of the term. If I recount some of my remi- 
 niscences of him in that capacity, it is because these 
 are pertinent to, and have a bearing upon, a living 
 and burning question of to-day. There is no more 
 engrossing problem than that of the adequate Hebrew 
 and religious instruction of the young none more 
 canvassed. A report has recently been presented to 
 the Jewish Eeligious Education Board, calling atten- 
 tion to defects and suggesting remedies. Teachers 
 and managers of our religion classes hold periodical 
 conferences, at which syllabuses, time-tables, systems 
 and methods of instruction are discussed. Religious 
 education is a standing topic for leading articles in the 
 communal press, as well as for the lucubrations that 
 see the light in its correspondence columns. 
 
 Amid the whirlwind of talk, much of it vague 
 and crude, ill-informed and ill-digested, it may be use- 
 ful to recall what a practical educationalist like Mr. 
 Singer deemed an adequate standard of religious in- 
 struction. What was the kind and amount of mental 
 
 N 3
 
 182 IN MEMOEIAM : EEV. S. SINGEE 
 
 and moral pabulum on which he nourished the minds 
 and hearts of those entrusted to his charge thirty-five 
 years ago ? A statement of the curriculum at the Jews' 
 College School, though it may be tedious to many, should 
 at least prove interesting to those engaged in teaching. 
 The work regularly done in a class, the average age 
 of the pupils of which was twelve years, was as follows : 
 Two hours a week were devoted to the translation 
 of the whole Sedrah ; one hour to translation of 
 the Prayer-Book ; one hour to the study of historical 
 books of the Bible in the original Joshua, Judges, 
 Samuel, &c. ; one hour to other portions of Bible 
 history ; one hour to Hebrew grammar and com- 
 position ; one hour to a systematic exposition of the 
 principles of Judaism, including the history of its 
 development ; and an additional hour was spent, 
 with the senior boys, on the translation and ex- 
 position of Psalms, Proverbs, and other books of the 
 Hagiography, alternately with readings in the Cliaje 
 Adam. I would ask you to note the following points. 
 First, this was the curriculum, not of a Talmud Torah 
 for the children of poor, foreign immigrants, but of a 
 day school attended by children of the middle classes, 
 where secular education was also provided. Secondly, 
 there was no selection of special chapters from the 
 Pentateuch or of the more familiar portions of the 
 Liturgy. The Chumesh was read through, in the 
 course of a twelvemonth, from beginning to end. In 
 translating the Prayer-Book, there was no skipping. 
 Scripture history, too, was not studied in short
 
 IN MEMOKIAM: KEV. S. SINGER 183 
 
 summaries or ' readers,' but in the Bible itself. And 
 this honest, painstaking, sound and thorough system of 
 education produced Jews who knew Judaism and had 
 a clear conception of what it meant, with the result 
 that many of the past pupils in the old Jews' College 
 School have, in a lay or clerical capacity, rendered 
 useful service to their faith and people. 
 
 Why cannot we adopt this syllabus en bloc in 
 our denominational schools and religion classes ? 
 The answer is clear. The managers would not sanction 
 it. And, if they did, we possibly lack instructors capable 
 of doing justice to such an extensive curriculum. While 
 I yield to none in respect for a hard-working body of 
 men, they will forgive me if I state that, in my ex- 
 perience as an examiner for the last twenty years, I 
 have never yet met anyone who, as a teacher, was 
 worthy to be named in the same breath with the 
 late Mr. Singer. To say that he taught efficiently is 
 a pale and weak understatement. He taught with his 
 heart and soul and might. He taxed his own strength 
 to the utmost, and made demands on the industry 
 and capacity of the boys which no other master would 
 venture to do. For every hour's lesson, at least an 
 hour's, sometimes two hours', home preparation was 
 expected. And, marvellous to relate, the boys re- 
 sponded to his call as they would to that of no 
 one else. What was the secret of his success ? The 
 boys' painstaking efforts were amply rewarded. For 
 Singer, as he was affectionately called, also prepared. 
 His teaching was, therefore, alive and forceful. The
 
 184 IN MEMORIAM : REV. S. SINGER 
 
 translation of the Pentateuch was invariably accom- 
 panied by explanatory comments. When, for instance, 
 the Sedrah Mishpatim was taken, such leading points 
 as the Jewish doctrine of Bailments, D'llDlfc? "1 , was 
 explained, though, of course, Mr. Singer was not so 
 pedantic as to use the lawyer's technical terms. When 
 the Sedrah Terumdh was read, a rough sketch would be 
 drawn on the blackboard to indicate the relative 
 positions and dimensions of the various parts of the 
 Tabernacle. No place was named in the Scripture lesson 
 which was not pointed out on the large map of 
 Palestine that hung on the wall. And so Biblical 
 history and geography were taught simultaneously. 
 
 The sphere of Mr. Singer's activity has two morals 
 one for the community, the other for its teachers. 
 If parents, especially of the middle and wealthier 
 classes, desire their children to know, not what a 
 professional Rabbi requires to learn, but what every 
 enlightened Jew ought to be familiar with, they must 
 remember that results cannot be obtained without a 
 commensurate expenditure of time and energy. We 
 must give up playing with religious education. 
 There is no royal road to learning. New-fangled 
 methods will not effect miracles of divine illumination. 
 Not one or two, but eight or nine hours a week, 
 that is, one hour and a half a day the same amount 
 of time as is spent in the public schools in the ac- 
 quisition of the Classics ought to be devoted to 
 the study of the various branches of Hebrew and 
 religion. Teachers, on their part, must remember
 
 IN MEMOEIAM : EEV. S. SINGEB 185 
 
 that if they aspire to be educators in the best sense 
 of the term, if they wish to draw out the best of their 
 pupils, they must bring to the task their best. They 
 will only inspire high ideals if they themselves cherish 
 high ideals, if they throw themselves heart and soul 
 into the holiest of all occupations that of training souls 
 for God. Given sufficient time, and loyal sympathy 
 and hearty co-operation of the parents, the vexed 
 problem of the religious education of the young, 
 now so thorny and beset with difficulties, can and will 
 be solved on the old-fashioned lines, by the methods 
 and enthusiasm which made Mr. Singer so successful 
 a teacher and gained for him the everlasting gratitude 
 of so many pupils. 
 
 III. 
 
 Great as a teacher, great as a preacher, he was 
 equally great as a communal worker. He discharged 
 scrupulously the functions appertaining to his office 
 as minister of an important synagogue and pastor of 
 a flock, every member of which idolized him. But he 
 construed his duties in no narrow spirit. The whole 
 of the metropolis was his parish. How frequently he 
 addressed appreciative congregations from this pulpit ; 
 ay, and from the pulpits of every synagogue in 
 London and of many in the provinces. How numerous 
 are the institutions, educational and philanthropic, with 
 which he was identified. The Jewish Board of Guar- 
 dians, the Soup Kitchen, the Orphan Asylum, the 
 Westminster Jews' Free School, Jews' College, the
 
 186 IN MEMOBIAM : EEV. S. BINGBB 
 
 Provincial Ministers' Fund at once occur to the mind 
 as having enjoyed the benefit of his counsel, guidance 
 and influence. 
 
 His many-sided activity shames the slackness and 
 apathy of younger men who, when asked to serve, 
 reply that they are too busy, that their time is 
 already fully occupied as if Mr. Singer was not also 
 a busy man, and his time was not fully occupied ; 
 yet he was never too busy to help a good cause. 
 There was one institution to which he rendered 
 special service, one which does its work perforce 
 quietly, and which ought not, on that account, to be 
 overlooked. I refer to the Jewish Association for the 
 Protection of Girls and Women, with its affiliated 
 Rescue Homes. Mr. Singer was, for several years, 
 chairman of the Gentlemen's Committee of this 
 institution, and acted as its delegate at an inter- 
 national conference on the White Slave Traffic. ' What 
 are your people doing to counteract the terrible 
 Traffic, which counts so many Jewesses among its 
 victims ? ' asked the Bishop of London some eighteen 
 months ago. The reply is : ' We have our Association 
 for the Protection of Girls and Women.' Whether 
 more extended vigilance work on the lines adopted in 
 some provincial towns would be practicable in the 
 metropolis, I cannot tell. But certainly, if you wish 
 to honour Mr. Singer's memory, you must not only 
 maintain our more prominent institutions, but you 
 should also recognize the claims of the Association, 
 which responds to the prophet's call : ' I will seek those
 
 IN MEMOEIAM: EEV. S. SINGER 187 
 
 that are lost ; and those that have gone astray will I 
 bring back.' l 
 
 By helping this truly religious, unhappily necessary 
 and indispensable communal work, you will contribute 
 your share towards a worthy perpetuation of the 
 memory of one who spent himself in the service of the 
 community, humanity, and religion. 
 1 Ezek. 34 : 16. 
 
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