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OUTLINES 
 
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 LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 FOR THE USE OF PARENTS 
 AND TEACHERS 
 
 BY 
 
 CLAUDE G. MONTEFIORE 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 ft 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 7? A I'LL Ts A do XA. Is A ACS o V 
 
TO 
 
 THE UNNAMED FRIEND 
 IN SINCERE FRIENDSHIP AND DEEP REGARD 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE origin and occasion of this book are sufficiently 
 explained in the Introduction. I have indicated 
 where what I say must be taken, in a stricter sense, 
 as my own personal view only. Elsewhere, though 
 no one but myself is responsible for my words, I 
 fancy that they represent a considerable mass of 
 average Liberal Jewish opinion. But this opinion 
 has, in England at any rate, not yet found its 
 expression in any clear and comprehensive form. 
 
 There is, I believe, a certain amount of perplexity 
 among many Liberal Jewish parents as to the religious 
 education of their children. What are these children 
 to be told ? Other parents too there are who, though 
 they cannot conscientiously say to themselves that 
 they still adhere to the old conservative opinions of 
 their ancestors, and who therefore do not feel that 
 they can conscientiously teach their children, or let 
 them be taught, on the old lines, are yet uncertain 
 as to what Liberal Judaism actually is. They are 
 unable to retain the old ; they are not yet suffi- 
 ciently acquainted with the positive doctrines of the 
 new. I hope that this book may tell them what 
 Liberal Judaism believes and affirms quite as much 
 
 \ni 
 
viii LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 as, and even more than, it incidentally tells them 
 what it denies or discards. It is the affirming 
 and positive side of Liberal Judaism that I am 
 anxious to speak of and elucidate. I have heard 
 even Conservative Jews praise Judaism because it 
 is so simple. But truth is more usually complex 
 than simple ; at all events it is rather rich than 
 poor. A simplicity which is simple because there 
 is so very little of it, because it is meagre and bare 
 and bald, is not a simplicity which should commend 
 itself to us, or which is likely to evoke religious 
 enthusiasm and devotion. Liberal Judaism, at any 
 rate, as I venture to think, is not simple in that sense 
 at all. It contains enough doctrine and doctrines for 
 a man to live with, and to live by ; enough to take 
 hold of and to care for ; enough to arouse self- 
 sacrifice and to produce holiness. 
 
 Though within the limits of space (and I pur- 
 posely did not want to publish a big book) I have 
 touched on the chief distinctively religious doctrines 
 of Liberal Judaism, I have almost wholly omitted 
 its ethical doctrines. And this is a very big omission 
 indeed, especially in a book about Judaism, where 
 the religious and the moral are so closely related and 
 intertwined. The ethical and ceremonial side of the 
 Jewish religion is admirably set forth, though from 
 a somewhat different point of view, in Mr. Morris 
 Joseph's excellent book, Judaism as Creed and Life. I 
 have again referred to this work on p. 234. Though, 
 as I have said, Mr. Joseph writes from a point of 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 view which is less pronouncedly liberal than my 
 own, there are no Liberal Jewish parents who would 
 not obtain much suggestion and help from him in 
 the matters which I have either omitted altogether, 
 or dealt with in the briefest possible way. 
 
 Finally, I desire to state that the larger portion 
 of my book was read and criticised by a number of 
 Jewish friends, of whom all but one share my own 
 Liberal opinions. This common faith did not, 
 however, prevent them from making a number of 
 corrections, criticisms and suggestions, many of which 
 I have silently adopted, while, in other cases, I have 
 quoted what the critic actually said. The critics 
 consisted both of women and men, but I have spoken 
 of them all alike in the masculine gender. I am 
 greatly indebted to them for their patient kindness. 
 My readers will be indebted to them too. One of 
 them, moreover, was good enough to read through 
 the whole book, except the last two chapters, in 
 proof, and on this occasion also to make several 
 valuable suggestions, almost all of which have been 
 incorporated into the text. 
 
 C. G. M. 
 
 December 1911. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . i 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FlRST NOTIONS ABOUT GOD AND WHY WE BELIEVE IN HlM I I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW WE AND OTHERS HAVE LEARNED WHAT WE NOW KNOW 
 
 OR BELIEVE ABOUT GoODNISS AND GOD . . 2O 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE GRADUAL GROWTH OF MEN'S Inns ABOUT GOD, AND 
 
 ESPECIALLY IN ISRAEL . . 34 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE UNITY OF GOD AND WHAT THE GREAT TEACHERS OF 
 
 ISRAEL MEANT AND IMPLIED BY IT . .46 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE GOODNESS OF GOD THE PROBLEM OF EVIL HUMAN 
 
 FREEDOM . . . . . .60 
 
 xi 
 
xii LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PAGE 
 GOD AND THE WoRLD : OF Ml RAGLES . . .74. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RELATION OF GOD TO MAN GOD AS KING AND AS 
 
 FATHER OF PRAYER . . . .86 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD OF HOLINESS, REVERENCE AND LOVE 100 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE AND THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF THE INDIVIDUAL . . . . 1 1 3 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF MAN OF SIN AND ITS CAUSES OF 
 REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS OF REPENTANCE AND 
 FORGIVENESS . . . . . .123 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE GOLDEN AGE AND THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY . 147 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE MISSION OF ISRAEL . . . . .156 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION How FAR AND IN WHAT 
 
 SENSE ARE THE PROPHETS AND THE LAW INSPIRED? 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 OF CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES AND THE BIBLE . . 191 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 OF LEGALISM AND THE LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH . 213 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 OF THE DIETARY LAWS, THE SABBATH AND THE FESTIVALS 234 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OF PROPHETIC JUDAISM AND OF LIBERAL JUDAISM AND 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS ..... 260 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 OF CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL JUDAISM . .272 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 OF NATION AND RACE IN RELATION TO THE JEWISH 
 
 RELIGION ...... 283 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 297 
 
xiv LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT . 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 OF IDEALS AND LOVE, AND THE LOVE OF ENEMIES . 327 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 OF FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE . . .34.7 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THIS book is due (unknown to him) to an honoured friend. 
 One day, as we talked about Judaism and Liberal 
 Judaism together, he said to me something like this : 
 u As far as I am concerned, my own religious views and 
 opinions are much the same as yours. Perhaps " (he 
 was good enough to add) "you have even helped to 
 mould them. At any rate there would be, I fancy, no 
 important differences between us. But I am not 
 inclined / do not think it possible or desirable to 
 impart these ideas to my children. I should like to 
 bring them up as I was brought up my self ', and to teach 
 them what I was taught. The religious ideas which you 
 and I hold to be true are not, in my opinion, capable of 
 being conveyed to children. They must be acquired in 
 adolescence, or even in manhood and womanhood. If 
 you attempted to teach children on your lines (which are 
 also, I admit, my lines), the result would be failure. 
 They could not understand the ideas, for the ideas cannot 
 be watered down to suit their minds. Children need 
 simple teaching, but it must also be clear and definite. 
 The distinction between this thing and that thing must be 
 sharp and distinct. It is no good telling them that 
 something is partly white and partly black : adults can 
 
2 LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 appreciate such teaching, children cannot. Our fathers 
 had no trouble about such questions as Inspiration, 
 Revelation, Miracles. The Bible was wholly different 
 in kind from every other book, and it was good and 
 true from one end of if to the other. God really came 
 down on Moir.it Sinai, and he really spoke the Ten Com- 
 mandments :. what -the Bible tells us happened, really 
 happened. Our duty, we were told, is contained in the 
 Laws of the Pentateuch : we have only to observe all 
 those laws (so far as, outside of Palestine and after the 
 fall of the Jewish state, they were meant to be observed) 
 and we shall all be happy and good. Such teaching 
 children can appreciate and understand and profit by : it 
 is clear cut, it is definite. But your religious ideas, 
 just because they cannot, I fear ^ be absolutely transferred 
 to the mind of a child, would not work for righteousness 
 and holy living and for an ardent faith in God. 
 Instead of definite certainties you would substitute vague- 
 ness, blurred outlines^ half-lights and shadows. Instead 
 of white and black, easily discerned and distinguished^ 
 you would put before the unfortunate child various shades 
 of grey , fading into one another. Instead of simple and 
 concrete statements he would be offered perplexing and 
 dubious abstractions. Moreover, one needs a certain 
 body, a certain mass, a certain toughness, if I may 
 so express myself, in what one tells to children. Simple, 
 yes, but enough. In your Liberal Judaism there 
 is not enough. It has not (I speak as one who believes 
 in if] adequate material for the child. It is too gauzy 
 and compressible. There is not enough to believe or to 
 do. And I fear we must allow for shrinkage when 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 the child is grown up. He will I earn to cast off soon 
 enough : he will learn to doubt soon enough. The spirit 
 of the age will look after that ; we need have no fears 
 on that score. But let us be careful that, when the 
 shrinkage begins, there is something to shrink ; and 
 that when the shrinkage is complete, something is still 
 left over. It always seems to me that Liberal Judaism 
 is a philosophic religion, and though it is in itself none 
 the worse, perhaps all the better, for that, I shall not be 
 easily persuaded that the child's intelligence can master 
 religious lessons conveyed in the abstract shape of a 
 philosophy as readily as in the concrete stories of the Bible. 
 The stories in the Bible about God's outward actions 
 are to you and me largely legendary, yet if told to a 
 child y as if they had actually occurred, they seem to me 
 the most powerful and efficacious way of bringing him to 
 the frm belief in God's existence, and of showing him 
 his duty, as a Jew, towards God. Bible stories are 
 object lessons ; they are almost tangible proofs of God 
 to the mind of a child. These proofs may be safely 
 rejected later on when the intelligence can itself provide 
 firmer grounds for faith. For though we may be the 
 heirs of all the ages, children's minds are much the 
 same in one generation as in another. It is only when 
 their mental powers grow, that they can take advantage 
 of the results of the newest science or of the latest 
 criticism. 
 
 "Finally, I fear that if we teach our children Liberal 
 Judaism, they will not want to teach their children any 
 Judaism at all. Start a child with semi-orthodox 
 Judaism, and he may pass on to Liberal Judaism when 
 
4 LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 he grows up. Start him with Liberal Judaism, and 
 he will, likely enough, fall away from Judaism (though 
 not from Theism) altogether. So while my own religion 
 is, I admit, Liberal Judaism, it shall not be, even if 
 (which I deny) it could be translated into the thoughts 
 and language of childhood, the religion of my children. 
 They shall be brought up, even as I was brought 
 up, in the older Judaism of my fathers." 
 
 I listened to my friend in patience and silence (I 
 ought perhaps to state that he did not really make so 
 long a speech as I have put into his mouth), and then 
 I said to him : " 60 you would teach your children, or 
 have them taught by others, many things which you 
 yourself disbelieve ? " " Yes" he replied, " / would." 
 
 This frank avowal of a strange position gave me as 
 much to think about as the no less frank criticisms of 
 the supposed liberal Jewish difficulties in the matter of 
 early religious education. 
 
 For let us see what my friend's decision implies. My 
 friend's children are to be taught exactly as he was 
 taught, whether by himself or by others. But does not 
 my friend forget that when his parents or their repre- 
 sentatives taught him, they believed what they taught, 
 whereas " ex hypothesi" when he or his representatives 
 teach his children, he in any case, and the representa- 
 tives very probably, will not believe all that they teach ? 
 And does he think that the process which proved, as 
 all his friends hold, so eminently satisfactory in his 
 own case, will prove just as satisfactory in the case 
 of his children ? 
 
 One of the most doubtful theories of education, more- 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 over, is the theory of " allowing for shrinkage." I can 
 understand that you may require less from a child than 
 you expect from an adult. But it is difficult to see how 
 you can safely require more. 1 You lay foundations in 
 childhood on which to build : you do not lay them to pull 
 them down. In my friend's case the process was not 
 destructive, but it is liable to be destructive in average 
 cases. The child, finding that he has been misled, that 
 he has been expected to believe and do what he may, or 
 even ought to, discard as he grows in maturity, is not 
 likely to be well disposed towards a fresh set of beliefs 
 and acts which do not so much grow out of the former 
 set as they supersede, and sometimes even contradict, 
 them. 
 
 For other reasons also is it probable that the methods 
 and process of my friend's religious education and growth 
 are capable of being successfully repeated in his children? 
 My friend was taught a semi -orthodox Judaism 
 and gradually became a Liberal Jew ; his children 
 are also to be taught a semi-orthodox Judaism, and 
 are gradually to become Liberal Jews. But though 
 in a certain sort of half-hearted way my friend 
 may impart to his children the religious education 
 (including the beliefs which are the really important 
 and fundamental thing) that was imparted to him, he 
 cannot duplicate the whole environment. He cannot 
 reproduce 1872 in 1912. It is forty years too late. 
 And the new environment, the new atmosphere, with all 
 
 1 To this my friend replies that while there is less material for natural 
 shrinkage in what I offer, I do require more from the child by my difficult and 
 abstract method of imparting a belief in God, and by demanding from the child's 
 limited intelligence more than he can be reasonably expected to understand. 
 
6 LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 that these imply, will not make it possible for the old 
 education (even forgetting for the moment by whom it 
 is given) to produce the old results. I will not, for I 
 cannot, predict what the results will be. But they 
 cannot, and they will not, be the same. " The spirit of the 
 age will look after that." 
 
 So my doubts as to the feasibility and the wisdom 
 of my friend's decision led me to meditate upon the 
 grounds of his conception that Liberal Judaism was so 
 wholly unadapted and unadaptable to children that 
 even if you would, you could not teach it to them, and 
 that if you could, it was not desirable that you should. 
 
 Liberal Judaism must be able, I said to myself, to 
 do better than teach another sort of Judaism to its children 
 and then expect them to become Liberal Jews, by a happy 
 intellectual process, of themselves. For this happy 
 intellectual process was (as I have already observed) 
 not always likely to take place. The awakening might 
 lead away from Judaism altogether. Believing in 
 Liberal Judaism as I do, believing in it keenly \ warmly, 
 enthusiastically, I felt that Liberal Judaism must be 
 capable of being adapted to the minds and the hearts of 
 our children. The difficulties, which my friend put 
 forward, were, I said to myself, not unreal^ but not 
 insoluble. They were real, but they were exaggerated. 
 In a great deal which Liberal Judaism has to say there 
 need be, I felt, no vagueness, or blurred outlines, what- 
 ever. There can be, and there should be, clearness, 
 assurance, earnestness, intensity. Again^ if you start 
 with the truth (as you believe if) from the beginning^ 
 the supposed difficulties will be greatly diminished or 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 even wholly disappear. I am not even sure that 
 children cannot distinguish grey, as well as white and 
 black. The modern methods of teaching them secular 
 subjects assume that they can. In English history, for 
 example, they are no longer taught to regard certain 
 characters as bogies, altogether black, and others as 
 angels, altogether white. They are asked quite early 
 to realise that grey predominates. And so with the 
 truth of events : they are led to understand that much 
 of the early records in English history is neither every 
 word true nor every word false. Hence I am not 
 sure, I thought, that children could not understand 
 if one told them from a very early stage that a 
 certain book was a combination and a mixture. I 
 am not sure, I said to myself, that the difficulty of 
 telling a child : " This book is perfectly good and true 
 and wise and divine from cover to cover" and then 
 having to explain away this, to refuse to explain that, 
 and to palliate or prevaricate about the other, was not 
 graver and more dangerous than to tell a child from the 
 first that this book is very good, but not all good, very 
 noble, bit not all noble, and so on. I am not sure, I said 
 to mysetfy whether I cannot show a child that as in man 
 himself there is a " divine image," and as some men are 
 very gotd and very noble (in virtue of that divine image 
 and through the divine help which they receive), so too 
 as regards their products and the books which they write, 
 some (bj the divine help which they receive and through 
 the " divine image " within them) are very noble and very 
 good lihwise. But as no man is perfect, so no book is 
 perfect. Could one not tell children, I thought, that as 
 
8 LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 our very language has had a history, so our goodness 
 and our ideas about right and wrong have had a history , 
 and that God teaches us slowly and by degrees, and that 
 our great-grandchildren will know more than we know 
 ourselves, or, at all events, will know differently ? We 
 believe in the gradual education of the human race. 
 
 Again, I felt that my friend was the victim of 2 
 very common misconception. He imagined that Liberal 
 Judaism was, as it were, obtained from Orthodox or 
 Conservative Judaism by a process of subtraction. 
 Thus, if x equals Orthodox Judaism, and if y equals 
 Liberal Judaism, he imagined that y + z = x, in which 
 simple equation z is the amount which, being subtracted 
 from Orthodox Judaism, turns it into Liberal Jud&ism, 
 or being added to Liberal Judaism, turns it into Ortkodox 
 Judaism. But this idea is to do grave injustice to 
 Conservative and Liberal Judaism alike. Both are 
 wholes, organic wholes. Tou cannot add something to 
 the one and turn it into the other, you cannot subtract 
 something from the second and turn it into the first. 
 The body, the contents, of Liberal Judaism are not 
 much less, if at all less large than the body or consents of 
 Conservative Judaism ; only they are different. The 
 faith of the one is as positive, and covers as much 
 ground, as the faith of the other; only it is Afferent. 
 There is indeed much that is common to the two, but 
 nevertheless they form distinct and separate wholes, and 
 the one is as affirmative as the other. 
 
 As these thoughts crowded into my mind, I became 
 more and more convinced that my friend was wrong, 
 and that his faith in Liberal Judaism and its possibilities 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 was not yet sufficiently comprehensive or ardent. Then 
 the idea came to me : " Could you yourself do anything 
 to show that he is wrong ? " And the -present book is 
 the result. 
 
 Here I would like to stop my Introduction, and to let 
 the book speak for itself. But I am bound to give a 
 little further explanation. 
 
 It was rather unfortunate for me, and still more 
 unfortunate for Liberal Judaism, that any pioneer 
 attempt of this kind should be placed upon my shoulders. 
 For, in the first place, pioneer work is sure to have many 
 weaknesses, inadequacies and errors. And secondly (more 
 important still} I happen to be neither very good at, nor 
 very experienced in, writing for children. When I say 
 "children " I mean people of the ages from eight to fifteen. 
 I wrote a first draft of my proposed book, and I printed it 
 and showed it to a dozen selected judges. But they told 
 me, and indeed it was apparent to myself, that only the 
 first two or three chapters were suited to children between 
 eight and fifteen. 
 
 Now this fact did not prove that I was wrong, and 
 that my friend was right. It did not prove that Liberal 
 Judaism was not capable of being adapted to children. 
 It only proved that I was myself more suited and fitted 
 to write for " young persons " from fifteen to eighteen than 
 for children from eight to fifteen. And perhaps I am 
 most of all suited to speak to parents. I have had the 
 great pleasure of being told that my " Bible for Home 
 Reading " has proved useful to parents in their Bible 
 talks with their children. They have taught on my lines, 
 but they have made me more intelligible and easy. It 
 
io LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 is the same sort of thing which I hope may be the case 
 in the present book. It is the same sort of gift which 
 I offer. I hope that parents and teachers may teach 
 Liberal Judaism along the lines ', and according to the 
 suggestions, made to them in this book, but that they will 
 adapt and translate, wherever necessary , my language 
 and thoughts into a language and into thoughts more 
 suited for younger children. It will, however, I am 
 confident^ still be Liberal Judaism which they will thus 
 impart to the children, even though couched in different 
 wording and even though, if I may use the term, it is 
 watered down to the comprehension of a child. Perhaps 
 upon the basis, or upon the suggestions offered by this 
 attempt of mine, some one more skilled and practised in 
 teaching, as well as more learned in the knowledge of 
 child nature, may write a book on Liberal Judaism 
 which could be fitly and usefully placed in the hands of 
 children between eight and fifteen. Rome was not built 
 in a day, and manuals of Liberal Judaism cannot be 
 expected too quickly. The Liberal Judaism of to-day is, 
 I admit) very young. But it has a long career before it. 
 For it has come to stay. The right books for parents, as 
 well as the right books for older and for younger children, 
 can only be produced upon the ruins of many failures 
 and immaturities. And if my book should merely be one 
 of these, it will nevertheless have been worth while to 
 write it) and it will nevertheless have had its place. 
 It will at least be a step in the right direction^ a needed 
 stage in the proof that my dear and honoured friend 
 was wrong. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 FIRST NOTIONS ABOUT GOD AND WHY WE BELIEVE 
 IN HIM 
 
 A book on religion, whether for parents or for young 
 people, ought really to be written by an author gifted 
 with a philosophic mind and with wide philosophic 
 knowledge. For it is only such an one who will properly 
 know what to include and what to omit ; and in what 
 order to say what he wants to say. But unfortunately 
 the last thing in the world that I can claim to possess is 
 philosophic knowledge, and still more unfortunately the 
 philosophic mind the mind which sees a subject as a 
 whole, and which sees at the same time its articulated 
 parts in -their right order , arrangement, cohesion is 
 far above ^ and far removed from, my own. 
 
 This book) then, is anything but a systematic treatise 
 on religion, or on Judaism, or on Liberal Judaism. It 
 will only deal with a few important subjects here and 
 there, and the order in which they are dealt with will, 1 
 fear, be open to much criticism and objection. It will be 
 a very unsystematic book, I am afraid, and will only too 
 clearly reveal the unphilosophical mind of its writer. 
 Perhaps it should most fitly be called: " Rough notes 
 and suggestions on Liberal Judaism for the use of 
 parents and teachers." I know a philosopher who is 
 also an adherent of Liberal Judaism. I hope he may 
 be induced to write for us a really philosophical text-book 
 
 ii 
 
12 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 before his life s work is over. My book could then be 
 thrown into the fire. 
 
 /, therefore, propose to plunge into the heart and 
 centre of the subject in my very first chapter. Here, 
 then, is the sort of thing which 1 suggest that parents 
 and teachers might say to children in their early talks 
 to them about God. Perhaps I should add that one 
 of my critics thinks that even in my very first chapter 
 my ideas are too hard for a child. He says : "It 
 appears to me that the wholly impersonal conception 
 of God as 'goodness and truth' is beyond a child's 
 comprehension. The statement that ' man is more alive 
 than the cat] because he feels^ wills and thinks more, 
 as well as more deeply and keenly, than the cat,' will 
 convey nothing to a child, because his conception of what 
 c being alive ' means is wholly different from yours." 
 I venture very humbly to differ from my critic. But 
 it will be for the parent and the teacher to explain the 
 conception of " being alive" in my sense of the words ^ 
 more fully to the child. 
 
 WE have all, I hope, every now and then, done 
 what we knew to be right. Sometimes it was rather 
 difficult or disagreeable, but when the difficult or 
 disagreeable deed was over and done, we felt glad. 
 Sometimes, again, we have all, I fear, done what we 
 knew to be wrong. And when the deed was done, 
 we felt uncomfortable and sorry. We were in no 
 doubt either as to the good or as to the evil deed. 
 We were quite sure that the one was right and the 
 other wrong. Perhaps the good deed was doing 
 something which our father or mother had told us to 
 do ; perhaps the bad deed was doing something 
 which our father or mother had told us not to do. 
 We have learnt from them that we ought to obey 
 
i FIRST NOTIONS ABOUT GOD 13 
 
 them, and we are sure that what they bid us do is 
 right for us to do, and what they tell us not to do 
 is wrong for us to do. 
 
 How do they know, or how did they learn, what 
 is good for us to do ? How, more generally, did 
 men and women learn to say that some things are 
 good and right to do, while some things are bud and 
 wrong ? How do they, as we say, both know it and 
 feel it ? For when we do right we both know and 
 feel that we have done right, and when we do wrong, 
 we both know and feel that we have done wrong. 
 How, then, did men and women get this knowledge 
 and this feeling* 
 
 The answer is, I think : in many ways, but there 
 is one way that was behind, or rather in, all the other 
 ways. It is the answer which is given not only by 
 our religion, but by almost all the great religions of 
 the world. 
 
 That answer is that outside of, and beyond, and 
 over and above, our human goodness and our human 
 knowledge, there is another much better goodness 
 and another much greater knowledge, and that this 
 better goodness and this greater knowledge are the 
 cause and source of our smaller goodness and smaller 
 knowledge. 
 
 We speak of good and bad ; we speak of false 
 and true. We are sure that it is good to be just and 
 kind ; we are sure that two and two make four. 
 How have we become sure? and why are we sure 
 now ? The final answer, I repeat, is because there 
 is a goodness and a truth which have always been, 
 and will always be, and because this larger goodness 
 and truth are the source and origin and condition of 
 ours. Or, we can leave out the little word " a,'* and 
 say, the final answer is because goodness and truth 
 
I 4 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 have always been, and will always be. Because they 
 have always been, and are now ; not only on the 
 earth (where we live), but everywhere. 
 
 Now this goodness and truth, or this goodness 
 and knowledge, which we believe always have been 
 and always will be, this goodness and knowledge 
 which we believe are the source and cause of our 
 goodness and our knowledge, and the reason why we 
 are sure that it is right to be good and just and kind, 
 and why we are sure that two and two make four, 
 this goodness and truth (or goodness and knowledge) 
 we call by the short, simple name : God. The word 
 God has only three letters but it is the greatest word 
 in our language ; it is the greatest and the most 
 awful word in any language. But it is not only the 
 most awful. It is also the most tender, the most 
 loving and the best. For that which this short word 
 God means to us we feel the deepest awe, but also 
 the deepest love. We revere God and we love him. 
 
 I have said that the good and truth which are 
 above and beyond our goodness and truth are called 
 by us God. But now I want to say at once one 
 other thing which we believe about God. There 
 will be several other things to say later on. 
 
 We often say that some things are alive, and 
 others are not alive. For instance, we say of a 
 stone that it is not alive, but of a growing daisy that 
 it is alive. Whether we are right to say of a stone 
 that it is not alive, I am not quite sure, but at any 
 rate it is not alive in the same sense and in the same 
 way as a growing daisy. 1 Let me run through a few 
 
 1 One of my critics wrote that this last sentence, however up to date in its 
 science, would be wholly unintelligible to a child, and that if the child were 
 nervous, it might even give him night-terrors without doing him the least good. 
 But another critic assures me that " this sort of thing is quite commonly taught 
 now in science lessons to young children." 
 
i FIRST NOTIONS ABOUT GOD 15 
 
 things which we should all say were alive ; some 
 moss, a daisy, a gnat, a fish, a sheep, a cat, an 
 elephant, a man ! 
 
 Which is more alive? the moss or the fish? I 
 think, the fish. Which is more alive, the fish or the 
 cat ? I think, the cat. Which is more alive, the cat 
 or the man ? I think, the man. Does the moss feel ? 
 I do not know, but surely not in the same way as the 
 fish does. But the fish feels, I believe, less than the 
 cat, and the cat feels less than the man. 
 
 Moreover, man does much more than feel. He 
 wills (as when we w/7/, however difficult it may be, 
 to learn a particular lesson), he thinks, he reasons. 
 Does not the cat will ? Does not the elephant 
 think ? I am inclined to think so, but they do not 
 will or think so much or so clearly as man. Although 
 I have never been a cat or an elephant, I yet believe 
 that I am right in having said this, and that I have 
 not been unjust to the elephant or to the cat. Now 
 I said before that, in my opinion, man was more 
 alive than the cat. Why so? Because man feels, 
 wills and thinks more, and feels, wills and thinks 
 more deeply and keenly, than the cat. By this I 
 mean that the amount which he thinks and wills and 
 feels is greater than the amount of thought, will and 
 feeling of which the cat is capable, and that the 
 quality of his thought and will and feeling is keener 
 and deeper. 
 
 We men, women, and children are not only 
 " good," and we not only possess " knowledge," but 
 we are also alive. Indeed I do not think that 
 goodness and knowledge can be other than alive. 
 Dead goodness and dead knowledge are a combina- 
 tion of words without real meaning. 
 
 Now I said that men are good and possess 
 
1 6 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 knowledge because, above and beyond man, there is 
 a goodness and a knowledge enormously better and 
 greater than man's, which we call God. Just as man 
 is not only good and possessed of knowledge, but 
 also alive, so we believe that God is not only good 
 and possessed of knowledge, but also alive. And 
 just as man is more alive than the cat because 
 he feels, wills and thinks more, and more deeply 
 and keenly, than the cat, so we believe that God 
 is more alive than man, because he feels, wills 
 and thinks more, and more deeply and keenly, than 
 man. Just as we believe that the source or cause of 
 our human goodness and knowledge is God, so we 
 believe also that the source and cause of our human 
 aliveness is God. God is the source, or fountain, not 
 only of goodness and knowledge, but also of life. 
 He is perfect goodness, perfect knowledge and 
 perfect life. 
 
 Two more points about God and man before I 
 close this chapter both points about which I must 
 speak again, but which I should like just briefly to 
 mention now. 
 
 I spoke about a gnat, a sheep, a cat and an 
 elephant. We saw that while we felt sure that they 
 all can feel, we were not so sure how far they could 
 will and think. Let me put it to you in this way, 
 or ask you this further question. Can a gnat do 
 right or do wrong ? Has a gnat knowledge ? Can 
 we, except jokingly, speak of a wise gnat or a foolish 
 gnat ? If we cannot speak of a wise or foolish gnat, 
 we can surely (you might urge) speak of a wise or 
 foolish elephant. And surely we can speak, if not 
 of a good or bad gnat, at all events of a good or bad 
 dog. If a gnat cannot do right or wrong, at all events 
 a dog can. But the truth is that the question of the 
 
i FIRST NOTIONS ABOUT GOD 17 
 
 wise and foolish elephant, and the question of the 
 good and bad dog, are not so simple as they seem. 
 I cannot speak about the matter here, except to say 
 just this, that the wisdom of the elephant and the 
 goodness of the dog have probably come to them 
 (at least in great part) from their life with man. 
 It is we who have taught them to become what we 
 think may rightly be called wise and good. 
 
 Let us then put aside for the present the dog 
 and the elephant (and a few other animals who 
 live with man). Let us compare man for the 
 moment with the gnat, the toad and the squirrel, 
 or even with the ant, the beaver and the bee. Of 
 these animals we may, I think, say that they never 
 do what they know to be right, and that they never 
 do what they know to be wrong, and that, in man's 
 sense of the word, they have neither knowledge nor 
 ignorance. But man seems not only to rise above 
 the gnat and the bee, but also to fall below them. 
 For if he knows that he knows, he also knows 
 sometimes (as when he refuses to learn his lessons) 
 that he is wilfully ignorant. If he does what he 
 knows to be right, he also does what he knows 
 to be wrong. In a sense this is true ; still to be 
 able to be both wise and foolish is better than to 
 be neither : to be able to do both right and wrong 
 is better than to be able to do neither. To want to 
 do the right, and sometimes also to want to do the 
 wrong, is better than neither to want to do the right 
 nor to want to do the wrong. For this would mean 
 that we were like our friend the gnat, namely that 
 we had no notion or knowledge or right and wrong 
 at all. But it would seem that for man it was a 
 condition of his learning to know that he should 
 also, if he chose, be free to be ignorant, and it was 
 
 c 
 
1 8 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 a condition of his learning to do right that he should 
 also be able to do wrong, and that he should occa- 
 sionally do it. 
 
 The word condition is hard : perhaps some parents 
 and teachers may think of an easier word. Perhaps 
 its meaning would become clearer if one were to tell 
 children that it is a condition of our learning to walk 
 that we should occasionally tumble down, and that 
 it is a condition of our learning to hit the ball at lawn 
 tennis that we should occasionally miss it. 
 
 But the highest thing of all, the highest nature of 
 all, would be if one had perfect knowledge of what 
 was good and right, and if one always did, always 
 wanted to do, and even always only could do, what 
 was good and right. This highest thing of all, this 
 highest nature of all, belongs only to one. It 
 belongs to, or rather it is, God. He has or is 
 complete knowledge : he always does, always wants 
 to do, and always only can do, the right and the 
 good. 
 
 I dare say that you will find the words " always 
 only can do " rather hard. Can even God be good, 
 you will say, if he always only can do good ? Are 
 we not good just because, though we can do wrong, 
 we do not do it, but do what is right and good ? I 
 may be able to say something about this difficulty 
 later on. 
 
 One more point about God, and it is this. Some 
 birds are flying in the air as I write. There was a 
 time when these birds were not alive, and there will 
 be a time when they will be alive no longer. And 
 so far as our life on earth is concerned, we may say : 
 there was a time when we were not yet alive, and 
 there will be a time when we shall be alive no 
 longer. But of the source of goodness and know- 
 
i FIRST NOTIONS ABOUT GOD 19 
 
 ledge and life whom we call God, we believe that 
 there was no time when he was not alive, and that 
 there will be no time when he will cease to be. He is 
 what men call eternal both forwards and backwards. 
 And if eternal, then also always the same. He did 
 not grow, as we grow ; he does not decay, as we 
 decay. As he was, so he is ; as he is, so he will be. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW WE AND OTHERS HAVE LEARNED WHAT WE 
 NOW KNOW OR BELIEVE ABOUT GOODNESS 
 AND GOD 
 
 In this chapter I shall, I fear, be terribly discursive, 
 but I hope that I may start some lines of thought which 
 may be useful to parents and teachers. 
 
 I am inclined to think that we may fairly early 
 explain to children a useful difference between what we 
 may call our beliefs about God and our knowledge (or 
 experience) of God. We very frequently use the word 
 " belief" as if it were the same as "knowledge " or 
 " experience" It is, however, useful and helpful on some 
 occasions to make and to recognise a difference and a 
 distinction between them. Or we may, if we please, 
 call our knowledge and experience of God our faith in 
 God, and so distinguish between faith and belief. 
 
 What I am trying to indicate is the following .' We 
 learn about God from our parents and teachers. They 
 tell us what we are to believe about God and of our 
 relations to him and of his relations to us. But these 
 beliefs, as we accept them from our parents and teachers, 
 are only the beginnings of religion, and of our 
 "knowledge," or our experience, of God, or of our faith 
 in him. They are the material upon which, or through 
 which, knowledge, experience and faith may concurrently 
 or subsequently arise. We accept these beliefs, but they 
 
CHAP, ii GOODNESS AND GOD 21 
 
 are not yet part and parcel of ourselves. They must 
 lead the way to something more personal and intimate, 
 something more truly religious. They must lead the 
 way to something which we feel and realise and experience 
 ourselves, which answers to our own needs, which gives 
 us satisfaction, and then these transformed and sometimes 
 transmuted beliefs have become, or are becoming, our 
 faith. The religion of a man is not, in the truest 
 sense of the word, something outside him or something 
 which he has u learnt" but it is part of himself, it is 
 a part of his own feelings, convictions, experience. We 
 do not know God in the same sense as we know that 
 the leaves of a tree are green, or that two and two 
 make four, but yet we may fairly speak of a knowledge 
 of God, so far as God answers to our deepest moral 
 needs, so far as we " realise " him in prayer, so far as 
 we cannot explain the world or ourselves without him, 
 so far as we are inwardly convinced of his existence 
 and his influence. 
 
 Would it not then be possible for a teacher to explain 
 to children that what he tells them about God, the beliefs 
 concerning him which he asks them to hold, will, he 
 hopes, lead them on gradually to find God and realise 
 God for themselves ? Could the teacher not tell them 
 that our true 4< religion " is just this fnding out, 
 that it is nothing without this individual experience, 
 which they must all look forward to and hope for ? 
 They cannot be " religious " all at once, but by humility, 
 by goodness, by prayer, they may hope to become so. 
 The teacher can tell them that each of us can and does 
 learn from the teachings and the recorded experiences of 
 those who have gone before us and of those who are older 
 and wiser and better than we. The faith of others 
 reduced to language, the experience of others recorded 
 in words, form the material for our own beliefs, and the 
 
22 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 starting-points for our own experiences, our own faith. 
 This faith has to grow and does grow, just as our 
 character and our knowledge grow. It is an inward 
 process which the teacher can help (or hinder), but 
 which he cannot put into anybody else as a doctor can 
 inject a drop of morphia into our skin, or as a dose 
 of physic can be forcibly poured down our throats. 
 Faith must grow up within us and become a part of 
 ourselves. " Beliefs " can be accepted upon authority, 
 and at first we do so accept the dicta of our parents 
 and teachers but our faith must be our own, tested and 
 approved by our own inward experience. Faith 
 represents our own convictions ; not merely or mainly 
 the convictions of others. 
 
 Thus our children can and should be taught that in 
 religion they have something to do themselves. They have 
 something to look forward to. They have gradually to 
 transform the " beliefs " we give them into their own 
 personal faith. In the process of this transformation, as 
 it goes on from age to age and from generation to genera- 
 tion, faith itself, and the beliefs in which it can be 
 expressed, become gradually modified and readjusted. 
 Of this too some explanation can be given. I think 
 that we might talk about all this, and about the origin 
 of our " beliefs " and of our "faith" somewhat as 
 follows. 
 
 I WONDER if the question has ever come into your 
 minds : How did each generation of men our fathers, 
 our grandfathers, our great grandfathers and so on 
 get to know about, and acquire their faith in, God ? 
 The answer is complicated and difficult. But it will 
 here be enough to say that this knowledge and this 
 faith have come both from without and from within. 
 From without: that is to say, from nature, from 
 
ii GOODNESS AND GOD 23 
 
 other persons, from books. From within : that is to 
 say, from experience, from reflection, from thought. 
 We are all taught in this double way. We all learn 
 in this double way. And we acquire, we obtain, our 
 religion in this double way as well. 
 
 Before going farther I want you to realise that our 
 religion or our " faith," in the truest and best sense of 
 these words, is something very inward, very specially 
 our own. I shall often spealc of our " beliefs.'* 1 
 shall often speak of " believing " this and that. But 
 when we want to be very accurate, we must not mix 
 up " beliefs " with " faith," as if they were of 
 necessity one and the same. Our beliefs make 
 our faith, but they arc not the same thing as our 
 faith. 
 
 When our parents tell us, when I venture to ask 
 you, to believe this and that about God, I hope you 
 will accept what we say and believe it. And 
 gradually, I hope that these beliefs will become your 
 faith. God will reveal himself to you. You will 
 not believe in him, or this and that about him, because 
 I or your parents tell you that such is our faith, but 
 you will, I hope, believe it because you will gradually 
 become yourselves convinced of it, because it will be 
 in various ways experienced by you, because it will be 
 realised by you as assuredly real and true. Our faith 
 will, though perhaps with some changes which your 
 thoughts and experience and study will suggest to 
 you, become not only^0#r belief, but your faith, your 
 own intimate, personal, individual religion. This is 
 what you must look forward to, and what I hope 
 (goodness and humility and prayer all helping), you, 
 with God's assistance, will achieve. 
 
 And now I want to come back to what I said 
 about knowledge being acquired from without and 
 
24 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 from within a statement which holds about religious 
 knowledge and about other kinds of knowledge as 
 well. One result of this fact that knowledge comes 
 from within as well as from without is that each of 
 us, as we grow up, adds to, or modifies, if it be 
 only in the smallest and most imperceptible way, 
 what he has been taught by others and what books 
 have taught him. Great men add to, or modify, 
 what they have been taught much more than ordinary 
 men : when I say great men I am here thinking of 
 those who are great in the particular subject of which 
 we are speaking, great that is, in the knowledge, 
 and also, let me add, in the service, of God. Here 
 we touch upon a great mystery, but also, as I believe, 
 a great truth, which will come before our notice on 
 many occasions. It is this. What great men learn 
 of themselves, they have, partly at least, been taught 
 by God. In one sense it would be true to say, as one 
 of my critics reminds me, that all which men learn is 
 taught them by God, for he is the source and giver of 
 all our powers. But I am thinking of a certain special 
 way in which he may be said to be their teacher. 
 And in this special way it is, I believe, true to say 
 that part of what even ordinary people learn of them- 
 selves has been taught to them by God. I want you 
 to believe and realise that as God is the source of 
 all our knowledge and goodness, so is he in more 
 senses than one our teacher. But exactly how he has 
 been and is our teacher, it is often very hard to 
 explain and to describe. 
 
 We all know that men do not believe alike. 
 There are Jews and Christians and Mahommedans 
 and Buddhists and so on. As they have in many 
 respects very different beliefs, all these different 
 beliefs cannot all be equally true. Moreover, not all 
 
ii GOODNESS AND GOD 25 
 
 Christians believe the same, and not all Jews believe 
 the same. 
 
 Does this seem to you very odd ? Do you wonder 
 why all men have not the same beliefs ? But there 
 is something which you may think much odder still. 
 It is only gradually that any men have come to 
 believe what they believe now. The knowledge or 
 belief which we have about God was only gradually 
 acquired. The goodness which men show and know 
 to-day was only gradually attained. Men had not 
 always the knowledge and the goodness which they 
 have to-day, just as we hope and trust that in another 
 two thousand years men will have more goodness and 
 knowledge than we now possess. 
 
 If God, who is so perfectly good and wise, is the 
 source of all our human goodness and knowledge, 
 does it seem very strange to you that the goodness 
 and knowledge (whether of him or of other matters) 
 which we possess to-day should have come to us so 
 very slowly, and should still be so fragmentary and 
 so imperfect ? Why have we had ancestors who were 
 savages, and still further back ancestors who were 
 probably little better than animals ? Why should 
 we not have started as wise and as good, at all events, 
 as we are now, or even a great deal better and 
 wiser ? l 
 
 To these questions neither I nor any one else can 
 give clear answers. We can only trust in that perfect 
 goodness and that perfect knowledge whom we call 
 God. We can only learn how God has taught men 
 and how he teaches them. Why he teaches them 
 
 1 One of my judges thinks that I harp far too often and too long upon the 
 difficulty of " savages " and of slow development. He assures me that none of 
 these questions would ever occur to a child, and that, therefore, parents and 
 teachers should not anticipate puzzles which will not come before adolescence, 
 and the full answers to which, moreover, as I myself acknowledge, are not 
 to be found. I am not so sure as to the validity of this criticism. 
 
26 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 thus and not otherwise, we cannot, I think, ever find 
 out. It is, in its fulness, a mystery hidden for ever 
 from our minds. 1 
 
 But there is something more wonderful still. It 
 is that within the mind of the most primitive "savage " 
 there should nevertheless have existed the possibility 
 of growth and of immense development. If God 
 chose to make the unfolding of truth gradual, none 
 the less did he, as a wise critic reminds me, make 
 it sure. From the first the possibility was there. 
 Just as in a small seed is the growth which ends in 
 the beautiful flower, so within the most primitive 
 man God implanted the same growth-capacity which 
 has been gradually developed, and which will be 
 further developed, towards a noble end. 
 
 Nevertheless, though we cannot give a full and 
 clear answer, we may give an answer which may, at 
 any rate, be partly true. For is not (so we might 
 explain to older children) one important characteristic 
 of human beings their power to make themselves? 
 The principle of human development and progress 
 seems to be one of the most precious things about 
 humanity. Is it not finer to create a creature that 
 can develop itself than to create one which would 
 require no such self-development ? The conscious 
 development of man makes him different from 
 other creatures, and why should we make a difficulty 
 of the point at which development was to start ? 
 What we discover for ourselves is more precious 
 to us than the discoveries given to us by others. 
 Animals seem largely made ; man is to a larger extent 
 self-made and self-making. When, according to one 
 reading of the Hebrew, the Psalmist said, " He 
 
 1 The thought and its expressions depend here upon that delightful book, 
 Madam Hoiv and Lady Why, by Charles Kingsley (1869). 
 
n GOODNESS AND GOD 27 
 
 made us, and not we ourselves," he did not mean to 
 assert that a man was made once for all, as a marble 
 statue or a wooden doll is made once for all. Man 
 has the consciousness of his own powers ; he has 
 the wish and will to discover and progress. He 
 walks consciously with God. Each man has to some 
 extent to decipher and unravel the universe afresh. 
 God has placed the incentive within man, so that he 
 must and can, with God's help, work out his own 
 salvation. We know why the best human teachers 
 make their pupils to some extent teach themselves. 
 May not the divine Teacher have reason to teach us 
 in the same way ? The greater the knowledge and 
 the faith for us to acquire, the longer the pathway, 
 the more painful the experiences, required. From 
 this point of view it is the details which present the 
 difficulties rather than the actual fact. 
 
 Men have acquired or learnt their religion gradu- 
 ally, even as they have acquired and learnt their 
 astronomy and geology gradually. Such, I suppose, 
 must be the will of God, or such, if we prefer to put 
 it so, must, in the very nature of things, be the way 
 in which such a being as man has to learn goodness 
 and acquire knowledge. 
 
 I have said that we have learned a great deal from 
 a few specially great men, from a few specially great 
 teachers. To them God gave, as we must, I think, 
 believe, a special enlightenment, so that they saw 
 further, and saw better, than their fellows into the 
 nature of goodness and into the nature of God. 
 
 But here we come once more to something, at 
 first sight, odd and strange. Even these great men 
 did not see perfectly. Even they made (as we now 
 can see) mistakes. Even they, though they saw 
 some truths very clearly, did not see others at all. 
 
28 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 They were, as men say, in many points, the children 
 of their age. 1 Just in a few very important things, 
 or in some very important matters, did they rise 
 above their age, and see further and see better than 
 the other men of their own land and day. Some- 
 times they even had, to use a French proverb, the 
 defects of their qualities. For instance, because they 
 were so intensely convinced of the truth and excellence 
 of what they had to say, because they were so utterly 
 sure that it was God who had somehow put these 
 thoughts and words into their minds and mouths, 
 they were sometimes angry with, and ungentle and 
 uncharitable towards, all those who did not agree 
 with them, or who attempted to pick holes in their 
 teaching. 
 
 We might wish that there were not these spots in 
 the great men's teachings and characters, but when 
 we think more closely we shall perhaps realise that 
 wholly perfect teaching can never be given through 
 men to men. For though man has gradually become 
 better and better, and will, we believe, gradually 
 became better and better still, no man is, or can be, 
 perfect? Only God himself is perfect. And no man 
 could understand perfection. Complete and perfect 
 teaching would, I fancy, be of no use to us. We 
 could not grasp it. It would dazzle us like the sun, 
 
 1 " More generally," says a critic, " men are the children of their environment. 
 Every race has facilities to grasp its own little piece of truth, and is liable to its 
 own variety of error. Hence one national revelation (the summing up of the 
 results arrived at by the greatest minds of a people) has to be compared with 
 other national revelations : e.g. Hebraism has to be corrected by Hellenism." 
 
 2 A wise judge rightly observes that parents and teachers must be very careful 
 not (a) to damp the enthusiasm of youth, or () to provide an excuse for laziness. 
 Though man cannot be perfect, he can get nearer and nearer to perfection. No 
 one must say : " Man cannot be perfect : my faults are no worse than those of 
 others." Again, " Hope and imagination," as the judge writes, " make the world 
 go round." Perhaps he is right when he adds : " Do not damp young hope and 
 youthful imagination by urging too forcibly that the whole truth cannot be found. 
 The hope of perfection is for the young : the knowledge of God's mercy is for 
 
 the old.' 
 
ii GOODNESS AND GOD 29 
 
 and we should see less than before. So in the 
 records of the teaching of the great men, in the laws 
 which they gave, or in the words which they spoke 
 and wrote, there is. always some imperfection, and, as 
 time goes on, and man advances in knowledge, we 
 perceive these imperfections more clearly. 1 
 
 But now I want to warn anybody against making 
 what would be a very foolish mistake. If a child of 
 three is put upon the shoulders of a big grown-up 
 man, he can see further than the big man. Suppose 
 now the child were to call out to the big man : " I 
 am taller than you ! I am taller than you ! ", we 
 should smile at the little child's words. Far more 
 absurd would it be if any of us, who live perhaps 
 two thousand or three thousand years after some 
 great teacher, were to say : " What mistakes he 
 made ! He was not so very great after all. I 
 know better than he ! " Nothing would be more 
 absurd than this. Why do we " know better "in 
 any respect than the great teacher of two thousand 
 or three thousand years ago ? Just because of 
 the great teacher himself. Because we have, as it 
 were, climbed upon his shoulders, and upon the 
 shoulders of other great men and great teachers who 
 came after him, and so see a little further than they. 
 If it were not for the great men and great teachers 
 whom God has, as we believe, in some mysterious 
 way, specially illumined, where should we now be ? 
 Even a beginner in astronomy to-day soon learns 
 more than Copernicus and Galileo and Newton ever 
 knew. But he none the less realises that, if it had 
 not been for these great men, he would not now be 
 able to acquire his knowledge. Even if he became 
 
 1 One of my judges wrote that this paragraph was too difficult for children. 
 Rut I think a skilful teacher or parent could present the thought underlying it in 
 simpler words. I am inclined to think that the idea should come early. 
 
30 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 quite a distinguished astronomer, he continues to 
 reverence the great men who were the founders and 
 teachers of his science. Even so it is in religion. 
 In some things we may to-day see a very little 
 further than the greatest teachers of the past. But 
 we reverence them none the less ; nay, we reverence 
 them all the more. We understand better how 
 much they soared above the average teaching and 
 average knowledge of their day. We understand 
 better their difficulties. We make allowances for, or 
 pay small attention to, their errors ; we see their errors 
 in the light of the times in which these great men 
 lived, or, as I said before, we realise that their errors 
 were but the then inevitable defects of their supreme 
 qualities. And so with the records of their teaching ; 
 the books which they wrote or partly wrote, and to 
 which others have added. Here, too, we do not 
 expect to find that there is nothing to which we can 
 add ; nothing from which we must subtract ; no 
 spots, no defects, no inaccuracies, no errors. The 
 defects we ignore ; or we just take them together 
 with the great gift which the past has given us, or, as 
 we may say with equal truth, with the great gift 
 which God, the source of goodness and knowledge, 
 has given us. We are humbly grateful to the great 
 teachers ; still more are we humbly grateful to God. 
 When we think of the great teachers we feel our own 
 littleness, and we are duly and reverently thankful 
 for what God, through them, has given to the world 
 and to ourselves. 
 
 We are all aware that even to-day men do not all 
 think and believe alike about God and about good- 
 ness. Not everything which you and I believe to be 
 good is believed to be good by all men alive upon 
 the earth to-day. Why God allowed and allows 
 
ii GOODNESS AND GOD 31 
 
 these differences of belief we do not know. Perhaps 
 if all men had always believed the same things, there 
 would have been no incentive to thought and progress. 
 In some cases these differences may not be as deep as 
 we think or as they seem. There are many different 
 ways of looking at the same thing. In a mountainous 
 country the mountains seem different as you look 
 at them from different points of view. Yet the 
 mountains are the same. So some apparent differ- 
 ences of belief may be at bottom no real differences 
 at all. And over great spaces of the wide earth's 
 surface there is much agreement to-day about many 
 important matters. There is a very great deal of 
 agreement about goodness, and there is a very con- 
 siderable agreement about God. 
 
 If we take Europe and America and Australia, we 
 may especially and truly speak of large agreement 
 about goodness, and considerable agreement about 
 God. I, a Jew, write this little book for Jews and 
 Jewesses. The very much larger number of people 
 now living in Europe, America and Australia are not 
 Jews. Very much the larger number are Christians. 
 Not all Christians think alike, and not all Jews think 
 alike, and between Jew and Christian there are 
 important differences of belief, of which you will 
 all learn later. But, in spite of important differ- 
 ences, there are still more important agreements 
 agreements about goodness, agreements about 
 God. 
 
 How have the men of Europe, America and 
 Australia reached and arrived at these agreements ? 
 Not from one source only ; not, I think, from one 
 people only. Light has shone in through many 
 windows. In different degrees and ways God has 
 illumined the minds of many men of different ages 
 
32 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 and of several races. We are the heirs of many ages 
 and of many lands. 
 
 But a great and most important part of the 
 agreements has come from the teaching given by the 
 great men of one particular race, and that race our 
 own. This fact may make us, in one sense, very 
 proud, but when we know all which this fact implies, 
 it should also make us very humble. 
 
 It is the Jews, or rather it is men of Jewish race, 
 who have directly or indirectly been the great 
 teachers of the men of Europe, America and Australia 
 as regards large and important portions of their 
 beliefs especially their common beliefs concerning 
 goodness and God. By common beliefs I mean the 
 beliefs which unite them, which they share with one 
 another, in which they all, or almost all, agree. 
 Through great Jewish teachers, and through the 
 records of their teaching in a certain collection of 
 books, which is known as " the Bible," this large 
 piece of the world has come, in great part, to its 
 present beliefs and agreements about goodness and 
 God. 
 
 Such has been the divine will. What, for instance, 
 I told you in the first chapter, that I, and many w r ho- 
 think with me, believe about God and his dealings with 
 man, what I shall proceed to tell of him and of them 
 in chapters still to come, and what you will, as I 
 hope, also believe (only, as I also hope, more clearly 
 and fully, for you will stand upon my shoulders, and 
 see a little further than I) all this is just the putting 
 together and the development of certain teachings 
 given to us from the illumined minds of great 
 Jewish teachers in the days of old. When I say 
 illumined, I mean illumined by God. It is hardly 
 necessary to ask : How have I heard of their teachings, 
 
ii GOODNESS AND GOD 33 
 
 seeing that these days of old were days of long ago, 
 many hundreds and hundreds of years before I was 
 born ? I have heard of them largely because I and 
 my immediate teachers have read them in a wonderful 
 collection of books written in the language which our 
 ancestors spoke in those far-off days. This collection 
 of books is known in English as the Hebrew Bible. 
 In Hebrew the collection has no one name for the 
 whole of it. It is called from its three great divisions: 
 the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. There 
 will be more to say of this collection of books, 
 and of the great men whose teachings are partly con- 
 tained therein, in subsequent chapters of the present 
 book. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GRADUAL GROWTH OF MEN*S IDEAS ABOUT 
 
 One object of the present book is to try to show, if I 
 can, how the modern idea about religious growth can be 
 -presented to children, and how the children can be as 
 reverent and as humble on the strength and basis of those 
 ideas as ever they were on the strength and basis of the 
 old ideas, in the light of which we and our fathers received 
 our teaching in our own childhood. More especially am I 
 anxious to prepare the way for modern evolutionary ideas 
 about the Bible, and then to present those ideas in a form 
 suited to the minds and comprehension of children. For, 
 after all, here is the great difference between the old and 
 the new ; and here is the great difficulty as it presses 
 itself upon all those who now believe in the new way of 
 looking at the Bible and its contents. We want our 
 children to honour, admire, and love the Bible as much 
 as we loved, honoured, and admired it ourselves. We 
 want them to realise God' s part in it as much as we 
 realised it ourselves. And yet we want them to know 
 from the firs^ so that there may be no shock and revulsion 
 later on, that there are degrees of excellence in the Bible, 
 and that not everything in it is equally true, and good^ 
 and pure, that indeed there are some things in it which 
 for US) with our fuller knowledge of truth and goodness^ 
 cannot be called by us either true or good. We want our 
 
 34 
 
CH. in GROWTH OF IDEAS ABOUT GOD 35 
 
 children to have nothing to unlearn about the Bible, but 
 simply to go on /earning about it on the same lines more 
 and more fully as their years advance. This is the 
 problem. Can it be resolved? I believe that it can, 
 though I readily admit that more than one mind, and 
 probably more than one generation, must contribute their 
 quota before a wholly adequate and satisfactory solution 
 is attained. The sort of things (as I think) which we 
 ought to say, the sort of line (as I think) which we ought to 
 take, are indicated by me in what is now to follow. But 
 I have, I admit, not written down to the level of very 
 young children, and what I have said will need to pass 
 through the mind of the skilful teacher or parent, and to 
 be re-expressed by him in better and more simple words. 
 
 BEFORE I say anything more as to how the Jews 
 learnt, and then taught, about goodness and God, 1 
 want to start this chapter by saying a few words of 
 how men in general began to learn and think about 
 God and of his dealings (or relations, to use a hard, 
 but common word) with man and with men. But 
 the subject is so big and so difficult that I shall say a 
 very few words indeed, and shall only just pick out a 
 few points which will be useful for us when we come 
 to the religious history of our own Jewish ancestors. 
 It was only slowly, very slowly, that men came to 
 believe in God ; in one God, one supreme and only 
 divine source of goodness, knowledge and life. Why 
 there should have been this terrible slowness we do 
 not know. Why there should have been these long 
 ages of preparation we cannot tell. So it was, and 
 as it was so, we trust that it was so for the best. 
 One of my critics remarks : " If you were climbing 
 a very high mountain would you expect to arrive 
 so quickly at the top ? " And another writes : 
 
36 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 " When we are infants, our lessons are very simple ; 
 as we grow up, they get harder. At first we could 
 not understand what we understand later. God 
 teaches man, so it seems, by methods such as ours." l 
 For many ages most men had very strange, and to 
 us very childish, and sometimes (as we should call 
 them) elementary or even degraded, ideas about the 
 forces and the powers outside man. But we must 
 not suppose that many ideas which seem to us 
 foolish or degraded did not give help and comfort, 
 and were not accompanied by reverence and humility, 
 among those who held them and believed them. 
 Early men were puzzled and anxious and frightened 
 about the divine forces and powers which they began 
 to believe existed around them. They did not 
 specially think of these forces and powers as the 
 sources of nothing but benevolence and goodness. 
 They often thought that many of them were mis- 
 chievous and hurtful and the causes of mischief and 
 of hurt. Nor did they suppose that there was one 
 supreme Power and only one, but that there were 
 many powers, some good and some bad, many 
 powers with limited power and often at war with 
 one another. They often thought there were " spirits " 
 in things, even as we still speak of our " soul " as in 
 us. There were spirits in trees and fountains, in the 
 wind and in the fire. Or, again, they thought that 
 some animals were gods, or that certain gods had the 
 forms and shapes of certain animals, and that they 
 protected the animals who were, in some strange 
 sense, their descendants or children. Later on 
 much later on many men thought that some gods 
 had the shapes and forms of men, only they were 
 
 1 A critic reminds me that Maimonides said this very same thing seven 
 centuries ago. 
 
in GROWTH OF IDEAS ABOUT GOD 37 
 
 more beautiful or bigger, with bodies of more delicate 
 and more permanent materials. Sometimes they 
 thought that the gods had wives and children, just 
 like themselves. They invented goddesses as well as 
 gods. Of some of these gods and goddesses you may 
 have read in books about Greek mythology. And you 
 have doubtless been told that Wednesday and Thurs- 
 day and Friday contain the names of old Teutonic 
 gods whom the old German conquerors of England 
 worshipped for many ages, while Sunday, Monday, 
 and Saturday recall the time when men believed that 
 sun and moon and stars were alive and were divine. 
 Only very gradually did men come to believe that 
 the gods, or the chief gods, cared greatly about good- 
 ness, or that they hated injustice or cruelty or deceit. 
 For a long time men thought that the gods were 
 more powerful than themselves, but hardly that they 
 were more righteous or more loving than themselves. 
 Nevertheless, God was gradually, imperceptibly, pre- 
 paring the way. He was gradually helping and 
 enabling men, by every advance in goodness and 
 knowledge, to learn a little more about the Power 
 (or, as they supposed, the powers) which was around 
 them and above them. 
 
 There were two or three ideas which men came to 
 hold about the gods which were of great importance 
 for further developments. Men very early began to 
 suppose that the powers outside and around them 
 could, and often did, benefit them or harm them. 
 At first they thought that these benefits and hurts 
 came, as we say, capriciously. By this word capriciously 
 I mean that they did not believe that the divine 
 powers sent the benefits and the hurts on any regular 
 plan, or in any just and constant way. They were 
 not regularly sent to reward human goodness or as 
 
38 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 a punishment for human vice. They were sent at 
 the mere whim of the particular power concerned. 
 But none the less men tried to acquire the benefits, 
 and to avoid the hurts. They thought that by clever 
 devices they could force or persuade the gods to do 
 what they wanted. They thought they could flatter 
 or cajole them. Or, again, they thought they could 
 give them gifts, and so buy off their wrath and secure 
 their favour. The gods needed food and drink like 
 men, and so men gave them of their possessions : 
 they sacrificed for their benefit sheep and oxen and 
 goats, and they supposed that, in some mysterious 
 and unseen way, the gods ate the flesh and drank the 
 blood of these animals. Gradually they began to 
 believe that the gods cared for justice and goodness, 
 at least to some extent, and they offered sacrifices, 
 when they had done wrong, to appease the divine 
 anger. Or they brought their gifts as thank-offerings 
 for benefits received, for good harvests, for plenteous 
 food, for success in war. There would be a great 
 deal more to say about sacrifices, and their origin, and 
 their development, if I were writing a history of them, 
 but I think that these few words are enough for the 
 present occasion and for my present purpose. What we 
 have to bear in mind is that in the very far-off times 
 men thought and believed that the outside divine 
 powers were very many, and that some were inclined to 
 help, and some to h#rm them. They believed that by 
 sacrifices, and other means, about which I need not 
 here speak, they could win the divine favour and 
 avoid the divine wrath. Next, they began to believe 
 that many or some of these divine powers liked 
 them to do good and punished them when they did 
 evil though their own ideas of good and evil, and 
 the ideas of good and evil which they ascribed to the 
 
in GROWTH OF IDEAS ABOUT GOD 39 
 
 divine powers, were still of a very narrow and limited 
 kind. But out of such imperfect and unsatisfac- 
 tory ideas men were gradually being educated to 
 higher things. The idea or belief that under ordinary 
 circumstances, and if their own special interests were 
 not concerned, the divine powers, or the most im- 
 portant and the strongest among them, cared for 
 and rewarded good deeds, and disliked and punished 
 evil deeds, was an enormous advance in the religious 
 history of man. Why did God not allow man to 
 start with that idea and belief at once ? We cannot 
 tell. Let us trust God, and bow our heads in reverent 
 submission. He understands better than we. But 
 we can see that there is a law in mental development 
 as in physical development. The higher knowledge, 
 whether of morality or of the material world, re- 
 quires long experience, many trials, and much patient 
 thought. 
 
 Thus in some such ways as I have here indicated, 
 men grew to think that they could and should serve 
 the divine powers. - And gradually this idea of 
 service was purified and ennobled. We still believe, 
 and our religion still teaches us, that God can be 
 served by man, and that God wants and likes our 
 service. Only we no longer believe that the service 
 which pleases him is giving him presents, buying his 
 favour by sheep, warding off his anger by oxen. We 
 still believe, and our religion still teaches us, that God 
 rewards and punishes, that he wants us to do what is 
 good and to avoid doing what is evil, though we no 
 longer believe that we can obtain that reward, or buy 
 off that punishment, by gifts and entreaties. Our 
 ideas of God's rewards and God's punishments are very 
 different from the ideas held in those far-off days of 
 which we are now speaking. 
 
40 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 There was another idea which some men began to 
 hold in far-distant ages about the divine powers, and 
 this other idea also became of great importance and 
 had grand and fruitful consequences. It was this. 
 The divine powers believed in by one race of people 
 were not the same as the divine powers believed in by 
 another race of people. The men of one race were 
 proud of their own gods ; they were often inclined 
 to look down upon the gods of another race. 
 Especially if the men of one race were stronger 
 than the men of another race, and conquered them 
 in war, were they inclined to say, " Our gods are 
 stronger and better than your gods." In some races, 
 and in some parts of the world, the idea grew up that 
 the gods of one people particularly looked after that 
 people, and were willing (if duly served and paid) to 
 help them in their quarrels and battles with other 
 peoples. The men of one race would pray to their 
 gods, saying to them : " O god so-and-so " (mention- 
 ing his name), " please help us in our fight with our 
 neighbours which we are just going to begin. Please 
 give us the victory. Please come with us to the 
 battle, and fight for us and aid us. If we win, we will 
 give you more sheep and more oxen than you have ever 
 had before, and we will set up your statues in new 
 temples which we will build to you." (For by that 
 time, though I have omitted to say so, men built 
 temples to their gods, and sacrificed their offerings 
 upon special altars, and set up the statues or images 
 of the gods, sometimes in the form of human beings, 
 and sometimes in the form of animals, and sometimes 
 in the form of odd combinations between the two.) 
 The peoples in old times did not think much 
 whether their quarrels with their neighbours were 
 just quarrels, or whether it was " six of one and 
 
in GROWTH OF IDEAS ABOUT GOD 41 
 
 half-a-dozen of the other." They assumed that they 
 were always in the right, and that their enemies were 
 always in the wrong. 1 The gods, though in times 
 of peace some of them might be supposed to care 
 for justice and goodness, were not supposed to care 
 much for justice and goodness in war. Then they 
 were only believed to care for victory. It was to 
 their own interests, so it was believed, to protect or 
 help their worshippers. For if their side won, they 
 would have more sacrifices, and more temples, and 
 more glory. But if their side lost, they would have 
 much less of all these good things. 
 
 Sometimes, and among some races, there were 
 two or three gods only, who were specially identified 
 with the honour of the race, and among a few races 
 there seems to have been only one such god. He 
 naturally became regarded as a most special guardian 
 and protector. His favour would bring his wor- 
 shippers victory : his anger if, for instance, he 
 thought he had been slighted in any way might 
 account for their defeat. 
 
 How strange all these far-off ideas seem to us 
 to-day ! Still you will sometimes hear or read of 
 nations who claim, even now, that God is on their 
 side, though it is by no means clear that they have 
 right on their side. But, on the whole, we may hope 
 that the kind of ideas which I have just described are 
 now almost obsolete. Yet they contained the germs 
 of great truths, and through them God helped men 
 to " rise to higher things." He trained men 
 through them. Especially through them and out 
 
 1 A critic suggests that there may have often been some moral idea involved 
 in these early wars : the idea, namely, of the subjugation of a lower race by a 
 higher one, of barbarism by civilisation. Thus there may have been in other 
 nations the sort of feeling which made the Jews (in the second temple period) 
 think of their pagan foes as equivalent to the wicked. Compare too the feelings 
 of the Greeks to the Persians. 
 
42 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 of them, did he train, so far as we can dimly see, 
 our own particular ancestors. 
 
 Through these partly illusory and erroneous ideas 
 God found it necessary and right to train our an- 
 cestors to reach up to ideas which we and millions 
 of other men to-day regard as precious and true, and 
 which, as we believe, our descendants will still regard 
 as precious and true. I mean ideas such as the 
 following. 
 
 God and man are not so far separated from each 
 other that one has nothing to do with the other. 
 God can have, and does have, dealings or relations 
 with man, and man can have, and does have, rela- 
 tions with God. Again : God can be served by 
 man. 'Divine service, as the words often run, has 
 a meaning. Once more : God has (to put it very 
 simply) likes and dislikes. Where the deeds of 
 man are concerned, he likes deeds of justice and 
 charity, he dislikes deeds of cruelty and deceit. He 
 rewards the deeds of goodness (but how is another 
 question) ; he punishes the deeds of vice (but how 
 remains to be seen). 
 
 The Hebrews or Israelites or Jews for our 
 ancestors have been called by all these various names 
 were only gradually taught the grand truths 
 which now form our religion. They had learned 
 the most important of these truths more than two 
 thousand years ago. But we are still learning, and I 
 hope that we shall learn more and more, and that 
 our religion will continue to grow in greatness and 
 in purity. We shall, I hope, gradually learn more 
 and more, and better and better, what the truths of 
 our religion mean, and what they imply. We have 
 said, for instance, for a long while, and we say 
 to-day: " God is good; God is true." We shall, 
 
in GROWTH OF IDEAS ABOUT GOD 43 
 
 I hope, gradually learn better and better what those 
 six words mean and imply. We speak to-day 
 of the " brotherhood of man " and how u God is 
 the Father of all men." We shall, I hope, gradually 
 learn better and better what these phrases mean and 
 imply. They will become to us (and to others), 
 not mere phrases upon our lips, but truths in our 
 hearts, truths by which we act and live. 
 
 How, then, did our ancestors, in far-off days, 
 learn the great truths which, through them, Europe, 
 America, and Australia have learned about goodness 
 and God ? They learned them, as God willed, more 
 especially through those particular old and imperfect 
 beliefs about which I spoke to you a little while ago. 
 
 They did not all at once come to believe, they 
 were not all at once taught to believe, that there 
 was only one Divine Power in all the world, for 
 all the world, and above all the world. But the 
 first immensely big step forward was when God 
 made some of them see, or perhaps one great, noble 
 prophet or teacher see, that whatever other races 
 and peoples might believe and do, there was to be 
 for the Israelites one God only to worship and to 
 serve. He was to be not only their chief God, but 
 their only God. He had no father and no wife and 
 no son. He was alone. He was a stern God who 
 would be angry if any other god than he were 
 served by any member of the race of Israel, or in 
 any corner of Israel's land. But he was not only 
 stern ; he was also just and kind. He would punish 
 the wicked ; he would reward the good. He wished 
 men to be good so that he might reward them ; he 
 wished them not to be wicked, so that he need not 
 punish them. 
 
 Then, again, it was an early belief that this one 
 
44 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 and only God of the Hebrews was stronger than 
 any other god. He was more powerful. But not 
 only was he more powerful, but he was also purer, 
 more good. These two ideas, more powerful and 
 more good, produced a third idea of enormous 
 importance. If he was more powerful and more 
 good, what could this mean except that he was more 
 real ? In what lies the essence of a god, in what his 
 divineness ? Surely in power and in goodness. 
 So God taught the earliest great teachers to realise 
 that the God of Israel was more divine and more 
 real than the other gods. They waned ; he waxed. 
 They grew more and more unreal ; he grew more 
 and more real They sank ; either to be regarded 
 as mere half-gods, demons, imps, and spirits of no 
 account and importance, or still lower as inventions 
 or follies of men, mere nonentities, things of nought, 
 whose images and statues corresponded to nothing 
 at all. The God of Israel was gradually regarded 
 not only as a God in Israel, but also outside Israel ; 
 not merely as a divine power which ruled one 
 particular nation, but as the Divine Power which 
 ruled the world. So from being a god he became 
 God, the one and only God, the God with whom 
 nought can be compared because there can be nothing 
 to compare with him. No longer merely good, he 
 became perfect. There is but one universe, and for 
 the One Universe there is and can be only One God. 
 Then was the long history completed, and a god of a 
 small eastern tribe became the God of humanity and 
 the world. 
 
 But a strange and very important thing occurred 
 in the course of this history, and in this strange 
 thing we may, perhaps, see especially the providence 
 and the will of God. Once more we see in this 
 
in GROWTH OF IDEAS ABOUT GOD 45 
 
 strange thing how God chooses to mingle together 
 the good and the imperfect, and from the imperfect 
 to bring forth a higher good. 
 
 Throughout the long history during which the 
 God of Israel became the God of the Universe, he 
 never ceased to be the God of Israel. When for 
 all Israelites, Hebrews or Jews, he was the one and 
 only God, he was none the less, indeed he was all 
 the more, the God of Israel. We shall have later to 
 speak about this fact at greater length. We can see 
 here at once that this double aspect of God contains 
 a great and wonderful truth. For we do believe 
 that the God of the Universe, the one and only God, 
 is also our God. He is the God of you and me. 
 Great as he is, he is not too great to be my God, too 
 great for me to pray to him, too great for him to 
 help and care for me. On the contrary : just 
 because he is so great, just because he is so perfect 
 and unique, do we also believe that he can be, and is, 
 also the God of each individual man. 
 
 The God of the whole world still remained then 
 the God of Israel. In some special sense he still 
 remained their God. In some special sense they 
 still remained his people. We shall see later on how 
 far we do, and should, still believe that this continu- 
 ance was right and true and good. We shall see 
 in what sense the God of the whole Universe may 
 still rightly be called the God of Israel, and in what 
 sense Israel may still be called " his people." We 
 shall see where the idea can be helpful, and how it 
 can be dangerous : where it can be true, and how it 
 can be false. But for the present I want to pass 
 away from this particular question, and speak about 
 some other points which our ancestors were taught 
 and learnt about God. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE UNITY OF GOD AND WHAT THE GREAT TEACHERS 
 OF ISRAEL MEANT AND IMPLIED BY IT 
 
 In this chapter I begin to set forth the present Jewish 
 doctrine about God, as, from the Liberal Jewish point 
 of view, I conceive it. As I deal here mainly with the 
 divine unity and omnipresence, there is little or nothing 
 with which, I take it, Conservative Jews would dis- 
 agree. But none the less I have found it extremely 
 hard to write simply, and to say nothing which children 
 of ten or twelve years old would not understand. One 
 of my judges has not only appended the adjective 
 " difficult" to almost every paragraph, but has added: 
 " I hardly think that the doctrine of the Divine 
 Immanence can convey anything to a boy or a girl under 
 sixteen. The few child-like expressions you intercalate 
 here and there cannot simplify the ideas" Parents and 
 teachers may, therefore, not find this chapter of much use 
 except for older children. 
 
 I HAVE already indicated that the faith which the Jews 
 held about God, let us say, over two thousand years 
 ago in great part the same faith which we, their 
 descendants, hold about him to-day had come to 
 them gradually, or, as we may also put it, had gradually 
 been disclosed and revealed to them. It was not 
 philosophers in their studies who thought out this 
 
 46 
 
CHAP, iv THE UNITY OF GOD 47 
 
 faith and the beliefs which the faith implies and 
 wrote them down in books. The faith and the 
 beliefs were largely the work (under God) of great 
 teachers, but these teachers were men who lived 
 among their people : they were not lonely thinkers. 
 The great teachers (as well as the people) were them- 
 selves taught about God by what was passing around 
 them, by historical events which agitated and im- 
 pressed their minds, and from which they drew 
 inferences, and learnt lessons. The teachers were 
 taught by God through life itself. 
 
 I cannot here go through the steps of that teach- 
 ing, or speak of the individual great teachers (the 
 records of whose words we still possess, or rather, 
 of some of whose words we still have fragmentary 
 records). I can only speak of the results. 
 
 Let me then mention some of the beliefs and 
 ideas about God which these great teachers, and 
 the experience of history, had impressed upon the 
 minds of our ancestors more than two thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 First of all, then, there was the great belief, which 
 has always remained a great and fundamental belief 
 among the Jews from then till now, that God is One. 
 This great belief is what we may rightly call a rich 
 belief : that is to say it means and implies much ; it 
 does not mean and imply little. It has, as it were, 
 many meanings rolled into one. Hence it was not 
 always the same meaning which was most prominent 
 in the minds of our ancestors, and the meaning which 
 was most prominent to them two thousand years 
 ago is not perhaps the meaning which was most 
 prominent fifteen hundred or a thousand years ago, 
 or the meaning which is most prominent to us 
 to-day. The idea of God's oneness or unity is 
 
48 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 not, I repeat, a simple idea, but a rich idea : it does 
 not mean little ; it means much. Sometimes the 
 emphasis has been laid upon one side of it ; some- 
 times the emphasis has been laid upon another side of 
 it. Till all men believe in God's oneness, the Jews 
 will always lay special stress upon this great doctrine, 
 and when all men equally believe it, they will still lay 
 stress upon it, as they lay stress, and will always con- 
 tinue to lay stress, upon God's goodness or righteous- 
 ness. The Unity or Oneness of God became, through 
 a variety of circumstances, the great mark or sign of 
 the Jewish religion, and the saying in the Bible 
 which declares that Unity is regarded by all Jews as 
 the primary teaching of their religion its founda- 
 tion in one sense, its crown in another. I mean the 
 saying : " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the 
 Lord is One." 
 
 This saying meant to our ancestors (as also to us) 
 that besides the One God there was no other God. 
 There is one original Divine Power, from eternity and 
 to eternity. He is One, because there is no other God 
 than he, but he is also One, because he is wholly unlike 
 anything else in the world. He is therefore not 
 only One, but also Unique. There is nobody else, 
 there is nothing else, like him, or that can be com- 
 pared with him. He is alone. There is no other 
 being in his u class." He is not only one ; he is the 
 only one. And he is not only one in the sense that 
 there is no other divine power as his partner or his 
 rival, but he is also one in himself. His own nature 
 is a Unity, and there is no Unity, in its perfect 
 Oneness, like unto his Unity. This part of the idea 
 or belief of God's unity is much more difficult, and I 
 do not know that I can explain what our ancestors 
 meant by it very clearly and easily. Nor perhaps did 
 
iv THE UNITY OF GOD 49 
 
 what they meant by it exactly mean what I mean by 
 it. For the idea is rich, as I said, and not poor, and 
 can properly mean many things, and not merely a 
 few. But I will try and say at once some of the 
 things which I think they meant by it, and some of 
 the things which I and other Jews mean by it to-day. 
 I think they meant by it, for one thing, to imply 
 that God was always the same. He is changeless. 
 He does not grow or wane. He has always been, he 
 will always be, perfect. He has no moods. He is 
 not sometimes this and sometimes that, but he is 
 eternally the same. He is the source of truth and 
 the source of goodness, and being one, his truth and 
 his goodness are changeless and permanent. Again, 
 by his Unity they implied and we imply the follow- 
 ing. We imply that he always works upon the same 
 general lines and for the same general ends. His 
 purposes do not vary. He cannot now desire the 
 good of his creatures and now the evil, but if he is 
 one, then he, being himself good, must always desire 
 their good. We speak of a human being as wise and 
 just and kind, and we use these same adjectives of 
 God. I believe that we use them rightly. How- 
 ever immensely greater the justice and wisdom and 
 kindness of God are than the justice and wisdom 
 and kindness of man, they cannot yet be wholly and 
 absolutely unlike. For our wisdom and goodness 
 come from him : he is their source, and what we may 
 call the reality of them is due (in our belief) to the 
 fact that they are akin to, and spring from, the divine 
 goodness and the divine wisdom. But of a man we 
 can say he is more good than wise, or that he is more 
 wise than good. Or, again, we can say of a man that 
 his kindness gets the better of his justice, or that his 
 sense of justice allows no room for kindness and pity. 
 
 E 
 
50 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 But because God is One, we can never speak like 
 that of God. Or, if we do, it is merely because we, 
 being human, speak of God in human language. For, 
 in truth, his wisdom and his justice and his kindness are 
 all exactly equal. He is never more just than kind ; 
 never more pitiful than just. We may speak humanly 
 of his pity overcoming his justice, but it is inaccurate 
 to speak so. His perfect Righteousness is also 
 perfect Love. For in him every one part of his 
 nature harmonises with every other part, and what he 
 does is done from his perfect Oneness and in virtue 
 of his Oneness. He is always wholly just and wholly 
 loving at one and the same time. 
 
 Again, we must always remember that the idea of 
 God's unity is not a poor idea, but a rich idea. So 
 we must believe that the nature of God is not poor 
 and thin on account of his Unity, but that it is, on 
 the contrary, surpassingly rich and surpassingly full. 
 We might say that, in a certain sense, our nature, 
 though more rich, is less one than the nature of a 
 gnat or a stone. We sometimes feel happy, some- 
 times sad, sometimes we feel love, sometimes anger ; 
 sometimes we are just, stern, unyielding, sometimes 
 pitiful, kind, forgiving. But God is not only far 
 richer in goodness than we, but he is, in spite of that 
 immense richness, yet wholly one. We may speak 
 of God's justice, kindness, love, pitifulness, and so 
 on. But in reality just because he is one, we believe 
 that all these qualities are always found together, and 
 that they never by any possibility can, at any moment, 
 be at variance or strife. There may be a conflict^ a 
 struggle, within us which we are sure that there can 
 never be within the gnat. This struggle, this conflict, 
 take place because our nature is much richer than the 
 gnat's. But infinitely richer as is God's nature than 
 
iv THE UNITY OF GOD 51 
 
 our nature, there is never any struggle, never any 
 conflict. There is ever harmony, unity, peace. We 
 may sum up God's nature, so far as he has revealed 
 it to us, and call it wisdom, or we may sum it up 
 and call it righteousness, or we may sum it up and 
 call it love, but it is always one and the same. 
 One nature with many aspects ; one nature with 
 many facets. But always perfect harmony ; and 
 always, to all eternity, Unity, flawless, perfect and 
 complete. This is what we may believe, this is what 
 our ancestors learnt, and what they have taught us, 
 about God. 
 
 The rich and perfect Unity of God is so important 
 and fundamental a doctrine that I would like to 
 illustrate it still further by contrasting it yet again 
 with the imperfect unity of man. Very often the 
 richer a man's nature is, the less one he is. A man 
 who is interested and keen about many things may 
 have a richer nature, but may be less one, than a man 
 who is interested and keen about one thing. A man 
 who is generous and just may be less one than a man 
 who is generous, but not just, or just but not 
 generous. For the generosity may cause a fight with 
 the justice or conflict with it, or the justice may 
 interfere with the generosity. The fuller man may 
 be imperfectly one, because his various qualities may 
 be imperfectly harmonised with each other. But in 
 the case of the Divine nature we believe that its 
 richness and its unity are, to use a long word, 
 coextensive : neither is bigger than the other, but 
 each is equal to, and each is adequate for, the'other. 
 The conviction that God is One causes us to 
 acquire other convictions as well. And these other 
 convictions help us to realise the full value of the 
 doctrine of the Unity. For example, as there is only 
 
52 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 one God and that God is one, it seems to follow that 
 the universe which God rules and sustains is one also. 
 It must be a universe which, as the phrase goes, 
 " makes for righteousness," even as its divine Lord is 
 himself the source and the perfection of righteous- 
 ness. Now we know that many events and occur- 
 rences on the earth are full of pain and sorrow : much 
 evil and misery exist. But the conviction of God's 
 unity induces us to believe, and comforts us with the 
 faith, that the one, good God holds the key, and is 
 the key, to all the many riddles of existence. The 
 unity of God makes us reach the faith that the same 
 one God who is the source of goodness is also the 
 controller of sorrow and pain. If he sends us happi- 
 ness for our good, does he not also send us sorrow ? 
 May not both happiness and sorrow, prosperity and 
 adversity, be his messengers, and the instruments of 
 his love ? 
 
 Again, as God is one, and there is one God only, 
 all we human beings, be our race, our colour and 
 our creed what they may, are all his children, and all 
 (so we may surely believe) are sent here for some 
 good purpose ; none is unnecessary, whether of races 
 or of individuals. God's unity makes us humble and 
 makes us brave. We are all his children in spite of 
 our failures and our sins. And just as he loves all, 
 and we love him, so must we love one another. 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God " are the next 
 words to " the Lord is one." So the next words 
 after the command, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself," are "I am the Lord." Thus the existence 
 and unity of God enfold within themselves both 
 divine and human love. And this love, based upon 
 God's unity, impels us to the certainty that we 
 must not despise any race or any individuals, for 
 
IV 
 
 THE UNITY OF GOD 53 
 
 we must fain believe, as an old Rabbi said, that 
 there is no race and no man which have not their 
 place and their hour. God is the father of the 
 good, but he is also the father of the evil. These 
 too he will educate, though perhaps the process 
 may take a long while and many phases of 
 existence. The Unity of God may be said to range 
 over, and include, almost all the other parts of our 
 faith respecting God's dealings and relations with man- 
 kind. Everything seems to turn upon it ; all goes 
 back to it ; all flows out from it. No wonder, then, that 
 our forefathers felt that this doctrine of God's unity 
 was so central and so sacred that sooner than abandon 
 it, sooner than admit any weakening or impoverish- 
 ment of it, they would suffer, and they would die. 
 
 The doctrine of the Unity of God grew up among 
 the Jews amid conflict and struggle. The doctrine 
 bore for long, perhaps it still to some extent bears, 
 the marks of that struggle. There was, first, the 
 conflict of the great teachers with the mass of the 
 people, who only with great difficulty, and after many 
 troubles, were induced to give up the worship of 
 many gods and a false worship of the true God. 
 Secondly, there was the conflict of the whole people, 
 now become ardent believers in the One God, with 
 the worshippers of many gods and false gods beyond 
 their own borders. Thus the Unity of God was at 
 first especially emphasised in those sides or aspects of 
 it which opposed it to the belief in, and the worship 
 of, many gods, and again the Unity was especially 
 emphasised in those sides and aspects of it which 
 opposed it to those particular beliefs, and those 
 particular kinds of worship, which the teachers and 
 the people knew to be actually existing around them. 
 
 What were those beliefs and those particular kinds 
 
54 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 of worship ? To describe them would, I fear, take 
 far too long, but I may say about them just this. 
 The supposed divine powers were many : there were 
 male gods and female gods, kindly gods and cruel 
 gods. Sometimes, too, among some peoples and at 
 some periods the sun and moon and stars were 
 regarded as divine, and were worshipped as gods or 
 goddesses. The gods were not sharply distinguished 
 and separated from nature : they were sometimes 
 half identified with actual visible things. Then the 
 worship of these gods was often impure and degraded. 
 Their favour was sought, their anger was appeased, 
 by rites often cruel and absurd, or fantastic and 
 superstitious. Again, the gods and goddesses were 
 portrayed and symbolised and represented in visible 
 and bodily forms. Men made images and statues of 
 the gods as I have already said and, often forget- 
 ting that the image was the work of their own hands, 
 they even worshipped it and paid it homage. To 
 worship the sun was foolish enough : to worship an 
 image of the sun was more foolish still. This worship 
 of images we call idolatry. The image became an 
 idol. Sometimes the god was represented by an 
 animal : a golden calf or bull became a god and 
 received the worship of adoring crowds. In the early 
 times many Israelites fell themselves into the grave 
 error of representing their own God, of whom they 
 had not yet a sufficiently pure and high idea, under 
 the likeness of a bull. And others thought of him 
 as having the shape of a man, with a man's body 
 and a man's voice. So long as these ideas were not 
 utterly abandoned, it was impossible for them to think 
 of him as perfect. With bodily limitations he naturally 
 was often supposed to possess other limitations and 
 imperfections as well. 
 
IV 
 
 THE UNITY OF GOD 55 
 
 Hence the great teachers were anxious to point 
 out that the true God of Israel was other than the 
 false gods of the nations around, other than the false 
 ideas and representations of him which were 
 unfortunately often cherished by many of his people. 
 The other gods were unreal : the true God was 
 intensely real. They were dead ; he was intensely 
 alive. They were connected with parts of the visible 
 world : they were supposed to be gods of the sun 
 and moon ; gods of the hills and the plains ; gods 
 of rivers and trees. Or they were considered gods 
 of nature in yet another way : gods of nature's forces 
 and powers, whereas the true God was the Lord and 
 Creator of these forces. They were gods of fertility 
 or gods of dearth ; gods of life or gods of death. 
 But the true God was One : the Lord of death, the 
 source of life. The great teachers of Israel were 
 led by God to realise that he was the Lord of 
 nature, but not a part of nature ; that he was the 
 Creator of all, but himself other than, and distinct 
 from, all that he had made. In one important sense 
 he was above, beyond, and outside the world of sense 
 and sight. The Creator is other than his creatures. 
 
 Especially keen was the hostility of the great 
 teachers to all idolatry and image-worship. God, 
 they insisted, had no shape or body or form : no 
 likeness must be made of him. He must not be 
 worshipped in the symbol of anything, whether in 
 heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters 
 below. Not as a star, or as a bull, or as a great fish, 
 must we think of or represent the One and Only God. 
 We must not attempt to represent him to our senses 
 in any form whatsoever. He is other than the 
 things we see and touch and hear. Yet what he is 
 we believe that we so far truly know when we say of 
 
56 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 him that he is good and wise, perfect in goodness, 
 perfect in wisdom. The great Hebrew teachers 
 summed up their belief in God's difference from the 
 things we see and touch and hear (including our- 
 selves), and their belief in his perfection (as regards 
 goodness and wisdom), by one great word a word 
 which became a favourite word of theirs in reference 
 to God. That word was Holiness. The God of Israel 
 whom they taught Israel to believe in, was the Holy 
 God, and his supreme attribute was Holiness. We 
 shall have to speak of this attribute again. 
 
 We seem to see in this teaching of Israel's great 
 teachers the express will of God in the education of 
 man. For it was of the utmost importance that the 
 Jews, and through them many other races, should 
 learn that God was other than his creatures, including 
 man. More than, better than, and also other than. 
 It was of the utmost importance that the Jews, and 
 through them many other races, should learn that 
 God was above and beyond and even outside the 
 world we see and hear and touch. It was, perhaps, 
 even necessary to over-emphasise the otherness^ to 
 over-emphasise the outsideness. It was necessary to 
 overstate these truths rather than to understate them. 
 God, as we shall hear, is not only outside the world, 
 but he is also within it. God is not only more and 
 better and other than man, but he is also, in a certain 
 sense, like and even in man. 
 
 If God were wholly and absolutely unlike man, we 
 could not have anything to do with him, and he 
 could not have anything to do with us. He could 
 not influence or help us ; we could not know about 
 him or pray to him. For any relations to exist 
 between God and man, they must be able to 
 communicate with each other, and in order to 
 
iv THE UNITY OF GOD 57 
 
 communicate with each other, there must be some 
 likeness, some links, between them. In Biblical 
 language these links and that likeness are expressed 
 in the famous words : " In the image of God made 
 he man." 
 
 So the great teachers learned and taught that man 
 had a certain kinship with God, not a kinship in 
 flesh and blood, but a kinship in immaterial spirit. 
 God is alive and man is alive : that is one likeness ; 
 but far deeper and more far-reaching is this. Our 
 reason, which expresses itself in knowledge and 
 goodness, our reason, through which we know and 
 are good, is, as we believe, not wholly alien from the 
 divine reason. Our reason is the divine image in 
 which we are created. Or shall we not rather say 
 our spirit ? What do I mean by spirit ? The word 
 spirit is derived from the Latin spiritus, which literally 
 means " breath " or u wind.'* The Hebrew word for 
 spirit, ruach, also means "wind " or " breath." But we 
 do not mean anything material when we speak of 
 man's spirit or when we speak of man's soul. We 
 mean by man's spirit that in virtue of which he is 
 a self-conscious, rational and moral being, that in 
 him, and of him, which enables him to apprehend and 
 love God, which enables him to apprehend and love 
 goodness. We mean that in him, or that of him, 
 which, as we believe, will survive earthly death, man's 
 inmost or truest self, which constitutes the essence of 
 his manhood. Spirit, then, in this sense of the word, 
 is not only and merely reason, but it is reason which 
 feels and wills. And that is why many people prefer 
 to speak of our kinship with God as being a kinship 
 in spirit, and why they prefer to speak of the divine 
 image in which we are created as being our soul 
 or spirit rather than our reason. For God is not 
 
58 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 merely, as we believe, pure reason ; he is not 
 mere thought : he does not only think, he also 
 wills and feels. For if we say God cares for us, 
 do not these words imply feeling ? So perhaps it 
 is true to say that the human spirit which expresses 
 itself in feeling, willing and thinking (rational feeling, 
 rational willing and rational thinking), is akin to the 
 divine spirit, just as the divine spirit is its origin 
 and home. If we are asked what God is, we answer 
 that we do not know, but spirit seems to describe 
 his nature better than any other single word. It 
 is because man's nature is not wholly other than 
 God's nature that the preacher can exclaim : " Try 
 and become like God. Try and become holy even 
 as God is holy." 
 
 Again, though the Hebrew teachers learned and 
 taught that God is above and beyond and outside 
 the world, they also learnt and taught that he is not 
 only outside it, but also in a mysterious sense within 
 it. They taught that God is the Creator of all 
 things, and that he sustains all that he has made. 
 He is, some would say, the soul of the universe, or 
 as a great Jewish poet has said, " Thou supportest 
 all things but all things cannot support thee. Thou 
 fillest all space, but space cannot contain thee." 
 Another and much earlier poet declares that God is 
 everywhere : his spirit is omnipresent? But he rightly 
 adds that such thoughts, however true, are too hard 
 for him. They are too hard for almost all of us. 
 Let us, when we say that God is everywhere, 
 remember, and be content to remember, two things. 
 First, that we are not to think of God as if 
 he were a sort of very thin substance, invisible and 
 pure, stretched out through all space. God is not 
 
 1 Psalm cxxxix. 
 
iv THE UNITY OF GOD 59 
 
 a material thing. We cannot understand God's 
 everyvvhcreness, or rather we can form no picture 
 or representation of it. We need not do so, if, in 
 the second place, we remember that it means that 
 always and everywhere God is present, and that 
 it is the same God who is always and every- 
 where present. And so it means that God is both 
 far off and near. In other words, he is " near to all 
 those who call upon him/* wherever they live, wher- 
 ever they are. He is being called upon at this very 
 hour by beings, perchance wiser than we, living upon 
 some planet which circles round the most distant star 
 that the biggest telescope has yet revealed to us. 
 To them he is as near as he is to us : the same God 
 for us and for them. 1 
 
 That is the meaning of God's everywhereness or 
 omnipresence which it is necessary and good for us 
 to lay to heart. How this wonderful everywhereness 
 can be, we should have to be God to understand. 
 In other words, only God can understand God ; only 
 God can understand himself. 
 
 1 One of my critics writes : " Children very soon ask, ' What is God like ? * 
 The question must not be shirked. It is necessary from the first to do two 
 things which you mention in this chapter : one negative and the other positive. 
 (A) The child must be told, and made to think, again and again, that God is 
 not like anything in the world. This must be so often repeated to the child 
 that the negation will become a familiar truth. (B) The child must be told, 
 and made to think, again and again, that God is a Spiritual Being. This 
 affirmation must also be made a familiar truth. The child must be directed to 
 those aspects of its own nature which, though they are not perceptible to the 
 senses, arc none the less known to him to be real his thoughts, his feelings, his 
 memories. These constitute the spiritual side of his life, and in God these 
 spiritual aspects of life, perfect and harmoniously blended and combined, con- 
 stitute the whole life. Hence though God is like nothing else we know or 
 believe in, he is real, but his reality is not material j it is spiritual." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE GOODNESS OF GOD THE PROBLEM OF EVIL- 
 HUMAN FREEDOM 
 
 In this chapter I touch all too soon, and perhaps all too 
 rashly ', upon the deepest problem of religion. Much of 
 it will be of no good whatever to children under 
 fifteen. Still one never quite knows what questions 
 children may ask even in early years, and it may be 
 desirable for parents to be prepared and forearmed. 
 One of my judges said : c< Tou cannot talk about the 
 fight against sin to a child of ten." But I am not so 
 perfectly sure. At all events we tell children even at 
 a very early age to fight their own failings, and we 
 show them that they will be all the better boys and girls 
 if they have, or when they have, conquered and over- 
 come their failings. And could we not at an early stage 
 tell them that sometimes we are able to help a friend or 
 companion or playmate in his failings just as sometimes 
 a friend may help us in ours ? Such help profits not 
 only the receiver but also the giver, just because it can 
 rarely be given except with a little trouble and with 
 some pains. Could we not show how such giving and 
 receiving seems part of the way in which God wants 
 us to become better ourselves and to help others to 
 become better too ? If a child were to say : " How 
 nice it would be to have been made without faults, so 
 that we never had any trouble" could we not show 
 
 60 
 
CHAP, v THE GOODNESS OF GOD 61 
 
 that this very trouble helps us to become finer and better 
 boys and girls than we could be without it ? This is 
 very much the same thought, in simpler form, which I 
 have suggested in my remarks about the fight against 
 sin. 
 
 THE Jewish religion, some elements of which I have 
 desired to speak about in this little book, stands 
 and falls with its teaching about God. For all 
 Jews the belief in God is the central feature, the 
 cardinal doctrine, of their religion. Not every one 
 who believes in God is through that belief a Jew, 
 but no one who does not believe in God is a Jew, 
 except in the sense that he may have been born of 
 Jewish parents. Thus the word " Jew " is used 
 (unfortunately) in these two very different senses : 
 sometimes it means a Jew by religion, sometimes a 
 Jew by birth. I use it to mean a Jew by religion. 
 Not every one who says " I believe in God " is 
 through that belief a Jew, because, to make him (so 
 far as belief is concerned) a Jew, there are other 
 beliefs which he should believe as well. But those 
 other beliefs are all dependent upon the first belief. 
 They would fall to the ground without it. He who 
 believes in God, and believes also in his perfect 
 Unity and perfect goodness, is more than half-way 
 to belonging to our Jewish brotherhood, even though 
 he does not bear the Jewish name. Not the whole 
 way : yet more than half the way. Even if he 
 cannot come the whole way with us, if he cannot 
 wholly see as we see, and believe as we believe, he 
 has yet come more than half the way, and come the 
 more important half, and he may at least be regarded 
 as our comrade and our ally. 
 
 Of the Unity of God I need not say much more. 
 
62 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Let us, however, once more call to mind that the one 
 God whom men pray to in Denmark, is the same 
 one God whom we pray to in England. One God 
 for the English, and the same one God for the 
 Danes. 
 
 He is the divine father of the Jews, he is the 
 divine father of Christians and Buddhists. If he is 
 the father of Frenchmen, he is the father of Zulus, 
 and so on. 
 
 We saw too that the Unity of God did not mean 
 that his nature was poor, but, on the contrary, that 
 it was rich. Our nature is richer than the nature 
 of a stone, a daisy, or a gnat, but our richer nature 
 is imperfectly one. Our richer nature often means 
 discord, struggle, conflict, ending sometimes in 
 defeats and sometimes in victories. But God's 
 nature, though infinitely richer than ours, is yet, as 
 we believe, perfectly One. As one of my judges 
 
 aptly says : " It is the white where all the colours 
 
 
 are. 
 
 It is but a portion of God's nature which he has 
 revealed to us. Surely there is much in it which we 
 can never know or understand. Nevertheless, what 
 we do believe is, as we also believe, true so far as it 
 goes. In one sense it goes very far. For though, 
 as a great Jewish poet has said : what we know is 
 but " the outskirts of his ways," and " how small a 
 whisper do we hear of him," yet our faith bids us 
 believe that in holding God to be the living source 
 of knowledge and goodness, we have reached up to 
 essential and fundamental elements of his nature and 
 being. 
 
 If our religion bids us believe that God is One, it 
 no less earnestly bids us believe that God is wise 
 and good. When we say that God is good for 
 
v THE GOODNESS OF GOD 63 
 
 of his goodness I want specially to speak we also 
 mean that however much greater his goodness may 
 be than our goodness, yet it is not wholly unlike 
 our own. There is a real, true and deep meaning 
 in those three simple words, in that short simple 
 sentence : God is good ! The word " goodness " 
 is what we may rightly call an inclusive word. Some 
 people would call it a little colourless, but I like it 
 none the less well for that. Some would prefer to 
 say : God is righteous, or God is loving, and these 
 sentences are, as we believe, no less true than the 
 sentence : God is good. His goodness includes 
 righteousness and love, just as it includes justice and 
 pity. The doctrine of God's Unity constrains us to 
 believe that God's justice is not tempered or softened 
 by his pity, though we may have to make use of such 
 phrases from our human point of view, but that 
 his goodness is justice and pity in one. But if 
 righteousness seems to you the highest and most 
 inclusive form of goodness, then by all means say 
 that God is righteousness, and if love seems to you 
 the highest and most inclusive form of goodness, 
 then by all means say that God is love. In one sense, 
 and from one point of view, love is a very good word 
 to apply to God, because it implies that God cares. 
 It implies that he not only thinks and wi/ls, but that 
 he feels. And if he feels, he cares. 
 
 Here we reach the central point, the deepest 
 truth, but also the deepest problem, of all Theistic 
 religions, that is to say of every religion which 
 proclaims and teaches God. Perhaps you will 
 wonder at my language, and with reason, for 
 I think that I have spoken of more than one 
 teaching as the central point, the most important 
 doctrine of all. And, of course, there can only 
 
64 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 be one centre -, and only one most important doctrine. 
 I believe I called the Unity of God the most im- 
 portant, and the central, doctrine, and then I called 
 the goodness of God the most important, and the 
 central, doctrine, and now I call the teaching that 
 God cares the most important, and the central, 
 doctrine. Each one, as I come to it, seems to me 
 the most important, as sometimes each glorious 
 poem of the great poets seems to me, as I read it, 
 the most beautiful poem in all the world. Perhaps, 
 really, the Unity, the Goodness, the Caring, all hang 
 together. Could he be wholly good, if he were not 
 -purely one, and could he be wholly good, if he did 
 not caret 
 
 But this caring, though so great, so vital, so 
 all-important a truth, is also a very great puzzle. 
 It is not an easy truth, and yet we cannot get on 
 without it. When we have reached to a belief in 
 God, we cannot stop short before the caring. What, 
 in the last resort, confirms and maintains men and 
 women in the assured conviction and faith that God 
 is ? It is their knowledge and conviction of right 
 and wrong, their faith in goodness, which compel 
 and urge them to believe in an eternal source and 
 condition of goodness, in other words, to believe in 
 God. He, as the source of goodness, must himself 
 be good. But if he is good, then, we repeat again 
 and again, he cares, he must care. Yes, in spite of 
 all, he cares, he must care. At last the words 
 become a sort of song, a song of comfort and 
 consolation, a song of peace and of triumph : He 
 cares, he must care ! 
 
 What do I mean by saying : " in spite of all " ? 
 What do those words " in spite of" mean? Ah, 
 they mean so much, they mean such sad and 
 
v THE GOODNESS OF GOD 65 
 
 grievous and terrible things. They mean such sore 
 puzzles, such insoluble problems ! We will not 
 shirk what they mean, but I cannot discuss every- 
 thing that they mean in this book. Remember that 
 we are here right in front of the greatest difficulty of 
 all " Theistic " religions including our own. But 
 remember too that the best and wisest men, the 
 most experienced men, the greatest heroes and the 
 holiest saints, have sung, and still sing, the song : 
 He cares, he must care ! Perhaps one of the reasons for 
 the existence of so much that puzzles us may be that it 
 exercises our faith. If there were nothing to try our 
 faith in God, it might become shallow, flabby, poor. 
 But when pressed and tried by the sore problems of 
 life, it can become deep and keen and strong. It 
 is perhaps with faith as with virtue : it needs to be 
 tempered like steel in the fires of temptation and 
 difficulties. This may be one of the many reasons, 
 true, so far as it goes. 
 
 " In spite of." What are the " in spite of 's " ? 
 What are the trials and difficulties, the puzzles and 
 problems to which I have alluded ? There are what 
 we may call intellectual difficulties, which need not, 
 and usually do not, greatly trouble us. We cannot 
 understand how God can think of and care for all 
 of us at once, and not merely for " us," but for all 
 his endless worlds and for the creatures which live 
 upon them. How can he " hear " a million prayers 
 at the same moment of time ? How can he be 
 everywhere at once ? But, as I said before, only 
 God can understand God ; that this must be so 
 appeals immediately to our minds. A gnat would 
 be unable to understand the powers of man : a man 
 is equally unable to understand the powers of God. 
 
 Far more difficult and puzzling and painful than 
 
 F 
 
66 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 any difficulties such as these, are the difficulties which 
 have to do with the goodness of God. Is God really 
 good ? we sometimes feel inclined to say ; can he 
 really care when even on our own little planet, earth, 
 there is so much cruelty, and misery, and degradation ? 
 Did he who made the lamb make also the tiger? 
 Did he who sends the rain send also the earthquake 
 and the volcano? Does he really care, in spite of 
 the endless streams of tears which, generation after 
 generation, have flowed down millions of human 
 faces ? Why has he educated humanity so slowly ? 
 Why have there been savages and cannibals ? Why 
 have there been such great masses of dull, hopeless 
 misery (as of slaves), which have not led to virtue or 
 knowledge ? To what end are the sufferings of 
 animals ? What is the purpose of the appalling 
 cruelties which men have wrought against men in 
 the very name of religion itself ? One set of men 
 have tortured other men, and burnt them alive, 
 merely because they wanted to worship and think of 
 God in a rather different way than that of their 
 butchers and murderers ? Why has God allowed 
 men to commit such detestable wickednesses, and to 
 declare with loathsome hypocrisy, nay even sometimes, 
 in hardly less loathsome self-delusion, to believe, 
 that they did them in his service and to his glory ? 
 These awful questions could easily be extended. We 
 could all make up lists of them, and draw up a 
 hundred queries as agonising and harrowing as these. 
 To these terrible questions there is, and there can 
 be upon earth, no satisfying answer. We do not 
 know. We can think of a few answers (I suggested 
 one a few lines back) which explain a very little, 
 but we cannot explain the difficulties properly or 
 entirely. We can suggest palliatives, or alleviations, 
 
v THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 67 
 
 which, though they by no means go the whole way, 
 are nevertheless true as far as they go. Our finite 
 intelligences may suggest some reasons which may 
 underlie God's infinite wisdom, but we can never find 
 a certain interpretation or key to all these grievous 
 problems. Some find comfort in one sort of reflec- 
 tions ; some in another. One of my critics writes : 
 " How could we have learnt except through ex- 
 perience ? Both joy and sorrow, happiness and pain, 
 have had to teach us. Why should we expect God 
 to teach us except very slowly ? We learn through 
 contrasts : darkness and shadows may be as necessary 
 as light. Insight, both moral and intellectual, is 
 gained from the shadow as well as from the light." 
 
 We can realise that unless man were allowed to 
 do wrong, he could never freely do right. We learn 
 by our mistakes ; still more do we learn by suffering. 
 The noblest human characters have been formed by 
 trouble. I have elsewhere spoken about such helps to 
 the growth of character and about other alleviations 
 of the problem of " evil," and I need not repeat 
 what I have there said. 1 The fight against suffering 
 and sin, whether in ourselves or in others, has been a 
 noble fight ; it has produced noble lives and noble 
 characters. Self-sacrifice, the greatest of human 
 virtues, the glory and distinction of man, could only 
 have come about by the voluntary and willing accept- 
 ance of sorrow and suffering in order to help others, 
 to lighten their burden, to aid them to triumph over 
 their temptations and their sins, to lessen and share 
 the miseries which these sins have caused. Then, 
 too, martyrdom has often ennobled the martyr. If 
 there is much misery which seems to effect no purpose, 
 there is much more which brings out, in the sufferer 
 
 1 See my Bible for Home Reading, vol. ii. pp. 200-207. 
 
68 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 and not merely in the sympathiser, the noblest 
 elements in character : firmness under trial, fidelity 
 under contumely, patience under pain, and, above 
 all, an irresistible resolve to rise above the pain, to 
 come out of it, or in despite of it, to a higher and 
 a fuller life. It may be said : " But why could not 
 all these effects have been produced without the 
 martyrdom, the pain and the contumely ? " Yes, 
 that is the mystery. But, nevertheless, these good 
 effects did come from, or in despite of, these evils, 
 and it is therefore in a sense not untrue to assert that 
 if there is nothing in human life perfectly good, there 
 is also nothing perfectly evil. If God in his wisdom 
 permitted evil, he too it was who made the good 
 which somehow emerges from it. 
 
 Such thoughts help us a little, but they are far 
 from explaining even a tithe of the problem. But 
 there is another and greater alleviation which is our 
 hope that our souls the " better part " of ourselves 
 are not destroyed by death, but that, in some 
 form and manner which we cannot now understand, 
 but which, we shall experience by dying, we shall 
 live again, and attain to a fuller knowledge of God. 
 Of this hope I shall speak more fully later on. 
 
 But I want now to point out that there are two 
 kinds of evil, one kind which is independent of man, 
 and one kind which is dependent upon him, which 
 he, as it were, directly or indirectly, brings into being. 
 We speak, for example, of an earthquake which 
 causes the death of, let us say, a thousand persons 
 at one and the same time, which perchance robs the 
 husband of his wife, the child of his father, as an 
 " evil " a physical evil. And yet death, in itself, is 
 not an evil. It is not an evil for animals ; it is still 
 less, as we believe, an evil for man. Still it may be 
 
v THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 69 
 
 allowed that sorrow and pain and suffering are 
 "evils," and that these may all be caused by the 
 earthquake, which is independent of man. But far 
 more numerous are the evils of which man directly 
 or indirectly is himself the cause sometimes to 
 himself, sometimes to others living with him, some- 
 times to others yet unborn. This evil we call moral 
 evil, because it is the product of man's ignorance, or 
 man's folly, or man's sin. It seems to be part of 
 the divine education of the race the awful means 
 by which civilisation, human wisdom and human 
 righteousness are produced. Saying that does not 
 explain evil : it does not make the divine responsibility 
 less : the burden of faith is not really lessened. The 
 suffering of one man is not more easy to explain, as it 
 was not to him less sore, because the ultimate result of 
 it was that his distant descendant became better or 
 wiser and happier. But saying that does make our own 
 responsibility greater, and gives us a grander purpose 
 in our own lives. The evils which the folly, ignorance 
 and wickedness of former generations have left to us 
 as an inheritance we must seek to lessen. We must 
 not increase this inheritance in our turn by our own 
 folly, ignorance and wickedness. The burden of evil 
 must be slowly and painfully lessened and destroyed. 
 To endure the burden, man needs faith in the divine 
 goodness and love. To fight the evil which man 
 himself has wrought, man needs all the courage and 
 knowledge and love to which, with God's help and 
 with his own effort, he can attain. 
 
 Far more difficult to explain and far more im- 
 possible to conceive (as it seems to me) are goodness 
 and knowledge without God than evil and suffering 
 with him. I can have faith that the good and wise 
 God has his own adequate solution of evil and 
 
70 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 suffering, but that a godless world produced goodness 
 and knowledge, reason and love this I cannot believe 
 at all. 
 
 What, however, I most want to urge and repeat 
 here is that those who have seen most of life, including 
 its cruelties, its miseries, and its sins, have usually 
 been, and usually still are, the firmest and strongest 
 believers in the goodness of God ; the firmest and 
 strongest believers that he knows the answer to all 
 our problems. Those who have probed the worst of 
 life still believe in God and in the divine goodness ; 
 they still sing the great song of triumph and of faith : 
 He cares, he must care ! 
 
 Some thoughts came into my mind at this point, 
 and induced me to write a few paragraphs about 
 which one of my judges said that " in a book of this 
 kind they are unnecessary and incomprehensible." 
 But in its present form my book is not for children, 
 but for parents and for teachers. I, therefore, have 
 not erased the erring paragraphs, because parents 
 and teachers may perhaps find in them some hint or 
 suggestion which may be of use to them on an 
 unexpected occasion. 
 
 There are those who have tried or try to reconcile 
 the goodness of God with the evils of the world by 
 supposing that God's power is limited : he would 
 wish to do better for his world, but he cannot. He, 
 the eternal spirit, has to contend with stubborn, 
 refractory material. The evils of the world are in 
 the deepest sense inevitable. Or, again, the fight 
 against evil is a divine fight : God is always getting 
 the better of evil more and more. He has never got, 
 or can never get, the better of it completely. But 
 this attempt at reconcilement and explanation will 
 probably be found to raise greater difficulties than it 
 
v THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 71 
 
 relieves : at any rate, it is not, and I do not think it 
 can or will ever be, the answer of the Jewish religion. 
 There is no race which has had to endure, or which 
 still has to endure, greater and more undeserved 
 troubles than ours : there is no race which has been 
 more vilely treated by its fellow-men ; there is no 
 race which has drunk more deeply the brimming cup 
 of sorrows ; there is no race which can chronicle more 
 martyrs and victims for its faith. Nevertheless, 
 there is no race which has clung more devoutly and 
 stubbornly to the doctrine of the goodness of God, 
 and with the doctrine of the goodness it has always 
 joined the doctrine of divine omnipotence. Judaism 
 has never attempted to find in any limitation of 
 God's power the key to the riddle of evil. It has 
 always preferred to say : u I do not understand, but 
 I still believe. He cares, he must care." And if it 
 be true that good often comes from evil, of no race 
 is it truer than of the Jews. I do not hold with 
 those who believe that Judaism only thrives, or can 
 thrive, under persecution. But from the records of 
 Jewish history it must be acknowledged that some of 
 the best and finest of Jewish virtues have been due 
 to, or developed by, persecution. " Whom God 
 loves he chastens," may be a universal truth, but it 
 seems specially true in the case of the Jews. 
 
 In one sense, indeed, or perhaps in two senses, the 
 power of God is limited. But we believe that it is 
 a sort of voluntary limitation, or a limitation involved 
 in the very nature of his being. For instance, God 
 is truth and the source of truth. Truth can never 
 be false. The source of truth can never deceive. 
 Two and two make four, and not God himself can 
 make them five. Nor can God undo the past. 
 What was real cannot be made illusory. 
 
72 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 If that is one sense in which God's power is 
 limited, there is also another. For if God has given 
 to man a measure of freedom, that freedom too 
 cannot be illusory ; it must be a real freedom. We 
 do not act like the winds or the rain ; we do not act 
 like the gnats and the frogs ; we approach a little 
 nearer to the freedom of God. I will not raise 
 the old puzzle as to how God can really know the 
 future of mankind if man's actions are free. We 
 can allow such puzzles to rest. It may well be 
 that to God the freedom of man does not hinder 
 foreknowledge or limit omniscience. But it is more 
 important for us to recognise, with a certain humility 
 and awe, the measure of our freedom, and with 
 that recognition there should come a feeling of deep 
 responsibility. 
 
 God cares, and because he cares and must care, 
 he must desire the victory of good, the conquest of 
 evil. Because he is good and because he cares, and 
 because he is omnipotent, that victory must at last be 
 assured. But we can make that victory come sooner, 
 or we can delay its coming, whether on earth or in 
 that other life in which our religion bids and urges 
 us to believe. " What ! " you say : " we in our in- 
 significance can help forward or retard the immortal 
 purposes of God ! " Even so : nothing less than 
 this does our freedom imply. It is a great thought, 
 but surely an inspiring one. Man is the partner of 
 God. 1 An insignificant partner truly, but yet not a 
 sleeping partner : and to be a partner at all is a 
 tremendous privilege. Our Lord, our Master, our 
 
 1 One of my judges writes : " I do not like the metaphor of * Partner ' for 
 children." Personally, I see no harm in it. It seems to me more picturesque 
 than " co-worker," which is the term which my critic prefers. Let my " parent 
 and teacher " readers use whichever term they please, or find themselves a third. 
 I am told that * Partner ' was used by some old Rabbis. 
 
v HUMAN FREEDOM 73 
 
 Father, the source of our life and being ; all these, 
 and our Partner too. 1 
 
 Goodness and knowledge are real : so real, so true, 
 that they demand the goodness and the knowledge of 
 God. Just because evil shows up the more, and 
 gives the grander scope for, human goodness, just 
 because the fairest human plants sometimes grow 
 amid dunghills of misery or of vice, does the great- 
 ness of evil not prevent us acclaiming and worshipping 
 the goodness of God. If we can love much, he can 
 love more. He cares, he must care ! 
 
 1 In all humility we may feel that it it in our power to use the gifts God 
 hat given us to make ourselves and the world more what he wishes them 
 to be. God, our Lord and our Father, expects and neeJi the help of each one of 
 ui. We have to seek to learn his will, and with every power of our nature to 
 try to do our utmost to further it. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 GOD AND THE WORLD I OF MIRACLES 
 
 In this chapter I have ventured to speak, perhaps too 
 soon, upon the thorny subject of miracles. And yet I am 
 not sure whether it may not be advisable to talk about 
 them fairly early ^ say to an intelligent girl or boy of 
 thirteen or fourteen. What one is so anxious for is 
 that any doubt as to the miracles of the Bible should 
 not come as a shock to the child, should not come with 
 lack of reverence, should not come from any unbelieving 
 source or mind, but that it should come quietly, reverently, 
 in the regular routine of teaching^ and above all that it 
 should be conveyed to the child by one whom he knows to 
 be an intense believer in God and in his living relations 
 with the world and with man. The doubts must not 
 cause mental or religious distress. 
 
 The real trouble as regards the miracles I have, I 
 admit, not touched on in this chapter ^ for I was not actually 
 writing about the Bible. The real trouble is that a 
 narrative of which miracle forms a part is discredited as 
 regards its accuracy if the miracle is denied. If the 
 tales about Moses and Elisha did not happen as they 
 are told, did they happen at all ? If God did not speak 
 to Moses "face to face," if he did not with an audible 
 voice speak the Ten Commandments to the people^ did he 
 in any sense speak to Moses and the people at all ? Are 
 the supposed stories mere " inventions " and fairy tales ? 
 
 74 
 
CHAP, vi GOD AND THE WORLD 75 
 
 The same difficulty meets us in telling children that the 
 laws of Moses are later than Moses. " And the Lord 
 spake unto Moses, saying" Did he neither " speak " 
 nor speak u to Moses " ? What, then, is the authority , 
 and where is the " revelation " ? 
 
 As regards the second of these difficulties, the divine 
 " speaking" and the non-Mosaic authorship of the various 
 laws, I shall have something to say later on. As regards 
 the miraculous stories I think we shall have to face the 
 difficulty fairly and squarely , simply and honestly. I 
 think we must tell the children pretty soon that the 
 earliest history of the Israelites was written down long 
 after it took place, and that, as in the early history of other 
 peoples, legends and marvels collected round it. But 
 what we may and do believe about the early history of 
 Israel is that it started the process which led to the 
 establishment of the Jewish religion. It is part, therefore, 
 of a process which we may rightly call providential, and 
 in which the purpose of God may be discerned. God 
 led our ancestors, or helped our ancestors, to find the way 
 out of darkness into light, out of ignorance into knowledge, 
 out of crude ideas of right and wrong to noble conceptions 
 of duty and of God. Therefore the early story of our 
 race is a divine story, an inspired story, a story of 
 revelation, whatever the exact accuracy or inaccuracy of 
 the various incidents reported. We take the story as a 
 whole, we look at it as the total setting for the highest 
 teaching, and we look at it in its total results. And so 
 looking at it, we say that this is a divine story, the 
 final issues of which are not yet concluded, the subjects of 
 which or rather the descendants of the subjects of which ! 
 are still alive, still respondent (as we hope} to a 
 religious duty, still the depositaries of a religious 
 mission, which is still going on, and the later acts 
 and developments of which, though visions of them 
 
76 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 come before us in hope and in faith, are yet hidden 
 from our eyes. 
 
 We can also, as regards details, explain that legends 
 often cluster round historical characters. Some great 
 scholars hold that Abraham , Isaac and Jacob are hardly 
 to be regarded as historical characters ; yet even if this 
 view were proved to be correct, we can, at any rate, show 
 that in the stories about them, important traditions and 
 valuable religious conceptions are embodied. Moses 
 may properly be considered, in spite of the miraculous 
 narratives, as a character of history. He remains the 
 human founder of the religious community of Israel, the 
 earliest lawgiver and prophet. In his mouth were 
 placed later laws which were supposed to be founded 
 upon his teaching and spoken in his spirit. To him in 
 their earliest and shortest form the Ten Words may 
 possibly go back. While their greatness and their 
 authority lie in themselves and not in their date, yet it 
 is pleasant to think that they probably go back to a very 
 early period of Israelite history and development. We 
 do not believe that God spoke them audibly before the 
 people at Sinai, but we do believe that the divine will is 
 none the less surely conveyed in them. 
 
 Reflections such as these may reverently be put before 
 children at a comparatively early age. We shall thus 
 avoid the painful and inaccurate alternatives : either 
 divine or human : either verbally true or wholly value- 
 less : either the miracles as they stand or no authority 
 at all: either inspired "in the old way " or inventions 
 and deceit. It is because a better and truer and newer 
 way was not taught to some, that they have fallen 
 away from Jewish doctrine and practice altogether. 
 New lines are now necessary in the interests of truth 
 and of religion : a first attempt on such newer lines is 
 indicated in the present book. May it soon suggest a 
 
vi GOD AND THE WORLD 77 
 
 much fuller and better book on the same new lines, for 
 which it can at once be abandoned. 
 
 THE bed-rock of the Jewish teaching about God is 
 that he is One, Wise, and Good. Over and above 
 these positive affirmations that God is One, Wise, and 
 Good, Jewish teaching deals largely in negatives. We 
 say, for instance, God is not a body, God has no shape 
 or form, God was never born and will never die, God 
 is not confined by space, or limited to any particular 
 locality. We can, of course, turn these negatives into 
 positives, by saying, as we indeed do emphatically say, 
 that God is spirit, that he is eternal, and that he is 
 omnipresent. I have spoken about each of these 
 three affirmations before, and I will here only add 
 that our belief that God is non-material not made or 
 formed of matter however hard for us to realise (for 
 on earth we have no experience of anything which 
 is alive and is not material), is yet very important. 
 For that which is material must have come into 
 existence (there must have been a time when it was 
 not, at least in its present form), and it must die and 
 pass out of existence (there must come a time when 
 it will no longer be, at least in its present form). 
 Only spirit is eternal. So, however, with our human 
 instincts, we may long to picture God, and however 
 impossible it is for us to picture spirit, we are yet 
 taught by our religion not to seek to picture him, but 
 to cling to the belief that he is not matter, and that he 
 is spirit that he thinks, wills, feels (and cares !) 
 without bodily or physical organs of any kind what- 
 ever. It is, moreover, wrong even to attempt to pic- 
 ture the Divine Spirit symbolically, for as soon as we 
 use a picture to represent an idea, we are very liable 
 to materialise and coarsen the idea. 
 
78 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Then as to the omnipresence of God, we need not 
 worry our minds by trying to understand it. Enough 
 for us to remember that by the divine omnipresence 
 we mean that God is " at once far-off and near." 
 Throughout the universe there is one God, just as 
 throughout time there is one God. The Unity carries 
 with it the Eternity and the Omnipresence. 
 
 But we now come to another most important 
 section or part of the Jewish teaching about God. 
 We have to ask : What is the relation of this One 
 God to the world which he sustains ? 
 
 Jewish teaching upon this very important subject 
 has not been always the same ; it has grown and 
 developed, and has become, as I believe, truer and 
 purer. Nor do all Jews think alike in these matters 
 even to-day. The teaching which I put forward here 
 is my own faith and that of many other Jews who 
 think and believe as I do, but it is not the faith 
 of all. Yet in many important points we do all 
 think alike, and have all thought as we now think 
 for a long while. 
 
 I have spoken of the world or the universe which 
 God sustains. By this word we mean that God is 
 the inner life of the universe, that he controls it, and 
 determines its destinies, and directs it to his own 
 ends. But in addition to sustaining the universe did 
 God also create it ? The question seemed of immense 
 importance to our ancestors (and if space were no 
 object I could tell you why), but it is of less import- 
 ance now. What they meant by " creation " was this. 
 They meant that if you went far enough back into 
 time, year after year, year after year, a year would at 
 last arrive, when besides God there was nothing. As 
 God is pure spirit, this meant that there was a time 
 when there was no matter at all. And if there was 
 
vi GOD AND THE WORLD 79 
 
 a " time " when there was nothing besides God, there 
 was endless time, an infinite time when there was 
 nothing besides him. Now I do not for a moment 
 pretend to say that God, who is spirit, could not 
 create matter, create it, as it used to be said, 
 out of nothing. I neither affirm this nor deny it. 
 But what does seem to me unthinkable is that there 
 was an infinite time, when, so to speak, God was 
 thinking of, and caring for, nothing beyond himself. 
 That is why I, for my part, prefer to believe that 
 though God was before the earth we know and 
 the stars we see existed, yet that there was always 
 a universe which he sustained. 1 There was a be- 
 ginning to our earth and all the stars, and we are 
 bound, I suppose, to believe that to material things 
 which had a u beginning " there must also at last 
 come a transformation or an c< end." But, however 
 this may be, I cannot believe that for infinite time 
 God was alone, just as I cannot believe that for 
 infinite time he will ever be alone. There were always 
 worlds, there will always be worlds, for him to sustain, 
 to guide, to control, and to care for. The words of 
 the familiar hymn implying that for infinite time God 
 was alone without a world, and that at last for infinite 
 time he will again be alone without a world, only 
 appeal to me in the sense that God is, as it were, 
 independent of the existence of any particular uni- 
 verse, but not in the sense that his existence has 
 any meaning apart from the existence of any universe 
 whatever. 
 
 I have spoken of God as sustaining the world. 
 This word sustains appeals to me. It seems to me 
 
 1 Perhaps, however, a spiritual world preceded the material one. There is a 
 passage in the Midrash which says that the souls of the righteous existed before 
 the u world." Some may be inclined to agree with a critic who says that he does 
 not like this paragraph j " it deals with the unknowable and is too dogmatic." 
 
8o LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 to describe well the caring, tireless activity of God. 
 Other words will seem better to other minds. This 
 word is very helpful to me. 
 
 The learned men who have investigated nature, 
 with all its immense variety of forms, have found 
 that throughout nature, throughout the endless 
 number of material things, there is law. Without 
 law there would be confusion : in fact nature with- 
 out law would be inconceivable. Sunset, sunrise, 
 the tides, the sap in the trees, the boiling of water, 
 the return of a comet, the floating of wood in water, 
 the sinking of stones, all these things happen 
 according to law. The more we know of the things 
 we see and touch, the more we find that they act 
 upon each other according to regular rules and 
 sequences. These rules and sequences and regularities 
 are, as we believe, among the laws or arrangements 
 by which God sustains the world. The laws are his 
 laws ; they are the expressions of his purpose and his 
 will, while in his relation to nature we might even 
 call them manifestations of himself. 1 
 
 It was a long while before men thought of nature 
 in this way. They did not know nature and its 
 laws as we know them to-day. When they had 
 advanced to the thought and the belief of One God, 
 they thought of him rather as outside the world than 
 as its inward spirit, its sustainer. They did indeed 
 believe he created the rain and the dew, but they did 
 not regard the laws by which the rain and the dew 
 appear as divine in the same sense as we do. If a 
 man, for instance, makes a toy or a clock, he has 
 done with it. The toy and the clock have nothing 
 
 1 A critic says that we may see an adumbration of this thought in Genesis 
 viii. 22: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, 
 summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." And another suggests 
 Psalm cxlviii. 6 and Job xxxviii. 33. 
 
vi GOD AND THE WORLD 81 
 
 more to do with him, though he is their creator. 
 He can indeed come along and break the toy, and he 
 can shake the clock and make it stop. But not so do 
 we now think of God and nature. He is not in the 
 same sense outside nature as man is outside the clock 
 and the toy. In some mysterious sense, which we 
 can never fully understand, but which yet by the 
 pressure of reason we are fain to believe, he sustains 
 nature from within. He does not poke at it from 
 without. Hence nature's laws are his laws, and I 
 cannot conceive God as giving outside pokes to 
 nature so that, on occasion, this law or that law is 
 momentarily changed. 
 
 Such outside pokes and occasional changes were 
 not difficult for our ancestors to believe in, and many 
 Jews believe in them still. In fact those occasional 
 changes or stops or variations in nature, directly and 
 suddenly induced and ordered by God, seemed to 
 them more divine than the regular laws according to 
 which all things work or live or move. The supposed 
 exceptional seemed to them more divine than the 
 usual and the regular. It does not seem so to me and 
 to many others. The occasional pokes and changes 
 seem to us to make God rather an outside magician 
 than the perpetual sustainer. 
 
 But our ancestors found no difficulty in believing 
 that at certain moments of crisis, and for certain 
 special objects and ends, God altered and violated 
 his laws : that, for instance, he once made iron float, 
 or that he once suddenly made an ass speak like a 
 man, or that he once caused thick darkness for three 
 days in one part of a country, but allowed light to 
 shine in another part where, near by, the Israelites 
 were living. These violations of law and order in 
 material things are called miracles. There are many 
 
 G 
 
82 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 examples of them in the Bible. Very many probably 
 most Jews still believe that these miracles really 
 took place, and they regard them as instances or 
 even as proofs of God's omnipotence. Those who 
 think with me do not believe that these miracles 
 ever took place. Any such breaking in upon his 
 own laws by God does not make him more divine, 
 and more wise, and more good in our eyes. We 
 cannot believe that he ever can violate the law by 
 which' iron sinks any more than he can violate the 
 law by which two and two make four, or the law 
 according to which if you let go a heavy ball, it 
 will fall quickly to the ground. For these laws are 
 eternally guaranteed by him : they are, in a sense, a 
 part of his own being : they are as true to him 
 as to us. 
 
 So I do not believe in these physical miracles. 
 How the stories which tell of them arose is quite 
 another matter. The early history of all religions 
 is full of them : the miracles of one religion are 
 usually disbelieved by the adherents of every other 
 religion. The stories which contain the miracles were 
 not deliberately invented : they grew up from many 
 causes or sources, but they were rarely or never 
 deliberate inventions at least, the miracles of the 
 Bible are not such inventions, and the moral and 
 spiritual teaching which is sometimes interwoven with 
 these miracles is no less beautiful and true than it 
 would be without them. The story of the Exodus 
 from Egypt and the lesson of the Passover are, for 
 instance, independent of the miracle of the passage of 
 the Red Sea. The beauty of the story of Naaman's 
 healing is independent of its actual occurrence as a 
 miracle. But, as a matter of fact, the greatest teaching 
 of the Bible is not closely mixed up with its 
 
vi GOD AND THE WORLD 83 
 
 miracles, or can be easily detached from them. 
 What is true is that there is a sort of miraculous 
 atmosphere in some of the Biblical narratives, because 
 the relations of God with man, which we believe in 
 no less than our ancestors, and which we regard as 
 no less intimate than they, were hardly realisable by 
 them except in terms of miracles and marvels. If God 
 spoke to man, he came down on a mountain in thunder 
 and fire, or he manifested himself in a burning bush. 
 He seems to us to speak to our modern prophets and 
 heroes in ways less miraculous than these, but yet 
 hardly in ways less wonderful. Perhaps then we 
 may believe that at that time, and for many centuries 
 after, the truths of the teaching needed the protective 
 covering of the miracles. The first would not have 
 been so readily accepted and understood without the 
 second. And there is so great a fascination about the 
 marvellous, that we can readily understand how much 
 the belief in miracles helped men in the infancy 
 of the world to conceive of a being greater than 
 themselves, a being with more power than any which 
 they could wield. Therefore the miracles are among 
 the illusions or temporary beliefs, through which God 
 in his wisdom educates the human race. When we 
 need them no longer, our belief in them can fall away ; 
 and I think and hope that you will be able to believe 
 all your lives in the Unity, Wisdom, and Goodness 
 of God, even without believing that, on certain 
 occasions in the past, God, as it were, stepped in and 
 altered his own laws. 
 
 But if I and those who think with me differ from 
 many other Jews in not believing that physical 
 miracles actually took place, this is not, as you will 
 have seen, because we believe that God has less to do 
 with the world, but because we believe that he has 
 
84 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 more. The world is so much his world, its laws are 
 so much his laws, that there is no room or possibility 
 for occasional suspension or change. The world is 
 not less divine, the heavens do not proclaim God's 
 glory less, because these miracles did not happen, but 
 to my mind and way of thinking, the heavens 
 proclaim his glory more. 1 The unbroken and 
 unbreakable laws seem more intimately his. And 
 the laws do not destroy the sense of wonder and of 
 mystery. Life is not less mysterious because we 
 know more of its laws : it becomes more wonderful 
 and more mysterious still. The recurrence of spring 
 is no less a marvel now than it was in the days of old. 
 Shall we not also say that the discoveries of science, 
 all depending upon the knowledge of nature's laws 
 and regularities, have increased our homage and 
 adoration of nature's God ? Discoveries such as the 
 Rontgen rays and wireless telegraphy in our own day 
 do not surely empty the world of the sense of wonder, 
 but augment it. It is a cheap way of looking at life 
 to see God's hand only in miracles ; it is better and 
 wiser to see him in all the ordered sequences of life 
 and in all the processes of nature. 
 
 There is doubtless one difficulty which presents 
 itself alike both to those who believe, and to those 
 who do not believe, in miracles. If the world is 
 God's world, the hurricane is his as well as the dew, 
 the volcano and the earthquake as well as the sunshine 
 and the rain. The laws of nature's cruelties are his 
 as well as the laws of her beauties and beneficences. 
 Here once more we come upon the problem of evil, 
 a problem which in some ways is more difficult, and 
 in some ways less difficult, when it is expressed in 
 
 1 In the i gth Psalm, where we read that "the heavens declare the glory of 
 God," this glory is not miracles, but the regular course of nature. 
 
vi GOD AND THE WORLD 85 
 
 earthquakes and volcanoes and tidal waves than when 
 it is expressed in savages, cannibals and idiots, or in 
 wickedness, iniquity and sin. For no merely 
 physical evil is so sore a puzzle as moral and mental 
 evil, the degradation of vice and of ignorance. But, 
 on the other hand, the evil which is in man, or which 
 man produces, seems partly a condition of human 
 freedom. To be good man must be able to be bad. 
 Therefore in that respect physical evil seems less 
 necessary in the education of man than moral evil. 
 For was the earthquake necessary for human freedom 
 and human goodness ? Was the tidal wave necessary 
 for human knowledge ? Here we have no answer 
 to give. Nevertheless, our faith is equal even to this 
 demand upon its strength. Righteousness and love 
 in man demand as their source a righteousness and 
 love superhuman. From goodness we mount to 
 God, and having reached up to him, we will not 
 falter, and our faith in him shall not fail. 1 
 
 1 One critic hat faith enough to answer the question : " Was the tidal 
 necessary for human knowledge?" with the curt rejoinder, ** Why not? " 
 He adds, " Both physical and moral * evil ' were necessary for human knowledge ; 
 at any rate, human knowledge has been produced through them. Where can 
 you draw the exact line between tolerable 'hardship,' which is clearly 
 educational, and intolerable *evil'? Moral and mental diseases are being 
 studied to-day as they never were studied before. Perhaps we may at last discover 
 the roots of many evils, both physical and moral, and so prevent their evil 
 issues arising. Through fuller knowledge and love, evils may be more fully 
 wiped away." This is all very well up to a point, but it is, to my mind 
 (j) only a palliative, not an explanation ; () not much of a palliative if it be 
 not supplemented by the hope of immortality. Another critic observes : " The 
 catastrophes of nature have often roused men out of their mental torpor, 
 and in this way have led to the reordering of life. A Rabbi said that if 
 misfortune befell man, he should scrutinise his conduct. We do not believe that 
 misfortune is always the consequence of sin, but, nevertheless, man does not lose, 
 he gains, by making misfortune an opportunity for reconsidering his moral 
 position. And so with natural catastrophes. But this 'answer' to the problem 
 is, I admit, very inadequate." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RELATION OF GOD TO MAN GOD AS KING 
 
 AND AS FATHER OF PRAYER 
 
 (This chapter needs, I think, no preface or preliminary 
 discussion. It speaks for itself, and teachers and parents 
 will, I believe, have no difficulty in adapting its wording 
 even for comparatively young children. The discussion 
 about prayer as petition and as communion should, how- 
 ever, be left for a more advanced period. 
 
 I HAVE spoken a little about what we believe to be 
 God's relation with nature with all the things we 
 see and hear and feel. But now I have to speak of 
 what is for us far more important and essential, 
 namely, about his relations with ourselves. 
 
 These relations are, as we believe, as all Jews 
 believe, far closer and more intimate than his relations 
 with " nature." This greater closeness and intimacy 
 depend upon the fact that God is more akin to us 
 than to " nature," though not by any means more 
 akin to us than he may be to millions upon millions 
 of beings in other parts of the universe of whom we 
 know and can know nothing. But upon earth, at all 
 events, only we men have that kinship with God 
 which enables us to believe in and worship God, or 
 which enables us to attain to knowledge and to 
 goodness The doctrine of the kinship of man with 
 
 86 
 
CH.VII RELATION OF GOD TO MAN 87 
 
 God is as important from one point of view as the 
 doctrine that God is other than and different from 
 man is from another. God is not as man ; man is, 
 or can be, like unto God : these twin teachings are 
 both of supreme importance. 
 
 God is other than man. He is pure spirit. He 
 is the source. He is perfect. Man is none of these. 
 Immense, then, is the difference between them. 
 Man is not God, or a part of God. All that he 
 is, is given to him by God, upon whom he was, and 
 is, and ever will be, dependent. There is no true 
 reverence of God possible, and for my part I would, 
 I think, add, there is no right love possible, which is 
 not based upon the conviction that man is other than, 
 and different from, God. The best and wisest man 
 is separated by a huge gulf from the perfection of 
 the Divine. 1 So it ever was, so it is, so it ever will 
 be. To this rule there was not, there is not, and 
 there can never be, an exception. Here is a cardinal 
 and fundamental doctrine of our faith upon which all 
 Jews are firmly agreed and absolutely at one. It is 
 one of the great differences which separate our religion 
 from Christianity. 
 
 But God is not only unlike man. There is a 
 kinship between them, a delegated kinship, with which 
 God has endowed us. By delegated I mean that this 
 kinship comes from, and is given us, by God. The 
 spirit through which we acquire knowledge and good- 
 ness, through which we love knowledge and goodness, 
 
 1 There may be Jewish mystics who (like one of my critics) may think I have 
 spoken somewhat too emphatically. I do not think so myself. But I admit 
 that man is not outside God, and that God is not outside man, in the physical 
 sense that one man is outside another. God is not outside goodness and truth 
 wherever these are found. u The river," says the judge, using a dangerous 
 metaphor, u is not the tributary, but their "waters mingle and are indistinguish- 
 able." Nevertheless, the distinctiveness of man and God seems to me the 
 essence of all true communion and of all Theistic religion. 
 
88 ; LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 and will to do good and loving deeds, is of divine 
 origin : it is, as some would say, God in us, the 
 divine spirit in us, that divine spirit of holiness 
 which the Psalmist prayed to God that he should 
 not take away from him. Our knowledge has been 
 achieved it has been possible for us to achieve it 
 and it is a true knowledge, so far as it has gone or 
 can go, because our reason is akin to the reason 
 of God. Our goodness has been achieved it has 
 been possible for us to achieve it and it is a real 
 and true goodness, so far as it goes or can go, because 
 it is not wholly unlike, or alien to, the goodness of 
 God. 
 
 We have called God the sustainer of nature. 
 Thus he is also the sustainer of man as a part of 
 nature, and in a still closer sense he is the sustainer 
 of man, in so far as man, unlike the things we see 
 and hear and touch, is akin to God. God is the 
 Lord of nature, but in a special sense is he the Lord 
 of man. For nature does not recognise and acknow- 
 ledge its sustainer and Lord ; whereas man does so 
 recognise and acknowledge him. Nature is neces- 
 sarily obedient to the laws of its being, which are 
 the laws of God, but man can also give a free 
 obedience to his Lord. It is the glory of nature 
 to serve God unconsciously : it is the far higher 
 glory of man to serve him consciously. Nature 
 fulfils God's purposes unconsciously, but we can 
 fulfil his purposes consciously, and, in some small 
 measure, we think that we can apprehend and under- 
 stand them. Man, as I have said before, in proud 
 humility, can through service, and worship, and love, 
 regard himself as, in some sort, the partner of God. 
 For man is akin to the Divine. 
 
 God, then, is our Ruler and Lord. In other and 
 
vii GOD AS KING AND FATHER 89 
 
 equally familiar words he is our King. What does 
 kingship imply ? It implies, on the king's side, that 
 he cares for, and looks after, and desires the well- 
 being of his subjects. It implies, on the subject's 
 side, a desire to proclaim and honour the king and 
 to obey his laws. What are these laws ? That we 
 shall speak of presently. 
 
 Man has, however, been able to think of the 
 relations of God to man more intimately still. The 
 metaphor of ruler and subjects does not seem 
 adequate to us. For, in the first place, we think 
 of the ruler or king as looking after and caring for 
 his subjects collectively rather than individually. In 
 the second place, we think of a king as ruling 
 despotically, or as ruling constitutionally, reigning, 
 but hardly ruling. But in the case of man and God, 
 we are not content to stop short before the faith 
 (however hard it may be) that God cares for, and 
 has relations with, individual men, and that he does 
 not only care for, and have relations with, mankind 
 as a whole. So, on the one hand, we believe that 
 God rules us not despotically, but as subordinate 
 partners, and that he asks of us voluntary service, 
 uncompelled and freely rendered, while, on the other 
 hand, we believe that there is no other ruling power 
 or agency (as is the case with a constitutional king) 
 between God and ourselves. Hence, though the 
 metaphor of God as our king contains a great truth, 
 it does not (as we believe) contain the whole truth 
 and the deepest truth. So that to the metaphor of 
 God as our king, we add the profounder, more inti- 
 mate metaphor of God as our Father. Moreover, 
 in addition to what I have already said, the concep- 
 tion of God as our Father includes several other 
 ideas of importance and, as we believe, of truth. 
 
90 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 We honour our king, we may even reverence him ; 
 but we love our Father. Man not only reverences 
 God; he can also love him. Again, the metaphor 
 of father and child suggests kinship, and implies that 
 of our goodness and reason God is the origin and the 
 source. Lastly, the king demands obedience, but he 
 does not necessarily help to cause it. The father aids 
 his child and teaches him. So we believe that God 
 helps and teaches us. The subject does not usually 
 talk with his king : he does not bring before him his 
 daily troubles, hopes and fears. The best of kings 
 can only know a very small number of his subjects. 
 But the child talks with his father. Even so we 
 believe that we can " talk " with God, and that we 
 can bring before him our troubles, hopes and fears. 
 And the divine Father (as we believe) gives mysteri- 
 ous help and strength to his human child. He 
 knows, as we must seek to believe, every single one 
 of his children. 
 
 God helps man : we may also, with the utmost 
 reverence and caution, reverse the sentence, and say, 
 man can help God. But the help which man can 
 render to God is wholly different from the help 
 which God constantly renders unto man. 
 
 Let me, then, now say a few words about that 
 divine help. I believe that we are here approaching 
 one of the great mysteries of religion and of life. 
 One of the great mysteries, but also the backbone, 
 thejhinge, the root idea or whatever other metaphor 
 may be more significant of living religion. For 
 suppose there were no relation at all between man 
 and God : suppose that God had given man a certain 
 special endowment, and then left this endowment, as 
 it were, to work itself out without God having any- 
 thing more to do with man. Men might still meet 
 
vii GOD AS KING AND FATHER 91 
 
 together to praise God, but any living relation be- 
 tween them would be impossible. This living relation 
 is what we mainly mean by religion. We mean by it 
 that there can be an effective intercourse between 
 God and man, and that there are modes and ways in 
 which God can and does influence the life of man. 
 
 But the precise laws of that influence are not for 
 man to discover and apprehend. They are too subtle, 
 too mysterious, too removed from our sight and ken. 
 Yet religion and Judaism ask us to believe in them 
 none the less. 
 
 We believe that God has his purpose for, and 
 guides, the human race as a whole, and that he has 
 relations with individuals. The purpose of God 
 with the human race as a whole, and with special 
 races and communities, will be considered by us 
 later on : let us here return to his relations with 
 individuals. 
 
 These relations depend upon the " kinship." 
 They may be unknown to man, they may be 
 unrealised by him. Yet they can exist notwith- 
 standing. We dare not say that even the lowest 
 savage, who worships perchance a stock or a stone, 
 is unhelped and uninfluenced by God. We dare not 
 say that even that lowest savage is not " created in 
 the image of God," and is not akin to him. I think 
 that we ought, perhaps, to say that there is a constant 
 possible communication between the spirit of God 
 and the spirit of man. In millions of cases this 
 communication can only be slight and feeble. The 
 purer and better man is, the fuller this communica- 
 tion can be, and, conversely, the communication helps 
 man to be better and purer. At a higher stage of 
 his development man realises this communication, and 
 directly ascribes to God, and thanks him for, the help 
 
92 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 which he has received, the light which has been shown 
 him. But it may be the divine will and I think 
 that it has been that in certain souls the divine 
 light should enter with special intensity and fulness, 
 so that such men stand out beyond their fellows, and 
 are justly regarded as specially " inspired." Of these 
 I will speak later. 
 
 But to ordinary men, too, we may believe that 
 God's help also comes, so that through his light we 
 see light, and through his strength we become strong. 
 This does not mean that we have no wills of our own, 
 and that we must not try all we can to see clearly 
 and to do purely. But it means that God helps our 
 wills and our minds to see and to do. It means that 
 when a good man says : "A strength was given me 
 which was not wholly my own," or, " A light was 
 shown me which was not wholly mine," or words to 
 a similar effect, these sayings are not false, and that 
 the speakers are not deceived. It means that there 
 is a deep and important truth underlying these say- 
 ings, though we cannot wholly explain it. It is the 
 man who has done the difficult deed ; it is the man 
 who has seen the truth and the right ; and yet there 
 is accuracy in his humility it is not mere humility 
 when he says : u It was not I, but God. God helped 
 me to see or to do. To him be the glory : to him 
 I render my thanks." The good deed is, in one 
 sense, far more the work or expression of an un- 
 divided self whose parts are not at war with each 
 other than the bad deed. But yet the good deed 
 is also the work of God. He has helped, and through 
 his help the deed was done. 
 
 Philosophers may put the truth in one way ; 
 simple folk, like you and me, may have to put it in 
 another. But the very life of religion seems to 
 
vir OF PRAYER 93 
 
 depend upon the truth of the simple sentence : " God 
 helps man to do the right and to become good." 
 Take this teaching away, and religion will surely die. 
 
 God does and can help man in many ways and at 
 many times. Some sudden light, for example, some 
 " leading/' some inspiration, may come quite unex- 
 pectedly, and may rightly be attributed to God. But 
 there is one special way in which man is helped, one 
 especial season when he is helped, by his divine 
 Father. That way and that season are the way and 
 the season of prayer. It is through prayer, and at 
 the time of prayer, that man becomes specially re- 
 ceptive for the divine help, and most able to recog- 
 nise it when it comes. There is nothing, as a great 
 man has said, more mysterious than prayer. Like 
 other parts of religion and of the religious life it has 
 developed, and become purer, from very lowly 
 beginnings. Prayer meant, at first, asking the 
 divine power for outward and material benefits, and 
 sometimes for benefits which were of an impure 
 kind, such as success in deceit or a victory over a 
 personal foe. But gradually the range and purity of 
 prayer increased. Nor must its value and its truth 
 be estimated from its beginnings. It is a common 
 mistake to confuse the nature of a thing with its 
 origin, and to depreciate its value because of its 
 beginnings. Nowhere would it be more unfortunate 
 to make this confusion than in the case of prayer. 
 
 The development of prayer has come gradually. 
 One great, one immensely important, step was when 
 men prayed less for some outward or material benefit, 
 or for the removal of some outward and material 
 disadvantage, than for some inward grace or virtue. 
 They began to pray, " Give me strength, O God, to 
 resist this temptation," or, " Help me, O God, to 
 
94 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 become purer, wiser, better." Or, again, when they 
 thought of others and prayed, " Help us all to 
 become more worthy of thee," or, " Help us to do 
 thy will," or, " Forgive us our sins." These prayers 
 are the highest stage of that kind of prayer which 
 prays for something, which is a petition, a supplica- 
 tion. They move entirely in the realm of spirit, and 
 we know no reason why such prayers may not only 
 help those who put them forth by the very fact of 
 their being prayed, but may not also receive an 
 answer from God himself, why, according to the 
 laws of his relations with us, he may not give us his 
 help in agreement with, and in answer to, our prayer. 
 There is another kind of prayer which is true 
 prayer, and which yet asks for nothing, not even for 
 spiritual benefits. That is the prayer which we may 
 fitly call Communion, putting ourselves into an 
 attitude of reverence and devotion, thinking of 
 nothing but of God, his goodness, his purity, his 
 love. There may be a passionate longing to free 
 ourselves wholly from all lower leanings and desires, 
 to depend more completely upon him, to help his 
 cause more fully, to become more like him in our 
 deeds. No definite petition may pass the lips, and 
 yet there may be a true and earnest prayer. We 
 long with all our minds and souls to understand 
 God better, to love him more, and this very longing 
 is a prayer. We wish we could attain to more 
 spiritual insight and possess greater strength in order 
 to serve him more adequately. Even our wish if 
 it be sincere is a prayer. We grieve over our 
 faults ; we long to get the better of them ; our 
 remorse may be a prayer a prayer which will end 
 in the humble petition that God may aid us in the 
 struggle with sin. We adore God as the perfection 
 
vii OF PRAYER 95 
 
 of knowledge and righteousness ; our adoration is a 
 prayer. In communion, in the colloquy of the soul 
 with God, the soul does not ask for anything, 
 except, perchance, for the power to commune more 
 fervently, to realise the divine more fully. 
 
 It is doubtful whether we ought to pray for out- 
 ward things at all. Outward and material gifts are 
 accidental and temporary ; spiritual and inward gifts 
 are essential and eternal. It is foolish as well as im- 
 possible to ignore the accidental, but we must never 
 confound it with the essential. Again, suppose we pray 
 that it may be fine next Wednesday in order that we 
 may do some particular thing which we can only do 
 when it does not rain. To begin with : is not the 
 prayer selfish ? May it not be better for the majority 
 of persons that it should rain on Wednesday ? And 
 if we believe that the laws of nature are God's laws, 
 and that he does not alter them by miracles even for 
 the greatest ends, can we suppose that he will alter 
 them for us and for our personal convenience ? The 
 same kind of argument will dispose, I am inclined to 
 think, of all prayers for outside, material things. 
 Yet when we pray, or seem to pray, for certain 
 material things, the prayer may be more than half 
 spiritual. If I pray for " success " in life, it may be 
 that my prayer is really for those higher qualities of 
 mind and soul which lead to true " success," and 
 these qualities may be strengthened by the very act 
 of praying for their strengthening. If I pray for my 
 necessary food, I do not expect God suddenly to raise 
 up a wheat crop in my garden. I pray for power to 
 sow and reap and garner. But however we may 
 regard such prayers, there is little doubt that the 
 matter is totally different when we come to prayers 
 for purely spiritual benefits, whether for ourselves or 
 
96 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 for others or for our country at large. The laws of 
 God which deal with spiritual things seem to us to 
 have a closer personal relation to us as partakers of 
 the Divine Spirit than do the laws of God which 
 deal with material things. We are more akin to 
 God, as it were, in his Spirit than in his Power. Our 
 prayers may help ourselves and one another in ways 
 which we know not and can never know. 
 
 There is a particular kind of prayer which seems 
 to stand by itself. It is for an " outward thing," 
 and yet it is not wholly a material thing. I mean 
 the prayer which men put up when those who are 
 near and dear to them are suffering and ill, that it 
 may please God to send to them recovery and health 
 and peace. We must not seek to interfere with the 
 natural impulses of the human heart. Moreover, 
 man is not merely material, and health is not merely 
 a question of the body. I would not therefore like 
 to say that it is not fitting to put forward such 
 prayers. Yet perhaps the highest attitude of mind 
 may be that which says : "I will use all the powers 
 and aids which thou, O God, hast enabled man to 
 discover so as to cure sickness. Help me to endure 
 in my own case, and in the case of those I love, what- 
 ever may befall us. In the last resort it is thy will. 
 The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God : 
 no evil can come unto them." 
 
 Some may say that if I pray to God for courage 
 or resignation or strength or insight, the prayer may 
 be its own answer in the sense that the very earnest- 
 ness of my prayer may bring to me the benefit which 
 I ask from God. /have helped myself. I do not 
 think that such an explanation is adequate. Believing, 
 as I do, that there is u kinship " between us and God, 
 I do not pretend to fathom or understand the laws of 
 
vii OF PRAYER 97 
 
 the influence which extends between the divine Father 
 and the human child. I have a feeling as if spiritual 
 influences were constantly pouring out from the 
 infinite source, which is never the poorer for all 
 which it gives forth. As the rays of the sun get 
 through different substances in different degrees, 
 and through some substances not at all, I have a 
 feeling as if the spiritual rays and influences of the 
 divine source made their way in different degrees, 
 or not at all, to different souls. The windows of 
 some men are perhaps nearly shut. The windows 
 of others have only a few chinks and crevices open. 
 At some seasons the seasons of prayer these 
 chinks and crevices may open a little wider, and a 
 little more of God's light may enter in. And the 
 seasons of keenest prayer may be the times of great 
 happiness and great sorrow. For when we feel 
 most deeply, we shall be most attuned to pray. 
 Strange, too, it is that in prayer we realise ourselves 
 and forget ourselves. The higher self is awakened ; 
 the lower self is subdued. How the prayer of one 
 man that strength may be given to another is helpful 
 to that other, I do not pretend to understand, but the 
 influence of soul upon soul is so subtle and mysterious 
 that I, for one, am disposed to believe that such 
 prayers are not only inevitable, but also reasonable, 
 and not only reasonable, but efficacious. We may 
 pray for others as well as for ourselves. And if we 
 may, we should. 
 
 Moreover, prayer is not mere petition even for 
 spiritual benefits. It does not merely ask for resig- 
 nation, strength, insight, humility, and the like. 
 Prayer is also, as I have said, communion. To many 
 persons of high spiritual purity it is more communion 
 than petition. It is to them a sort of conversation 
 
 H 
 
98 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 with God ; it is a sort of intense sense that they are 
 drawing nigh to, that they are entering into the 
 presence of, the beloved Source of Life and Good- 
 ness and Truth. Prayer may be at once the keenest 
 activity and the most perfect rest. If we are in the 
 presence of some one we greatly care for, we may be 
 intensely conscious of that presence our minds are 
 the very reverse of sleepy, and yet we may feel 
 wonderfully at rest. So for these highly spiritual 
 persons prayer brings the sense of divine nearness, 
 and the sense of the divine presence. They are very 
 conscious indeed of what they are doing, they are 
 conscious, it may be said, that something is going on 
 but, at the same time, there is rest for them and 
 perfect peace. What is going on is, on the one hand, 
 their own spiritual activity, but, on the other hand, 
 it is a/so, as I believe, the activity of the Divine Source. 
 It is very important that teachers and parents 
 should tell children that they cannot expect to find and 
 possess and receive all the benefits of prayer at once 
 or very soon. But they must not relax or abandon 
 the habit, which in after life it may be difficult to 
 acquire again. Let them not be too greatly troubled 
 because at any time they think that their prayers are 
 mechanical, or that they do not experience all the 
 happiness or satisfaction which it is said that prayer 
 can give or has given. It is not prayer that is at 
 fault, and it is not necessarily themselves. The 
 experience and the help and the satisfaction may 
 come gradually. The best persons do not always 
 feel the benefit of prayer. They feel it now and 
 then, and in different degrees and ways. We must 
 ask and suggest to children not to think that it is 
 of no use to pray, because these high experiences of 
 which they have been told or have heard do not readily 
 
vii OF PRAYER 99 
 
 come to them. Here, as in other departments ot 
 religion, let them learn to look forward. The expectant 
 the humbly waitful attitude of mind is so much 
 more wholesome than the idea that everything ought to 
 be realised all at once. The beginnings of prayer in the 
 child and the young may be halting and difficult. But 
 help may be given them in prayer as in other things. 
 The perfect prayer may sometimes be the crown and 
 fruition of a long life of humble and strenuous en- 
 deavour. But let not even imperfect prayers, vague 
 prayers, stumbling prayers, inarticulate prayers, be 
 despised. 
 
 For in prayer, man can pour out his soul to 
 the unseen Father. By the laws of his nature 
 and of God's, such a prayer will (as we believe) 
 be heard. His aspirations, longings, troubles and 
 sorrows are disclosed ; and in the very disclosure, in 
 the very " casting of the burden " upon God, the 
 burden is lightened. It is not for us to give to such 
 prayers their rules and their limits. Sufficient for 
 us to believe that there is a true relation between 
 the Source and the Tributary, a true influence from 
 the Father upon the Child. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD OF HOLINESS, REVERENCE 
 
 AND LOVE 
 
 One of my judges wrote warningly about this chapter: 
 " Tou are getting more and more abstract." I have no 
 doubt that the judge was right. But I fear I cannot 
 greatly change unless I become unnatural. And if 
 parents and teachers are to be helped at all by this 
 book, it will be, I think, because of a certain spontaneity 
 in it. I have written just as the ideas came into my 
 mind: if I alter the first draft too much, any such 
 merit will be destroyed, and I much doubt whether any 
 other will come. But the warning is none the less 
 useful. And I hope that parents and teachers may be 
 able to find concrete instances for my abstractions, and 
 thus make what I have tried to urge more living and 
 less hard. 
 
 Another of my judges went farther still in uncom- 
 promising criticism^ and wrote : " This chapter is very 
 helpful for adults, but out of place in a book for 
 children." Well, the book has now become a book for 
 adults, and it is for them to pass on its teaching in more 
 suitable form to the children with whom they are in 
 contact. I am not sure that the conception of" holiness" 
 is too abstract for children. There is, however, a good 
 deal in the judge's opinion that one must begin by asking 
 
 100 
 
CH. VIII 
 
 THE SERVICE OF GOD 101 
 
 for reverence, and by showing it to consist, in smaller 
 details than I have mentioned in the text^ '' The child's 
 idea of reverence" says the judge, "is, for example, 
 expressed in his thinking before he sir rrnycrsf 
 
 in behaving decently in synagogue and in his religious 
 exercises generally, in putting his best into such 'ex- 
 ercises ' instead of going through them perfunctorily. 
 He must be careful of his language, avoid ugly thoughts, 
 behave well when nobody sees him except God, and so on. 
 His love of God must be shown in his kindness and 
 consideration for those who are less strong or smaller 
 than himself, or, again, for those who render him services, 
 as, for example, his nurse, his teacher, the housemaid, 
 the shopkeeper, and so on. From little duties we must 
 pass on to bigger duties ; but mere vague abstraction, 
 mere general teaching, and high sentiments, are of scanty 
 or no use to the child, and may even be regarded as 
 ' tall talk' with no relation to actual facts. They may 
 then do rather harm than good." 
 
 I urge my readers to ponder well over these criticisms, 
 and not to let my well-intentioned remarks hinder the 
 very object they have in view. Another of my judges, 
 however, whom I have consulted, assures me that I am 
 right, at least to this extent. " Religion," he says, " is 
 not a mere bundle of separate truths, just as morality is 
 not a mere bundle of separate rules. One must beware 
 of losing principles in details. Though the great ideas 
 need illustration, and also require simplification, in their 
 practical adaptation to child-life, nevertheless the ideas 
 must also be presented in the most general terms. Especi- 
 ally is this necessary in teaching Judaism, which other- 
 wise may too easily become an agglomeration of disconnected 
 maxims, duties and habits. Though the child may not 
 at once understand the great principles, yet they should 
 be stated, and, interpreted at first only by simplest illus- 
 
102 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 trations, they may eventually form an element of the 
 adults spiritual and moral life." 
 
 I POINTED out that early man sought to have dealings 
 or relations with the divine powers in which he 
 believed for the sake of himself and for his own 
 advantage. He hoped to prevent the powers from 
 harming him ; he tried to induce them to benefit 
 him, or to do what he wanted ; to induce them to 
 help his friends, or to injure his enemies : so he gave 
 them gifts, or prayed to them, or honoured them, 
 in order that by these means he might win their 
 favour or turn away their ill-will. He served the 
 gods, if what he did can be called service, in order 
 to benefit himself. 
 
 In one sense he was right. All worship of God, 
 all service of God, are, in one sense, intended for 
 our benefit, and not for the benefit of God. If all 
 synagogues and churches were closed to-morrow 
 throughout England, and nobody went for five 
 whole years to synagogue or church, the perfection 
 of God would not be impaired. He would still 
 remain as before, perfectly wise and good. It is 
 man who would suffer, not God. Public worship 
 is for man's sake and not for God's sake. 
 
 But there is a sense in which the true service 
 of God helps God, or, at any rate, helps his cause. 
 We no longer think we can serve God by giving 
 him material gifts ; by sacrificing to him sheep and 
 oxen, by building in his honour magnificent temples. 
 We may for very good reasons like to build beautiful 
 synagogues and temples, but they are not intended 
 to benefit God. The only way in which we can be 
 said to help God is by the increase of righteousness 
 and knowledge. The tiny partner can help and 
 
vin THE SERVICE OF GOD 103 
 
 please the Divine Head by becoming as good and 
 as wise as he can, and by seeking to diminish evil 
 and ignorance. The subject can help the king by 
 upholding his kingship ; the child can help the father 
 by co-operating in his loving intentions. And if 
 God aims at a righteous earth, man forwards that 
 aim by striving after righteousness. This is the 
 only service of God which may be said to serve 
 him, in the sense of not only doing that which 
 he desires us to do, but in the sense of fulfilling 
 the divine purpose and of helping in its speedier 
 realisation. 
 
 We may also believe that God desires man to be 
 not only good and wise, but also happy, and that 
 he who, in good and wise ways, adds to human 
 happiness, is truly serving God. 
 
 But are we to say that the public worship of God 
 is in no sense a service which we render him ? The 
 answer must be that it is in no sense a service if we 
 think of God as becoming " better off," or as being 
 made better, through the worship, for God cannot be 
 "better off," or be made better, than he is. But it 
 is a service in the sense that such a worship is a glad 
 homage which we bring to our Lord and our Father. 
 It is a service in the sense that it may, or does, make 
 us better fitted (as all true prayer, whether private 
 or public, can make us better fitted) for the advance- 
 ment of goodness and of truth. It is a service in 
 the sense that the public recollection of God by man, 
 the public confession of his perfection, his righteous- 
 ness and his love, may, even like pure private prayer 
 (for which, be it remembered, public prayer offers 
 excellent opportunities), be pleasing in his sight. I 
 do not think that the phrase : " May what we are 
 now doing, may our prayer and worship, be pleasing 
 
io 4 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 in thy sight," is an infringement of God's perfection, 
 or that it attributes to God the feelings of man. For 
 we hold that the divine perfection can go together 
 with caring and feeling. And why may we not assume 
 that God cares for and likes the right behaviour of 
 his human children, whether towards one another 
 or towards him ? We must not limit the infinite 
 capacities of the Divine Being, except when we can 
 perceive that by acting in a certain way he would be 
 violating his own laws and involved in self-contra- 
 diction. We may, therefore, hold that public worship 
 may rightly be described as divine service in the 
 sense that such worship, involving as it does praise 
 and prayer, glad homage and aspiring trust, and 
 tending as it does to goodness and to happiness, is 
 acceptable before God, and is a gift which he does 
 not despise. Let us remember that prayer is not 
 only petition and not only even communion ; it is 
 also praise. And true praise is gratitude, but even 
 more : it is the acknowledgment of God, the recog- 
 nition and adoration of those very qualities in him 
 which (because of the " kinship ") can be and should 
 be imitated by man. And such prayer is also accept- 
 ance of the divine will ; it is the vocal expression of 
 the faith that he knows our wants better than we 
 know them ourselves. 
 
 But much more important still in our relation to 
 God than the few hours which we may give in the 
 week to public worship, are all the other hours which 
 we spend in other ways. If the Divine Being may 
 rightly be considered as our Lord and our Father, 
 the source of our life, and especially of that part of 
 our life which makes us what we are other than 
 the plant or the animal then surely we may fitly 
 speak of our duties toward God. If we have duties 
 
VNI THE SERVICE OF GOD 105 
 
 towards the physical and earthly king, we have 
 duties towards the spiritual King also ; if we have 
 duties towards the earthly and physical father, we 
 have duties towards the spiritual Father as well. If 
 there are ideals of behaviour towards the one, there 
 are also ideals of behaviour towards the other. In 
 one sense every rule of right conduct towards our 
 fellow-men is a rule of right conduct towards God, 
 for the truest service of God is what has often been 
 called the service of man. He who does his duty 
 to man has done the largest portion of his duty to 
 God, and the love of our heavenly Father can best 
 be shown in our love of his earthly children It 
 might even be argued that there can be no religious 
 duties properly so called which are not moral duties. 
 A loving deed, or a duteous act, done directly to 
 man, is indirectly done to God. You cannot serve 
 the one without serving the other, and you cannot 
 serve God except by serving man. 
 
 I think that, generally speaking, this is true so 
 far as our actions are concerned : when we are doing 
 our duty, and showing our love, to our neighbour, 
 we are also performing our duty to God ; but the 
 thought of our relation to God and of his relation 
 to us enables us to perform our duty to our neigh- 
 bour in a particular way. And, as regards ourselves, 
 there are virtues which, I think, are chiefly caused 
 by, or chiefly arise in us because of, our thought of 
 God. 
 
 As regards their duty to their fellow-men, the 
 thought of God and of what they owe to him enables 
 men to perform that duty with singular intensity and 
 fervour. It gives a courage which rises superior to 
 all disappointments, an energy which buoys them up 
 against weariness, ingratitude and failure. It gives 
 
106 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 them a perseverance and devotion, a patience and 
 endurance, which often add a touch of heroism to 
 commonplace lives. The duty to man becomes not 
 so much a duty as an offering the best the giver 
 can offer to God, and as an offering the duty is 
 transfigured. God guarantees its value ', and in one 
 sense he may be said to guarantee its ultimate success. 
 Because God is, no deed of rectitude and love can 
 wholly be wasted. This thought has illumined and 
 strengthened many hard and painful lives. 
 
 One of my judges erased the sentence beginning 
 " God guarantees its value," whereas I assign to that 
 sentence particular importance ! But perhaps it is 
 desirable that I should more fully explain it. What 
 I mean is this. If I did not believe in God, human 
 love and human righteousness would seem to me 
 just chance appearances upon the earth ; their deeper 
 reality, their truer meaning, their relation to the 
 universe at large, are all (to my mind and faith) 
 only assured if their cause is an eternal and divine 
 righteousness, an eternal and divine love. The divine 
 righteousness explains the human righteousness. But 
 it does more than explain it. It guarantees its value. 
 It shows and proves that whatever may be the 
 temporal and earthly origin of human righteous- 
 ness, its true and ultimate origin is divine. The 
 divine transfigures the human. And the divine 
 guarantees its success. Because the eternal righteous- 
 ness is 9 therefore human righteousness cannot be a 
 failure. It is gathered up, and finds its purpose, 
 in the sweep and range of the divine. The sentence 
 which my judge erased contains the thought upon 
 which my whole faith depends ; it comforts me in 
 sorrow ; it sustains me in disappointment ; it con- 
 soles me in failure. 
 
vin THE SERVICE OF GOD 107 
 
 I have said that man's duty to his fellow-man 
 becomes an offering to God. But it is also turned 
 from a duty into a passion. Duteous deeds become 
 loving deeds. Rectitude becomes love. The great 
 feature in love is its driving force : its passion, 
 its fire. A man can be righteous in a negative 
 sort of way : he can do his " duty " within narrow 
 limits : he may rarely do wrong, but he need not 
 necessarily do a large quantity of right. But a man 
 cannot be loving in a negative sort of way. Love 
 impels ; love urges ; love asks and suggests and 
 evokes sacrifice and heroism. And this passion of 
 love, which drives men on to more than the average, 
 to more than " enough," which, as I say, impels 
 them to constant and dauntless efforts, to unseen 
 and unknown sacrifices, to hard and painful deeds 
 of devotion and self-surrender, this passion of love 
 for man is aroused and sustained by the love of God. 
 It is the love for a divine Person which reacts upon 
 our conception of, and our relation to, the human 
 person. It is supremely worth while to love man, 
 for he bears within him the image and impress of 
 the supreme and perfect God. 
 
 But not merely does the thought of God enable 
 men to perform their duty to their fellow-men in 
 a particular way (by which I mean a particularly 
 fine way), but there are special virtues which it is 
 able to foster or create. Such virtues are courage, 
 resignation, hope, enthusiasm, purity, humility and 
 serenity. All these are virtues which the thought 
 of God, and how men ought to bear themselves 
 upon earth before him, specially tend to plant and 
 produce within their souls. We may sum up these 
 religious virtues by saying that the thought of the 
 relation of God to man, and of the right relation 
 
io8 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 of man to God, produces holiness. As our ancestors 
 turned all ideals into laws, so they also turned this 
 ideal into a law. That which man can be he should 
 strive to be. He can love God : therefore he should 
 try to love God. He can be holy : therefore he 
 should be holy. The ideal is a duty. Therefore a 
 fundamental duty of man towards God is to become 
 holy. The imitation of the divine perfection is set 
 up before man both as an ideal and a command. 
 
 It is important that children should have it 
 tenderly and lovingly explained to them that they 
 cannot be expected to " love God " all at once. It 
 may happen that an imaginative child may experience 
 hours of torture because he (or she) feels : " I do not 
 love God, but I ought to love him. Therefore I am 
 a sinner." As one of my judges writes : " We must 
 try and show children that we have to use our whole 
 lives to learn to love God properly and to feel that 
 we love him. How are we to learn ? Not by 
 worrying over the matter, or even by thinking over 
 it too much, but by practice, by loving. We may 
 learn to love the greatest by loving the least. To 
 think of and care for others may gradually bring to 
 us, not only peace and happiness, but thankfulness to 
 God and the love of God. Faithfulness to duty may 
 gradually bring the deeper faith in God. Teachers 
 and parents, when the need is discerned or divined, 
 should explain to children (of, say, fourteen, fifteen, 
 or sixteen) that religious doubt is not a sin, but that 
 it is reasonable to try to live through (as well as 
 sometimes to think through) our doubts, and through 
 goodness to reach the knowledge of God. We are 
 not to despair of ourselves, or of our religion, or of 
 God, because we do not at once or continuously find 
 in it or in him all the peace and happiness of which 
 
vrii HOLINESS, REVERENCE, LOVE 109 
 
 the preacher speaks to us in his sermons. Patient 
 humility, quiet and faithful goodness, may often help 
 us to the right road towards the goal." 
 
 Holiness is a lovely and beautiful word, for it 
 brings up before our minds the idea of a lovely and 
 beautiful character. A many-sided character also. 
 We think of the man or woman who is holy as one 
 who lives consciously and delightedly in the presence 
 of God. Such a person does not feel : " I must do 
 this, or I must not do that, because I cannot forget 
 the divine Task-master and Lord, who will punish 
 me or reward me according as I do this or that " ; 
 but he rather feels : " I must seek to do the will of 
 him who is my Lord, my Father, and my Joy." 
 We may even say that he has reached a higher stage 
 of freedom. He turns towards God and goodness 
 as the sunflower turns towards the sun. Tempta- 
 tions are largely overcome ; in strength and purity 
 of purpose, in gladness and humility, he seeks to 
 live according to his Father's will. To him, no 
 duty, however lowly, is common, for through every 
 duty there shines a heavenly light. He has tamed 
 and trained every earthly passion to be obedient to 
 the higher will. He is strong, buoyant, serene. 
 
 There are two qualities which we especially asso- 
 ciate with holiness. The one is purity. We feel 
 that a holy or " saintly " person should be clean in 
 body, heart and mind. He is not yet a holy man 
 who has still to u wrestle " with many temptations, 
 or who has to occupy much time in getting rid of 
 ugly thoughts or wrong desires. He only is holy 
 who has left that stage of spiritual progress behind. 
 His inner house is now thoroughly cleansed, and 
 only pure thoughts and good desires fill its chambers. 
 Moreover, he is truly humble. He is not the smallest 
 
no LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 scrap conceited or priggish. He himself would hotly 
 deny that he is a holy man. What he is and does is 
 far below what he should be and do. His ideal is 
 ever beyond his grasp. He does not put himself 
 above his fellows. Just the holy man it is who best 
 recognises in every human form the image of God. 
 Of the worst of men he is inclined to say : " Had I 
 been born with his body and brain, and lived in his 
 environment, or been subjected to his temptations, I 
 might have been even as he is." He lives with his 
 fellows, and never looks down upon them. If he 
 has any worth, that worth is the gift of God ; he 
 ascribes to God such virtue as he possesses, and to 
 himself his faults. 
 
 There are two feelings towards God which all 
 men should seek to acquire, and which all men in 
 greater or less degree are able to acquire : reverence 
 and love. Some might say : fear and love, but the 
 right fear of God is best expressed by the word 
 reverence. For it is not like the fear that a man 
 might have of an escaped tiger : it is rather like the 
 fear that a man has of his own conscience and of its 
 disapproval. We feel shame at having incurred the 
 disapproval of God. We fear to incur this divine 
 disapproval, not because of its results, but in itself. 
 Reverence includes this kind of fear on the one side, 
 and it includes a sort of hushed adoration upon the 
 other. We reverence that which is greatly above us 
 in wisdom and in goodness. We bow down before 
 the Perfect in amazement, admiration and awe. The 
 true fear of God is not the fear of punishment ; just 
 as the true love of God is not the hope of reward. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that reward and punish- 
 ment have been regarded as features of the utmost 
 importance in the relation of God to man. The 
 
vin HOLINESS, REVERENCE, LOVE in 
 
 imagination of man has invented horrible fancies 
 about shocking punishments after death which God 
 would inflict upon earthly sinners. There will be 
 something to say about this later on. Meanwhile, 
 we should, I think, believe that God does punish and 
 that God does reward, but not in the crude fantastic 
 way that men have too often supposed. Sin brings 
 its punishment on earth ; it causes misery ; it makes 
 the sinner more sinful. The reward of a duty done 
 is another duty to do; the consequence of a trans- 
 gression is that sin becomes easier, said the Rabbis. 
 What will be the lot of the sinner after death, and 
 how his soul will be purified of its taint of sin, we 
 do not know. But of this we can be sure. The 
 final object of God's punishments must be to purify. 
 So far from asking God to "let us off*' punishment, 
 we might more reasonably ask him to make the punish- 
 ment come soon. The one punishment we have to 
 fear is that frequent earthly punishment of sin, 
 namely, that we become more inclined to sin again. 
 There can be no fear of Perfection : only confidence 
 and trust : only wonder and admiration : only abase- 
 ment and humility : only reverence : never fear. 
 
 Even as reverence is without the taint of a fear of 
 punishment, so true love is without the taint of a 
 hope of reward. Or rather : as there is only one 
 true fear : the fear of sin itself ; so there is only one 
 true reward for which we may rightly hope : the 
 reward of becoming better, of knowing God more 
 fully, of living more intently as in his presence. 
 This reward we may rightly believe that God will 
 give to those who serve him well. What will 
 a really deep love of God help us to do ? We can 
 at least see what it makes some people do. For I 
 hope that we all know a few people who are filled 
 
ii2 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP.VIII 
 
 with the love of God. And yet unless we know 
 them very well, we may not know of their love ; for 
 they do not wear it upon their sleeve. They keep 
 what is most sacred in their lives away from the 
 sight of the passer-by : they are very humble and 
 make no show. But I am convinced that I am right 
 when I say that the love of God helps to make a man 
 truthful, eager and brave, patient, happy and con- 
 tented. It helps to make a man realise that all his 
 powers, whether big or small, are gifts and trusts, 
 which must not be wasted, neglected, or turned to 
 ill account. If we loved God truly we should be 
 more loving to our fellow-creatures : we should be 
 more humble and unselfish. Unkind thoughts would 
 trouble us less often : envy and spite would flee 
 away. 
 
 One more thought before I close this chapter. 
 The reverence of God does not make us think so 
 much of what he will do for us in the future as 
 what he is for us now. And so too with the love 
 of God. The holy man who reverences and loves 
 God with all his heart and mind does not, I think, 
 worry much about the future. He leaves that to the 
 wisdom and goodness of God, He is happy with 
 God in the present. The perfect, living source of 
 goodness and of wisdom he cannot choose but love. 
 " Thou shalt love God," says the Law. No love 
 which man is able to give to God can be too great 
 and keen, for it must always fall short of what 
 perfection can rightly claim. We " needs must love 
 the Highest " even when we do not see it, but only 
 have faith in its existence. We cannot but want to 
 love perfect goodness ; yet we always ought to love 
 Him who is perfection more than we already do. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE AND THE 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 As regards this chapter I must confess that it may be, 
 as indeed it seems, almost wholly unsuited to younger 
 children. Tet^ as it deals with an important subject, 
 and may have its interest to adult persons, I have 
 allowed it to remain. Moreover, though the adult 
 teacher does not try to teach a child all that he knows 
 himself, nevertheless even his elementary lessons must be 
 more effective tf y behind what he says, and in the recesses 
 of his own mind, there lies an understanding, or at least 
 a consideration, of problems bigger than the child can or 
 need or ought to face. Hence it is not wrong for me to 
 discuss, for the use of the teacher, matters which are not 
 meant for the taught. 
 
 As to one side of the questions examined in this chapter, 
 one of the judges is perhaps right in suggesting that the 
 u savage " of whom I speak must not be classed with the 
 idiot or the vicious. He is perhaps less a "puzzle " than 
 I have supposed. The savage is, as the critic says, only 
 a savage to the civilised. And if savages act up to 
 their lights, they are doing as much as any of us can do. 
 God may accept their limited righteousness no less than 
 he accepts our fuller righteousness. The difference 
 between them and us is so much less than the difference 
 between us and him. 
 
 "3 i 
 
n 4 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 A phenomenon of child-life which I should like to 
 treat here if it were not rather off my track is the 
 fascination which the young feel for stories about savages. 
 In part no doubt the charm arises from the adventures, the 
 dangers, the hair-breadth escapes. But it is, perhaps, 
 also due to the child? s unconscious sense of community. 
 The child, as has now so often been said^ goes through, 
 in his own growth, many of the stages through which the 
 human race has gone in its advance from primitive to 
 civilised life. Once more, then, we may hope that we 
 get a glimpse of God as Father, leading the race, as he 
 leads the individual, upwards through successive stages, 
 nearer to the destined and distant goal. 
 
 I WANT in this chapter to go back again to the idea 
 of God as Ruler or King, and to speak of certain 
 consequences which follow from it. 
 
 We accepted the thought of God as our king, 
 even though we had to supplement it by the thought 
 of God as our father. By calling God our king, we 
 mean, among other things, that the course of human 
 history is known to and controlled by God. 
 
 The subject is one of very great difficulty. We 
 cannot go into particulars, and say of every incident 
 in human history : a This incident was the will of 
 God." We can only say that in the very general 
 sense in which we might say of everything which 
 happens : " It has only taken place because God 
 allowed it to take place." In that sense we should 
 say of wars and crimes and calamities and follies : 
 " They have only taken place because God has 
 allowed them to take place." And such "allowances" 
 would merely form part of the huge problem of evil. 
 
 We can, indeed, see that creatures like ourselves 
 require a large measure of freedom. Individuals and 
 

 ix THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 115 
 
 nations had and have to be allowed to go wrong, in 
 order to go right ; to make mistakes, in order to 
 succeed. The failures and errors were and are 
 needful for such creatures as we, in order to reach 
 the higher results of liberty, namely, righteousness 
 and knowledge. 
 
 In other worlds God has perchance created beings 
 who, from the first, have always done what is wise and 
 good. On earth he has created beings who have 
 had to progress through failure, who are only gradually 
 becoming wise and good. But it must be borne in 
 mind that our own faults are not excused by this. 
 For we can conquer our faults. And more is rightly 
 demanded of each one of us to-day than was demanded 
 of our ancestors in the days of old. 
 
 We do not, then, look for the fulfilment of the 
 divine will in the details of history. It is only very 
 occasionally, and with great diffidence and reserve, 
 that we may say of certain events : " Surely these 
 events are part of the divine will. Surely these 
 events were controlled or directed or intended by 
 God." When people have sought to trace the 
 " finger of God " in the details of human affairs, 
 they have often made grave and painful mistakes; or 
 they have been prompted by partialities for their 
 own nation, creed, or party. 
 
 But, nevertheless, we do believe that the course 
 of human history has not been, and is not, outside 
 the will and control of God. Our own particular 
 religion goes a few steps farther. It declares and 
 believes that the course of human history is, in spite 
 of set-backs, a divinely intended course of progress 
 from ignorance to knowledge, from savagery to 
 civilisation, from crude and low ideas about goodness 
 to purer and nobler ideas, from superstition and 
 
n6 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 cruelty to enlightenment and compassion. What 
 some people call development, and others call evolu- 
 tion, we accept as the deliberate will of the divine 
 Ruler. The development or evolution is the deliber- 
 ate will. 
 
 We know that this progress has been terribly 
 slow, and that it has been accompanied, so far as we 
 can judge, by serious set-backs and by appalling 
 waste. Comparatively civilised nations have been 
 ruined by savages and barbarians ; many barbarous 
 and savage races have never developed into civilisa- 
 tion at all ; while recent investigation has shown us 
 that human history is far older than used to be 
 supposed, and that, therefore, the development of 
 righteousness and of the knowledge of God has been 
 painfully and puzzlingly slow. It is possible that 
 man has himself been " developed " out of the 
 animal, so that if we could trace our own ancestors far 
 enough back we should ultimately come to ancestors 
 who were not human at all. 1 
 
 Why all this long development? Why all this 
 apparent waste ? Why all this long painful history 
 of slow movement from animal to lowest savage, 
 and from lowest savage to civilisation ? 
 
 We do not know. We cannot tell. Still it is, 
 I think, much more cheering and comforting to 
 believe that man has slowly risen than to believe (as 
 has been widely believed) that he suddenly fell. A 
 slow ascent fits in better with our conception of God 
 
 1 I may mention here that one of my critics, though unfortunately he gives 
 no reasons for his opinion, very strongly objects to the possible evolution of 
 " man " from the animal (to which I have several times alluded in the course 
 of this chapter) being mentioned to " children." But surely the modern child 
 is sure to hear of Darwin at school, and he may even be taught '* Darwinism " 
 before he is fourteen or fifteen. Nor do I see why it is unfitting that children 
 should be taught that God " evolved " man from animals, while it is not 
 unfitting that they should be taught that God developed and civilised man from 
 very uncivilised savages. 
 
ix THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 117 
 
 than a sudden fall. An enduring golden age in a 
 far-distant future is a more comforting and bracing 
 idea than a transitory golden age in a far-distant past. 
 There is comfort, too, in the very thought that 
 human nature has in it the power to grow and im- 
 prove, and to reach ever nearer by whatever gradual 
 stages to the perfect ideal. It makes us think 
 more and not less of human nature when we realise 
 that in some early savage there was the germ of a 
 Socrates or an Isaiah. 
 
 The doctrine, which history teaches, that man 
 has slowly risen, and is slowly rising, to higher ideas 
 and practices of righteousness, to a higher standard of 
 social justice, to higher conceptions of religion, this 
 doctrine harmonises with the fundamental teaching 
 of Judaism about a perfect God who rules and cares. 
 It does not explain everything ; much has to be 
 left to faith ; but it does help us a great deal. 
 
 I said that it is dangerous to pick out special 
 events in history, and ascribe them to the special 
 intervention of God. But of certain events, neverthe- 
 less, we are driven to say : " These events seem to 
 fulfil the divine purpose in a special way/* or, " In 
 these events it seems not unjustifiable to discern the 
 finger of God." 
 
 We may, for example, believe that God has 
 assigned to certain peoples and races certain 
 temporary or permanent duties or work. It may 
 be that such peoples were unconscious of their 
 office or mission, but we, who look at things from 
 a distance, may believe in it none the less. It does 
 not follow that for the actions and achievements of 
 such peoples there were not " natural " causes. God 
 works through law, and not without or against law. 
 For example, what Greece and Rome did for the 
 
n8 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 world may, without presumption, be said to show 
 the purpose of God. The divine purpose is not 
 outside of the human action ; it is in it. The 
 human action bears marks of the imperfection of 
 humanity. Even in those actions in which, and 
 even in those men in whom, we can most truly say : 
 " Here is the will of God," even there we find God 
 working by imperfect means, and even there we find 
 a sort of odd mixture of the human and the divine. 
 
 If we look at the world to-day, may we not 
 venture to suppose that our own country and our 
 own people have had, and have, a certain destiny to 
 fulfil, a certain part to play, in the human and 
 universal drama ? May we not believe, even in 
 spite of the failings and errors shown in our history, 
 and the sins and faults and pettinesses of those who 
 have controlled and made it, that the " finger of 
 God " is in it, and that the British Empire is part of 
 the divine will, and carries out the divine purpose 
 for the upward movement and progress of the world ? 
 In spite of many difficulties, many persons do so 
 believe ; they hold that the British Empire is an 
 instrument of the divine will in a special sense, and 
 not merely in the general sense in which we may say 
 that whatever exists, exists through the sanction, and 
 fulfils the will, of the Supreme Being. 
 
 We are here, however, more specially concerned 
 with the growth -of our knowledge of God and of 
 our ideas about goodness. In these matters human 
 growth has come from many sources and in many 
 ways. One quarter of the globe has developed in 
 different ways, and along different lines, from another 
 quarter, and the highest ideals of the one have not 
 been the same, and perhaps for indefinite ages will 
 not be the same, as the highest ideals of the other. 
 
ix THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 119 
 
 How different, for example, are the religious ideals 
 of the best and wisest people in India from the 
 religious ideals of the best and wisest people in 
 Europe even to-day. 
 
 So far as we can venture to interpret the will of 
 God, and humbly read it in the pages of history, we 
 believe that to our own race and brotherhood there 
 has been assigned by the divine Ruler a great part 
 in the history and development of true religion. We 
 believe that in the history of no other race can we 
 more truly discern the purpose of God. We further 
 hold and believe that certain persons of our brother- 
 hood have been specially illumined by God to carry 
 forward this special purpose, and to help in the 
 development of true religion. 
 
 For as God controls human history, and yet has 
 given the human race freedom, so, too, is it with 
 individuals. I have spoken of our belief that he 
 "helps'* us to be good. Our faith includes a belief 
 that there is a mysterious influence of the divine 
 mind upon the human mind, of the divine spirit 
 upon the human spirit. We do not know the laws 
 of that influence, but we believe in its existence : we 
 believe that over and above the fact that every man 
 is created in the divine image, God also specially 
 illumines specially chosen men, in order that, through 
 their means, he may help us to learn more about 
 righteousness and about himself. We can see that 
 this illumination is given in different degrees and 
 even kinds to different persons, and that this divine 
 illumination never turns those who receive it into 
 mere echoes or phonographs of the divine knowledge 
 and will. We may suppose that such complete illumi- 
 nation, such a driving out of the human by the 
 divine, would be an impossibility. The man always 
 
120 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 remains with his human limitations and imperfections, 
 and the message of God is always set forth by man 
 with human limitations and imperfections. We are 
 left to disentangle, as best we can, the true from the 
 false, the permanent from the transitory, the gold 
 from the mingled ore. Yet we none the less believe, 
 imperfect as are the message and messenger, that the 
 messenger has not spoken without the help of God, 
 and that in his message there is an element which 
 we may rightly call divine. This help from God to 
 such messengers we call inspiration, and the message, 
 so delivered, we call inspired. 
 
 Of the religious mission of our Jewish race and 
 ; brotherhood, and of the inspired messengers who have 
 j appeared among them, more will be said later on. 
 / Meanwhile it has to be remembered that inspiration 
 / is not confined, thank God, to one race and to one 
 / age. We may devoutly believe that to many races 
 / and to many ages God has granted the help I have 
 / indicated, and that his divine illumination has come 
 to many souls in different lands and different eras. 
 We, moreover, believe that God illumines men 
 to-day. In fact, we cannot mark off the limits to 
 that help and that illumination, nor can we say 
 where " special " illumination (or inspiration) ends 
 and where general illumination or help begins. 
 Through his light we see light, as it says in 
 one of the Psalms. It is only when that light is 
 very great, and seems to come suddenly and power- 
 fully, and when the recipient of it is strongly 
 conscious that what he sees and says has come to 
 him from without (though in another sense it is 
 intensely inward), that we speak of special inspira- 
 tion. But we do not mean by that to deny or 
 disparage the help which God gives to us all, or to 
 
ix THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 121 
 
 attempt to distinguish with impossible accuracy the 
 degrees and kinds of the inspiration and the illumina- 
 tion which have come to men from the one and only 
 Source. 
 
 To sum up, then, what has so far been said. We 
 hold and believe that God controls, and has a 
 purpose for, the history of man. We believe that 
 the race of man has progressed and is progressing 
 if slowly, yet surely from a poorer righteousness 
 to a richer righteousness, and from lower, cruder, 
 more erroneous ideas about God to higher, purer and 
 truer ideas about him. What the end of this progress 
 will be is another matter about which I must say a 
 few words later on. 
 
 Again, we hold and believe that as there is a 
 progress for the race there is a progress for the 
 individual. It is not enough for the individual to 
 serve his race. He is also an end in himself. Every 
 child of God is, we feel, not merely a means, but 
 also an end. Not even of the wisest and the best 
 of men can it be said that their development is 
 complete. To all men the human limitation applies, 
 and just perhaps of the noblest and wisest of men we 
 feel most acutely that if the barrier of flesh were 
 broken down, the soul would soar into unimaginable 
 heights of blessedness and truth. And yet from 
 another reason we feel that a future must surely be 
 given by our Father to the millions of ordinary 
 people who have not known him and loved him, as 
 even on earth our best and wisest know and love. 
 We think tenderly of the millions of savages, or 
 of the millions of bad people in every age and 
 land, of the degraded, the stunted, the idiots. For 
 all these are nevertheless the children of God. What 
 purpose have they had, what destiny have they fulfilled ? 
 
122 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP, ix 
 
 What upward limit have they reached in comparison 
 with human possibilities, even so far as these have 
 been revealed to us ? 
 
 These thoughts and these questions force us to 
 believe that it is not enough for the race to have a 
 future ; it is not enough for the race to progress and 
 improve. What is the race except the individuals 
 who compose it ? Why should millions of men have 
 lived and died for the sake of those who are to be 
 born in distant ages ? We refuse to believe that 
 the coming into existence, and the passing out of 
 existence, of endless individual souls can be so 
 accounted for and explained. We dare to believe that 
 when our primordial ancestors ceased to be animal 
 and became human, they attained the glory and the 
 responsibility of life beyond life. With the reception 
 of the divine image, and the capacity for righteousness 
 and the knowledge of God, they must, we believe, 
 have mysteriously received the gift of immortality. 
 We refuse to believe that the history of the indi- 
 vidual man is terminated upon earth. Even for the 
 wrecks and the wastage, the degraded and the 
 feeble, the ignorant and the vicious, we are driven 
 to believe that other opportunities in another life or 
 lives are in store for them. The progress of the 
 individual cannot end before it has fairly begun. 
 But of this great hope, of this great doctrine, of 
 immortality, I must briefly speak again in a later 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF MAN OF SIN AND ITS CAUSES 
 
 OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS OF REPENT- 
 ANCE AND FORGIVENESS 
 
 In this chapter, too, there are many things which are 
 unsuitable for children. On the other hand, what I 
 have here said may, I think, be helpful for parents and 
 teachers, and may suggest thoughts which will issue in 
 suitable teaching. For the conceptions of human sin and 
 human progress, of punishment and reward, are not only 
 fundamental, but are constantly cropping up. Teachers 
 and parents ought to receive suggestions about them which 
 may start independent trains of thought, and may also fit er 
 down into their actual conversations with children. 
 
 One of my judges holds that some of the things which 
 J have said ought to be kept back from children in any 
 form till they are sixteen or seventeen years old. 
 
 Thus the very idea that, owing to the cooling of the sun, 
 man may gradually lose his civilisation is, according to 
 my critic, so awful and terrifying that it ought to have 
 been left out altogether. An imaginative child, he says, 
 would suffer much by it. He adds quaintly : "As we 
 do believe in the Golden Age before us, and in the de- 
 veloped righteousness and higher wisdom of humanity, 
 why should we not also believe that God will help our 
 distant descendants to cope with changing physical con- 
 ditions ? " 
 
 "3 
 
i2 4 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 The same critic holds that we should not say too much 
 to children about conflict in right -doing. c< Children" 
 he says, a born in nice homes breathe an atmosphere 
 of goodness and truth. They are good and truthful 
 without effort. They do not want to tell lies. They 
 are just natural in their unaffected and simple goodness. 
 Tour history of the origin of sin might make them morbid, 
 and inclined to introspection and self-analysis. They 
 should be simply told that when they are naughty and 
 disobey conscience, they are doing wrong, but that they 
 need not do wrong. Tell them simply that there is an ideal 
 of goodness always beyond them, so that they can never 
 be as good as they ought to be. If they think they can 
 catch up the ideal^ they are making a sad mistake, and 
 they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and ask God 
 to give them better brains to see more clearly, and better 
 hearts to try more strenuously. This line of thought, 
 which can be a good deal developed and amplified, seems 
 to me more healthy than yours." But is there in truth 
 so much difference between us ? It will be useful for my 
 readers to compare us and to decide. 
 
 Again, my judge seems puzzled by my remarks about 
 effortless goodness being higher than the goodness of 
 struggle. He has perhaps forgotten the " Ethics " of 
 Aristotle, from which my remarks are ultimately taken. 
 But I ought to have explained more fully that there 
 may be effortless goodness on a low level, and goodness 
 with struggle on a high level. The second will be much 
 nobler than the first. One must compare together similar 
 degrees of goodness, or similar actions. Only so would 
 the comparison be fair. And I ought also to have said 
 that when effort has ceased in one direction, it should 
 begin in another. In this way we go on from stage 
 to stage, and from one bit of goodness to another. We 
 may rightly continue to struggle, but not about the same 
 
x THE PROGRESS OF MAN 125 
 
 things. I quite agree that we are " meant to struggle" 
 But we are also meant to conquer. The critic is a great 
 admirer of Browning. Let him recall " Rabbi ben 
 Ezra," and especially stanzas xii. to xix. 
 
 Finally , my critic, from large and deep experience, 
 commenting upon my insistence that there is a certain 
 relation in the long run between righteousness and 
 prosperity, says very gravely : " / think it would be well to 
 advise people not to attempt to decide the relations between 
 happiness and goodness. What is happiness to one 
 person is often not in the least happiness to another. 
 The most staggering thing in the beginnings of social 
 work is the sufferings of good people through uncon- 
 trollable poverty, the sufferings of intensely devoted 
 mothers whose children have to 'go without,' though the 
 mothers and the children are as good as other mothers 
 and other children whose lot is easier and 'happier' 
 The suggestion that we can find a relation between good- 
 ness and happiness (without a very careful definition of 
 that happiness) seems to me dangerously comfortable foi 
 the rich child and horribly comfortless for the poor child. 
 It may help to produce an arm-chair philosopher who 
 orders another bottle of champagne for himself, while he 
 says : c There is no unemployment. Men prefer to drink, 
 and then excuse themselves by saying that they can get no 
 work.'" This warning of my large-hearted and widely - 
 experienced judge is of considerable value, though I still 
 think that in the long run there is some correspondence 
 between what we may roughly call u external happiness " 
 and virtue. But the exceptions are -painfully numerous, 
 and any attempt to point the moral of a lack of corre- 
 spondence may lead to shallow judgments on the old 
 exploded lines of Job's friends such as are justly 
 repudiated by the judge. 
 
126 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 WE have seen that our religion holds that God 
 controls the destinies of the human race. He is a 
 real Ruler, though a real freedom is allowed to man. 
 Assuming, as we do, that the history of man is in 
 the direction of intellectual, moral, and religious 
 progress, we may say that man can carry out that 
 progress at a slower or a faster speed. He can 
 shorten or lengthen ; he can retard or accelerate. 
 But we are fain to believe that God has ordained and 
 devised that in the long run humanity will move 
 forward, and that it will not go back. It will advance 
 towards the Golden Age : it will not recede from it. 
 I admit that this doctrine is not without its 
 difficulty, but for my own part I do not think we can 
 possibly do without it. It may be argued that if the 
 earth in the dim future gets gradually colder, civilisa- 
 tion may gradually become poorer, and that man 
 may once more become savage, and ultimately perish 
 altogether. Or it may be argued that the earth may 
 suddenly be destroyed by some celestial catastrophe, 
 or that the earth, which had a beginning, must also, 
 at last, have a close. I will not enter into these 
 questions. If the earth is to have a sudden end, such 
 an end is, I think, less terrible to contemplate than 
 a slow retrogression of humanity from a developed 
 goodness and knowledge to ignorance and savagery. 
 But these speculations we may leave untouched. We 
 may, I think, continue, with good cheer and hope, to 
 hold to that old article of the Jewish faith that man 
 is making progress in knowledge and righteousness 
 towards a distant and glorious goal. 1 
 
 1 One of my critics writes : " It might still be the case that the close of the 
 earth's existence would be the beginning of another form of life on another kind 
 of earth. We cannot believe that man will ever become ' extinct ' in the sense 
 that he will utterly vanish, leaving only a few fossil remains. He goes from 
 strength to strength, and, moving ever in the direction of the nobler and the 
 greater, cannot come to a sudden and catastrophic end." 
 
x THE PROGRESS OF MAN 127 
 
 The rule of God is always a rule of law. But we 
 do not pretend to understand all the laws by which 
 that rule is carried out. There are laws of the spirit 
 as well as laws which determine the relation of 
 material things to each other, but the spiritual laws 
 are more delicate, and they are more difficult to 
 discern. There are laws by which we become good, 
 and laws by which we become bad. Both righteous- 
 ness and sin produce their effects and results upon 
 others and upon ourselves. We have, however, to 
 take account of something over and above the effects, 
 through law, of our actions, thoughts and desires 
 upon ourselves and others. For we have also to 
 remember that the influence of God, and the action 
 of the divine spirit upon the human spirit, may 
 also intervene. This intervention is also according 
 to laws, yet laws too subtle for us to understand, 
 removed for ever from our calculations and assess- 
 ments, and, nevertheless, as we believe, a real factor 
 in the explanation of events. 
 
 We sometimes vaguely wonder why God did not 
 start the human race at a more advanced stage. 
 Why all those dim ages in which the human was 
 evolved from the animal, and the civilised man from 
 the savage ? None can tell. But such questions are 
 really futile. They are only varieties of the larger 
 question : Why imperfection, why error, why sin ? 
 To these 1 ,' ultimate problems no answer can be given. 
 There can, after all, be only one perfect being God 
 himself, God alone. Though there may be creatures 
 with powers vastly greater and nobler than our own, 
 perfection must surely be the prerogative of the 
 Divine Being. Not without a certain deep justifica- 
 tion did the author of the Book of Job write the 
 lines : " He puts no trust in his servants, and his 
 
128 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 angels he charges with error." However superior 
 angels or other superhuman beings may be to man, 
 they, no less than we, are removed far from the 
 supreme perfection of God. 
 
 But to come back to man. We speak of human 
 ignorance and wickedness and sin. Perhaps, at this 
 point, it is well to ask what we mean by that last 
 short word. What is sin ? 
 
 If we assume that man has been developed from 
 the animal, we may say with good reason that the first 
 evidence of his humanity appeared when he was first 
 dimly conscious of wrong-doing and of sin. Man 
 came to know goodness by also knowing sin. He 
 could not, it appears, have risen to the one without 
 falling into the other. To rise above the beast 
 he had to fall below the beast. The cow is conscious 
 of neither goodness nor sin. The humanity of man 
 began by his feeling and realising that such and such 
 actions were right, and such and such actions were 
 wrong, and that he sometimes did the one and some- 
 times the other. He was now pleased with himself 
 and now annoyed. At that stage was born conscience. 
 
 Wrong-doing is, therefore, as old as right-doing, 
 and the latter has needed the former to come into 
 existence at all. 
 
 (It does not follow that sin must always dog 
 righteousness, or that sin cannot indefinitely diminish 
 and righteousness indefinitely increase. All that I 
 mean is that man, as it would seem, had to learn 
 what goodness is, and how to become good, by 
 realising what badness is, and how to do wrong. 
 The two grew up together, and were learned together, 
 and in contrast to each other. The non-moral being 
 could only become moral by knowing what was 
 immoral.} 
 
x OF SIN AND ITS CAUSES 129 
 
 All right-doing seems to be a fulfilment of some 
 law, whether the law of the state, or of conscience, or 
 of God. All wrong-doing seems to be a violation of 
 some law. Against what law did primitive man first 
 sin ? What law was he first conscious of fulfilling ? 
 Into these questions I cannot enter. Let us, if you 
 will, assume that he first felt an obligation to fulfil 
 the rules of his tribe, and that he was conscious 
 of shame if he violated them, or of satisfaction when 
 he observed them. Later on, perhaps, these rules 
 appeared to him to be the will of superhuman 
 powers. Thus in violating and fulfilling them he 
 was violating or fulfilling the rules of the gods. In 
 any case, since he accepted these rules as his rules, 
 they became the dictates of his conscience. Thus 
 he was gradually conscious of faults committed 
 against the rules of his tribe, against the will of the 
 gods, and against the inward proclamations of his 
 own conscience. 
 
 After generations of progress we are still conscious 
 of the same three kinds of wrong-doing. We violate 
 the rules and laws of society and the state, or we act 
 against the inward voice of conscience, or we infringe 
 what we hold or believe to be the laws of God. It is 
 in the last case that our wrong-doing takes the special 
 form which is known as sin. All three forms of wrong- 
 doing may coincide. That is to say, the violation 
 of the law of the state may also be in my eyes a 
 violation of the law of God, and a violation of the law 
 or voice of conscience. To steal, for example, is a 
 violation of all three "laws." Yet there may also be 
 laws of God which are not laws of the state. Thus 
 to love God is a law of God, but it is not a law of 
 the state. On the other hand, there may be laws of 
 the state which we cannot regard as laws of God. 
 
 K 
 
ijo LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 The unjust laws under which our brethren are 
 oppressed in Russia and Roumania are certainly not 
 laws of God. As the tried and sifted conscience 
 is, as I believe, the voice of the "divine image 
 within us," in which we are created, it seems to me 
 clear that the law of conscience is also a law of God, 
 and no law can be for me a Jaw of God which 
 is not also a law of my conscience. Of these matters 
 we shall, however, have to speak again. 
 
 Sin, then, is wrong-doing which we commit 
 against God. But as God is for us the source of 
 righteousness and its guardian and guarantee, every 
 violation of righteousness, every infraction of the 
 moral law, is an offence against God. To those who 
 believe in God there can be no wrong-doing which is 
 not also sin. 
 
 There is no man, it somewhere says in the Bible, 
 who does not sin. Perhaps for indefinite ages we 
 may say, " There is no man who will not sin." Why 
 is it necessary that all should sin ? We may, perhaps, 
 more rightly remark that it is not necessary, but it is 
 inevitable. Yet it is not very easy to explain why, 
 though we witness the same experience in every 
 child, and have gone through the same experience 
 ourselves. 
 
 Perhaps we may first of all remark that all rules 
 set limits to human actions. Men have many 
 appetites and desires and fancies, and upon these the 
 rules of the tribe and of society impose restrictions. 
 The rules are irksome ; the desires are strong ; the 
 satisfaction of the desires is pleasant. So man breaks 
 the rules, and is conscious of wrong-doing. From 
 negative rules the morality of man advances I 
 cannot here trace how to positive rules. Certain 
 things must be done : difficult and painful things. 
 
x OF SIN AND ITS CAUSES 131 
 
 But they are not always done, or they are done im- 
 perfectly. Man is weak, lazy, wilful. His desires 
 go one way ; the rules point to another way. Hence 
 the conflict ; and from the conflict sometimes issues 
 victory, and sometimes defeat. Thus the rules form 
 or suggest an ideal. The ideal would be to obey 
 all the rules in the very best possible way. As 
 man advances and improves, so the rules or ideals 
 mount up and increase, not in number necessarily, 
 but in quality and in severity. At last the ideal 
 stands before him, sublime, impelling, unattainable. 
 The idea of perfection constantly urges him forward, 
 but made as he is of flesh and spirit, he not only fails 
 to reach it, but constantly violates the laws in which 
 the ideal shapes its bidding. He uses his reason to 
 satisfy desires and appetites which run counter to the 
 dictates of the ideal, of the Law of Perfection, and 
 so he falls below the animal who, in satisfying its 
 desires, is never conscious that it is doing wrong. 
 As he can act against the impulse of the moment, 
 or rise superior to fear, anger, or whatever other 
 passion it be, so by yielding to these passions, when 
 the rule of Society, or Conscience, or God, bids him 
 refrain, his action, the counterpart of which is in the 
 animal harmless and natural, becomes in him wrong- 
 doing and sin. 
 
 Man, then, became man in his ascent from the 
 animal by becoming conscious of good and evil, of 
 righteousness and wrong-doing. He became man 
 by recognising, in however dim a form, an ought^ 
 which was binding upon him and which he must try 
 to fulfil. He became man by doing acts which he 
 considered right, and acts which he considered 
 wrong. Such is the constitution of man, such is his 
 nature, that ever since he has emerged from the 
 
1 32 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 animal, this double tendency and these opposite sorts 
 of actions, have continued ; we may rightly hope that 
 the influence of the evil impulse will gradually become 
 weaker, and that the influence of the good impulse 
 will gradually become stronger, so that evil actions 
 may tend to become less, and that good actions may 
 tend to increase. But the entire cessation of the evil 
 and the absolute predominance of the good (in such 
 a way that every man should do, or refrain from 
 doing, nothing with which his conscience could re- 
 proach him) represent a goal to which man may draw 
 nearer and nearer, but which he can hardly expect to 
 attain. For one thing, the nearer he draws to the 
 ideal, the farther it recedes. It becomes greater 
 and harder, as he becomes better ; we can hardly 
 conceive a good man ever thinking that he was 
 as good as he ought to be ; for the very fact that he 
 thought so would almost inevitably show that he was 
 not. On the other hand, it is most important to 
 remember that the more we refrain from evil, and the 
 more we actively practice goodness, the easier, in one 
 vital sense, will goodness become. We acquire the 
 habit of goodness. 
 
 Judaism has rightly taught that we should neither 
 be indifferent nor despondent as regards our sinfulness 
 or our sins. We are not to say : "I was made frail 
 and weak. I was made in such a way that I am often 
 bound to do what I know I ought not to do, and not 
 to do what I know I ought to do. I am bound (such 
 is human nature) to be tempted often, and sometimes 
 to fall. Therefore I am not going to worry about 
 my sins, or seek to conquer them, for I know that a 
 complete conquest is impossible." Such reasoning 
 would be cowardly and immoral. For though we 
 are unable to achieve the goal, we may nevertheless 
 
OF SIN AND ITS CAUSES 133 
 
 advance a certain way towards it. As the old Rabbi 
 put it : u It is not thine to complete the work, but 
 neither art thou free to desist from it." " Bound " 
 as we are to fail now and then, there is a higher 
 " obligation " which we are " bound " to fulfil the 
 obligation to try our utmost, and never to be content 
 with the progress made. We are able to discern 
 as an object of our life upon earth the duty of self- 
 development. Life is a discipline, which none of 
 us may shirk. Man, created in the divine image, 
 is, just because of his nature, " bound " to recognise 
 more and more clearly and intensely that he must 
 seek to imitate the divine perfection, and draw nearer 
 and nearer to the divine ideal. 
 
 No indifference, but also no despondency. The 
 progress of man is real. We need neither despair of 
 the individual nor of the race ; neither of others nor 
 of ourselves. We can advance ; we can become 
 better ; we can conquer temptation ; we can even 
 conquer the stnfulness which our committed sins have 
 caused. Experience has proved the possibility 
 the experience of others and of ourselves. That 
 we cannot reach perfection is a foolish reason for 
 not striving as far towards it as may be within 
 our powers and prayers. We are not alone in 
 the struggle with temptation and sinfulness, or in 
 the struggle for a higher grade of moral perfec- 
 tion and of spiritual holiness. We are not 
 alone : God is with us ; his spirit is within us 
 and without us ; he grants us the mystery of his 
 help. 
 
 Of this help there will be a little more to say in a 
 few moments when some words have to be added 
 about Repentance and Forgiveness. Meanwhile, let 
 me lead up to that subject by speaking of another 
 
134 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 aspect of God's rule which has played a great part in 
 human thought and in many religions (though not 
 always for good), namely, the divine punishments 
 and the divine rewards, 
 
 We have seen that God rules the world according 
 to law. There is law in his relations and dealings 
 with man. There is law in man's actions and in their 
 influence upon his own character. 
 
 Our deeds still travel with us from afar, 
 
 And what we have been makes us what we are. 
 
 Our actions have results and effects : results and 
 effects both upon others and upon ourselves. 
 
 If we take any average person to-day, we find that 
 when he has done a good action, he feels a certain 
 sense of inward satisfaction and contentment ; when 
 he has done a bad action, he feels a certain discomfort, 
 irritation or pain. I will not ask how these two feel- 
 ings have grown up. That they now exist, and have 
 for long existed, we all know. We may, I think, 
 regard these feelings as the true divine punishment, and 
 the true divine reward, of wickedness and of righteous- 
 ness. Man is not mere reason ; he has feeling as well 
 as reason. If the painful right has been accomplished, 
 reason approves, and, in approving, causes a feeling 
 of happiness or contentment. If a temptation has 
 been yielded to, if a sin has been wrought, reason 
 disapproves (even though reason played its part in the 
 sin), and, in disapproving, causes a feeling of irrita- 
 tion, discomfort or pain. These feelings are the 
 evidence of our true or higher nature : they are the 
 witness of God. 
 
 Old as these feelings are in their simplest and 
 feeblest and most elementary form as old as man him- 
 self they were not, at first, recognised as the bless- 
 
x REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS 135 
 
 ings of God. Nor was it at first, or for long, 
 believed that God's purpose is only blessing, that his 
 punishments are, and can only be, blessings in 
 disguise. The idea of punishment was very crude, 
 both as regards the punishments of man and the 
 punishments of God. The conception, so simple and 
 obvious to us, that the object of punishment is to 
 make people better, and to prevent them sinning 
 again, was not clearly realised or understood. 1 
 People thought that punishment was a sort of tit-for- 
 tat, a retribution, a measure for measure. That it 
 was inflicted for the sake of society and for the sake 
 of the offender was only gradually discerned. Men 
 punished one another long before they understood 
 the true reasons and justifications of punishment. 
 Punishment was a sort of revenge \ only differing from 
 what we now call revenge in the very important 
 respect that those who inflicted the punishment were 
 not, after a certain progress had been made in social 
 organisation, those who had themselves suffered the 
 wrong. Yet as the sin was (rightly enough) supposed 
 to have been committed against society as a whole, 
 society delegated to certain persons the duty of 
 " hitting back," of revenging the wrong which it 
 had suffered through the committed sin. So also 
 did men think of God. He too " hit back " ; from 
 those who had violated his laws he exacted toll 
 the toll of punishment. 
 
 Moreover, the punishments of God were looked 
 for, not within the sinner, but outside him ; we 
 shall soon see with what measure of truth. The 
 rewards of God were looked for, not within the good- 
 
 1 I might have added that another proper object of punishment by man is 
 that such punishment should be exemplary, i.e. to prevent others sinning in the 
 same way (cf. Deut. xvii. 1 3). We can hardly ascribe such punishment to God, 
 unless it has also some effect upon the punished. 
 
136 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 doer, but outside him ; we shall soon see with what 
 measure of truth. 
 
 There was another reason why men had crude 
 ideas about divine punishment over and above their 
 crude ideas of punishment in general. God was not 
 yet thought of as acting by law, and acting always 
 and universally. He acted spasmodically, and inter- 
 fered from time to time in human affairs. Upon a 
 very good action done on earth he specially arranged 
 that prosperity should follow ; upon a very bad 
 action he specially arranged that there should follow 
 calamity. Moreover, from our present point of view, 
 there was also much error as to the nature of " good " 
 and " bad " actions, and God was sometimes thought 
 to reward and punish in ways which to us seem 
 inadequate to, and unworthy of, the Divine Perfection. 
 
 Even at a much later stage of human develop- 
 ment, outward good fortune, outward trouble and 
 pain, were regarded as the rewards and punish- 
 ments of God. When good men were harassed by 
 trouble and sorrow, and bad men were cheered by 
 success and prosperity, their fellows marvelled and 
 grew perplexed. Was God asleep ? Had the justice 
 of God grown cold ? Or were, perchance, the good 
 who were unhappy and wretched not really good ? 
 Were the wicked who were prosperous to suffer in 
 their deaths or in their descendants ? This perplexity 
 became even more grievous when the calamity was 
 personal. " Are my sins more weighty than I know? 
 Is my trouble a punishment for hidden iniquity ? " 
 So the troubled spirit of man, in its upward journey 
 towards a fuller truth, sought for enlightenment and 
 for the solution of a great problem. 
 
 Life is much more complicated than the early 
 thinkers could realise. It is more interconnected. 
 
x REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS 137 
 
 The miserable effects of one man's sins are shared or 
 even borne by another who is guiltless, and sometimes 
 the highest virtue is shown in bravely bearing the 
 burden of another's iniquity. These truths, obvious to 
 us to-day, were hidden from the eyes of primitive man. 
 Yet his long and agonised clinging to the cherished 
 doctrine that calamity betokened sin, and that pros- 
 perity betokened righteousness, was not wholly un- 
 justified ; still less unjustified was it for those who did 
 not yet believe in the doctrine that another and better 
 life awaited the purified soul of man after his earthly 
 death. For there is, and there must ever be, a 
 certain connection between righteousness and happi- 
 ness, and between misery and sin. Only we have 
 always to remember there may be, and there is, a vast 
 amount of unhappiness not in any way due to the 
 fault of those who are unhappy. But none the less 
 the unhappiness even in such cases is often due to the 
 fault of somebody, to the ignorance, cruelty, obsti- 
 nacy, or whatever other sin it may be, of somebody, 
 though the somebody may have nothing to do with, or 
 may be no relative whatever, of the person who is 
 unhappy. Nor are we content to allow that the con- 
 nection is purely internal. That righteousness makes 
 for internal happiness, that wickedness makes for 
 internal misery, is not enough. It would be ridiculous 
 and unbearable that righteousness should permanently 
 produce even external misery, and that wickedness 
 should permanently produce even external prosperity. 
 In the long run there must be some connection or 
 alliance between all right forms of prosperity (or 
 well-being or happiness) and righteousness, even as 
 there must be some connection or alliance between 
 calamity, misery, and sin. A universe in which 
 righteousness always produced external misery would, 
 
138 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 we feel, not be a universe ruled by a perfectly wise 
 and good God. Nor would reason be satisfied by the 
 establishment of the principle that there is no connec- 
 tion between them, or by the establishment of the 
 fact that it is a pure toss-up whether righteousness is 
 followed by misery or prosperity, and whether sin is 
 followed by happiness or sorrow. Our reason and 
 our faith alike forbid us to believe in such a supposed 
 principle or in such a supposed fact. 
 
 Happily our observation also. For, in spite of 
 many exceptions, and with due regard paid to what 
 constitutes true happiness and misery even of the 
 external type, it is surely true to say that, on the 
 whole, righteousness produces prosperity and happi- 
 ness, and that wickedness produces calamity and woe. 
 Only it does not follow that the sin of one man will 
 cause him calamity. It may cause calamity to another. 
 Moreover, human action and character, as I have said, 
 are intensely complicated. There are endless com- 
 binations and inter-connections of causes and effects, 
 and the law that, on the whole and in the long run, 
 righteousness tends to " life," and to all the manifes- 
 tations of life happiness, prosperity, well-being 
 and that wickedness tends to death with all its 
 manifestations misery, suffering, and calamity 
 often cannot be traced in detail, or in particular 
 incidents, but we must be content to observe it, and 
 welcome it, in larger sweeps of time and in greater 
 combinations of events. 
 
 The proverb, " honesty is the best policy," in 
 the sense that it is the policy which leads to prosperity 
 and well-being, is in the long run true, though not 
 necessarily and always for every individual. The 
 adage " righteousness exalts a nation " is true, though 
 not necessarily always and everywhere, for a more 
 
x REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS 139 
 
 wicked nation may conquer and ruin its less wicked 
 neighbour. Trickery and brute force may temporarily 
 prevail over chivalry and the forces of the spirit. 
 But that wickedness brings calamity somewhere, at 
 some time, and to some this seems a statement of 
 practically universal application. Both individuals 
 and nations have so to grow in goodness and 
 righteousness as to refrain from all such wicked 
 actions of which the calamitous issues would affect 
 rather their neighbours than themselves. They have 
 to learn the fundamental rule of morality : " Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 We must not, however, press the connection 
 between goodness and prosperity, or between calamity 
 and sin, too closely. I do not merely mean that the 
 individual righteous man may often be miserable not 
 through his own fault, and that the individual sinner 
 may be (to all appearances) outwardly comfortable 
 and prosperous. We must not be troubled by these 
 experiences, or because of them lose faith in the 
 righteous God. Nor must they make us falter in 
 the cheering belief that, upon the whole and in the 
 long run, righteousness tends to produce external as 
 well as internal happiness, while wickedness tends to 
 produce external as well as internal sorrow and pain. 
 But I also mean this. There is a sense in which it 
 may be a blessing for the righteous to suffer, there 
 is a sense in which it may be a strange and painful 
 punishment for the wicked to be happy and 
 prosperous. As regards the righteous a few words 
 presently, but as regards the wicked, may it not be 
 said that their prosperity, if it leads them to continue 
 in their sin and to disbelieve in God, is the most 
 awful and deadly of punishments ? Perhaps the 
 prosperity of the wicked should puzzle us, not in 
 
140 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the way in which it puzzled Job, but in the sense 
 that it may harden the evil-doers in sin. God, we 
 are now inclined to say, should send suffering to the 
 wicked, not in anger but in pity. But a little reflection 
 will induce us to hold our breath and pause. We 
 cannot rightly interpret or understand the calamities 
 and miseries of the world, but this much we do 
 see : that the frequent lack of correspondence, as 
 regards individuals, between character and happiness, 
 or between character and misfortune, tends to the 
 independence and purity of goodness ; it tends to 
 brace and harden. There is no constant or speedy 
 tit-for-tat ; no invariable measure for measure : vice 
 is not always punished ; virtue is not always rewarded. 
 A man has to resist vice, to check his evil propensities, 
 even though he finds that he is not constantly being 
 pulled up by outward adversity and pain. He is to 
 feel and cultivate the pricks of conscience. He is not 
 to trust, as a child might trust, to the whips of ad- 
 versity, to the reproofs of external sorrow or external 
 pain. He is big enough, or must learn to be big 
 enough, to dispense with a regular correspondence of 
 the inward and the outward. The exceptions should 
 serve to make him depend more upon himself, or if 
 we may also put it so, to depend more upon God. 
 
 Similar reflections occur to us as regards the 
 righteous. If the good suffer, we may say that this 
 suffering tends to make goodness more independent. 
 It helps us to care for goodness for its own sake, to 
 love it, and to love its Source, for themselves and 
 only for themselves. But there is something more. 
 Suffering brings out and develops character. It 
 supplies a field for all sorts of virtues, for resignation, 
 faith, courage, resource, endurance. It stimulates ; 
 it purifies. This is an old and familiar and never-to- 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS 141 
 
 be-forgotten truth. " The chastisements of love," of 
 which the old Rabbis spoke, are very real. The 
 discipline of sorrow, the purification of adversity : 
 preachers often preach about these, and they are 
 right. How often we notice sorrows coming to one 
 person which are due to another's sin. Thus we 
 find instances of sin becoming the opportunity of 
 good, as when, for example, the irritability of one 
 person is an exercise for the forbearance and good 
 temper of another. So closely interrelated are human 
 
 actions and their effects. And in this interrelation 
 
 may be many a blessing. iFor the beauty of one man's 
 dealings with another, who does not " deserve " it, 
 may result in the change of that other's whole 
 character and disposition. Sweet temper in one 
 man may cure irritability in another.] On few heads 
 will coals of fire be heaped without some good accru- 
 ing to the recipient of such bountiful forgiveness and 
 love. Again, the effects of the sin of one man may 
 voluntarily be borne by another : the sin evokes 
 deliberate self-sacrifice, leading to the highest possible 
 development of character. One person may be waste- 
 ful, but another (perchance, his wife) may bear the 
 results of his waste, and prevent him suffering from it. 
 And the wife's wise and gentle endurance may finally 
 overcome her husband's sinfulness. His better nature 
 may be aroused ; through her goodness, he may be- 
 come good. " Men still count that life the highest," 
 said a great teacher, " which is a conscious voluntary 
 sacrifice." In one sense she was perfectly right. 
 For in these lives of conscious voluntary sacrifice, 
 human pity, human love and human fortitude, have 
 risen to their highest levels. And often they have 
 not failed to produce their effect. What the prophet 
 wrote of Israel in relation to the rest of the world is 
 
142 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 constantly true of individuals : "He was wounded 
 because of our transgressions ; he was bruised because 
 of our iniquities ; the chastisement which brought 
 our peace was laid upon him, and through his stripes 
 we have been healed." So great is the sweet power 
 of human righteousness and of human love : so clearly 
 do they point to their immortal source and guarantee. 
 
 The reward of virtue may be misery, and yet this 
 may be the highest reward, for it may lead to virtue 
 becoming still more virtuous. The punishment of 
 sin may be prosperity, and yet this may be the 
 highest punishment, for it may lead to sin becoming 
 still more sinful. 
 
 God does punish and reward in various ways, 
 though perhaps it might be better to say : he educates, 
 he disciplines. And perhaps it is inevitable that the 
 discipline, which is to strengthen and purify some, 
 must, for a time, be a stumbling-block to others. 
 For how else could the freedom of virtue be secured ? 
 We have to call in another life to amend the failures 
 of this life. Again and again we seem to demand 
 and require immortality for our sinners as much as 
 we pray and hope for it for our saints. 
 
 God educates alike through prosperity and ad- 
 versity ; both may bring blessings and opportunities, 
 and both may bring dangers and difficulties. But 
 neither the one nor the other is a mere reward or a 
 mere punishment. We have, in truth, to make an 
 almost clean sweep of the old primitive ideas about 
 reward and punishment. God's rewards are neither 
 sweetmeats nor bribes ; his punishments may be 
 deterrents, but they are, at all events, not deterrents 
 for the coward, nor are they the whippings of anger 
 sent to hurt, but not to purify. 
 
 The rewards and punishments of God may be said 
 
x REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS 143 
 
 to reside in the inevitable and inherent results of both 
 goodness and sin. These results may be both external 
 and internal. The external results may affect the doer, 
 and his family, or outsiders, or all three of them at 
 once. The internal results are those which only 
 affect the doer. By the law of habit every good 
 deed makes the character better, and every bad deed 
 (or even thought), makes it worse. In a deep sense 
 was the Rabbinic adage intended : " The reward of 
 a command is a command, the reward of a sin is a 
 sin." The more virtue you do, the more you will 
 do and can do. The more sin you do, the more you 
 will do and can do. Happily this stern, but salutary, 
 law is broken in upon by other laws : by the law of 
 repentance, by the law of divine forgiveness. Never- 
 theless, within its limits it holds in its grim severity 
 and awfulness, and none can neglect it or infringe it 
 with impunity. The more we yield to temptation, 
 the stronger will temptation _ become, the less power 
 we shall have to resist it. The more good we do, 
 and the better we become, the easier will it be for us 
 to do and to become good. The best man, be it 
 remembered, is not (as some by an easily explicable 
 fallacy suppose) he who does indeed the right thing, 
 but does it after a sore struggle with temptation, or 
 who does it with great difficulty and reluctance ; the 
 best man is rather he to whom now temptation least 
 appeals, and who now does the right thing with the 
 least effort. 1 
 
 1 It must, however, be remembered that human virtue is never without its 
 element of struggle. As I have pointed out already, the ideal is, and always 
 must be, beyond the attainment. As a critic writes : u To be always trying to 
 do something which is just a little too hard for us is the law of progress in all 
 human endeavours. It applies to the artist, the writer, the inventor, the boy 
 and girl at their studies, to all men and women in their moral and spiritual 
 experiences. The law of progress is a law of struggle : not merely to keep 
 where you are, but to advance beyond the point arrived at." 
 
i 4 4 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 We have a sort of idea that we ought to praise 
 most the man who has the fiercest struggle : perhaps 
 so. But that sort of praise is the praise given to the 
 imperfect. Look at the highest : look at God. 
 That sort of praise we do not dream of giving to 
 him. He is perfectly good without any struggle at 
 all. The more we become like him, the more effort- 
 less will become our virtue. 
 
 So too with wickedness. Just as the highest 
 goodness is the goodness done with ease, so the 
 lowest wickedness is the wickedness done with ease, 
 that is, with least hesitation, scruple or resistance. 
 The habit of goodness produces good actions easily 
 done, the habit of wickedness produces bad actions 
 easily done. 
 
 Yet, mercifully, we remember that God helps us 
 to be good ; he does not help us to be bad. An 
 outside power as well as an inside power helps us to 
 goodness ; no outside power helps us to sin. God 
 aids us to become better ; he does not aid us to 
 become worse. 
 
 Moreover, the proverb, " It is never too late to 
 mend," expresses a truth. Though the more we 
 yield to temptation, and the less we make effort in 
 well-doing, the worse we become, yet there ever re- 
 mains a margin of will. We can pull ourselves up ; 
 recovery is not impossible. Recovery is possible, on 
 the one hand, through human contrition and repent- 
 ance ; on the other hand, by the operation of the 
 divine spirit. Our religion lays great stress upon 
 this point. We do not know how God acts upon 
 man : we do not know what are the laws by which 
 he acts upon man. But we have the inspiring faith 
 that his spirit is both within and without us. If it 
 were not within, it could not act from without ; if 
 
x REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS 145 
 
 it were not without, it could not be, and act, within. 
 We do not know the sequences ; the relations of 
 human and divine are too subtle for us ; they escape 
 our ken. But it is a cardinal dogma of our religion 
 that in the " return " of the sinner from wickedness 
 to virtue, there are two distinct factors, both real, 
 both efficient : the human repentance, the divine 
 grace. Man's work and God's work both contribute 
 to the result. 
 
 We pray to God for strength, for help ; and no 
 prayer, our religion teaches, is more true and justifi- 
 able than this prayer. We pray for and seek recon- 
 ciliation and atonement ; that is, we strive by prayer, 
 by repentance, by contrition, to do all that lies in 
 our power to enable the divine spirit to act upon our 
 human wills and hearts. Man must do his part for 
 God to do his part : and God must do his part for 
 man to do his part. We separate in time what, in all 
 probability, is concurrent and continuous. The two 
 processes, if such a word may be used, are what the 
 prophet really means when in one breath he urges 
 the Israelites to make them a new heart, and in the 
 next breath declares that God will give them one. 
 For the truth is twofold. Man makes ; God gives. 
 
 As it is in this sense that we pray for atonement 
 for harmony and reconciliation with God so it 
 is in this sense that we pray for pardon. We do 
 not ask God to let us off the external results of our 
 sins. The law that sin has its external effects, even 
 as righteousness has its external effects, is a divine 
 law. To ask for the cancelment and violation of a 
 law of God seems almost absurd. Far, moreover, 
 be it from us in cringing cowardice to ask that any 
 pain which would make us better any educative 
 punishment (and God knows no other) may not 
 
146 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP, x 
 
 befall us. But we may ask God through our 
 repentance and his own grace to forgive us our 
 sins in the sense of helping us to conquer them. 
 We may ask him to turn our punishments into means 
 by which we shall realise our sinfulness, and into 
 instruments by which we may be raised again into 
 virtue. We may ask him to let us once more be at 
 peace with our own conscience and with him. This 
 conquest may be a slow conquest, or it may be a 
 sudden conquest ; in either case it is won through 
 the help of God. As the old Rabbi said : " There 
 are some who with difficulty win their way to the 
 kingdom of God in a lifetime ; there are others who 
 attain it in an hour." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE AND THE DOCTRINE OF 
 IMMORTALITY 
 
 The subjects which are treated in this chapter can 
 only be lightly touched upon to children. But they are, 
 it is needless to observe^ of immense importance in them- 
 selves. Moreover, the idea of progress is one which, in 
 suitable form, can be made attractive and valuable to 
 children at a comparatively early age. It is helpful and 
 stimulating, as well as comforting and consoling, to 
 believe (as our religion teaches us to believe) that God 
 is helping mankind to know him better and to become 
 wiser and more good. The problems which the doctrine 
 of the Golden Age suggest may be left over for later 
 discussion. 
 
 Again, it is also, I think, of importance to speak to 
 \ildren of fifteen and sixteen at latest about the relation 
 'this life to the life eternal. We must neither over- 
 \ate our earthly life nor under-estimate it. We must 
 neither over-estimate the value of" happiness " nor under- 
 stimate it. Modern Jewish teaching, on account of 
 its opposition to Christianity and to an often false concep- 
 tion of Christian teaching, is inclined rather to over- 
 estimate than to under-estimate. It is important to keep 
 the balance even : to weigh carefully, and to bring out 
 fully ^ the great truth of both portions of the supreme 
 and inspired utterance of a 'Jewish Rabbi of the second 
 
 147 
 
148 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 century, which I have quoted in the text. This life is 
 not a " vale of tears ," and yet this life is a preparation 
 for another. 
 
 GOD is the Ruler. Hence, as we have seen, we are 
 fain to believe that man must move forward and not 
 back. He is not to become less good, less wise, but 
 more. He is to increase in righteousness, in wisdom, 
 in the knowledge and love of God. But the belief in 
 human progress the progress of the race is not 
 enough to satisfy our religious needs and the reason- 
 able demands of a faith in a perfect and caring God. 
 The doctrine of human progress must be supple- 
 mented by the doctrine of immortality. 
 
 The earth, which science teaches us was once no 
 home for living beings such as man, may in the 
 distant ages become no home for him again. Hence 
 to all progress, if this view of science be accurate, 
 there must be a limit. Thus, if there were not 
 another life for man as well as the life on earth, the 
 long drama of human history would end in nothing- 
 ness. It may be questioned whether such an issue 
 would harmonise with divine justice. Again, as we 
 have already observed, the progress of the race is no 
 adequate compensation for the sorrows and the failures, 
 the sufferings and the agonies, the sins and the 
 ignorance, of endless individuals. That there will be 
 a Golden Age in the distant future does not make 
 up for, and justify, the evils of yesterday and to-day. 
 There must be a Golden Age for the individual as 
 well as a Golden Age for the race. 
 
 Nevertheless, the idea of human progress, supple- 
 mented by the doctrine of personal immortality, may 
 well continue to stimulate our moral and social 
 efforts. That the earth may grow cold, and become 
 
xi THE GOLDEN AGE 149 
 
 uninhabitable, in a million years, will not, even if it 
 were scientifically assured, have any influence upon 
 human affairs, except perhaps in the case of a few 
 solitary thinkers. A man works for his children, and 
 hardly is he affected by the knowledge that they too, 
 like himself, will soon pass away, and that his very 
 family and his name will also, in all probability, soon 
 disappear. So may we work for the future of our 
 Jewish religion or of our English nation even though 
 we may accept the teaching of science, and believe 
 that, as there was a time in the past when no living 
 beings existed upon the earth, so also will such a 
 time inevitably recur. 
 
 Moreover, the thought is unsuited for children, 
 and in the religious teaching of the young it 
 may safely be neglected. All these scientific theories 
 are mere conjectures, while our belief in God and 
 in his relations is, to us who believe, far more 
 than a conjecture. It is a faith, a possession or 
 the soul. 
 
 I remember seeing the greatest scholar and the 
 most learned man I ever knew not long before he died. 
 He was a little more than seventy years old. He 
 said to me that he had persistently put before him- 
 self an ideal of culture. He did not profess that he 
 had reached that ideal. But he did think that he 
 could at last speak of himself as an educated man. 
 He had hoped, he said, to have lived some years 
 longer as an educated man. The process of education 
 was just completed, when the product had to die. 
 He felt it hard. I think, though I am not sure, that 
 he felt it so very hard because he had little or no 
 lief in personal immortality. I well remember the 
 >rofound impression made upon me by the great 
 :holar, upon whose vast learning I looked with awe, 
 
150 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 as he sat in his arm-chair, and grieved over his 
 approaching death, over the loss of the " educated " 
 years which he had hoped for, and over the im- 
 possibility of producing the great book (the Life of 
 Scaliger), for which he had prepared so long, and 
 which he was about to write for the delight and 
 admiration of the world. 
 
 Was he justified in his regrets (apart from the 
 question of the book) ? Even if we put the belief in 
 immortality for the moment aside, I am not sure that 
 he was. Or, if regrets were inevitable, I am not 
 sure that the regrets should have come so near to com- 
 plaints. For to have attained is perhaps independent 
 of the length of time which attainment endures. 
 And so, of humanity at large. If we can conceive 
 the goal reached, if we can conceive a humanity 
 as good and wise as it is possible to be, whether it 
 lasted at that stage two years or two thousand, would 
 not, in one big sense, much matter. The goal would 
 have been attained ; the race would have been won. 
 But it may indeed be that just because perfection is the 
 exclusive possession of God, man can never reach the 
 goal. He can draw nearer and nearer to the goal ; he 
 can never attain to it. If, which is impossible, the race 
 were won, there would be no satisfaction. For it 
 would be no triumph for humanity to remain inert at 
 any winning post. Each goal is the starting-point of 
 a new race. When humanity is as good and wise as 
 possible, it begins to expand its notion of the possible. 
 
 Why I have brooded so long on these problems is 
 because our Jewish religion has maintained and still 
 maintains with great persistency and emphasis the 
 doctrine of a Golden Age. Our religion taught and 
 teaches that this Golden Age lies in the future and 
 not in the past. It is true that the conception of 
 
xi THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 5 
 
 the Golden Age has varied, and what most Jews 
 believe about it to-day is not exactly the same as that 
 which their ancestors believed about it (say) two 
 thousand years ago. The idea of a gradual and 
 regular progress upon earth was totally unknown to 
 them. They, on the contrary, were more familiar 
 with, and found no objection to, ideas of sudden or 
 catastrophic change. In fact they usually thought that 
 the Golden Age would (by divine intervention) im- 
 mediately succeed an age of violence and wickedness ; 
 the worst would be immediately followed by the best. 
 Nor did their faith object to the idea (so repellent to 
 us to-day) that the Golden Age would be witnessed 
 by only a minority of those who were living in the 
 age that immediately preceded it. There would be a 
 tremendous purging and judgment ; most people 
 would be killed ; the survivors would inherit the 
 Golden Age. Strange notions of this kind have 
 passed or are passing away. Others thought that the 
 earthly Golden Age would itself only last a limited 
 period, and that, at its close, this earth would be 
 destroyed. But the souls of those who were living in 
 the Golden Age would survive that destruction, and 
 live again in another and a better world. 
 
 In spite of certain difficulties and problems, 
 Judaism cannot dispense with the conception of the 
 Golden Age : it does well to cling to it and to 
 maintain it. It is bound to believe that mankind 
 is advancing to a better understanding of God and 
 of his laws, to a fuller knowledge, a profounder 
 righteousness. It is bound to believe that mankind is 
 moving forwards, and that it will reach a period in 
 its history when there will be much less vice and 
 ignorance and misery and violence than there is to- 
 day. The Golden Age, the Messianic Era, the 
 
152 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Kingdom of God, are doctrines which Judaism cannot 
 relinquish, and which, with whatever changes of form 
 and of manner, it must still continue to cherish and 
 to teach. 
 
 We look upon our life on earth in two ways. 
 First, it is an end in itself ; secondly, it is a discipline 
 and a preparation. It is an end in itself in two ways, 
 first as regards ourselves, secondly as regards our 
 successors. We have to work for those who come after 
 us. We have to sow that they may reap. We have 
 to be faithful and suffer that they, and the world at 
 large, may know and prosper and enjoy. This idea 
 will meet us again when we speak of the " Mission of 
 Israel." But neither there nor here have I space to 
 enlarge upon it properly. " That long space of time 
 when I shall no longer be," said Cicero, " moves me 
 more than these few moments." The Jew should 
 say so and feel so more earnestly than any other man. 
 
 But our life on earth is also an end for ourselves. 
 If we can imagine a caterpillar, a chrysalis, and a 
 butterfly, all endowed with human thought and will 
 and feeling, we might say that the life of the cater- 
 pillar is both an end in itself and a preparation. Our 
 life here, with all its limitations and imperfections, has 
 its own joys, its own glories, which are wholly 
 peculiar to it. There is an immensity of meaning in 
 the saying of Rabbi Jacob, which I am never weary 
 of quoting : " Better is one hour of repentance and 
 good deeds in this world than the whole life of the 
 world to come ; and better is one hour of blissfulness 
 of spirit in the world to come than the whole life of 
 this world." 
 
 God has, perhaps, given to every stage (and of 
 how many " stages " our immortal life is to consist 
 none knows) something special and peculiar. He 
 
XI 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE 153 
 
 has certainly given that something to our life on 
 earth. The satisfaction which comes from right- 
 doing, the joy of beauty, of love, of knowledge, of 
 sacrifice, are not less real because they are transitory. 
 They are ends, however much they may prepare us 
 for something unknown and beyond which may be 
 better than they. They are rea/ y however much 
 many of them must be peculiar to beings formed of 
 flesh and spirit, peculiar, that is, to our life upon 
 earth. Our religion holds rather strongly to this 
 view that earthly life is not a mere preparation, that 
 it has its own value, and is intended to have its 
 own joy. It is not a mere preparation for another 
 life of the individual, any more than it is a mere pre- 
 paration for the better lives of our descendants. It 
 has (or should have) its own value, its own justifica- 
 tion, its own enjoyment. 
 
 Nevertheless it is also a preparation, it is also a 
 discipline, and unless we regard it a/so as a prepara- 
 tion and a discipline, we shall not regard or value it 
 aright. It will not have attained its true meaning 
 and its full solemnity. ' Prepare thyself in the 
 vestibule that thou mayest enter into the hall," as the 
 same Rabbi said. The conception of the Golden 
 Age is inadequate without the idea of personal im- 
 mortality. For what (as we have already asked) of 
 the endless broken and stunted lives, what of the 
 endless sorrows and tears, which went, and will 
 still have to go, to the attainment of that Age ? 
 What of human sin not changed by God's forgiveness 
 and man's effort into human goodness? These, as 
 we have seen, are not made endurable, and are not 
 explained, by any theory of the Golden Age. Sin 
 and ignorance must work themselves out ; enlighten- 
 ment (both moral and intellectual), with whatever 
 
154 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 pain and slowness, must come to the savage, to the 
 idiot, and to the wicked. 
 
 Nor can the ordinary arguments for immortality 
 be ignored. I am not thinking of " rewards," still 
 less of " punishments." The sacrifice, however 
 agonising, which was made for truth, for goodness, 
 for the sake of another's happiness and well-being, is 
 its own end. But thought and feeling revolt at the 
 idea that, if there is another life for the bad, there is 
 not also another life for the good. If the one is to 
 find enlightenment, the other must find advancement. 
 If the one is, at last, to know God, the other must 
 continue his knowledge and increase it. Thus, from 
 every point of view, the hope of immortality becomes 
 a common one for all. For good and bad, wise and 
 ignorant, savage and civilised, this life cannot be the 
 end. 
 
 The " divine image " is another familiar argu- 
 ment for immortality. If we " carry " within us a 
 "spark" of the divine "fire," the " spark " which 
 comes from an eternal source is deathless like its 
 origin. And the individuality which it helped to 
 fashion, of which it was the essential part, may also 
 continue and persist. Some persons feel that the 
 very power to love, with all the height to which 
 human love has risen, would seem a mockery if it 
 were limited to our earthly life. Others, again, are 
 moved by the immensely wide range of the convic- 
 tion, in one form or another, that the " soul " is 
 immortal. Human instinct the feeling of some of 
 the wisest and the best of men seems to point in the 
 same direction. This feeling is an " intuitive per- 
 ception," as some would say, of the great truth, and 
 the good God cannot have allowed us to be so utterly 
 and cruelly deceived. 
 
xi THE GOLDEN AGE 155 
 
 Lastly, we will not ignore or reject the simplest 
 reason of all. Those who sow in sorrow shall at 
 last reap in joy. Nothing else will fully satisfy our 
 conception of the righteous and loving God. Because 
 he cares, he will comfort ; the ocean of tears shall 
 at last be dried, and the cry of sorrow shall at last be 
 stilled. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 
 
 This chapter needs no introduction or apology. I 
 have tried to put forward my own u Liberal-Jewish " 
 conception of the " Mission" and I have also tried 
 neither to exaggerate nor to whittle down. The divine 
 character of the mission, if it be believed in, must be 
 stated clearly and whole-heartedly : on the other hand, 
 one must not exaggerate its scope or its effects. I have 
 also tried not to shirk or ignore the difficulties which the 
 very conception of the mission brings with it in its train. 
 These difficulties, however , are not to be placed before 
 young children. I have put my whole thought upon the 
 subject before parents and teachers : it will be for them 
 to use (and adapt) so much or so little of what I have 
 said as in their judgment may be suitable and desirable 
 for the child. 
 
 GOD is the Ruler, God is the Father, of man. We 
 believe that he watches over us as individuals ; we 
 believe that he watches over the human race as a 
 whole. So we are fain to believe that God will bring 
 his children and his subjects nearer and more near 
 unto himself. This belief implies, as we have seen, 
 the doctrine of the Future Life upon the one hand, 
 the doctrine of progress or of the Golden Age upon 
 the other hand. 
 
 156 
 
CH.XII THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 157 
 
 God reveals himself in human history. He is 
 not merely the father of individuals ; he is also the 
 father of the race. Human history on earth, apart 
 from the ultimate destinies of individuals beyond the 
 grave, concerns the divine Father. The phrase " God 
 in history " is not a mere string of words without a 
 meaning. I mentioned in an earlier chapter that in 
 the course of human progress and as instruments of 
 it, various races seem to have been entrusted by God 
 with various duties or missions. Many races and 
 nations have not, so far as we can discern, had much 
 influence upon the world's progress, but some of 
 them have exercised such influence, though not 
 necessarily with their own knowledge and intention. 
 
 In the domain and sphere of righteousness and 
 religion, we hold that the Jewish race has exercised 
 such influence, and exercised it by the will and 
 purpose of God. We further hold that the Jewish 
 race or community has not exhausted that influence, It 
 but that part of its work lies still before it. It may If 
 at once be admitted that there are many lands and 
 races among which Jewish influence has not spread \ 
 in the past, and where there seems small reason to 
 believe that it will operate in the future, but an 
 influence can be large and important without being 
 universal. Influence may also be exerted indirectly. 
 
 The Jews then, as we believe and it is a cardinal 
 doctrine of our religion have been chosen by God 
 to exercise in divers ways, directly or indirectly, an 
 important influence upon a great section of humanity. 
 This influence we believe to lie in the direction of 
 a gradual diffusion of those doctrines about God and 
 righteousness, and about the relation of man to God 
 and of God to man, some of which I am attempting 
 (very roughly) to set forth in this book. 
 
158 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 God chose the Jews : they are a chosen people, 
 though not a people (as I hold and as I shall subse- 
 quently maintain) in the sense that the English or 
 the Servians are a people, but rather a religious 
 brotherhood, a " kingdom of priests." A chosen 
 people, not chosen for themselves, but for others. 
 
 I said in an earlier chapter that in the develop- 
 ment of religion God does not work in the simple 
 way in which we might at first expect that he would 
 work. " His ways are not our ways." There is 
 much in the vocation of Israel, and in the method 
 of it, which we may find hard to understand. But 
 the fact stands out to our minds and hearts clear and 
 sure. We maintain it, and we cherish it. ^^The 
 history of the Jews and of their mission must be 
 interpreted in the light of the still more fundamental 
 doctrine of the perfect goodness and truth of God. 
 It must be interpreted in the light of the doctrine 
 that, in the history of man, human and divine 
 elements are strangely and wonderfully intermixed 
 and interwoven. 
 
 (" A chosen people, not chosen for themselves, 
 but for othersA A chosen people, but not chosen in 
 order to acquire prosperity, or power, or numbers ; 
 not chosen for the sake of art, or science, or philo- 
 sophy, but chosen to learn, and to help in diffusing, 
 true doctrine and true experience about God and 
 righteousness and the relation of man to God and of 
 God to man. 
 
 A chosen people : a consecrated brotherhood. A 
 brotherhood consecrated to an end ; a people to be 
 purged and purified by sorrow and suffering towards 
 the carrying out of an end which many of themselves 
 are still unable to realise. 
 
 A chosen people ; a consecrated brotherhood ; 
 
xii THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 159 
 
 chosen to gather in experience and to treasure 
 it up, to transmit and to diffuse it. For religious 
 knowledge is, in one sense, unlike other knowledge. 
 It is far more intimately connected with the lives 
 and souls of those who know it. It is not therefore 
 merely knowledge. // is an experience. What do 
 I mean by an experience? I mean quite simply that 
 religion is something which is felt and lived. Thus 
 men experience sorrow or joy : in another sense 
 they experience self-sacrifice or courage. Religion 
 is in the man ; it is not outside him, though it 
 depends upon that which is not only within him, but 
 also outside him. Religious knowledge is an internal 
 conviction attained by processes of thought and in- 
 comings or inrushes of feelings, which are not learnt 
 from a book, but are acquired in life. Man's total 
 experience includes his religious experience. A know- 
 ledge of human nature cannot be acquired from 
 books, though books may help us to acquire it. It 
 cannot be acquired from other men's lives, though 
 these (and the record of them) may suggest and 
 confirm a man's personal knowledge. That know- 
 ledge itself must be won by experience. And so 
 of religious knowledge. It, too, must be won by 
 a man's own efforts, his own progress, his own 
 feelings, his own spiritual travail in a word, his 
 own experience. 
 
 Thus religious knowledge cannot be fully put 
 down and expressed in books. It cannot be wholly 
 put down and expressed in formulae and doctrines. 
 It is, I must repeat, an experience; it is a life. 
 Suppose a people were chosen to diffuse the know- 
 ledge of arithmetic. I can conceive that their know- 
 ledge could be fully expressed in a book, and that, if 
 this book were given to the world, there would be 
 
160 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 nothing more for the people to do. But religious 
 knowledge is not the same as arithmetic. You cannot 
 put it into a book in the same way. Its formulas 
 and doctrines are not merely to be learned and 
 accepted by the understanding ; they have to be 
 lived and experienced by the whole personality, of 
 which the understanding is only a part. They have 
 to be proved to work by experience. Their truth 
 has to be realised in life as well as to be accepted by 
 the reason. Thus religion, as embodied in a person, 
 and shown forth in that person's conduct and person- 
 ality, is often more powerful to impress and to con- 
 vince than religion as expressed in a book ; holy men 
 will often help a religion more than a learned treatise. 
 If a people be " chosen " for the sake of religion, 
 it must, I take it, be so chosen, not merely to diffuse 
 knowledge through a book or through the inculca- 
 tion of doctrines, but it must be chosen to diffuse 
 experience. Only spiritual persons can fully make 
 known spiritual truth. The Jews can only become a 
 holy nation by leading holy lives : the measure of 
 their holiness is not the assertion of the vocation, 
 with which they may believe themselves to have 
 been entrusted, but the lives which they lead, the 
 characters which they are. The possibility of carry- 
 ing out their special " calling " depends upon en- 
 vironment and outside circumstances, on the one 
 hand, upon their own faith and characters, on the 
 other hand. Religion is not mere knowledge ; it 
 is experience. Therefore it is not merely the wise 
 who can teach it : but only they who both know 
 and have experienced. Religion is not mere belief ; 
 it is life. It is not merely the believers who can 
 teach : but only they who believe their religion and 
 have also lived it. 
 
xii THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 161 
 
 I emphasise and reiterate that religion is an ex- 
 perience, and I do so all the more because one of my 
 critics has objected to the term. He thinks it is 
 " philosophical." But, with all respect, I think he is 
 wrong. It is, however, a fact that the use of the term 
 " experience " is comparatively unfamiliar to Jews. 
 No Christian would dream of objecting to the word 
 on the ground that it was " technical," " philo- 
 sophical," or " hard." And we who are of the 
 Jewish faith must not be afraid of the word, and 
 must learn to use it, and to realise its meaning, in this 
 particular application. How can a man talk about 
 the divine love unless he thinks he has experienced 
 it ? How can you talk to any purpose about the 
 warmth of the sunshine if you have never felt it ? 
 I think that even with such a doctrine as the Unity 
 of God it must not be regarded as a mere intellectual 
 proposition, but it, too in order to become a part 
 of our religion must be experienced. The convic- 
 tion of the Unity, and of those implications of the 
 Unity upon which I have already laid stress, must 
 become an actual experience of the soul. One God 
 in sorrow and in joy : one God who rules and cares : 
 one God whose justice is love and whose love is 
 justice, this conviction can be, through prayer and 
 communion, a veritable experience. Let us not then 
 cavil at or neglect the word experience : still less let 
 us neglect that essence of religion which the word 
 expresses and implies. 1 
 
 A chosen people is not necessarily a perfect 
 people even in that for which they were chosen ! 
 Would that we, the Jewish brotherhood, were better 
 
 1 What other word can so well express the living faith of the Psalmists ? It 
 is our conviction that their faith was experienced which makes it so appealing 
 to us. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 and holier than we are ! But because we fall far 
 short of acting up and living up to the heights and 
 ideals of our calling, we may none the less believe in 
 it. And our duty remains clear, the duty of living, 
 to the utmost of our powers, each one of us, the best 
 and most religious life we can conceive or realise. 
 The life which we must seek to live is, in its rounded 
 perfection, beyond us all, but in its beginnings it 
 is within the capacity of us all ; it is the life of 
 righteousness lived in the realised presence of God. 
 
 A chosen people : a consecrated brotherhood. 
 Chosen for others, and not for themselves. But if 
 chosen for others, chosen with a certain end and 
 purpose: hence, we may equally well say, invested 
 with a special mission, a peculiar calling. 
 
 Is this belief of ours shared by anybody outside 
 our own brotherhood ? Or is it denied by all men 
 except ourselves ? As regards the last two ques- 
 tions we may say roughly that very many persons 
 who are not Jews, believe in the divine election 
 and mission of the Jewish race up till the Christian 
 era, but most of them hold that the special pur- 
 poses of God, so far as the world at large is 
 concerned, were fulfilled and closed when Judaism 
 gave birth to Christianity : after that there was 
 nothing, there is nothing, and there will be nothing, 
 more for the Jews to do. That the Jews have 
 any religious work still to do is a doctrine largely 
 limited to the Jews themselves, and I fully admit 
 that it is a daring thing to hold to a doctrine 
 which is rejected by a very large majority of the 
 civilised world. Still we must not be frightened at 
 being in a minority. We may, nevertheless, in the 
 long run, find the truth we champion more and more 
 generally acknowledged. 
 
XFI THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 163 
 
 Why do we still believe in the continuing and 
 unaccomplished mission ? For several reasons. 
 Mainly, I think, because our religion and our religious 
 experience have not yet become the religion" and 
 
 "tHeTcligious experience of mankind, and we possess 
 the "faith that in their essentials they are destined to 
 become so. If it be said : "Even if your religion is 
 "To become in its essentials the religion of mankind, 
 what are you doing, and what do you expect to do, 
 towards the diffusion of it ? " then I would answer : 
 u I am not sure that we are doing nothing now ; still 
 less am I sure that we shall do nothing in the future. 
 They too may serve their mission who, even for long 
 stretches of time (and to our Master a thousand years 
 are as a day), only stand, and suffer, and wait.*' 
 
 We believe, moreover, in our mission because of 
 our history and because of the general history of man- 
 kind. We hold that the preservation of the Jewish 
 race from A.D. 30 to A.D. 1912 is not due to chance, 
 and that it has not been effected without the will 
 and intention of God. We venture, in all humility, 
 to suppose that the purpose of this preservation is 
 religious ; that is to say, we hold that the preserva- 
 tion of our race and brotherhood has some religious 
 object. In other words, the religious work which 
 the Jewish brotherhood has to do for the world did 
 not cease at the birth of Christianity. For my part I 
 share these opinions. That Christianity was intended 
 by God to play a great religious part in the world, I 
 firmly believe, but I also believe that its appearance in 
 the world did not betoken the end of Judaism as a 
 religion of value. Christianity itself seems to Jews 
 
 ^only a stage in the preparation of the world for a 
 purified, developed, and universal;^ Judaism. 
 
 It is with religions as with persons. It may 
 
164 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 be that one man may possess some charm or 
 excellence in a greater or more winning degree 
 than another, but the second may, nevertheless, 
 have the deeper and the grander character. God 
 does not choose to send all his light through one 
 window. I am not concerned (as some Jews are) 
 to prove that Christianity has never presented any 
 aspect of religious or moral truth more forcibly 
 than Judaism ; and that from no Christian book, 
 teacher or experience has Judaism ever had, or has 
 it now, anything of truth and value to gather. I 
 do not seek to prove such a statement, for I believe 
 it to be untenable. No religion has ever reached 
 perfection : and in the process of its development 
 it can gather in elements of truth, which are con- 
 sistent, and harmonise, with its own attained truths, 
 from outside its own borders. It can assimilate such 
 elements of truth. I would not, for instance, venture 
 to assert that Judaism has nothing to learn or assimi- 
 late from either Christianity or Buddhism. But 
 nevertheless I hold, like all other members of my 
 brotherhood, that in its deeper essentials Judaism^ 
 jstands at the head of God's religions in value and in 
 truth. " God's religions." What a strange phrase ! 
 Yet he who would suppose that Christianity and 
 Mahommedanism, for example, are not religions of 
 God's will and purpose, has, to my mind, a false 
 estimate of history, and too partial and limited a 
 view of the relation of the Divine Being to history 
 and to mankind. 
 
 In its deeper essentials, then, in its conception 
 of God and of his unity, of his relation to man 
 and of man's to him, of the true service of God 
 and of the consecration of life Judaism, as we 
 believe, stands at the head of God's religions 
 
xn THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 165 
 
 in value and truth, and these deeper essentials 
 have not yet been wholly adopted by the world, or 
 even by that large section of the world with which 
 we, in England, are more immediately concerned. 
 Our special conceptions of God and of his relation to 
 man have, in some respects, still to make their way. 
 They are not yet purely held in their entirety. It is 
 not one antagonist alone against whom Judaism has to 
 contend. There are forms of unbelief far more alien 
 to its teaching than the various forms of Christianity. 
 We need not again ask at this point why God allows 
 imperfect religions and even " irreligious" to exist and 
 continue. For, at all events, it is clear that it may be 
 equally God's plan that the removal of these im- 
 perfections and untruths should be committed to 
 those who have been vouchsafed fuller knowledge of 
 him and of his truth. 
 
 Meanwhile the mere existence of the Jews is not 
 without its value and its influence. A more active 
 period of influence may, perhaps, at no distant period, 
 begin. Already in the United States there is much 
 interchange of pulpits, much mingling of thought. 
 Jews, especially Liberal Jews, are indubitably doing 
 something in that vast country towards the develop- 
 ment of religious belief. In the religious ferment 
 which is there going on, they are playing a part. 
 
 It may also be that the Jews themselves are still 
 not sufficiently holy in order to influence their neigh- 
 bours more actively. For it is not merely a 
 question of truths accepted by the understanding. 
 It is a question of experience. Only they who 
 have experienced God can properly testify to him. 
 Hence the immense necessity for Jews to live a 
 life of holiness. It is one of the odd and painful 
 paradoxes of history, observed already by the 
 
1 66 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Exilic Isaiah, that the Jews as a body are still not 
 adequately sensitive to the obligations which their 
 vocation has cast upon them, and not sufficiently 
 self-dedicated to a religious life in the sense of a 
 life which has first-hand experience of God. " Who 
 is blind," said the prophet, " but my servant, who is 
 deaf but the messenger whom I send ? " 
 
 If, however, we hold that our mission is not yet 
 exhausted, it is because, on the one hand, there is our 
 history with our continued existence, on the other 
 hand, the actual religious condition of the world. We 
 put the two facts together, and we draw the bold in- 
 ference that the work of Israel is not yet concluded. 
 
 These two facts, which we put into relation, confirm 
 our belief about a third. That third is the testimony 
 of the Bible. When we read in the Book of Isaiah 
 that the prophet of the exile declared that the Jews 
 were God's witnesses, chosen for a religious purpose 
 and charged with a religious mission, we believe that 
 he was speaking words which were inspired by God. 
 Or when we read in the Pentateuch of the Jews being 
 described as " a holy nation and a kingdom of 
 priests," we believe that the writer was touched by 
 the Divine Spirit, and that he wrote words of larger 
 and more permanent meaning than his own generation 
 can have realised. 
 
 The doctrine of Israel's mission is, we admit, sur- 
 rounded by peculiar difficulties. It has been a plant 
 of very slow growth, and instead of setting out to be 
 a universal religion in all its parts, Judaism has rather 
 been in many ways a national religion, and in many 
 respects has so remained unto this day. It is these 
 national characteristics of Judaism which have led 
 most critics to deny to it the right to call itself 
 universal, and to deny that any influence upon 
 
xii THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 167 
 
 the world without its pale lies within its power and 
 scope. 
 
 The conception or feeling of a mission grew up 
 and was developed by slow degrees. We rarely 
 meet with it in the Hebrew Bible, except in some 
 occasional passages such as those of the Exilic 
 Isaiah or of a few isolated Psalms. Moreover, the 
 very election of Israel the conception or belief 
 that the Jews were a divinely chosen people was 
 too commonly interpreted, except by a very few, in 
 a national sense. God was Israel's Father, and 
 Israel was God's son. The relationship was intended 
 to promote the Divine glory and Israel's well-being. 
 Not its immediate well-being, but its ultimate well- 
 being. The general idea was that in the golden or 
 Messianic age Israel would rise superior to all its foes. 
 Israel would be especially glorious and happy and 
 virtuous ; doubtless there would be a fringe of other 
 peoples who would accept Israel's religious doctrines, 
 and perhaps even be incorporated into Israel, but 
 Israel would come first in divine favour. In the 
 Messianic age it would increase in glory, in numbers, 
 in prosperity. This, at any rate, was the popular 
 view, and there are very many echoes of it in 
 the Biblical and in the Rabbinical literature. 
 
 Why did God not enlighten the people more as 
 to the true mission of Israel ? Why was the growth 
 of that idea among both teachers and people so very 
 slow ? We cannot say. The mills of God grind 
 slowly, and the will of God is carried out by imper- 
 fect instruments. But that will is carried out in the 
 long run none the less. Such seems to be the case 
 here. 
 
 Moreover, it has to be acknowledged that the 
 Jewish doctrines about God and his relation to man 
 
1 68 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 were wedded (as I shall have occasion to mention 
 later on) to a ceremonial and a worship which were 
 of a largely national character, and the national char- 
 acter of this worship and ceremonial has endured unto 
 this day. It is the business of Liberal Judaism (of 
 which I have still to speak), on the one hand, to 
 preserve the historic character of the outward embodi- 
 ment of the religious doctrine, and, on the other 
 hand, to divest it of its purely national character in 
 the sense of its being a worship and a ceremonial 
 exclusively suited and intended for a single nation. 
 For religion, both in doctrine and ceremonial, should 
 be something super-national. It should bind races 
 and nations together, and it should not keep them 
 sundered and apart. It is not sufficient to offer to out- 
 siders excellent doctrines without also offering to them 
 forms and ceremonial. Religion is a whole, and the 
 doctrines need a form. Men cannot do with doctrines 
 (however excellent) alone. They require an historic 
 ceremonial as well. Judaism must offer them both. 1 
 
 1 Compare what is said in Chapter XIX. as regards religion and nationality. 
 One of my critics who is both a Liberal Jew and a Nationalist (an unusual com- 
 bination), and who is also what is far better than either, a deeply religious and 
 most holy man, writes : " I feel uncertain about this paragraph. True religious 
 doctrines must ultimately be shared by all men. Truth is universal and not 
 national. But why should not each race preserve its own national ceremonial ? 
 Israel, in keeping the Passover, celebrates IsraeFs deliverance from Egypt. Will 
 (or can) the keeping of the Passover ever become general amongst those to whom 
 it is not connected with the same historical associations ? Provided there be 
 unity of spirit, diversity of ceremonial need not keep races and nations apart. I 
 conceive the Judaism of the future as becoming conscious of itself as a branch of 
 universal religion. Judaism and Christianity may both persist : the Jew will 
 retain his Passover; the Christian his Easter, but both will .be transfigured." 
 The thought in this last sentence seems to me very noble, far-reaching and bold. 
 Another critic writes : " A denationalised Passover that is, a religious festival 
 arranged for all nations, with all the Jewish national element left out, might be 
 religious in a Theistic sense, but could not be called Jewish. I do not say that a 
 denationalised Judaism could not be brought into being, but it could not rightly be 
 called Judaism." I am by no means sure. It is very rash to predict what can 
 not and may not be called Judaism. And of the Pentateuchal holy days, one 
 only presents the " national" difficulty. The subject will come up for treatment 
 later on. 
 
xii THE MISSION OF ISRAEL 169 
 
 Before the rise of Christianity this need was by 
 some minds actually realised, though not very clearly 
 and distinctly. Then Christianity intervened, and 
 became u deliberately universal religion, offering to 
 all races both doctrine and ceremonial, declaring the 
 equality of all races before God so long as its own 
 doctrines were accepted, and its own ceremonial was 
 performed. Beyond the limits of those who so accepted 
 and performed was a large number of human beings 
 who were believed to remain outside the divine favour 
 and grace, to be given over to wrath and perdition. 
 It was a horrible doctrine, a terrible limitation of the 
 boundless and impartial providence of God. But, in 
 truth, the doctrine that all men are dear to God, and 
 are his equal children whatever their religious beliefs, 
 is of modern growth ; while the doctrine that not 
 merely the good, but also the bad, in all nations, 
 are the objects of his care and that they will ultimately 
 receive enlightenment and salvation, has not even yet 
 been accepted by all the civilised world. 
 
 More and more in the modern world Israel is 
 becoming conscious of its religious mission. Many 
 ot its best teachers teach and proclaim it, and the 
 doctrine is slowly winning its way to the hearts of all 
 our brotherhood. It will, we may hope and believe, 
 influence Jewish life more fully in the future than it 
 has influenced it in the past. And the wider conviction 
 of the mission, together with the development and 
 growth of Liberal Judaism, and a gradual change in 
 external circumstance, may all work together for the 
 better carrying out and accomplishment of the 
 Jewish mission in many quarters of the civilised 
 world. For it would seem as if Maimonides (who, 
 with other Jewish writers of the Middle Ages, hinted 
 at this idea) was right, and as if Judaism was not, so 
 
i yo , LIBERAL JUDAISM CH. xn 
 
 far as we now can see, suited to take up missionary 
 effort among the heathen or among the races of the 
 East, whether civilised or uncivilised. Judaism did 
 this kind of work in the later Hellenistic period, but 
 for very many centuries (owing in part no doubt to 
 the impotence caused by persecution and in part to 
 the actual prohibitions inflicted by various laws) it 
 has not been actively undertaking missionary labours. 
 And indeed Judaism appears to have ceased to desire 
 or to be qualified to do missionary work directly. 
 Other agencies, such as Christianity and Mahomme- 
 danism, must first bring men nearer to a faith in One 
 God (in the Jewish sense of the word " God " ), before 
 Judaism can exercise any influence for good upon 
 their lives and their beliefs. 
 
 But the mission of Israel is not overthrown 
 because we recognise limitations to its exercise. It 
 remains. It endures. The word of the prophet, 
 " Ye are my witnesses," is still accepted and believed 
 by us. Sometimes witnesses through silence, some- 
 times witnesses through speech and teaching, at all 
 times witnesses by our lives and experience, we 
 have to remain true to what we believe to be the 
 ordinance and will of God. It is admitted that religion 
 must, as it were, begin " at home/' The Jew must 
 first himself know, and act up to, his Judaism. But 
 we cannot also forget that what Israel has to teach 
 has not yet been generally accepted ; it still remains 
 therefore Israel's duty to experience and to teach it. 
 The more fully he experiences it, the more ardently 
 will he desire to teach it. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION -- HOW FAR AND 
 IN WHAT SENSE ARE THE PROPHETS AND THE 
 LAW INSPIRED ? 
 
 This chapter is, perhaps, for many persons, one of the 
 most necessary and important. For it is much easier to many 
 "liberally" minded parents and teachers to speak of God 
 and of our duties toward him than to speak of inspiration 
 and the Bible. For here all the difficulties, which now con- 
 front us, come in. I have sought, at the risk of being a little 
 wearisome, not to overlook or to minimise these difficulties. 
 In language as clear as I could make it, I have tried 
 to make my own view of inspiration plain, and I have 
 then tried to apply it to the Prophets and to the Law. I 
 hope that in doing all this, no trace will be found of any- 
 thing which (as regards the Bible} savours either of 
 irreverence on the one hand, or of patronising upon the 
 other. If such traces exist, they are wholly unintentional, 
 and against my own deepest convictions and feelings. I 
 would warn teachers and parents, moreover, to put my 
 doctrine of the "true test" of inspiration before their 
 children with the utmost caution and care. It is the wise 
 and good in each generation to whom, as we may well 
 believe, God speaks most clearly. It is their advice which 
 we shall seek. Our own judgment, especially the judgment 
 of young people, may often be at fault. Though reason 
 and conscience are the jinal courts of appeal in right and 
 
 171 
 
172 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 wrong, true and false, we must seek for all the help which 
 the gathered experience of our forefathers, the counsel and 
 opinions of the wise and the good, can bring to, and 
 provide for, us. Before we decide, we need care and 
 thought, purity of heart, honesty of mind. And such 
 decisions cannot be made very early or very lightly. The 
 responsibility of our endowment, the responsibility of con- 
 science and reason^ are very great. These divine gifts 
 must be reverently and anxiously used. 
 
 OUR belief in a special religious mission having been 
 entrusted to the Jews by God partly depends upon 
 the belief that God has special purposes for particular 
 peoples, and that he enters into special relations with 
 particular individuals. In addition to the reasons given 
 for it in the last chapter, our faith in the " mission of 
 Israel " depends upon our ideas of Revelation and 
 Inspiration, and upon the belief that such revelation 
 and inspiration were granted by God to particular 
 Israelites. The idea of a mission to the world at 
 large hardly existed in Israel as a whole for many 
 ages. It hardly existed before the Babylonian 
 captivity, and hardly existed among the people as 
 a whole for many generations even after that. But 
 it was an element in the doctrine of a few isolated 
 teachers, and doubtless was taken up or pondered 
 over by a few of their disciples. It was notably 
 prominent in the thought of the exilic prophet whose 
 writings are contained in the Book of Isaiah (xl.-lv.). 
 How did this idea occur to him? Of it and of 
 other great ideas we use the terms inspiration and 
 revelation. We say that the idea was revealed to 
 the prophet and teacher by the Divine Spirit, or again 
 we may say that the prophet or teacher was inspired 
 by the Divine Spirit so to think and speak and write. 
 
xin DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION 173 
 
 Now who can pretend to understand accurately 
 the exact relations between God and man ? I have 
 no cut-and-dry theories of inspiration and revelation 
 to offer. But we must not believe with any the less 
 intensity in the real and living relation of God to 
 man, because we do not fully understand the laws 
 and methods of its operation. This, on the one 
 hand, just as, on the other hand, we must always be 
 true to the facts, and never attempt to make those 
 facts (by ignoring or misinterpreting a part of them) 
 suit our theories or predilections. 
 
 It may be that to some persons nothing more 
 is needed than this general doctrine that the 
 Divine Spirit acts upon and influences the human 
 spirit. Such a doctrine we have seen to be a vital 
 principle of our religion. God helps us to be good. 
 God helps us to repent. We ask him to strengthen 
 us. We regard the good we do as specifically ours, 
 but also as specifically his. We usually think of the 
 Divine Spirit in its relation to goodness and religion, 
 but I do not see why we should not also think of it in 
 relation to scientific truth and even to beauty. God 
 is the God of truth, even if it would require ex- 
 planation and qualification to call him the God of 
 beauty. I do not see why great discoveries may not 
 be regarded as due to his inspiration, and why great 
 poets and thinkers may not ascribe whatever is 
 excellent in their creations as due to God as much 
 as to themselves. Some may argue that we do not 
 need to assume that there is more than one kind of 
 inspiration and more than one kind of revelation. All 
 goodness, all truth, are due to and come from God, 
 who is the inspirer, the revealer and the source. 
 
 It does not much matter, as it seems to me, what 
 theory we form of inspiration so long as we maintain 
 
174 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the principle and believe in the fact. Even if one 
 form of inspiration, or the inspiration of one man, 
 does not differ from another form of inspiration, or 
 from the inspiration of another man, in kind, these 
 various " inspirations " differ widely from one another 
 in degree. When the degree is very great, it almost 
 seems to amount to a difference in kind. If we take 
 the inspiration of the Hebrew Prophets, for example, 
 and consider the truths which they uttered, the season 
 when they uttered them, the novelty of their utter- 
 ances, their importance, their influence and their 
 effect, we are, as it seems to me, justified in regarding 
 their inspiration as differing so greatly from the 
 inspiration which comes to you or me, when God 
 helps us to do right, that we may justifiably speak 
 of it as a special sort of inspiration which needs and 
 deserves a heading to itself. Inspired as Amos and 
 Isaiah were, few others (in the department of religion) 
 have ever been. 
 
 We do not know the law or method of God's 
 inspiration in the case of ordinary men ; we know it 
 none the more in the case of his inspiration of excep- 
 tional men, such as the Prophets. In both cases, 
 however, we observe the same fact : the divine does 
 not destroy or overwhelm the human. If it is a 
 question of teaching, for instance, the teaching is 
 always, as a whole, characteristic of the teacher. The 
 divine does not drive out the human. It glows 
 through it. But the human is still there, not merely 
 in the form, but also in the substance. Hence the 
 inevitable mixture in the result. The result is still 
 relative in some measure to the age and place of the 
 speaker. It is still a mixture of eternal and 
 temporary ; of gold and dross. We must neither 
 exaggerate nor cheapen. 
 
xiii DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION 175 
 
 Again, we can only say that such and such teach- 
 ing, or that such and such a writing, is inspired by our 
 estimate of the actual words, the actual contents. 
 God has put no other test into our hands. When 
 I say " we," I do not mean, however, that the 
 judgment of others, the judgment of our forefathers, 
 the judgment of the civilised world, is to go for 
 nothing, and that "we" each individual must 
 begin all over again. All I mean here is that the 
 test of inspiration is the product of inspiration and 
 its impression upon the human mind. The test of 
 the beauty of a picture is not that it was painted by 
 Watts : the test of the beauty of the picture is the 
 picture itself. Nor do we say that because some 
 pictures by Watts are adorably beautiful, therefore 
 everything which he painted must be equally fine. 
 We cannot even say : such and such words of a 
 prophet or teacher seem to us inspired ; therefore all 
 his words are inspired ; or, therefore all his words 
 which he thought inspired were inspired. The test 
 of inspiration is not what he thought ; still less is the 
 test that his writing or words are included in a certain 
 book, which many people have believed to be inspired 
 in all its contents from beginning to end. 1 
 
 The gauge of inspiration can only be the actual 
 contents of the words together with their effects for 
 goodness and truth : the contents of the words, 
 including their originality, power, beauty, influence, 
 and so on. It is not the place where they are found 
 which makes them inspired ; it is themselves their 
 own value, importance, originality, excellence, truth. 
 
 1 A critic asks : "Who is to decide what is inspired from the contents?" 
 Not an infallible pope or church, but the careful and progressive judgment of 
 the wisest and best men from age to age must help us to decide for ourselves. 
 We can only believe that certain utterances are inspired, because after careful 
 thought and study ive honestly believe them to be so. The subject is alluded 
 to later on. 
 
1 76 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 There is indeed one reason why the place where 
 they are found may help to justify us in calling them 
 inspired, and this reason is specially applicable to 
 words found in the Hebrew Bible or in other portions 
 of Jewish literature. That reason is this. We 
 believe that God has special purposes for particular 
 peoples. In the accomplishment and fulfilment of 
 that purpose, which may extend over an indefinite 
 period of time, the words of various teachers may 
 have a place. They may be inspired in relation to 
 the whole scheme, though they may not be inspired in 
 the sense that they are eternally good and true. We 
 may well believe that certain doctrines and laws, which 
 were of value in gradually raising the Jews to a purer 
 faith in God and to a higher conception of morality, 
 are, nevertheless, in themselves by no means perfect 
 or eternally true. This would be a sort of secondary 
 and historic inspiration, which does not seem to me 
 by any means incredible, if we once believe in the 
 twin doctrines that God has special purposes for 
 particular peoples, and that he has relations with 
 individual men. In the same way, repetitions, with 
 slight modifications, of the same fundamental truths 
 we may also regard as inspired, if those repetitions 
 served the turn of religion and of religious truth. 
 Thus we may rightly speak of the Psalter as inspired, 
 even though it may have been written later than the 
 Prophets, and though there be in it few doctrines 
 or thoughts which could not be traced back to, or 
 found in, the writings of those Prophets. A general 
 stream of doctrine, setting and flowing in one direc- 
 tion, in the direction, for example, of a more 
 emphatic and purer Monotheism, of a more inward 
 and vivid conception of the relations of God to man, 
 we may justly regard as inspired, because it fits in 
 
xin DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION 177 
 
 with our general view of the purposes of God in the 
 " election " of Israel, or with our general view of 
 Israel's mission as a whole and through the ages. 
 An oft-repeated truth may be inspired every time it 
 is re-enunciated. In this sense, then, a passage in a 
 later teacher may rightly be regarded as inspired, 
 even although the main thought of it occurs also in 
 an earlier teacher. It is inspired as part of the 
 general stream, as a link in a chain, as an indication 
 of a divine purpose. 
 
 That there is dross mixed with the ore need not 
 worry and bother us, any more than it need worry 
 and bother us that good men are not free from error 
 and sin, or that imperfection exists in the world at 
 all. The slow growth of humanity is, we have 
 freely admitted, a considerable puzzle ; the slow 
 growth of pure religion, the imperfections in the 
 writings of " inspired " teachers, are only a form 
 and instance of it. We do not understand why 
 certain truths in which we intensely believe, and 
 which we regard as essential portions of Judaism 
 to-day, were not revealed more clearly and more fully 
 to our ancestors. But it is far better to confess our 
 ignorance than, at the expense of strictest truth, to 
 declare that these truths were clearly and fully 
 revealed, if the documents do not admit of such a 
 statement, or if such a statement can only be elicited 
 from them by squeezing, by exaggeration, by 
 " reading in," by evasion. It cannot be too often 
 repeated that we have obligations to truth as well as 
 to righteousness, and that God himself is not more 
 righteousness than he is truth. 
 
 In dealing with the results of the divine inspira- 
 tion as we find it in Jewish literature, whether Biblical 
 or post-Biblical, we observe that inspiration does not 
 
 N 
 
1 78 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 move in a straight line. By this I mean that we do not 
 find that as one great teacher follows on another, the 
 second always possesses a little more truth and a little 
 less error than the first. New truth may even bring 
 with it fresh error. Thus, to take a very conspicuous 
 example. The doctrine of blissful immortality was, 
 at one time, a new truth, but it brought with it a 
 new and terrible error, namely, the doctrine of eternal 
 infelicity. This is another puzzle, but we must not 
 allow it to disturb us. We, smaller men and less 
 inspired than our forefathers, yet standing on their 
 shoulders, and profiting by their experience and their 
 words, see a little farther than they, even as we 
 devoutly believe that our great-great-grandchildren, 
 profiting by our experience and words, and standing 
 upon our shoulders, will surely see a little farther 
 than we. Nevertheless a teacher who lives in one 
 age may, in some things, see more clearly, whilst in 
 other things he may see less clearly, than another 
 teacher who preceded him. The religion of one age 
 may, as a whole, and in some things, be truer and purer 
 and better than the religion of a preceding age, yet 
 in some things it may be less great. So of a book. 
 In some things, or as a whole, it may be nobler 
 and truer than an earlier book ; in some things, less 
 true and less noble. 
 
 The greatest men are not allowed, and are not 
 able, to see the whole truth. They see portions of 
 it, and of these portions they see some portions more 
 clearly, others less. God leaves much over for future 
 generations to deepen, to illustrate, to apply, as well 
 as some things, too, for them to discover, or to have 
 revealed to them. 
 
 Again, the greatest teachers are, as I have already 
 said, not always at their best ; they have their higher 
 
xin DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION 179 
 
 and their lower moments ; their human passions and 
 prejudices, their divine upliftings and revelations. 
 Comparing small things with great, we may say that 
 we are ourselves like unto them in this : we appre- 
 ciate and value divine truths better at one time than 
 another. And so of the greatest teachers : though in 
 some things they see farther than their contemporaries, 
 in others their vision has the same horizon, the same 
 limitations. They may, for instance, profoundly 
 realise some one new great truth, and in the vision 
 and setting forth of that truth their inspiration may 
 specially consist. But they may retain other convic- 
 tions and opinions on a lower level of religion and 
 morality. They themselves may perceive no contra- 
 diction between the new truth and the old opinions. 
 Thus we find in the greatest teachers inconsistencies. 
 They belong to their own age : they belong also to 
 the future. 
 
 The very truths which the great teacher has been 
 inspired by God to see may lead him into special 
 errors. He may, therefore, have, as it were, the 
 defects of his qualities. Thus, for instance, to the 
 Hebrew prophets the great truth came that God is 
 one, and that there is one God only, and that he is a 
 God of righteousness and truth. But they did not 
 so clearly see the full application of that great and 
 inspired teaching. Hence, some of these great and 
 inspired men usually seem to teach that the one and 
 only God is more the God of Israel in nearness and 
 close relation than he is the God of other nations, 
 and in this way the very quality of their excellent 
 teaching was accompanied by a defect. Nevertheless 
 if we see the consequences of the One God doctrine 
 more clearly than Jeremiah, Jeremiah was none the less 
 fifty thousand times greater and more inspired than we. 
 
i8o LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 In no book which was ever written can there be 
 nothing but goodness and truth, just as no man has 
 ever lived who said nothing but what was good and 
 true. But none the less shall we continue to say 
 that, even in spite of imperfections, such and such 
 books contain the record of divine revelation, and 
 that such and such men were divinely inspired by 
 God for " world-historic " purposes and ends. 
 
 The story of the relations between God and Israel 
 from the earliest times to about eight score years 
 before the Christian era is contained (in a fragmen- 
 tary form) in that wonderful collection of books 
 which in Hebrew is known as the Law, the Prophets, 
 and the Writings, but which, using Greek instead of 
 Hebrew terminology, we call more briefly the Bible, 
 that is, the Book. In these books are contained, as we 
 believe, words of men who were truly touched by the 
 Divine Spirit, though in different ways and in differ- 
 ent degrees. In these books, moreover, are contained 
 fragmentary records of a history in which, as we 
 believe, are revealed to us the will and purpose of 
 God. In these books are contained a quantity of laws 
 (of different ages and authors, though all put into the 
 mouth of one man, Moses, speaking in the name of 
 God), which, as we know, have largely determined 
 the character of the Jewish religion for twenty-five 
 centuries, and, as regards some of the laws, even for 
 longer. Seeing that the course of development 
 taken by the Jewish religion may, in some wide and 
 general sense, be said to have been foreseen and pre- 
 determined by God, we may also, in some wide and 
 general sense, ascribe to all those multifarious laws 
 the will and sanction of God. But, in a narrower 
 and more definite sense, we can say of them that, so 
 far as they preserved and trained the Jewish people 
 
xni DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION 181 
 
 and community in seasons of stress and peril, they 
 fulfilled the divine intention ; while to many of them, 
 apart from and beyond such influence, we ascribe 
 inspiration, because they are in themselves great and 
 noble and true. In fact, we may piece together all the 
 most essential elements and doctrines of the Jewish 
 religion as it now is (apart from the doctrines of im- 
 mortality, and of the universal salvation of all men, bad 
 and good alike and, perhaps, a few other teachings) 
 from carefully chosen extracts from the Law, from 
 selected verses from the Prophets, and from assorted 
 fragments from the Writings. In each of the three 
 divisions are to be found ore and dross, kernels and 
 husks, temporary things and eternal things, or 
 whatever other words we choose to employ in order 
 to express the truth that the Bible is a collection of 
 writings, parts of which, in the fullest sense of the 
 word, we may well call intensely inspired, and to 
 parts of which, on the other hand, we do not ascribe 
 such immediate and primary inspiration. 
 
 In other words, we find in the Bible much which 
 is sublimely true and great, and which as we believe 
 will always be so regarded ; much which teaches 
 and helps and strengthens and comforts us, as it 
 taught and helped and strengthened and comforted 
 our forefathers ; much which was, and is, and (as we 
 believe) will always be, considered as the essential 
 doctrines of our religion, its very kernel or foundation. 
 On the other hand, we find in the Bible some things 
 which we discern to be inconsistent with its best 
 and sublimest portions, and others which, though 
 they may have played their part, and been of use, in 
 days gone by, seem to us to-day no longer valuable 
 or beautiful or true. 
 
 However much we may wish that we could dis- 
 
1 82 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 cern no imperfection in the orations of a particular 
 prophet, or in the laws of a particular code, we must 
 never juggle with our conscience, or play fast and 
 loose with our reason. For conscience and reason 
 are the two noblest and divinest of all God's gifts, 
 and it is our duty to follow whither they lead. Let 
 us never seek to say : " This is good and true," 
 unless we sincerely believe that it is good and true. 
 Let us, moreover, never lower the level of the best 
 by seeking to put what is less good upon the same 
 height. People who have tried to maintain the 
 equal excellence, truth and inspiration of the whole 
 Bible, or of the whole Law, or of all the Prophets, 
 have only done Bible, Law, and Prophets an ill turn. 
 We shall gain more general adhesion to the best and 
 greatest by freely acknowledging the presence of the 
 less good, or even, it may be, here and there, of the 
 not good. 
 
 So far as the Biblical writers themselves are con- 
 cerned, we may roughly say that only two classes of 
 them claim inspiration. Others were inspired as 
 we think, but they do not claim inspiration. The 
 Psalmists, for instance, were, in many instances, 
 surely inspired by God, but they do not claim 
 inspiration. Few persons nowadays would regard 
 the authors and compilers of the books of Joshua, 
 Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, or Nehemiah 
 as inspired, though there may be passages in some of 
 these books in which the author records the product 
 of inspiration, or in which he may, for the moment, 
 himself have been inspired. 
 
 The case of the Prophets and of the Law demands, 
 however, more careful consideration. 
 
 The Prophets, as we know, thought that they 
 were inspired by God, and they delivered their 
 
xin PROPHETS AND THE LAW 183 
 
 utterances as divine oracles. It was not so much, 
 as they believed, they who were speaking as God 
 who was speaking through them. I am convinced 
 that they were sincere. But are we also able to say that 
 they were right ? Was what they said dictated to 
 them by God ? What are we to suppose that their 
 usual formula, "Thus saith the Lord," really means? 
 It does not surely mean that God audibly whispered 
 the words into the prophet's ear. It means that to 
 the prophet his words seemed without question the 
 certain message of God. He was impelled to utter 
 them by a force which seemed to him to be divine. 
 In the famous case of Jeremiah we know that he 
 would have often preferred to keep silent. But his 
 conscience would not allow him. He had to speak, 
 though to his own individual disadvantage. And 
 what he had to say seemed to him to be indubitably 
 the order of God. But was it really the order of 
 God ? Personally I believe, and the belief of the 
 Jewish religion is, that essentially it was. 
 
 We have no other ultimate test than the excellence 
 of the prophets' words, their truth, goodness, value, 
 originality, influence and effect. So far as we honestly 
 believe them to be good and true, so far as we know 
 that their effect and influences have been towards 
 goodness and truth, so far are we assuredly justified in 
 holding them to be inspired. But God uses human 
 instruments, and the instrument remains human. 
 Even the inspired prophet is not rid of his humanity. 
 He still has his human prejudices, passions and 
 limitations. His words are still in many ways the 
 product of his place and of his age. He may censure 
 his people and predict their doom, and yet in some 
 things he may share their vision, and his horizon 
 may be as theirs. 
 
184 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 I believe that it is our duty, with loving care and 
 devout reverence, to sift the words of the prophets 
 as regards their excellence and truth. Though we 
 may wistfully say to ourselves from time to time, 
 " Would that there were no sifting work for us to 
 do ; would that all the words of a prophet were 
 equally good and true, and that we might assume 
 that they were all equally good and true just because 
 they are attributed to him," we must not yield to 
 such an impulse. It is not a lazy faith which God 
 asks from us. He has not arranged the laws of his 
 relations with men to suit our convenience and our 
 comfort. We have to remember that in no man's 
 words and in no human book is contained perfection. 
 The divine perfection cannot be represented in 
 human words. It is, we may almost say, part of the 
 duty imposed on us by the ideal of that divine per- 
 fection never to relax in the earnest and persistent 
 application of all our highest faculties towards dis- 
 criminating between the human and the divine, so 
 that we may the more truly hear amid the human 
 words the divine voice. 
 
 We have also to remember the interesting fact 
 that many of the prophetical books are compilations, 
 and that editors and compilers are speaking to us 
 in these books as well as the prophets themselves. 
 Nevertheless, the breath of God has often touched 
 the lips of the editors. We should not to-day, in 
 editing fragments of another man's words, add to 
 them, or in some cases substitute for them words 
 of our own (without in any way indicating which 
 pieces are his and which pieces are ours). The 
 editors in those far-off days saw no wrong or harm 
 in doing this, and, so far as the greatest scholars can 
 discover, some of the noblest, and therefore most 
 
xin PROPHETS AND THE LAW 185 
 
 inspired, passages in the Prophets are due, not to 
 those prophets themselves, but to their unknown 
 and forgotten editors, to whose labours we owe 
 the preservation of the prophetical writings, and 
 also these notable and excellent additions. 
 
 The inspiration which is claimed by the Law is 
 of the same kind as that claimed by the Prophets, 
 though it is expressed in a somewhat different form. 
 Everybody remembers that the usual wording with 
 which groups of laws are introduced in the Penta- 
 teuch is the following : " And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying." Who the compiler of the laws was, 
 and who wrote the narratives in which the laws are 
 interspersed, the Pentateuch does not declare. The 
 famous utterance known as the Ten Commandments 
 the Pentateuch asserts to have been spoken by God, 
 not to Moses only, but to all the people of Israel. 
 The narrative would seem to ascribe to God a voice 
 such as the voice with which man speaks to man, 
 and it may even be that this is the manner in which 
 the editor of the Book of Exodus wishes us to believe 
 that all the laws were given to Moses. God spoke 
 to him out loud ; he heard a voice, and this voice 
 was the voice of God. God spoke to him, face to 
 face, as one man speaks to another. But our present 
 conception of God does not allow us to believe that 
 God ever spoke to anybody as one man speaks to 
 his neighbour. (It would hardly even allow us to 
 believe that the Voice from Sinai was a specially 
 created and immaterial voice, as Philo and other 
 Jewish writers believed, who warmly repel the 
 inference that the " voice " implies that God has 
 a form.) Not in that way does Spirit speak to 
 spirit or God to man according to what we now 
 believe. Therefore the literal accuracy of these 
 
1 86 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 statements breaks down. We can no longer believe 
 that the people heard God's " voice," because we 
 do not ascribe to God a " voice " any more than 
 we ascribe to him a mouth ; we do not believe that 
 God spoke to Moses as a man speaks to his neigh- 
 bour, face to face, one opposite the other. Such 
 ideas could only grow up when people still believed 
 that God was circumscribed or limited in space, and 
 that he possessed a form, however impious and im- 
 possible it might be to make a representation of that 
 form in plastic material, and however hidden God 
 might keep it from the eyes of man. 
 
 But the greatness of the Ten Commandments is 
 not impaired even though the " voice " of God did 
 not utter them, or even though a voice specially 
 created for the occasion did not proclaim them. 
 Their supreme greatness, just like the supreme great- 
 ness of the words of the Prophets, can, it is true, 
 only be proved by internal tests. They have to 
 stand, as it were, upon their own value. After 
 all, can there be a better test than this ? For 
 even supposing we could believe that God had a 
 mouth, how could we believe that he spoke the 
 Ten Commandments except because we are convinced 
 and assured that they are good and true ? Suppose, 
 after the most careful study and thought, after 
 consultation with the wisest and best men we could 
 find, we felt convinced and assured that the Ten 
 Commandments, even though they are introduced by 
 the phrase, " And God spake all these words, saying," 
 were neither good nor true, we should then be com- 
 pelled to say : " Humbly and earnestly we have 
 tested them, and we are now, at last, convinced and 
 assured that these ten utterances are neither good 
 nor true ; therefore we believe that the chronicler 
 
xin PROPHETS AND THE LAW 187 
 
 is mistaken. Because we are convinced and assured 
 that they are neither good nor true, therefore we 
 believe that God did not speak them." Thus the 
 test of divinity, or of inspiration, is not that a certain 
 chronicler asserts that God said certain words : the 
 test for us can only be that we are convinced and 
 assured that those words are pre-eminently good and 
 true. Thus, at the bottom, those who believe that 
 God said the Ten Commandments with his own 
 voice, and those who, like myself, do not believe 
 that, are yet really united in the ultimate reason why 
 they believe the Ten Commandments to be divine. 
 They both believe it because they think that those 
 ten utterances are profoundly good and true. We 
 are well aware that the " Voice of Conscience M is a 
 mere metaphor, and that there is no voice and no 
 audible sound, but we do not therefore argue that 
 there is no conscience or that it does not " speak." 
 In the same way, though God did not utter the Ten 
 Commandments with an audible voice, there is never- 
 theless a true sense in which he may be said to have 
 enacted them. 
 
 It is most important that parents and teachers 
 should explain that it is no light and casual "testing " 
 and " gauging " to which I here refer. To dis- 
 tinguish the higher truth from the lower truth needs 
 thought and care and experience. Young people 
 are not to say lightly : " I do not think this is good 
 and true ; therefore it is not good and true." They 
 are probably not yet capable of judging. What 
 has been accepted by our forefathers, what is found 
 in the Bible, must not be lightly rejected or con- 
 demned. Trouble and thought are necessary, and 
 even more. The pure heart, the purified will, must 
 also have their say in the final award. There must 
 
i88 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 be no prejudice, no passion ; there must be serenity, 
 reverence, honesty of purpose, earnestness of mind. 
 
 As to the other laws in the Pentateuch over and 
 above the Ten Commandments, they comprise an 
 extraordinary and remarkable mixture of ordinances 
 on all sorts of moral, social, legal and ceremonial 
 matters and affairs. Many ancient nations have 
 looked upon their old customs and laws with 
 immense reverence and respect. Many have believed 
 that their laws were due to some one particular law- 
 giver, and that he was inspired by God to draw up 
 and announce his code. As a matter of fact, in such 
 cases the laws are usually not due to one man or to 
 one age. They have grown up gradually, and many 
 of them represent older customs turned into laws 
 either with or without modifications. Quite similar 
 is the case with the laws of the Hebrews as recorded 
 in the Pentateuch, though in many of these laws we 
 may also, as we believe, read the will and purpose 
 of the eternal God. 
 
 The story of the growth and development and 
 codification of Israel's laws is long and intricate, and 
 cannot be told here. The Israelites had a vivid 
 and abiding tradition of a great man who, at the 
 very outset of their national history, was unto them 
 Prophet, Deliverer, and Lawgiver. With God's help 
 he led them out of the Egyptian bondage, and at 
 God's bidding he gave them laws. That Moses was 
 a great and historical figure we may fully believe. 
 But legend has clustered round his name and his life. 
 No record of his life remains which was written soon 
 after his death. So we can never know exactly what 
 this great man Moses did and said, or what laws he 
 promulgated. The stories about him were told and 
 retold and changed and embellished. Many miracles 
 
xni PROPHETS AND THE LAW 189 
 
 grew up in relation to his deeds, making them (as 
 men then thought) still more wonderful and more 
 divine, for God was not yet realised in law. 
 
 The total result, of which the oldest written 
 portion is probably, as the best scholars now hold, 
 about four hundred years subsequent to Moses, and 
 the latest about eight hundred, we now possess in the 
 Pentateuch. Many of the laws must be much older 
 than the compilations in which we now read them, and 
 there may be laws, such as the famous Ten Command- 
 ments, which (in a shortened and simplified form) go 
 back to Moses himself. But all of them the latest 
 like the oldest are equally referred to him. 
 
 Moses was the original lawgiver, and old laws, 
 when, later on, they were written down, or 
 when, still later on, they were put together and 
 formed into a code, were confidently ascribed to 
 him. Moreover, just as the editors of the Prophets 
 saw nothing wrong in fathering their own changes 
 and additions upon the prophets whose imperfect 
 scrolls they edited, so did compilers and adapters 
 and later legislators see no harm in fathering their 
 additions and adaptations upon Moses. It was for 
 long thought to be justifiable and right to bring good 
 thoughts and wise laws before the world under the 
 name of some great and revered personality. More- 
 over, many of the laws when compiled, were already 
 old laws or old customs, and were genuinely believed 
 to be Mosaic. Many, especially of the later laws, deal 
 with sacrifices and with ordinances about priests, their 
 maintenance, dues, privileges and duties. It may 
 be that, in some few cases, the priests ascribed to 
 Moses ordinances and arrangements which were of 
 advantage to themselves, but, on the whole, the 
 good faith of the legislators need not be doubted. 
 
190 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP, xm 
 
 The laws they adopted, adapted, devised and arranged 
 were, in the large majority of cases, all drawn up 
 with the belief that a holy nation, obedient to the 
 will of God, would, by their means, be best and most 
 efficaciously secured. 
 
 Thus the Pentateuchal codes contain many laws 
 relating to circumstances and conditions which no 
 longer exist in our midst (such as polygamy, slavery, 
 sacrifices), or to subjects where we to-day have 
 different laws (such as the laws about land, divorce, 
 monarchy, sickness, sanitation, and so on). Even 
 the most orthodox Jews of to-day in England would 
 hold that a large proportion of the laws are not 
 applicable to modern Jews living in another country 
 and in wholly different conditions. Such laws 
 then are interesting to study, but they are obsolete. 
 Others again are connected with outward purity 
 and with outward holiness, of which the most 
 important are the laws about food, for these can 
 be, and by many Jews are, still observed to-day. 
 Others deal with Sabbaths and Festivals and their 
 right and due observance. Finally, there remain 
 the moral laws, the laws about righteousness and 
 justice and pity and loving-kindness. These laws, 
 almost always in the letter, and always in the spirit, 
 can never grow old or become obsolete. They are 
 eternally fresh and good and true. They still set 
 up before us the ideal towards which we should aim. 
 They bid us be pure in thought and deed, truthful, 
 just, honourable, loving, active in goodness and well- 
 doing. They bid us love God and love man. What 
 can laws and ideals do more ? 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 OF CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES AND THE BIBLE 
 
 In the first draft of this book no chapter was more 
 adversely criticised by my judges than this one. This 
 was partly due to the fact that the subject with which it 
 seeks to deal is extremely hard. It is a subject which, 
 perhaps, need not have been included in the book at all, 
 and I would ask parents and teachers to consider whether 
 it isy or is not, desirable to say anything about it to their 
 children. If it is desirable, then the stage at which the 
 desirability begins should also be borne in mind. The 
 adverse criticism was also due to this, that none of my 
 critics, except one, was a professed student of philosophy, 
 and still worse, that I, the writer, am painfully ignorant 
 of that subject. It is more than doubtful whether any 
 one who is not a philosopher ought to write on ethical 
 questions at all. It is very doubtful whether what he 
 does write can have the smallest value. He is liable to 
 make terrible blunders ; and he is also liable to be gravely 
 misunderstood. And for the same reasons the critics (with 
 all respect to the excellence of their intentions) were also 
 liable to make mistakes : if may be a case of the blind 
 and the short-sighted tumbling about together. 
 
 Tet a book on religion has occasionally to cross the 
 boundaries which separate religion from other provinces 
 of human thought. It has to speak on matters which 
 pertain to ethics and to psychology. And that is the case 
 
 191 
 
192 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 here. Who will say that a few paragraphs on conscience 
 are outside the limits of a book such as this ? But it is 
 precisely here as regards the conscience that all the 
 trouble has come. 
 
 One of my critics was especially severe. When he read 
 the draft, he thought that my book was intended to be 
 placed in the hands of children, whereas now it is 
 intended for parents and teachers only. The change might 
 alter his judgment. As things were, he thought that the 
 tendency of the teaching would be to make children and 
 young people conceited and sophistical. The dictates of 
 their own little, poorly furnished and ill-regulated con- 
 sciences were to be regarded by them as the supreme 
 authority. What they thought right was right. It 
 must override the wishes and views of their parents, the 
 accumulated wisdom of the community, the highest injunc- 
 tions of the Bible. What a door was thus opened to desire 
 and sophistry ! A child or a youth wants to do such and 
 such a thing. How quickly will he find reasons why it is 
 desirable, proper and right to do that thing. " Tes, my 
 dear mother, I have come to the conclusion that this is the 
 thing which it is right for me to do. My highest nature, 
 the voice of my conscience, which is the voice of God, tell me 
 that this, and only this, is what I must do" And what 
 is this conscience ? Perchance merely personal desire 
 dressed up in the garb of conscience, but so artfully 
 dressed up that the very person who dressed it up falls 
 a victim to the delusion. a There is nothing higher and 
 nobler, my dear mother^ than the voice of conscience ; 
 nothing truer and more sure." So the conceited young 
 sophist talks ; and so he follows his inclination, and thinks 
 himself a wise hero into the bargain ! 
 
 Needless to state that such practical deductions would 
 be an entire perversion of my intended teaching. And 
 yet, perhaps, it is needful to state it, for my critic thought 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 193 
 
 that the one was the logical outcome of the other. Still 
 more needful, however, so to clarify the teaching that the 
 criticism becomes unjustifiable, not only as regards the 
 intention, but also as regards the result. My intention 
 is of small matter ; the question is : What do I say ? 
 I must seek to avoid the very possibility of misunder- 
 standing. 
 
 The whole chapter arose out of the subject with which 
 it deals at its close, and to which it was intended to lead 
 up. Is the authority of the Bible weakened by the new 
 conception of it ? Is it weakened by a disbelief in the 
 physical miracles which it records ? And secondly, what 
 exactly was, or is, or should be, that authority ? What 
 is its relation to the " authority " of conscience ? (For we 
 should all agree should we not? that conscience 
 has some authority.) The Ten Commandments are mixed 
 up with physical miracles. The newer conception of the 
 Biblical narratives, which has been set forth in this book, 
 leads us to believe that the Ten Commandments were not 
 spoken by God in the manner described in Exodus (chaps, 
 xix. and #*.). Is the authority of the Ten Command- 
 ments thereby impaired ? My object was and is to show 
 that the authority of the Ten Commandments is not 
 impaired, but I can, as I believe, only do this by setting 
 that authority in its true relation to the anthority of 
 conscience. The object of the chapter is not really 
 to weaken other authorities, but, on the contrary, to 
 strengthen them. Of course both my critics and myself 
 must start from a common platform. We must both 
 agree in disbelieving that the Ten Commandments were 
 spoken by God in the manner, and under the circum- 
 stances, recorded in Exodus xix. and xx. We have both 
 to assume that, at some period in their growth, children 
 are told that we have to separate the Commandments 
 from their setting. The problem common to us both is : 
 
 o 
 
i 9 4 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 how to preserve the authority of the Ten Commandments 
 when they are thus separated. 
 
 The drift of my reply is to show that, still as of old, 
 God comes first. Still, as of old, God is the origin and 
 the source. Still, as of old, righteousness and truth have 
 only appeared on earth and in man because God is, 
 because of the divine source, the divine origin. We 
 recognise the divinity of the Ten Commandments, because 
 in us there is divinity. The undivine cannot recognise 
 the divine: the non -righteous cannot recognise the 
 righteous. Because the Commandments are good, there- 
 fore they are of God. And it is we who have to 
 recognise that they are good, in order to render unto them 
 a voluntary moral obedience. It is only because we have 
 goodness the knowledge of right and wrong in us that 
 we can recognise that the Commandments are good. And it 
 is only because God is that we have goodness in us. This^ 
 then, is the chain, and these are its links. God starts the 
 whole thing in the old conception as in the new. Nay, 
 more. For 1 believe that the chain and the order of the 
 links are the same whether God " spoke " the Command- 
 ments in the manner recorded in Exodus or whether he 
 did not. He comes first: then we with our conscience, 
 our reason, our knowledge of good and evil; then the 
 Commandments with our recognition of them as " divine" 
 But, perhaps, the trouble has come because I did not 
 sufficiently bring out the old useful Aristotelian distinc- 
 tion between first in nature and first in time. I do not 
 mean (as perhaps I was supposed to mean) that each 
 individual child has to be^ as it were, freshly presented 
 to the Ten Commandments for him to adjudicate on their 
 merits and " divinity." The conscience of each indi- 
 vidual must be slowly and carefully formed by a process 
 in which the Ten Commandments will themselves play 
 a part. Each child must be told to trust his conscience 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 195 
 
 so far as it agrees with the commands of his parents , the 
 accumulated moral wisdom and experience of the race, 
 the highest injunctions of the Bible ; he must mistrust 
 his conscience if it seems to go against these. Only 
 slowly, with great searchings of heart and of brain, dart 
 we go against those who are older, wiser, better and 
 more experienced than we. Let us be careful that we 
 do not confuse the voice of conscience the pure conception 
 of right with the impure suggestions of desire y inclina- 
 tion^ or selfishness. 
 
 If my remarks are taken with these provisos \and 
 saving clauses^ they will not in their now modified form 
 cause (as I hope and believe) misapprehension or 
 uneasiness. On the contrary^ I trust that, rightly ex- 
 plained, they will tend to make the children more humble 
 and reverential upon the one hand, and more truly con- 
 scientious and self-reliant upon the other. For the four 
 virtues which these four adjectives connote are not 
 incompatible with each other. Moral independence, at 
 the right stage and in the right sense, is not inconsistent 
 with moral humility. 
 
 LET me start this chapter by asking : Why do you 
 and I ever take any trouble either to refrain from 
 doing what we think to be wrong, or to do what we 
 think to be right ? Several answers suggest them- 
 selves. To please and obey our parents might be 
 one. To please and obey God, our Master and our 
 Lord, might be another. We feel and know and are 
 assured that it is right to please and obey our parents, 
 to please and obey God. Let us speak of this feel- 
 ing, knowledge and assurance as our " conscience." 
 And so we might say that we take trouble to refrain 
 from doing what is wrong, or to do what is right, 
 because our conscience so urges and orders us. (I 
 
196 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 will not here attempt to discuss the further and very 
 difficult question what exactly our conscience is, and 
 how it has grown up, not merely in ourselves, but 
 also in the race.) If it be asked, Why do we bother 
 our heads about, or recognise the jurisdiction of, con- 
 science ? the true reply, as I believe, is : We bother 
 our heads about, and we recognise the jurisdiction 
 of, conscience, because, in the last resort, and whatever 
 its exact history, we believe that conscience has arisen 
 owing to the existence of the all-wise and all-good 
 God. We believe that there is a reality in righteous- 
 ness because we believe that God is righteous, and 
 therefore when we obey conscience, we believe that 
 in a very real sense we are obeying God. Thus 
 morality and religion are inseparably intertwined, for 
 whenever we do what we think right, we believe that 
 we are obeying God and doing his will ; whenever 
 we do wrong, we believe that we are disobeying God 
 and violating his will. The authority of conscience 
 lies for us, in the last resort, in our belief that if it 
 were not for a righteous God, there could not be an 
 ordering conscience. 
 
 Thus this feeling, knowledge or assurance of 
 right and wrong, which bids us do or refrain from 
 doing, which causes remorse when we violate its 
 orders, and satisfaction when we obey them, is a 
 part or aspect of the divine image in which we are 
 created. It is our noblest possession, and should 
 be treated with the most scrupulous care. More- 
 over, it is not something apart from us, it is a part 
 of us. Each part of us is liable to be influenced 
 by every other part, and no part is, as it were, 
 born full-fledged. Our reason is divine, but it 
 grows ; we are never very wise, but we are, let us 
 hope, less wise at ten than at twenty. And at ten, 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 197 
 
 and even at twenty, we cannot always depend upon 
 our conscience to tell us unerringly what is right 
 and what is wrong. The conscience has to be in- 
 formed ; it has to become wise and delicate. It has 
 to learn to distinguish between what is really good 
 and what is seemingly good. And so it has to 
 depend for this upon the consciences of those who 
 are older and wiser, upon the recorded consciences 
 and judgments of the best and wisest and most 
 "inspired" men of the past. Our conscience may 
 lead us astray, because it is ill-informed, or because 
 it has been warped by mistaking inclination for duty. 
 In any difficult situation, in any new problem, its 
 decisions will need testing by reference to others, or 
 by reference to the Bible, as containing very wise 
 moral judgments of inspired men, as well as by 
 anxious thought and humble prayer. But, neverthe- 
 less, conscience, for all its frailty, for all its imper- 
 fections, is divine, and purified, tested, strengthened, 
 it is the final court of appeal for the grown-up man 
 and woman, that is, for those who have reached a 
 condition in which their lives are more or less in 
 their own independent control. Behind and beyond 
 this court of appeal it is, in the last resort, impossible 
 to go. Yet a final court of appeal may make 
 mistakes, and so conscience, being a divine faculty 
 within a human personality, cannot be perfect. 
 
 But the remarkable thing about conscience is that 
 just as it may tell us what to do, so by doing what 
 we ought we improve our conscience. The eyes of 
 conscience become keener by good and wise action ; 
 they become duller and more contracted by evil and 
 foolish doing. Hence a further solemnity about 
 our whole life. As we do, so and more shall we do. 
 As we do, so shall we know. The better we do, the 
 
198 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 better we shall understand. The better we under- 
 stand and know, the better we shall do. It is a 
 regular circle. Result becomes cause. Narrow good- 
 ness leads to narrow insight. Poor achievements 
 end in a cheap conscience. 
 
 It is, as I said, conscience which tells us that 
 certain motives or actions are good. Simple motives 
 and simple actions are accepted by conscience in 
 childhood. A child feels that it ought to please 
 and obey his parents, that it ought to please and 
 obey the good and wise God. Behind, then, all 
 motives stands, in the last resort, our conscience, 
 stand ourselves approving (or condemning). 
 
 We speak of good motives and bad motives. 
 Thus the wish to please our parents is a good motive ; 
 the desire to injure our neighbour is a bad motive. 
 Some good motives are better than others. One 
 might create a scale of motives, and one might show 
 how some motives which were justifiable in one age 
 which were as good as could then be discerned 
 are less justifiable now, because we can, and therefore 
 ought to, " know better. There are ethical motives, 
 and there are religious motives. The highest religious 
 motive is the love of God, the love of him who 
 is perfect righteousness and perfect wisdom, and 
 who is the author and source of our own righteous- 
 ness and wisdom. 
 
 There are two lower religious motives which have 
 had much influence in the world, and about which a 
 few more words may perhaps be fitly added here the 
 fear of divine punishment, the hope of divine reward, 
 whether in this world or the next. We cannot deny 
 that they are motives which have impelled men to 
 refrain from evil and to accomplish good. How far 
 the " good " thus done has been and is the highest 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 199 
 
 good in quality and purity, is another question. We 
 might, however, ask : Are these motives in them- 
 selves good motives? Do trained and educated 
 consciences approve of them to-day ? 
 
 I fancy the answer to such a question would be 
 something as follows : Wherever the reward hoped for 
 is itself of a moral and religious character, the motive 
 is one which we can approve of even to-day. And so, 
 equally, as regards the punishment feared. If I hope to 
 become better and wiser by a certain action, if I hope, 
 by doing the right, to know God more fully, whether 
 here or hereafter, such motives are pure and good. 
 Even if I hope to secure the happiness which will 
 be contained in becoming better and wiser, the joy 
 which will be contained in knowing God more fully, 
 the motive is still pure and good. But if the motive 
 is to obtain a boon which in itself is not connected 
 with goodness, knowledge or God, then the motive 
 seems more doubtful, and may even be wholly objec- 
 tionable. And so with regard to the fear of punish- 
 ment. If we refrain from evil lest our souls become 
 stained with sin, lest we grow less sensitive to good- 
 ness, less appreciative of love, and more distant from 
 God, whether in this world or the next, the motive 
 is pure. If we refrain from evil for fear of the pain 
 and remorse which such becoming worse may bring 
 with it, then also is the motive pure. But if we 
 refrain through fear of a punishment which should 
 hurt the body, but not the soul, or of a punishment 
 which, in another world, should hurt the soul, as in 
 this world we may hurt the body, then is the motive 
 impure. To do good for the hope of cakes and ale 
 is a poor motive ; to refrain from evil for fear of 
 stripes and weals is a poor motive. 
 
 Yet these motives, poor 'and inadequate for us 
 
200 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 to-day, may have been necessary in the development 
 and strengthening of human goodness. God has 
 thought fit to use them in the process of human 
 education. The higher motives are later than the 
 poorer motives, and were only attained or revealed 
 when man was, as it were, able to profit by them and 
 make use of them. 
 
 If we read the Book of Deuteronomy and other 
 books of the Bible, we shall find frequent examples 
 of the poorer motive. " Do the right and you will 
 be prosperous. Do the wrong and you will be un- 
 happy." But in the later Rabbinic period, the higher 
 motive is constantly put forward. The Divine Spirit 
 so educated our forefathers and illumined them that 
 sayings such as, " The reward of a command is a 
 command" (i.e. the reward of doing good is becom- 
 ing good), " The punishment of a sin is a sin " (i.e. 
 the punishment of doing evil is becoming evil), grow 
 frequent and habitual. The commandments of God 
 are to be done for their own sake and from love, 
 not for the rewards which will result from them. 
 The Rabbis were keen to denounce the poverty of 
 the motive of fear. The Law the will of God 
 must be observed for its own sake and for the love 
 of that will and of its divine source. They invented 
 a technical term " for its own sake," which literally 
 means only " for its name." But they saw how, 
 even within the individual, the higher motive might 
 grow out of the lower. Obey God's commands 
 for the sake of reward, and you may at last obey 
 them for their own sake. Out of the fear of God 
 may spring the love of God. 
 
 Let me here observe that the outward rewards 
 and punishments promised and threatened in the 
 Law must not be condemned or dismissed too 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 201 
 
 lightly. For, first, they affect the nation, not 
 merely the individual. It is -not merely the indi- 
 vidual's own hope of happiness or fear of pain which 
 is appealed to, but rather his desire to obtain happi- 
 ness for his family, his tribe, his people. Secondly, 
 we have to remember that there is a causal connec- 
 tion between righteousness and prosperity. Man, 
 after all, is not being bribed or frightened by results 
 which have no relation to his deeds. There is, and 
 as we believe, there should be, " in the nature of 
 things," some relation between righteousness and 
 prosperity. A world in which righteousness always 
 produced misery even external misery would not 
 be a world which was all the more ruled by God than 
 ours. There is, therefore, some truth in the con- 
 nection, though it is not a truth which is always 
 exemplified, and though to do righteousness for the 
 sake of obtaining prosperity docs not constitute the 
 best and purest motive for well-doing. 
 
 It may be added that we do not presume to say 
 what will be the destiny of the human soul after our 
 bodily death. It may be that all of us have need of 
 "punishment" for a punishment which is dis- 
 ciplinary and not retributive. We do not venture, 
 we are not able, to surmise what the nature of such 
 punishments may be. All we need feel sure of is 
 that no punishments will befall us except for our 
 own good, and then the fear of them will not take 
 the place of purer and more spiritual motives. 
 
 In the same way we do not know, and we 
 cannot presume to say, what may be the nature of 
 God's rewards. As that beautiful verse in Isaiah says, 
 in the old English version (though it is probably 
 not the meaning of the Hebrew) : " For since the 
 beginning of the world men have not heard, nor 
 
202 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O 
 God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that 
 waiteth for Him." These rewards will, however, not 
 be the motive for our right-doing except in so far as 
 we conceive them as closely connected with the fuller 
 knowledge of God, which itself implies a fuller know- 
 ledge of righteousness and a deeper apprehension of 
 truth. We may well and properly do good in order 
 to obtain God's rewards, if by those rewards we mean 
 a fuller realisation of righteousness and of God. 
 
 I have said that behind all motives, suggesting, 
 accepting, condemning, or amending them, stands 
 our own self, stands finally our conscience. Not a 
 conscience in proud independence and conceited 
 assurance of infallibility, but a conscience which is 
 continually seeking, as occasion arises, to improve 
 its delicacy, its depth and its insight. This is the 
 conscience, of which I think I was right in saying 
 that we take trouble to refrain from doing what is 
 wrong, and take trouble to do what is right, because 
 our conscience so urges and orders us. 
 
 But some ardent Jews, some sincere and noble 
 persons, might perhaps here say that there is some- 
 thing even behind conscience, which is at once both 
 the supreme arbiter of what constitutes right and a 
 supreme motive for doing it. " Why do we do 
 right, do you ask ? " so they say to us. " Why do 
 we try to refrain from yielding to temptation ? " 
 It is because the Bible tells us that we ought to do 
 right, and because the Bible tells us that we ought 
 to avoid wrong. How, again, do we know and 
 judge what is right and what is wrong ? It is 
 because the Bible > and especially the Pentateuch, has 
 told us that such-and-such things are right, and that 
 such-and-such things are wrong. The Bible is the 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 203 
 
 word of God, and we know what is right and wrong 
 because the Bible tells us what they are. And even 
 as we know what is right and wrong from the Bible, 
 so is it the Bible which supplies the motive and the 
 reason for our doing the right and avoiding the 
 wrong. We should not care to resist temptation, or 
 have the strength to do so, unless we knew through 
 the Bible that God had bidden us resist it. " We 
 seek to be kind and just and loving, because God in 
 the Bible orders us to be so." 
 
 What are we to say as to this ? I fancy that we 
 must distinguish. So far as those who write and 
 speak thus about the Bible mean that we are less 
 likely to do and to be good without a belief in God, 
 without a belief that God is the source and guarantee 
 of righteousness, I entirely agree with them. I have, 
 in this book, again and again insisted that the 
 strength of the call of conscience lies in our belief 
 that its ultimate author is God. I have insisted that 
 the very existence of goodness in man is due to the 
 existence of a permanent and divine goodness which 
 is prior to, and independent of, ourselves. I am 
 inclined to believe that this is what those persons, 
 who declare that we do good because the Bible bids 
 us, really mean. They hold that morality the 
 supremacy of righteousness cannot, as the phrase 
 goes, get on without religion. 
 
 Perhaps they would say in reply to this : " Very 
 well : assume that this is what we do mean, but, 
 if so, we must add this, namely, that if human 
 righteousness cannot ' get on ' without religion, 
 so religion cannot ' get on ' without the Bible." 
 
 What do they mean by this ? I suppose they 
 mean that people will not continue to believe in 
 God, and will not continue to believe that God is 
 
204 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the source of righteousness, unless they also believe 
 that the Bible is his " word," and that in the Bible 
 he has commanded us to be holy and good. There 
 will otherwise, at any rate, be no living belief in God 
 sufficiently strong and impelling to enable men to 
 resist temptation, and to stir and spur them forward 
 on the path of righteousness. 
 
 Happily there is no question of losing the Bible ! 
 There is no question of not continuing to use it as 
 the great source of moral and religious truth. There 
 is no question of its not remaining the chief source 
 from which our conscience will be fed, stimulated 
 and inspired. There is therefore no question what- 
 ever of " getting on " without the Bible. 
 
 The difference between Liberal and Conservative 
 Judaism at this point is not the religious excellence 
 of the Bible, but the proof of its excellence. We 
 both say that the Bible is inspired, but the Con- 
 servatives (if I understand them aright) say that 
 the inspiration of the Bible (together with the 
 accuracy of its miracles) is the proof of its excellence 
 (as well as the guarantee of its authority), whereas 
 we Liberals say that the excellence of the Bible is the 
 proof of its inspiration. The excellence, like the 
 authority and the divineness, of the Ten Command- 
 ments, for example, lies not in the fact that the Ten 
 Commandments are in the Bible, or in the miraculous 
 incidents which are supposed to have accompanied 
 their promulgation ; it lies in themselves. 
 
 And if it lies in themselves, the excellence can 
 only be acknowledged and revered by those who have 
 a conscience through which the good and the true are 
 recognised as such. The divineness of the Bible 
 as consisting in this, that the Bible has within it much 
 goodness and truth, and that the source of goodness 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 205 
 
 and truth is God can only be recognised by those 
 who believe in God. To a person without a 
 conscience, and without a belief in God, the Bible 
 would have no authority and its message no appeal. 
 
 Yet that the Bible has strengthened conscience is 
 emphatically true. And that the Bible can and will 
 continue to strengthen conscience is also, to my 
 thinking, unquestionable. The Bible was and is 
 for Jews the greatest expression of God's will, the 
 fullest measure of his revelation unto man. No other 
 book is so manifestly inspired ; no other book speaks 
 to us with the same authority the authority of its 
 excellence. 
 
 But some will reply : " The Bible cannot even 
 strengthen conscience unless you * believe in it.' 
 And you do not ' believe in it ' unless you believe 
 that it is the absolute, undiluted and perfect word of 
 God. It is not enough to say that the command, 
 * Thou shalt not steal ' is divine, because righteous- 
 ness is divine, and whatever helps to its production, 
 or prevents the accomplishment of sin, is divine. 
 That is not enough. The command 'Thou shalt 
 not steal ' is divine, because it is in the book, or, more 
 accurately, it is divine because God said it. We 
 know that stealing is wrong, because God has told us 
 it is wrong." 
 
 Here it is, I think, that our friends exaggerate. 
 The splendour and greatness of the Bible we feel as 
 well as they, but we do not believe that stealing is 
 wrong merely because it says so in the Bible, or that 
 we only know that stealing is wrong merely because 
 in the Bible we are told that God bade us refrain 
 from stealing. 
 
 If you ask me why I believe that there is a divine 
 element in the Bible, I can only reply because of its 
 
206 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 religious excellence, because of its righteousness and 
 truth, because of its effects for righteousness and 
 truth. And if you believe that there is not only 
 a divine element in the Bible, but that the Bible is all 
 divine, I do not understand how you can believe 
 that, unless it is because you believe that there is 
 nothing in the Bible but sheer and perfect goodness 
 and truth. The excellence and the goodness prove 
 the divineness. 
 
 Or let us put it this way. Suppose we heard a 
 supernatural voice telling us to act in a certain way. 
 Unless we believed that its author was good, the 
 voice would have no authority for us. How should 
 we know whether the author was good? I see no 
 other test than this : if what the voice said com- 
 mended itself to our God -given conscience. Thus 
 always we come back to the same ultimate test, 
 our trained and educated conscience, the slow pro- 
 duct it may be of long social growth, itself in any 
 individual case liable to error, and only gradually 
 acquiring better insight and depth, but yet in the last 
 resort guaranteed and rendered possible by God. 
 
 Man can only depend upon himself for his 
 estimate of right and wrong, truth and falsehood. 
 God, as we believe, helps him, but invisibly, inaudibly, 
 internally. Yet I do not mean that every youthful 
 individual conscience, or even every adult conscience, 
 can off-hand proclaim, without doubt and hesitation, 
 in complicated situations, the right and the wrong. 
 It is, indeed, for most of us usually easy to know the 
 right : the hard thing is to do it. We know that 
 we ought not to be lazy and ill-tempered and selfish : 
 yet we frequently are all three, wittingly and know- 
 ingly. But it is not always easy to know the right, 
 and far be it from me to encourage conceit, 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 207 
 
 precipitancy, false independence, unwillingness to 
 take advice, affected superiority to the great words 
 and ordinances of the Bible. All I want to urge is 
 that the moral and religious excellence of the Bible is 
 not contained anywhere than in that excellence, and 
 is not proved except by that excellence. And 0/"that 
 excellence our human consciences are necessarily the 
 only judges. From the very nature of the case there 
 can be no other. The breakdown of the miraculous 
 does not therefore destroy the authority of the moral 
 and religious excellence of the Bible : for that 
 authority cannot be outside the excellence. It can 
 only lie within it. 
 
 Thus the divinity of the Bible can only be proved 
 by the goodness and truth of the Bible. The Bible 
 itself played a very large part in educating us, and in 
 enabling us to perceive its goodness and truth. 
 Certain utterances, certain statements, are not. good 
 and true because they are found in the Bible, but the 
 Bible by including them has been a chief means by 
 which we have gained a knowledge of them, and by 
 which we have, as it were, had our conscience so 
 purified, so moralised, that it can now serve to us as a 
 clearer and surer test than it might have done had 
 there been no Bible to instruct us. Thus the Bible 
 has helped us to prove its own divinity by its 
 own excellence. For divinity means to us eternal 
 righteousness and truth. If you ask me to believe 
 that a book, a law, a saying, is divine, you must 
 ask me to believe that it is divine because it is 
 good and true, and I can only be asked to believe 
 that it is good and true if my conscience, after 
 sifting the matter as best I can, consulting other 
 persons wiser and better than I, and maturely 
 weighing and considering the question all round, 
 
208 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 allows me to hold and believe that it is good and 
 true. If goodness is the test of divinity, divinity 
 cannot be the test of goodness. And, after all, for 
 us to-day there is no meaning in divinity except 
 goodness and truth. A bad or false God is a con- 
 tradiction in terms. But if such a God existed, he 
 would have no authority over us except the authority 
 of power. Out of prudence it might be wiser for 
 us to conform to his commands : our consciences he 
 could not control. 
 
 Now if this be so, if, namely, the measure of the 
 divinity of the Bible is its measure of goodness and 
 truth -and of its influence for goodness and truth, 
 then surely its divineness is very great. But it is not 
 all divine, for it is not all perfectly good, and all 
 perfectly true. There is a lower human element as 
 well as a higher divine element, for though the Bible 
 is all written by men, yet, in the light of what has 
 already been said in this book, it is true to say that 
 its goodness and truth are divine, and that its errors 
 and its inadequacies are human. Yet we have always 
 to remember that what may be inadequate for us now 
 and even erroneous, may in its own day have been a 
 moral advance. Hence even in what is now recognised 
 as error there may be past inspiration. 
 
 What we get from examining the Bible itself is 
 what we might expect to get before we began. For 
 we could not expect to find perfection in any human 
 product. Perfection is the inalienable quality of 
 God, which even he cannot grant to the beings whom 
 he has made. Perfect righteousness, perfect truth, 
 are not capable of being embodied in a book, or of 
 being contained in any single generation or in any 
 human mind. The Divine Spirit, as we believe, helps 
 the human spirit in its growth and development. 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 209 
 
 God reveals himself in different degrees to man, but 
 the most inspired writer or speaker is still a man ; 
 his inspiration is no guarantee that he will not make 
 mistakes. He will exaggerate ; he will err ; he will 
 have his national limitations and prejudices. Even 
 in his very conceptions of righteousness he will 
 remain, in many ways, the child of his age. All this 
 we should expect a priori, for the divine cannot be 
 completely contained in a human brain, a human 
 heart, a human will. God cannot make man his 
 secretary or phonograph ; in his perfection God 
 remains alone. No human being can be invested 
 with his absoluteness. The errors and limitations 
 which we find in every collection of words attributed 
 to a man, however much also attributed to God, are 
 just what we might expect. 
 
 Every book, be it the collection of books which 
 the Jews regard as " the Bible," or be it the larger 
 collection which our Christian fellow-citizens regard 
 as the Bible, or be it any other collection of sacred 
 writings which other groups of men, such as Mahom- 
 medans or Buddhists, regard as their Bible, must 
 come before the bar of our careful, sober, humble, 
 fearless, honest, intellectual and moral judgment. 
 No book can be taken at its valuation : we can regard 
 each book only as our reason and our conscience, 
 acting with all care and reverence, may dictate. The 
 Hebrew Bible need not fear to come before such a 
 tribunal. However much better and purer human 
 reason and conscience may become, I do not believe 
 that they will ever refuse to bow in reverence before 
 Prophets, Law and Writings, or ever deny their 
 excellence, nobility, inspiration. 
 
 But this does not mean that every announcement 
 of the Prophets, or every ordinance in the Law, will 
 
 p 
 
210 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 be regarded as equally excellent, noble and inspired. 
 We have seen how it was that the Prophets with all 
 sincerity believed that what they felt themselves 
 impelled to say was the message and order of God. 
 They were not wholly wrong, but they were not 
 wholly right. They were (as I believe) inspired 
 (and even their editors were sometimes inspired), 
 but this inspiration did not destroy and supplant 
 their human personality : it only, as we may say, 
 using sensuous metaphors to express spiritual realities, 
 coloured or purified or deepened it. They had 
 thoughts and visions which carried them, in part, 
 beyond the range of their contemporaries, but which, 
 in part, were limited and determined by current 
 opinions, prejudices, passions or desires. All that 
 we can do is to separate, so far as we can, what 
 appears to us permanently true and good from what 
 appears to us transitory, or from what appears to us 
 as, now at least, without value and truth. And when 
 I say " appears to us/' I again do not mean what 
 appears to me individually, off-hand, and irresponsibly. 
 As the social conscience of the community helps 
 to train the individual, as my knowledge of good 
 and evil comes to me from my 1 environment, from 
 study, from the teaching of the past and of my 
 contemporaries, so too my judgments about the 
 " permanent " and the " transitory " in the Bible. 
 Those judgments must be based upon careful study, 
 upon the opinions of the men most qualified to speak, 
 upon the moral and religious consciousness of the 
 community, and of the best and wisest persons 
 within it. 
 
 Similarly as to the laws. We have seen how all 
 the Pentateuchal laws, of whatever date, were put, 
 one and all, into the mouth of Moses, who was 
 
xiv CONSCIENCE AND MOTIVES 211 
 
 supposed to have received them from God. In the 
 large majority of cases the laws were compiled from 
 other laws or from traditional usages already existing. 
 They were not new inventions of the moment. To 
 the compiler the laws which he picked out as good 
 and useful and true were laws to which God (as he 
 believed) had given his sanction and approval. To 
 us, however, these laws, as I have already pointed 
 out, are only divine through their own excellence, or 
 divine through their effect for good. Many moral 
 laws we may regard as "divine" or inspired because of 
 their subject-matter. Some ritual laws, such as the 
 Sabbath, we may regard as divine or inspired because of 
 their effects. We might, perhaps, in a certain rather 
 distant sense, regard the dietary laws as inspired, even 
 though, or even because, we are well aware that they 
 are merely codifications and adaptations of customs 
 and taboos, either common, or consciously opposed, 
 to those of many other nations at similar grades 
 of civilisation and opinion. Nevertheless, we might 
 perhaps regard them as inspired, if by their observance 
 the Jews have been helped towards righteousness, or 
 disciplined in holy living. Such a belief would not 
 necessarily imply that we are bound to observe them 
 ourselves, for it does not follow that we require such 
 disciplinal crutches any longer, or that for us, with 
 our changed belief as to their true origin, they 
 can serve as crutches, even if crutches were good 
 for us to have. This remains to be considered. 1 
 
 1 One of my critics, whose notes were only too few and far between, says 
 that it should be added here and I commend his remark to the earnest 
 attention of teachers and parents that we may require other kinds of discipline, 
 peculiar and more suited to our own age. And is not (so he exclaims) one good 
 test of the divinity of laws and ordinances, if they are the most suitable 
 discipline for the human soul at the time when conscience approves and accepts 
 them ? Are they not divine because they are part of the divine training and 
 education ? But this (he observes) does not mean that a time does not come 
 (as he thinks it has come as regards the dietary laws) when they have rightly to 
 
212 LIBERAL JUDAISM CH. xiv 
 
 Other laws again, such as the laws about sacrifices, 
 may not seem to us divine either in one sense or the 
 other, except that (as in the theory of Maimonides) 
 they may have been educational^ seeing that while 
 they made concessions to the current ideas as to 
 the meaning of worship, the Biblical sacrifices were 
 to be offered to one God, and not to many gods. 
 Finally, some laws not many are simply instances 
 of what we now call superstition, that is, of a 
 moral and intellectual standpoint which has passed 
 away, because the increased knowledge and experience 
 which God has vouchsafed to us have raised us 
 above it. Enough, however, remains, even after all 
 deductions have been made, to justify us in regarding 
 the so-called Mosaic Code with abiding reverence 
 and admiration, even as we must also humbly and 
 ardently honour it when we remember the place 
 which it has filled, and the influence which it has 
 exercised, in the long history of Israel. We look 
 with veneration upon a code which has wrought such 
 effects for good upon our ancestors and indeed upon 
 the world at large. The ideal command, " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God," and the ideal injunction, 
 " Ye shall be holy," come home to us with deeper 
 truth, confirmation and authority, when we find them 
 invested with the sanction of the ages, inscribed upon 
 the banner of our history, and proclaimed as the 
 keynote of our religion by unknown speakers and 
 writers, upon whom, as we believe, there rested the 
 inspiration of the all-perfect God. 
 
 pass away. A discipline to-day may consist in the sustained courage and insight 
 necessary to distinguish the abiding from the temporary, the living from the 
 obsolete, and to fulfil those ethical and religious ends for the sake of which 
 those fading ordinances were enacted and enjoined. The more difficult discipline 
 is ours. Moreover, let it not be forgotten (says my critic) that revelation is 
 continuous. Nothing that has helped mankind has existed in vain. We are the 
 better for its existence even though we ourselves require it no more. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 OF LEGALISM AND THE LAWS OF THE 
 PENTATEUCH 
 
 The object of this chapter, and of the chapter which 
 immediately succeeds //, needs a little explanation and 
 introduction. 1 want to show that, on the one hand, 
 there is a real difference between Liberal and Conserva- 
 tive Judaism as regards the Pentateuchal Law, but //;<//, 
 on the other hand, Liberal Judaism is still in a certain 
 modified sense (to be explained) a legal religion. And, 
 again, I want to show that Liberal Judaism, any more 
 than Conservative Judaism, is not an easy-going 
 religion, but that it is a religion involving ana demand- 
 ing energy^ resolution, self-sacrifice, discipline. 
 
 I would impress upon parents that Liberal Judaism 
 takes up a different attitude towards the Law because 
 of a different belief as to its origin and character, not 
 because of practical convenience. A man who eats hare 
 because he deliberately believes that to-day the dietary 
 laws need or should no longer be ob&eived, may be 
 respected. A man who eats hare because he finds it 
 convenient, is to be despised. The old "authority " of the 
 Bible may no longer (as I have explained in the last 
 chapter) be theoretically defensible. But how infinitely 
 worse is the arbitrament of convenience. And how often 
 has this new authority succeeded to the old. The time 
 has surely come, as one of my critics puts it, to u urge 
 
 213 
 
2i 4 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 parents no longer to halt between two opinions. Truth 
 they must seek and follow as their guide, and not con- 
 venience. They must tell their children clearly : 'Our 
 grandfathers observed certain ordinances because they 
 found the order for their observance in the Bible. I 
 want you to observe them, not merely because they are 
 ordained in the Bible, but because their observance will 
 help to make you good and faithful, because the religious 
 brotherhood to which you belong requires the observance 
 of these ordinances in order to keep its mission clearly 
 before its eyes. You must keep them even though they 
 cost you trouble and sacrifice. If you neglect to keep 
 them^ you are a coward and a traitor. Other ordinances ', 
 again, which our grandfathers kept will no longer help 
 to make you good, and will not further the objects of our 
 brotherhood. These you need not observe? ' I agree 
 with these statements of my critic. The time for plain, 
 simple, honest speaking has come. But the time has 
 also come, or rather it has never ceased^ for strenuous- 
 ness, for resolve^ for sacrifice. The great object of 
 education is not to give our children a good time. The 
 great object is to give them the taste for righteousness 
 and the love of God. 
 
 FOR an immense period in the history of Judaism 
 the most important part of the Bible was undoubtedly 
 the Pentateuch. Though the older custom seems to 
 have been different, yet it became usual to place only 
 the Pentateuch in the Ark or Chest, which con- 
 stituted, as it still constitutes, the most sacred spot 
 in the Synagogue. The Prophets found no place 
 there. The Pentateuch was regarded as inspired in 
 a special and peculiar sense. The events described 
 in it were all literally true : all of them (at least 
 from Abraham onwards) happened exactly as they 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 215 
 
 are told. Egyptian plagues and Israelite deliverance : 
 the thunders of Sinai, the proclamation of the Ten 
 Words, all took place exactly as the record declares. 
 All the laws were supposed to be as good, as perfect, 
 as wise, and as immutable, as God himself. All were 
 supposed to date from the same epoch. They were 
 all given by God to Moses. They had not existed 
 before his time ; after his death so far as the written 
 laws are concerned none were added. Thus Juda- 
 ism, for good and for evil, became a legal religion. 
 Legalism gave to Judaism great qualities and great 
 strength : it also gave to Judaism or rather to the 
 Judaism of the long legal period the defects of its 
 qualities, for every religious system which has 
 strength is likely also to possess some weaknesses. 
 
 People tended to identify goodness with the 
 keeping of the commands in the Law. Many of 
 these commands were of a ritual character ; promi- 
 nent among the ritual laws were the laws about food 
 and the laws about the Sabbath. These ordinances 
 were interpreted and elaborated by oral tradition 
 and by the so-called Oral Law, and they were fre- 
 quently interpreted in the direction of increased 
 stringency. Thus the Pentateuch says : " Thou 
 shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk/' The 
 Rabbis gradually interpreted this law in such a 
 manner that they forbade any meat being eaten or 
 cooked with milk or with the product of milk. 
 Similarly extended and elaborated became the laws 
 about the Sabbath. The Pentateuch says that upon 
 the Sabbath day you must do no work. But what is 
 " work " ? What is work for one man might be 
 play for another. But instead of leaving the defini- 
 tion of work to the common sense and good feeling 
 of the individual, the Rabbis, because the Sabbath 
 
216 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 was part of a legal system, entered, as lawyers are 
 often inclined to do, upon long casuistical and 
 juridical discussions, with the result that they 
 extended the conception of work in a most extra- 
 ordinary manner. To write a letter is work ; to 
 play the piano for pleasure is work ; to carry an 
 umbrella is work, and so on. The spirit of the 
 command tended to be suffocated under the letter. 
 For to one man (the professional) to play the piano 
 is indeed work ; to another it may be the most 
 delightful relaxation. And so on. I have known 
 young men at Oxford who broke the spirit of the 
 Sabbath by going to lectures (their actual work) upon 
 Saturdays, but who observed the letter by refraining 
 from taking written notes. To such unsatisfactory 
 results (as it seems to me) may the casuistry of 
 Jegalism lead. Yet such was the native power of 
 Judaism, such the force of the other non- legal 
 elements of the religion, such the deeper religious 
 sense of the Rabbis themselves, that the evils of 
 legalism throughout the ages have been less large 
 and important than its excellences. For so long as it 
 was really believed that the Law in its entirety was 
 the exact word of God> so long was it a duty and a 
 pleasure and a sanctification to observe it. The 
 evils of legalism are most conspicuous when its 
 theoretic basis is withdrawn. 
 
 What are these evils over and above those to 
 which I have just alluded ? There is, first of all, a 
 certain danger lest attention should be too much 
 concentrated upon the ceremonial, instead of the 
 moral aspects and elements, of religion. A " pious " 
 Jew has occasionally been regarded as a man who is 
 very strict about the dietary laws and the Sabbath. 
 But obviously a " pious " Jew is far more correctly 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 217 
 
 described as a Jew who has a passion for righteous- 
 ness and a constant sense of the divine presence. 
 But because others besides Jews can have a passion 
 for righteousness and a constant sense of the divine 
 presence, therefore the tendency has arisen to make 
 the piety of the Jew consist of actions which are 
 only performed by himself. None besides himself 
 observes the Sabbath and the dietary laws. Therefore 
 his special Jewish piety is shown in these, and not 
 in the passion for righteousness and the constant sense 
 of the divine presence. This is a great danger, for 
 the essence of Judaism thus tends to be driven away 
 from the moral and the spiritual sphere into the 
 ritual and the ceremonial. It is the danger of 
 degradation. 
 
 Moreover, the ritual and the ceremonial are easier 
 than the moral and the spiritual. If too much atten- 
 tion is given to them it is quite possible (since many 
 men have only a limited capacity for religious 
 activities) that the moral and the spiritual may be 
 neglected. The right centre of gravity for the 
 individual, and for religion as a whole, may be 
 improperly deflected. 
 
 Again, there is a certain danger lest outward acts 
 become more important than inward character. If 
 the whole duty of man is expressed in not doing 
 so and so many bad and illegal actions, and in 
 doing so and so many good and legal actions, he may 
 tend to forget that what he really has to aim at is not 
 merely outwardly to do, but also inwardly to be. 
 His actions should be the expression of his character, 
 just as his character is partly built up from his 
 actions. But it is quite possible to conform to the 
 enactments of a code (even to the parts of it which 
 are moral), and yet to possess an unsatisfactory 
 
218 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 character. Outward conformity (extending even to 
 almsgiving) may go with a character which lacks 
 elevation and nobility. A man may be proud, 
 sanctimonious and formal, and yet, in an outward 
 sort of way, he may observe the Law. The spirit 
 of religion may be absent when the letter is very 
 much to the fore. 
 
 Other dangers of legalism there are into which 
 I need not enter here. Nor, on the other hand, 
 need I explain (I have done so elsewhere) that it is 
 quite possible to combine the most careful observation 
 of the entire Law and of all its Rabbinic develop- 
 ments with the most beautiful spirituality. Though 
 the two can be opposed, they can also be united. A 
 passion for righteousness and a constant sense of the 
 divine presence may be combined with a delighted 
 fulfilment of every minute Sabbatical and dietary 
 enactment. Upon the whole, the two have gone 
 together well, and excellent characters, spiritual, 
 strong and humble, have been the product of the 
 Law. Moreover, it must be remembered that Being 
 cannot be produced except by Doing : to be good 
 you must begin, as you will also end, by doing 
 good. Conduct is the starting-point of righteous- 
 ness and holiness, even as it is their result. 
 
 To-day, however, the whole question has to be 
 newly reviewed. For the basis of the old legalism 
 has crumbled away. We no longer believe in the 
 Mosaic and divine origin of the whole Pentateuchal 
 law ; we no longer believe that all the ordinances 
 date from the same period, and that they are all 
 perfect, immutable and divine. Some of the cere- 
 monial laws may be, in their ultimate origin, much 
 older than Moses, resting as they do upon primordial 
 conceptions, and even upon superstitions or taboos, 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 219 
 
 which have wholly passed away, while others of the 
 ceremonial laws are undoubtedly much later than 
 Moses. 
 
 We no longer think it right to obey the whole 
 Law, whether Pentateuchal or Rabbinic. The law 
 of Leviticus xix. 18, still seems to us a high ordin- 
 ance of God ; in the law of Leviticus xix. 1 9 we can 
 see no divinity to-day, and we have no hesitation 
 in disobeying it. We are willing to wear "garments 
 of two kinds of stuff mingled together," and we do 
 not take any precaution to prevent such garments 
 from being worn by our children or by ourselves. 
 
 How tar, then, is Judaism still a legal religion ? 
 How far is Liberal Judaism that phase of our 
 historic faith the outlines of which I am attempting 
 to set forth in this book a legal religion ? 
 
 It is clear that our Judaism is not a legal religion 
 in the same sense as the Judaism of our forefathers. 
 We no longer put the Pentateuch, as it were, between 
 our consciences and God. We no longer accept all 
 its ordinances as binding and divine. We no longer 
 think that to be religious means to fulfil a series of 
 laws, a series of doings and avoidings. In our 
 rejection of the absolute authority of the Pentateuchal 
 code as a whole, in our insistence upon spirit and 
 being and character as well as, even more than, upon 
 doing and observance, we differ from the conceptions 
 of many of our forefathers. Is our religion, then, no 
 longer rightly to be characterised as a legal religion 
 at all? Has the Law no place in our conception of 
 Judaism ? Has law no place in our conception of 
 religion ? It is to these questions that we have now 
 to address ourselves. 
 
 First of all, then, as regards the Pentateuch. No 
 phase of Judaism can forget the place which that 
 
220 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 book, or collection of books, has held in history. 
 The Law the Law of the Pentateuch has been a 
 great source of Jewish heroism and of Jewish holiness. 
 The Law, and the study of the Law, have prevented 
 the Jews from succumbing morally, spiritually, and 
 intellectually to persecution and degradation. 
 
 Nor can we forget that the framework of the 
 Jewish religion has come to us through the Law, 
 just as, in its narratives, the Law tells us of the 
 origins of our race and of the beginnings of its 
 history as a nation. We fill this framework with 
 fresh meaning, but the framework itself comes to us 
 from the Law. Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, 
 the Day of Memorial and, above all, the Day of 
 Atonement, all these owe their origin to the Law. 
 
 But there is much more still. As we pass from 
 the Ceremonial to the Moral, we are arrested half- 
 way by that remarkable institution, which in one 
 aspect is ceremonial, in another aspect is moral the 
 Sabbath. Whatever the origin of the Sabbath may 
 be beyond and outside the Hebrews, its origin for 
 us and for Europe is the Pentateuch and the 
 Decalogue. Who shall measure the beneficent 
 effects of the Sabbath upon our own brotherhood 
 and upon the world at large ? 
 
 Then we pass from the Sabbath to the Decalogue 
 in which it is contained. Are there not laid down 
 here for all time some of the foundations of human 
 society, of human law and order, of monotheistic 
 religion ? The sanctity of human life, the sanctity 
 of marriage, the sanctity of truth, are these three 
 not proclaimed there in no uncertain tones ? What 
 praise is not deserved for the Tenth Word, which sets 
 a curb to human appetite, and demands that sin 
 should be checked at its source ? 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 221 
 
 Reverence for mother and father leads up and on 
 to the reverence of God, the one God, who, though 
 he " fills all space," is not contained by space, and is 
 other than all material things. He is the God of 
 history, the Father of man. The Decalogue stands 
 for Theism, as against Polytheism on the one hand, 
 and Pantheism on the other. It stands for Theism 
 even though it be true that, to the author of the 
 Second Commandment, " other gods " had a real 
 significance. For we have to look at the Decalogue 
 in the light of history and as illuminated by the 
 whole development of Judaism. Many years before 
 the rise of Christianity the Ten Words were given 
 the extended meaning which we now apply to them. 
 Together with the " Shema " in Deuteronomy, they 
 have formed for more than two thousand years the 
 charter of our ethical Monotheism. 
 
 But the Pentateuch is not limited to the Decalogue. 
 We remember, in devout homage and gratitude, that 
 it contains also the famous declaration of the Divine 
 Unity. Here too we need not worry our heads as to 
 what the Hebrew words originally meant. That is 
 a question of great interest truly to scholars and 
 antiquarians ; it is sufficient for us to know that for 
 more than two thousand years they have meant little 
 less than they mean for us to-day. They have meant 
 that there is one God only, and that this sole God 
 is One. 
 
 What follows upon this solemn declaration of 
 Monotheistic faith ? " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God " the injunction which lies at the basis of our 
 Theism, the injunction which implies that there can 
 be and is a communion between God and man, and 
 that on man's side this communion can and should 
 rise to the heights of love. 
 
222 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 The Pentateuch, moreover, tells us of the Divine 
 Character. We need not, and do not, accept every 
 word it tells us about God ; we accept, and do rever- 
 ence to, its highest. The just and loving God, pitiful 
 and gracious, the father of the spirits of all flesh, 
 the ruler, yes, even the dispenser of punishment 
 and reward, this we accept, this we cherish and 
 proclaim. 
 
 Not less is our debt to the Pentateuch for its 
 ideals of human action. Still as of old we hold up 
 the banner on which is inscribed : " Ye shall be holy, 
 for I the Lord your God am holy." Still as of old 
 we repeat the command : " Thou shalt love the 
 stranger as thyself" that command which caps and 
 crowns its more familiar forerunner " As thyself 
 shalt thou love thy neighbour." 
 
 Though we have passed beyond many of the 
 conditions and conceptions of the Pentateuch, we yet 
 recognise that here we find the ideal of social 
 righteousness, the ideal that here upon earth, with 
 the divine help and sanction, man must seek to 
 establish the kingdom of God. 
 
 Justice, purity, compassion, combined with simple 
 happiness and gratitude, these are the ideals of the 
 Pentateuch, and these (with others) are the ideals 
 (for earth) of Judaism to-day. 
 
 The Pentateuch throws them into the form of 
 laws. In the honour which we pay to the Pentateuch 
 for all these reasons (an honour which is independent 
 of dates, authorship and miracles), in the place which 
 we give to it in our worship and our synagogues, we 
 may still rightly denominate Judaism as, in that sense 
 at all events, a " legal " religion even to-day. 
 
 But this is not all. There is another and a deeper, 
 a more " inward " and essential, sense in which it can 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 223 
 
 be rightly said that Judaism is, partially at any rate, 
 a legal religion. 
 
 Judaism still gives a peculiar place and honour to 
 the conception of Law. 
 
 Judaism, I take it, holds that man to be as good 
 as he can be must be ruled by law. He must be 
 ruled by a law which he accepts, but the source of 
 which he recognises as outside him and greater than 
 he. He must feel the compulsion of law, and yet, 
 through that compulsion, he must rise to a higher 
 freedom. He stands, as we have seen, between the 
 animals and God. The animals are freer than man ; 
 they are also more bound than man. They are freer, 
 for they know, and bow down before, no outside law. 
 The lion and the gnat, desiring to do one thing, do 
 not, through a constraining law, do another. But 
 they are more bound, because they simply follow the 
 sting and lead of their impulses and instincts and 
 desires. The constraint of law is the beginning of 
 the higher freedom ; the human freedom which leads 
 up to the freedom of God. For God we may regard 
 as either completely free or completely bound. He 
 is bound in his own freedom. He never wants to 
 do anything but what he does. He is the subject of 
 law, but the law is his own law. Man is never wholly 
 free or wholly bound. The external law never wholly 
 becomes his own law, and for two reasons. First, 
 because it is God's law, and therefore man is always 
 subject (however freely) to a law which is not wholly 
 his own law, seeing that its source is outside him. 
 Secondly, because man is never completely moralised. 
 He is always straining towards an ideal, which is ever 
 receding. He never can become so good that there 
 is no possible conflict with temptation or desire. 
 Nevertheless, his freedom, the realisation of himself, 
 
224 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the fulfilment of his being, reside and consist in the 
 free acceptance and execution of the moral law. The 
 more he freely fulfils that law, the more man he 
 becomes, and the more he becomes like unto God. 
 The outward must also become inward, but however 
 inward it becomes (however much the ideal of 
 Jeremiah xxxi. 33 is realised), it still always remains 
 the law of God. 
 
 This, then, is the permanent legalism of the 
 Jewish religion. Man has to recognise a Must, a 
 Compulsion, a Law, which by his own efforts, and 
 by the help of God, he can more and more com- 
 pletely discover and understand, which he can more 
 and more completely fulfil and obey. He has to 
 bow down in homage and reverence to that law 
 the law of duty and in the reverence, and in the 
 free fulfilment of it, he has to find, and he will find, 
 his true human freedom. " There is no freedom," 
 said the Rabbis with truly inspired insight, " there is 
 no freedom except through the Law." It is with 
 morality as with art and culture. In the sublime 
 words of Goethe, which parents whose children know 
 German should make those children learn by heart : 
 
 So ist's mit aller Bildung auch beschaffen : 
 Vergebens werden ungebundne Geister 
 Nach der Vollendung reiner Hohe streben. 
 Wer Grosses will, muss sich zusammenraffen ; 
 In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister, 
 Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben. 1 
 
 1 A friend has supplied me, for the benefit of those who do not know 
 German, with the following English version of Goethe's lines : 
 
 For ever thus the trend of progress flows ! 
 Unfettered, lawless spirits strive in vain 
 Perfection's crystal summits to attain : 
 Who would be great must his own ruler be, 
 In self-restraint his power the master shows, 
 And law alone it is that makes us free. 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 225 
 
 We may also observe that the developed legalism 
 of the Jewish religion rests upon a certain practical 
 psychology, a certain view of human nature. Man 
 as an animal has a certain number of instincts, 
 passions, desires. These he needs for his human life. 
 But these instincts, passions and desires, which are 
 to form the basis of some of his simplest and purest 
 joys and of some of his greatest achievements, are to 
 be transfigured in the service of the ideal. They are 
 to be used, tamed and sanctified. They are to be 
 put under the discipline of law, and to find through 
 law their purification and hallowing. Through law 
 man is to sanctify himself, and (in another sense) 
 he is also to sanctify God. This conception is at 
 the root of the Rabbinic desire to spread a network 
 of laws and ordinances over human life. The result 
 may not always have been happy or wise, but there 
 was a sort of immanent logic in the process. Every 
 part of life was to be consecrated. Man was not to 
 destroy his passions, his members, his instincts, and 
 his desires, but he was to tame and use and hallow 
 them. He was to do this, because he could do this. 
 In obedience to Law he was to fight for and achieve 
 his freedom. This is the meaning of that other 
 profound and truly inspired Rabbinic utterance that 
 man is to thank God for, and to serve God with, his 
 evil inclination. The evil inclination can lead to 
 lust : through obedience to law it can be transformed 
 into the purity of family life. The evil inclination 
 can lead to gluttony : through obedience to law it 
 can be transfigured into self-control. The due and 
 cheerful nourishment of the body can even minister 
 to the glory of God. And so on. There are 
 human virtues, such as courage or industry, which 
 depend upon the bodily nature of man, but which 
 
 Q 
 
226 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 use that bodily nature for the creation of spiritual 
 and moral activities. 
 
 The fundamental idea of Jewish ethics self- 
 sanctification is closely connected with the idea of 
 law. All life is to be passed under the eye, and in 
 the service, of God, the supreme Lawgiver. It is to 
 be a holy life. There is to be no separation of secular 
 and religious. All life is to be religious. There is 
 no inner ring of the " religious " : all men are to be 
 religious. There are no two moralities : there is but 
 one morality. Men may vary in their fidelity to the 
 law, but the same constraint lies upon them all. 
 Life is to be holy, but it is also to be happy, for 
 happiness is to be found in holiness. God himself 
 is not unhappy, but happy ; not unblissful, but 
 blissful. The more like him man becomes (so far 
 as man can imitate him at all), the more happy he 
 becomes. Through law to freedom, and through 
 law to happiness. It is true that the attainment 
 of the highest good, the fulfilment of the highest 
 ordinances of God, must involve for man much 
 struggle and renunciation. It is true that to obtain 
 the higher there must be a sacrifice of the lower ; but 
 this sacrifice is not for its own sake ; it is for an end 
 beyond. The struggle, the renunciation and the 
 sacrifice, are not to fill the whole of life. They are not 
 to destroy happiness ; they are to purify happiness. 
 The ideal life is a full life : it finds room for the 
 transfigured joys of the senses, even though it gives 
 more space and time to the higher joys and duties of 
 the spirit. Or shall we rather say that it seeks to 
 spiritualise sense ? Through law spirit is to be 
 poured into matter, and spiritualised body is to be 
 uplifted to the glorification of God. 
 
 There may be saints of law in Liberal as well as in 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 227 
 
 Conservative Judaism. No one has more accurately 
 described such saints than the great Roman Catholic 
 poet, Coventry Patmore, showing all unconsciously 
 exact and sympathetic comprehension of the Rabbinic 
 ideal and point of view. 
 
 They live by law, not like the fool, 
 
 But like the bard, who freely sings 
 In strictest bonds of rhyme and rule, 
 
 And finds in them, not bonds, but wings. 
 Postponing still their private ease 
 
 To courtly custom, appetite, 
 Subjected to observances, 
 
 To banquet goes with full delight ; 
 Nay, continence and gratitude 
 
 So cleanse their lives from earth's alloy, 
 They taste, in Nature's common food, 
 
 Nothing but spiritual joy. 
 They shine like Moses in the face, 
 
 And teach our hearts, without the rod, 
 That God's grace is the only grace, 
 
 And all grace is the grace of God. 
 
 Nevertheless man is man, and God is God. The 
 Jewish doctrine of God is not afraid to declare that 
 the divine perfection excludes the idea of sacrifice 
 or suffering. But, on the other hand, though man's 
 highest task be the imitation of God, yet in the 
 quest of that imitation he must go through states 
 of mind and body which we may not associate with 
 the Divine Being. By which I mean that though 
 we do not ascribe suffering and sacrifice, renuncia- 
 tion and endurance, to God, yet man, upon earth, 
 in his passage to the highest of which human nature 
 is capable, must know and experience all these. He 
 has to learn and to rise by suffering and renouncement. 
 
 It is necessary to say a few words here about 
 asceticism the training and discipline of soul and 
 body through hardship and suffering because 
 
228 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 modern Jewish teaching, through its prevailing 
 opposition to Christianity, often inclines, as regards 
 this subject, towards exaggeration and error. 1 It is 
 true that there has been a great deal of asceticism in 
 Christian teaching and practice. It is also true (at 
 least in common with my fellow-Jews I venture to 
 think so) that some of this teaching and practice has 
 been false and injurious. But in their opposition to 
 it, because it is false, and in their opposition to it, 
 because it is Christian, Jewish teachers in modern 
 days have been apt to become exaggerated and one- 
 sided themselves. They sometimes tend, I cannot 
 help feeling, to make Judaism somewhat too soft and 
 comfortable a religion, or at any rate to ignore that 
 element of true asceticism, that right emphasis upon 
 suffering and renouncement, which Jewish ethics, no 
 less than Christian ethics, demand. 
 
 It is true that Judaism, while regarding the earthly 
 life as a prelude to another and better life, neverthe- 
 less regards this life as not only a prelude and prepara- 
 tion, but also, in a certain sense, as an end in itself. 
 It is also true that Judaism desires men to be happy 
 even upon earth, that happiness, even in fairly 
 ordinary senses of the word (for example, the happi- 
 ness of family and home, the happiness of education 
 and knowledge, yes, even the happiness of the " fig 
 tree and the vine "), forms a part of the Jewish ideal. 
 
 1 One sometimes wishes that Jewish teachers knew a great deal more about 
 Christianity, or a great deal less. Every now and then either result would 
 benefit their doctrine. If they knew much more, they would, I humbly think, 
 be occasionally less one-sided, and if they knew much less, they would be less one- 
 sided too. For if they knew much less, they would be less afraid of saying 
 things which are true, but which are sometimes exaggerated by Christian 
 teachers. I sometimes feel that the old Rabbis of the Talmud and the Midrash 
 were less one-sided than some modern Jewish teachers. They seem to be less 
 afraid of saying things which are like the things which Christian teachers say 
 just because, I fancy, most of them had very little knowledge of Christian 
 teaching. These things are therefore to them perfectly Jewish, and sometimes 
 even importantly Jewish. 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 229 
 
 Lastly, it is quite true (and this is very important) 
 that Judaism asks for the taming and sanctification 
 of the natural (that is, of the bodily) instincts, passions 
 and desires, not for their destruction. As we have 
 already seen, Judaism demands from all men the 
 hallowing of life, the spiritualisation of the material. 
 Total abstinence is less characteristic of Judaism than 
 temperate enjoyment to the glory of God. The 
 union of man and woman can be made pure and 
 holy, and the blessing of God can be asked over it. 
 Celibacy is not more holy than matrimony. To drink 
 no wine (other things being equal, and important 
 special reasons for total abstention being, for the 
 moment, put aside) is not more holy than to drink 
 wine. The best thing is to drink wine with perfect 
 moderation, and to invoke over the wine-cup the 
 blessing of God, the Giver. 
 
 All this is true. But nevertheless it is not the 
 whole truth. Judaism teaches other things besides, 
 however difficult it may be to weave the two sides 
 of its teaching into a perfect unity. Judaism is far 
 from being content with the life of comfortable 
 happiness. It has advanced beyond the ideal of a 
 portion of the Book of Proverbs, the ideal of com- 
 fortable burgher felicity, an ideal, by the way, which 
 another portion of the same book has itself tran- 
 scended. " Whom the Lord loves, he chastens ; he 
 gives pain to the son in whom he delights." A higher 
 happiness is won through endurance and sorrow and 
 pain : the higher rungs of the human ladder are only 
 ascended through sacrifice and suffering. To the 
 old Rabbi " the study of the Torah " was synony- 
 mous with the best, the highest and the happiest life. 
 And what did the old Rabbi say was the method by 
 which the Law must be studied ? " This is the way 
 
230 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 that is becoming for the study of the Torah : a 
 morsel of bread with salt thou must eat and water 
 by measure thou must drink ; thou must sleep upon 
 the ground, and live a life of trouble the while thou 
 toilest in the Torah." And yet : " If thou doest 
 thus, happy thou art, and it shall be well with thee ; 
 happy thou art in this world, and it shall be well with 
 thee in the world to come." 
 
 It may be that the old Rabbi had to deal with 
 peculiar conditions. It may be that in his day it 
 needed some peculiar strength of purpose to grapple 
 with the life of study. But nevertheless his words 
 have a profound significance, and I think were 
 intended to have a significance, for all time. In his 
 days and in ours, hard is the good. In his days and 
 in ours, the ideal is not easy, but strenuous, not soft, 
 but severe. In his days as in ours, without labour 
 no prize ; in his days as in ours, without sacrifice no 
 crown. No high achievement can be brought to pass 
 without a struggle, nor are self-denial and self-mastery 
 synonymous with pleasure and with ease. That life 
 is incomplete in which sorrow has never entered, in 
 which the hand has not sometimes been held out 
 deliberately to receive suffering and pain. 
 
 u Beloved," said another old Rabbi, " beloved are 
 sufferings." We are to thank God for sorrow even 
 more than for joy. Not because, in mere outward 
 fashion, the sorrow of this world is the best way to 
 win the happiness of the next, but because sorrow 
 and suffering, effort and endurance, train character, 
 because without them we shall, upon the whole, not 
 do the best we can for our fellows, and the best we 
 can for ourselves. If that best for ourselves we still 
 call happiness, then happy are we even in suffering, 
 happy are we even in struggle and in pain. 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 231 
 
 God, as we must often remind ourselves, possesses 
 a deeper insight and a truer love than we. For as one 
 of my judges beautifully says : " It is comparatively 
 easy for us to make a sacrifice for those we love, but 
 it is much harder to allow them to make a sacrifice, 
 even if it be for their own moral good. To suffer 
 ourselves is comparatively easy : to let others suffer is 
 much more difficult. To * give up * in order to bring 
 pleasure to the beloved is pleasant, but to make the 
 beloved give up so as to strengthen her character or 
 his character, may be nothing short of torture. But 
 the divine love may foresee and permit sacrifice : it 
 is not weak in its tenderness." 
 
 God has always reached the highest : he is there, 
 and has always been there. But man can reach his 
 highest only through discipline, arduous endeavour, 
 bracing strenuousness ; softness will not bring him 
 even to his human goal. 
 
 There is a certain healthy contradiction in our 
 teaching which can never be got rid of. We seek 
 to remove sorrow and suffering. We seek to increase 
 prosperity, happiness, well-being. Yet we say that 
 the highest life involves suffering. We deny that 
 there is any value in the mortification of the flesh 
 for its own sake ; we deny that this life (however 
 much we believe in another) is or ought to be a vale 
 of tears. And yet we urge that a discipline of the 
 flesh, a discipline of the spirit, every great and good 
 life must ' experience, and that he who has shed no 
 tears has scarcely learnt all that life can teach him. 
 We seem to be always seeking to diminish and 
 destroy that which, in the same breath, we declare 
 to be necessary for the fullest and the grandest life. 1 
 
 1 One of my critics is dubious how far the doctrine of right asceticism can 
 be made intelligible to children. It will doubtless need a good deal of watering 
 
232 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Perhaps, however, what we chiefly try to get rid 
 of are the sorrow and the suffering which less often 
 ennoble than degrade. Even though these were 
 wholly eradicated, there would still be enough 
 opportunities left for struggle, bracing endeavour 
 and self-sacrifice. In any case we must not be afraid 
 to recognise two aspects of truth because, for the 
 moment, we find it hard to reconcile them. We 
 must not make Judaism one-sided out of a too hasty 
 or eager desire for consistency. The old Rabbis 
 were never afraid of inconsistency. Their religion 
 was too alive for any such fear. 
 
 Lastly, I want to point out that the doctrine of 
 living hard, not in the low sensual sense, but in the 
 highest ethical sense of endeavour and sacrifice, is an 
 aspect of legalism. However voluntary such a life 
 may be, it is nevertheless obedience. It is obedience 
 to the law of duty, the law of love, the law of 
 righteousness, the law of service, the law of God. 
 It declares that man must live to do and be the 
 best of which he is capable a dedicated life, a life of 
 self- surrender. He surrenders himself to the law, 
 and finds from the law his freedom and himself. 
 He puts his neck under the yoke (the yoke of the 
 Law is a favourite phrase with the Rabbis), and this 
 very yoke brings him liberty. He strains to fulfil 
 what the inward law bids him do, and in the fulfil- 
 ment, however painful, he finds his well-being and 
 his peace. For the inward law is also the law of 
 God, and thus there is conveyed to him, or rather he 
 
 down. Children can at any rate be taught that we learn by encountering and 
 getting over difficulties, both in arithmetic and in life. To do right often means 
 doing difficult and uncomfortable things. Again, they can be shown that soul 
 and body must both be made holy unto God ; both must be kept pure and clean \ 
 both must be braced up, ready for action, tuned to concert pitch. Flabby, self- 
 indulgent people are not admirable, even though they pretend to enjoy themselves . 
 
xv LAWS OF THE PENTATEUCH 233 
 
 wins for himself, a conviction of security. The yoke 
 of the law is a privilege ; the yoke of the law is 
 a glory ; the yoke of the law is happiness. In 
 these reflections and conclusions the old and the new 
 legalism find their apt reconcilement. The gulf 
 between them is bridged over. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 OF THE DIETARY LAWS, THE SABBATH AND THE 
 FESTIVALS 
 
 This book is intentionally incomplete. It has omitted 
 almost the whole subject of ethics, and yet Jewish ethics 
 are a very important branch of the Jewish religion. It 
 can only say a very few inadequate words about Jewish 
 ceremonial. For a presentation of Jewish ethics, and 
 for a presentation of Jewish ceremonial, I would like to 
 refer parents and teachers most earnestly and cordially 
 to Mr. Morris Josephs book, " Judaism as Creed and 
 Life." Mr. Josephs point of view is not quite the same 
 as mine^ as he explains himself in his preface. I differ 
 from him here and there. But, as a whole, the book is, 
 and for a long while is likely to remain, far and away 
 the best modern book upon the Jewish religion. 
 
 Mr. Joseph deals with ethics and ceremonial, as 
 well as with religious doctrine in the narrower sense of 
 the words. Nevertheless, as regards ceremonial, I feel 
 it desirable to say a few words in the present chapter. 
 
 THERE are two kinds of religious ceremonial. The 
 first kind is that which we perform in private ; the 
 second is that which we perform in public with our 
 fellows. The ceremonial which we perform in public 
 with our fellows is public worship. And the cere- 
 monial which we perform in private is either worship 
 
 234 
 
CHAP, xvi DIETARY LAWS 235 
 
 or connected with worship. It is intended in the 
 first instance to direct our thoughts unto God. It 
 may and does have other aims and results as well, but 
 its primary aim remains, as I have said, the aim of 
 worship or of helping towards worship. 
 
 The division of ceremonial into public and private 
 is not, however, a clean-cut division. There are 
 many ceremonials or ceremonial institutions which 
 affect both our public and our private life. Such, 
 for instance, is the Sabbath, which we observe in our 
 own homes and also by public worship in the 
 synagogue. 
 
 What is the object of all ceremonial, of all 
 religious forms ? The first object, I suppose, is to 
 maintain and strengthen the inward religious faith, 
 the inward religious life. A second object is to 
 provide the vehicle for the expression of religious 
 thought and religious feeling in a word, for religious 
 experience. We creatures of body and soul can- 
 not get on without forms. Whether angels need 
 them I do not know. I am convinced that human 
 beings need them. And not merely forms, but fixed 
 forms : not merely the form of the moment, but 
 permanent forms, historic institutions. The observ- 
 ance of such forms and institutions has other objects 
 besides the two already mentioned. In a historical 
 religion such as ours, such further objects would be : 
 (i) the maintenance of a bond with the past; (2) 
 the maintenance of a visible connection with all Jews 
 all over the world. 
 
 Now what I would venture to impress upon 
 parents is the paramount importance of making their 
 lives and the lives of their children fully harmonise 
 as regards ceremonial with the religious teaching 
 which those children receive. " Harmonise," that 
 
236 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 is, so far as such harmonisation may be within their 
 power. Whatever they themselves do, whatever 
 they bring up their children to do, must be in 
 harmonious accordance with the religious teaching 
 which is given to the children. There must be no 
 disagreement between teaching and life, between 
 theory and practice. Conversely, there must be a 
 doctrinal basis and justification for whatever is done 
 or not done. The practice must be the expression 
 of the theory. 
 
 The observance of the Sabbath which the children 
 notice on the part of the parents must correspond 
 as closely as possible with the teaching which they 
 receive. That is to say (apart from force majeure) 
 they must not only be taught how the Sabbath 
 should be observed, but they must perceive that 
 their parents and themselves practically observe it 
 in full accordance with the teaching. And so of all 
 other rites and observances, including the dietary 
 laws. As the teaching is, so must be the observance. 
 The dietary laws, for example, must not be neglected 
 unless you are prepared (at the suitable stage) to 
 teach that these particular laws should now, or may 
 properly now, be neglected. Whatever is done or 
 not done must be in accordance with, and justified 
 by, the teaching and the doctrine. For all religious 
 doctrine must be expressed in life, and there must 
 be no life no action which does not rest upon 
 doctrine, or, at any rate, upon such sentiments and 
 associations as are not essentially discordant with 
 doctrine. 
 
 Parents cannot therefore be too careful about the 
 teaching which they give to, or obtain for, their 
 children. They cannot be too careful that their lives 
 should be in accord with that teaching. For the 
 
xvi DIETARY LAWS 237 
 
 children to be told that it is right and desirable that 
 the proper observance of the Sabbath excludes and 
 forbids dinner-parties and theatres, and then to notice 
 that their parents give or go to a dinner-party on 
 Friday evening is excessively harmful. It may mean 
 ruin to the whole religious life. For a child to be 
 told that it is desirable that Jews should continue to 
 refrain from eating shrimps, and then to observe its 
 parents eating a shrimp, is a monstrous injustice and 
 cruelty to the religious consciousness of the child. 
 
 How the Sabbath should be observed is a separate 
 question. But once hold that it should be observed 
 in a particular way, and so teach your children then, 
 if you do not observe it in that way, you bring 
 them into grave religious and moral peril. Whether 
 any part of the dietary laws should still be observed 
 by Liberal Jews is a separate question. But once 
 hold that some of them should be observed, and so 
 teach your children then you neglect to observe 
 them at grave religious and moral peril. You have 
 no right to violate any ceremonial, if you do not 
 think its violation desirable, and if you are not pre- 
 pared to teach that desirability to your children. 
 
 The most important " forms " which are performed 
 in private, and which are not also connected with the 
 public worship of the synagogue, have to do with 
 food. For I here omit the most supremely im- 
 portant form in all the world I mean Prayer. Of 
 that " form " if indeed it be a " form " I have 
 already spoken. 
 
 The first such form is " grace " at meals. The 
 second is the " dietary laws." As regards the 
 former, I have no definite teaching to give. There 
 are arguments for grace and arguments against, and, 
 for myself, I keep an open mind. Man is certainly 
 
238 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the only " animal " which can thank God for its 
 food, and this prerogative it may be desirable to 
 preserve in practice. One of my critics writes that 
 the absence of grace at family meals seems to him 
 to savour of religious degeneration. Another (no 
 less profoundly religious) writes : " I never can see 
 why we should thank God so much more often 
 and openly for our dinner than for other blessings. 
 It seems to me a pity to connect prayer with 
 times of eating. I would rather utter a blessing after 
 seeing a fine play or a beautiful picture, or after 
 reading a noble book, or after having taken a lovely 
 walk." 1 A serious danger of saying " grace " is that, 
 in the conditions of our modern life, its use may 
 easily degenerate into a mere form, without any 
 religious emotion or effect. I feel clear that chil- 
 dren should not be taught to say grace unless they 
 can also notice that the parent says grace likewise. 
 What is done in the nursery must also be done in the 
 dining-room. 
 
 Far more important and difficult is the question 
 of the dietary laws. These laws are partly Biblical 
 and Pentateuchal ; partly Rabbinic. The Biblical 
 laws are the laws which forbid the eating of certain 
 animals (such as pig, rabbit, hare, oyster, lobster, and 
 shrimp). The Rabbinic laws (depending upon the 
 interpretation of Biblical laws) are the laws which 
 direct (a) a particular method of slaughtering, so that 
 
 1 Another critic writes : " In the Rabbinic code there are actually existent 
 graces or benedictions for several of these things : witness especially the benedic- 
 tion introduced into the morning prayer, whether said publicly or privately, pre- 
 cedent and subsequent to the reading of the Law. For my own part," adds the 
 critic, " I leave grace at meals largely to my children's feeling and impulse. 
 They often suggest it themselves ; sometimes I ask whether they would like it. 
 On the Sabbath, however, we make it a fixed rule to sing Psalms and hymns at 
 table in addition to reciting the grace, and I do not see why we Liberals should 
 not encourage this practice. The service book of the Jewish Religious Union 
 is very useful to us for this purpose." 
 
xvi DIETARY LAWS 239 
 
 Jews have to employ their own butchers ; (b) the 
 " ponging " of the hindquarters of oxen and sheep ; 
 (c) the prohibition to eat milk and meat together. 
 
 It would take too long, and it would be beyond 
 my powers and knowledge, to estimate the total effect 
 of these laws both for good and for evil. How far 
 have they helped towards the actual preservation of 
 the Jews ? What have been and are their hygienic 
 value and result ? How far have they created a social 
 barrier between Jew and Gentile ? How far was that 
 barrier desirable ? How far is it injurious now ? 
 None of these questions can be touched upon, far 
 less answered. They are very complicated and 
 difficult. Then come the religious effects of these 
 laws, so far as their religious effects can be con- 
 sidered by themselves and separated from all the other 
 effects. Here we must not exaggerate on either side. 
 I fancy that the religious effects of these laws, both for 
 good and evil, are most apparent when the laws are 
 least, not when they are most, easy to observe. I 
 mean this. Take the ghetto life of the Jews of the 
 " middle ages " in Germany, France or Italy. The 
 Jews lived quite to themselves. There was very little 
 social intercourse between Gentile and Jew. The 
 dietary laws, except perhaps for the women, tended 
 to become customs. Nobody thought of eating, 
 nobody had the opportunity or temptation to eat, 
 any of the forbidden Pentateuchal foods. Nobody 
 thought of eating milk and meat together. All was 
 arranged, habitual, easy. The religious effect was 
 therefore, perhaps, not so very great one way or the 
 other. Very different becomes the question in 
 modern times, especially for those who mix freely 
 with their Christian fellow-citizens. It is now that 
 the specifically religious effects become apparent, and 
 
2 4 o LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 both for evil and for good for evil so far as these 
 laws may lead to formalism and outwardness ; for 
 good, so far as the laws may be a discipline in holi- 
 ness, and in the consecration of life to God. 
 
 How far, then, should these laws be observed to- 
 day by Liberal Jews ? 
 
 It is clear that we cannot observe them from the 
 same reasons as Conservative Jews observe them. 
 Conservative Jews believe that these laws are the 
 direct command of the perfect God. We do not 
 believe them to be that. We do not teach our 
 children that they were given directly by God to 
 Moses. Nor can we regard them as divine laws in 
 the same sense as our Conservative brothers regard 
 them as divine. Even if the result of their observance 
 in the past has been, upon the whole, good, it does 
 not follow, under altered conditions, and above all 
 with our changed attitude towards the Pentateuchal 
 code in its entirety, that their observance by us 
 to-day is, or would be, desirable. The matter must 
 be looked at afresh. 
 
 As a whole no Liberal Jewish teacher would recom- 
 mend their observance. Very few, if any, Liberal 
 Jewish households observe them all. In America, 
 the stronghold of Liberal Judaism, they are all 
 (Biblical and Rabbinical laws alike) neglected. I 
 gather that the same is the case in Germany. But 
 in England a distinction has grown up which is 
 unknown elsewhere, but may nevertheless be sound. 
 Many persons observe the Biblical laws, but neglect 
 the Rabbinical laws. That is to say, they refrain 
 from eating rabbit and lobsters, but they eat meat 
 which is not killed according to the Jewish method, 
 and they eat meat and milk, or meat and butter, 
 together. 
 
xvi DIETARY LAWS 241 
 
 Is this the form of the dietary laws which it is 
 good and right to maintain ? Is this the form of 
 them which we should teach to our children, and 
 which we should practise ourselves ? Mr. Morris 
 Joseph, in that most admirable book of his, which I 
 have already mentioned, seems to think that it is. 
 He seems to desire that a determined effort should 
 be made, even by Liberal Jews, to observe the Penta- 
 teuchal dietary laws, while abandoning the Rabbinic 
 developments. He thinks that one must not ask for 
 the impossible. One must not, moreover, wish for 
 the maintenance of laws which would render the social 
 intercourse of Jew and Gentile very difficult, if not 
 impossible. He is, therefore, willing that we should 
 abandon the rule about not eating meat and milk 
 together, that we should abandon the rule (if I under- 
 stand him aright) to eat no meat or poultry which 
 has not been killed according to the Jewish method 
 of slaughter, and finally that we should abandon the 
 ordinance about <c porging." But what we should 
 strictly and sternly keep to is the observance of the 
 Pentateuchal laws of the distinction of foods, i.e. that 
 we should continue to eat no pigs, hares or rabbits ; 
 no oysters, turtles, lobsters, crabs or shrimps. 
 
 His arguments are that these laws can be observed 
 without harmful restriction of social intercourse, and 
 with an amount of self-sacrifice and self-restraint 
 which is wholesome and well within our power. And 
 just because they can be so observed, they should be 
 observed. It is admitted, ex hypothesi, that the 
 observance does no social harm : the self-sacrifice and 
 the self-restraint which they involve can only do us 
 good. For here we get a distinct and frequent 
 reminder that we are to be a peculiar and consecrated 
 brotherhood, and that our ideal is holiness. The 
 
242 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 restraint we have to exercise in saying at a dinner- 
 party, "No, thank you," if dishes made of these 
 forbidden animals are offered to us, is a religious and 
 ethical help, reminder and stimulus. Any other set 
 of animals would do just as well from the religious 
 point of view as hares and oysters. Only as hares, 
 oysters, etc., are the animals to refrain from eating 
 which unites us with the historic past and with other 
 Jews all over the world, we had far better exercise 
 our self-restraint in respect of these. Such a restraint 
 adds to the sanctification of life ; it brings religion 
 down into the sphere of ordinary, everyday occupa- 
 tions ; or rather it tends to elevate such a " mundane " 
 matter as eating to a religious level. The glory of 
 God enters even into our food. It hallows our 
 recreation and our meals. 
 
 What are we to say about, what line are we to 
 take in regard to, these arguments ? That they have 
 value and force cannot, I think, be denied. Whether 
 they will hold the field is, perhaps, more doubtful. 
 
 Several of my critics have adversely criticised what 
 I said as to the dietary laws in the first draft of this 
 chapter as it was submitted to them. Some agree 
 with Mr. Joseph, others seem to hold that the 
 observance of the laws is gradually passing away, 
 and that it is wholly unnecessary to hasten the pro- 
 cess. Others, again, appear to hold that where I can- 
 not justify or recommend an observance, I had far 
 better leave it alone and undiscussed. So far as 
 those of my critics who agree with Mr. Joseph are 
 concerned, I have nothing to say. But in regard to 
 the criticisms of the others, I should like to observe 
 that this book is written for parents, and that I do not 
 think that a subject so important as the dietary laws 
 ought to be left undiscussed and ignored. And if I 
 
xvi DIETARY LAWS 243 
 
 speak about them at all, surely I must say what I 
 really think, I must express my full mind. 
 
 If I thought that they should be observed in their 
 entirety, then, whether I were successful or no, I 
 should urge parents to observe them. And if I 
 thought that, at any rate, the Biblical dietary laws 
 should be observed, I should earnestly advocate their 
 observance, and I should entreat parents to make the 
 small sacrifice which is necessary in order to observe 
 them. I would never gloss over their violation, I 
 would never ignore their neglect, if I were convinced 
 that they ought to be maintained and preserved. 
 Liberal Jewish parents must either violate the Biblical 
 laws with a good and clear conscience, or they must 
 not violate them at all. There must be no observance 
 and there must be no neglect, which do not rest upon 
 deliberate and justified opinion. About both observ- 
 ance and neglect there must be nothing casual, slip- 
 shod, unthought out. 
 
 But let me also observe that the question of the 
 dietary laws, and especially of the Biblical dietary laws, 
 is one on which division of opinion among Liberal 
 Jews is peculiarly legitimate. If there are those 
 who, in simplicity and sincerity, think well to observe 
 the Pentateuchal food-distinctions themselves, and 
 to urge their children to obey them, whether as an 
 aid to holiness and self-restraint, or as an historic 
 link with the past, or as an outward bond between 
 themselves and other Israelites, or as an outward 
 reminder of that dedicated life which Judaism demands, 
 by all means let them do so. There can surely be 
 no objection. 
 
 But if my own view be asked, I cannot myself 
 honestly declare that I should urge parents to obey 
 this particular Biblical portion of the dietary laws, 
 
244 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 even though I was myself brought up to do so, and 
 out of respect to my mother's opinions and wishes 
 still continue in the same way. 
 
 I will not say that religion does not and should 
 not enter into questions of food. If I have said this 
 before, I exaggerated. For instance, to be tem- 
 perate in food and drink, to eat and to drink "to 
 the glory of God " and not merely for pleasure, may, 
 I think, be regarded as an element of religion (using 
 "religion" in a somewhat wide sense of the word). 
 Again, I think with one of my critics that a good 
 case may be made out for total abstinence from 
 alcohol under the special circumstances which apper- 
 tain to England. If every total abstinent would 
 help to cure England of the curse of drunkenness, 
 then clearly such abstinence might be regarded as a 
 religious act. 
 
 Next comes the question of health. Is not the 
 production of the healthiest possible body an element 
 of religion ? Seeing the immense influence of body 
 upon mind and soul, I think that it is. Nevertheless 
 Mr. Joseph is, in my opinion, right in not resting his 
 case for the observance of the dietary laws upon 
 hygienic considerations. For though it may be 
 true that all the animals forbidden for food in the 
 Pentateuch are unwholesome in Palestine, it by no 
 means follows that they are unwholesome in England 
 to-day. And, as a matter of fact, very able doctors 
 assure me that they are not. If, then, I am to 
 regulate my choice of food so as to obtain the best 
 bodily health, I should prefer to follow the advice of 
 the best English doctors rather than the prescriptions 
 of the Pentateuch. 
 
 The origin of the dietary laws must not be sought 
 in sanitation, though sanitary influences may have 
 
xvi DIETARY LAWS 245 
 
 helped to maintain them. Such taboos in food as 
 we find in the Pentateuch are common to many races, 
 and depend on a variety of superstitious ideas which 
 have no relation to health. They also depend upon 
 a conception of outward purity which is foreign to 
 our present religious ideas. 
 
 When we, therefore, remember the origin of these 
 laws, when we recollect their close relation to the 
 conception of outward or priestly purity (one appli- 
 cation of which even to-day, in orthodox circles, 
 prevents a man called Cohen, or any other supposed 
 descendant of the priestly family, from entering a 
 house where there is a corpse), if we further re- 
 member that these particular food taboos are not 
 united by any illuminating principle, for we cannot 
 even say that all the animals forbidden in the Penta- 
 teuch are unhealthy, I do not honestly see my way 
 to urge those parents who do not feel inclined to 
 observe, or to teach their children to observe, these 
 laws, that they should put a strong check upon their 
 opinions and their actions, and that they should in- 
 sistently observe them. Food taboos, which rest, 
 like the law against the two kinds of stuff, on the 
 conception of an outward purity, unrelated to inward 
 purity, are off the line of our modern religious 
 thought. The argument that temperance in food 
 or drink, or the choice of food to secure health, is a 
 form of outward purity which I have admitted to lie 
 within the religious sphere, is sophistical. For the 
 careful choice of food is advocated for the sake of 
 the mind and the soul, in order to obtain the best 
 possible bodily instrument in the service of the mind 
 and the soul. But the outward purity, on which the 
 Pentateuchal food taboos rest, is regarded as an end 
 in itself. Ritual or outward uncleanness, from the 
 
246 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 old point of view, is something which you can catch 
 externally as a sort of infection, and from which 
 certain prescribed washings can free you. It is this 
 sort of idea which has rightly passed away, and it is 
 on this sort of idea that the dietary laws depend. 
 The turtle and the hare are regarded as giving this 
 kind of outward uncleanness in themselves, and not 
 because their flesh is unhealthy. It is this outward 
 purity, this outward cleanness or uncleanness, which 
 are no longer defensible, not the purity of temperance 
 or the purity of health. Hence my doubt whether 
 the dietary laws can be maintained as an integral 
 portion of our modern religion. If the Pentateuch 
 had happened to forbid all meat and poultry and fish 
 of every kind, and if all Jews had been vegetarians, 
 it would have been, in one way, easier to maintain 
 such a more comprehensive prohibition. For though 
 we should no longer believe that God had directly 
 ordered the enactments, yet there would, or could, be 
 a principle in substitution. We could substitute for the 
 direct divine command the principle of not destroy- 
 ing animal life for purposes of food. 1 But the pro- 
 hibition to eat pig, lobster, hare, etc., is united and 
 illuminated by no principle. Here we have merely 
 a number of forbidden foods, from the flesh of which 
 we are asked to refrain as a moral discipline and 
 as a voluntary act of self-restraint. I am inclined to 
 think that we must seek to inculcate self-restraint, to 
 increase the sense of God's presence, and to implant 
 holiness, by means less arbitrary and, in a certain 
 
 1 One of my critics is a vegetarian. He says : " I believe that the arguments 
 for vegetarianism are simply overwhelming. The slaughter of animals for food 
 is cruel and disgusting : it involves the employment of persons in the degrading 
 work of the slaughter-house which we should certainly not like to undertake 
 for ourselves. If a divine command means a command imposed by conscience, 
 then I think that men will ultimately feel that they are divinely commanded to 
 be vegetarians." 
 
XVI 
 
 DIETARY LAWS 247 
 
 sense, by means less outward. The opportunities for 
 such an end will surely not be wanting. 
 
 I am also inclined to doubt whether we could succeed 
 in separating the Biblical from the Rabbinical enact- 
 ments. To an enormous majority of Jews the two 
 sets form a whole, and the one cannot be maintained 
 without the other. It is true that, in England, there 
 are many families who rigorously observe all the 
 Pentateuchal "distinctions" without observing the 
 Rabbinical additions, but it is extremely doubtful 
 whether such a habit can be made to spread beyond 
 England. Some indeed argue that, from the point of 
 view of health, there is more to be said for the 
 Rabbinic than for the Pentateuchal enactments. For 
 it is alleged that the bedikah^ or examination of the 
 animals used as " Kosher " food, wards off the chance 
 of the transmission of tuberculosis. Others hold 
 that the dietary laws hang together. The great 
 critic and historian Geiger said of the dietary laws 
 taken as a whole, " Sint ut sunt, aut non sint" 
 (" Let them be as they are, or not be "), and I am 
 inclined to believe that what Geiger thought was 
 right from a theoretic standpoint will -practically 
 happen. The number of persons who adopt a com- 
 promise will always, I think, be extremely small. It 
 is interesting to note that one of my critics observes 
 (he is a vegetarian) : " If there are to be any 
 dietary laws at all, they must be universal, as binding 
 on Gentiles as on Jews." The majority, however, of 
 those who want to maintain them desire their main- 
 tenance from an exclusively Jewish point of view. 
 
 Thus one critic writes : " I feel that the brother- 
 hood should be very slow in throwing off the emblems 
 of its order. I cherish a hope that the Jewish dietary 
 laws may be subjected to the keenest scientific 
 
248 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 criticism. In so far as they may be found good, 
 tending to social and physical health and purity we 
 should adhere to them for the sake of the generations 
 yet to come, and in so far as they may need reforming, 
 we should reform them/' This brings in a totally 
 new idea, for hitherto the question was limited to 
 maintaining the Biblical prohibitions as a whole. 
 Another critic writes : "I agree with Mr. Joseph. 
 In this luxurious age the disciplinary effect is worth 
 preserving, and why should we seek to weaken the 
 motives which may lead to so desirable an issue ? " 
 
 I now pass from ceremonial institutions which are 
 solely connected with private life to those which are 
 related to the public worship of the synagogue. 
 
 First and foremost of such ceremonial institutions, 
 affecting our private as well as our public worship 
 and religious life, comes the Sabbath. The import- 
 ance of the Sabbath can hardly be exaggerated. And 
 a very heavy responsibility rests upon all Liberal Jews 
 in the matter of its observance. 
 
 Dubious as I am as to the need of recalling some, 
 and keeping others, to the maintenance of the dietary 
 laws, I am profoundly convinced as to the paramount 
 necessity of the observance of the Sabbath. Parents 
 must observe it themselves, and they must teach their 
 children to observe it. Any Liberal Jew who on 
 Friday evening goes to a concert, or visits the theatre, 
 or has a dinner-party at his house, any Jew who on 
 Saturday rides to hounds, or works without compul- 
 sion, incurs, in my deliberate opinion, a grave religious 
 responsibility. He is wounding Judaism at a tender 
 and dangerous point. If ever a ceremonial law passed 
 over into the ethical sphere, if ever a ceremonial law 
 deserved the epithet of divine, that law is the 
 Sabbath. 
 
xvi THE SABBATH 249 
 
 There is no question whatever that by far the 
 most difficult problem in modern Judaism is connected 
 with the keeping of the Sabbath. To shut one's 
 eyes to economic and social facts is the worst possible 
 folly. It is idle to deny that the present condition of 
 things in the West, in which a vast number of Jews 
 and Jewesses are absolutely unable to " rest upon the 
 Sabbath day," is profoundly unsatisfactory. There 
 is no doubt to my mind that, from a religious point 
 of view, it is the strongest possible argument for 
 Zionism or Territorialism. 
 
 But the whole of this gigantically important aspect 
 of the question cannot be discussed in this book. 
 Nor can I discuss the question whether Sunday 
 services should be established in Liberal Jewish 
 synagogues to meet the needs of those who are 
 unable to come to the synagogue on Saturdays. 
 Such questions are outside the scope of this book, 
 however immensely important in themselves. 
 
 But from the point of view of parents and children 
 two remarks must be made. First, parents and 
 teachers must explain the grave difference between 
 violating the Sabbath in order to do one's work and 
 to fulfil one's calling well, and violating the Sabbath 
 for the sake of pleasure or convenience. The lawyer 
 who goes to chambers, the shop-assistant who goes to 
 his shop, the clerk who goes to his office on Saturday 
 may have no choice. They can go to chambers, shop, 
 and office with a perfectly clear conscience : they are 
 none the less Jews because they go : they are none 
 the worse Jews because they go. But if on Friday 
 evening they voluntarily go to the theatre or the 
 music-hall, then they are the worse Jews, then their 
 consciences should be seared and sore, then they are 
 guilty of deliberate wrong-doing. 
 
250 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 This must be the teaching and this must be the 
 practice. It is just here that restraint and discipline 
 and a modicum of self-sacrifice are so essential. 
 It is just here that Liberal Jews have so grave a 
 responsibility cast upon them : it is here that they 
 can so easily show that Liberal Judaism does not 
 stand for slipshod convenience, but for righteous- 
 ness and sanctification. 
 
 The Sabbath has to be observed in two main ways, 
 of which I have spoken in some detail in the first 
 volume of my Bible for Home Reading. To that 
 book I would venture to refer my present readers. 
 
 First, there is the negative way of abstention 
 from " work," and from certain kinds of " pleasure," 
 such as theatre - going or dinner - parties. Such 
 pleasures interfere with the quiet, the peace, and the 
 holiness of atmosphere which should distinguish 
 Sabbath eve and Sabbath day, so far as possible. 
 What I mean by " work," and how the word must 
 be interpreted (in the spirit rather than in the letter), 
 I have explained in the Bible for Home Reading, and 
 I need not repeat that explanation here. One of my 
 critics has told me to my great delight that several 
 children who have been brought up in accordance 
 with the views there inculcated have religiously 
 thriven. I would only impress upon parents the 
 grave importance of all work which children do on 
 week days being suspended on the Sabbath, and this 
 whether the child likes his lessons or no. The boy 
 who does not learn drawing on week days may draw 
 on Saturday. The boy who is learning English 
 history on week days must read no history on 
 Saturday. And so on. It is just as easy to give 
 and explain to children an intelligent^ spiritual observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath as it is to put a mechanical and 
 
xvr THE SABBATH 251 
 
 legalistic observance of it before them. They will 
 take to the one, and appreciate and understand it, 
 quite as readily as to the other. 
 
 So much about abstention. Even more important 
 is the question of positive observance. I will not say 
 anything here about bringing children up to attend 
 and to care for public worship and the services of the 
 synagogue. As public worship is of such immense 
 importance in the religious life, it is obvious that no 
 less important must be the diligence which parents 
 and teachers must exercise in order that children 
 should be induced to attend and care for it. No less 
 important that the services, whether special or general, 
 should be such as they can care for, both when they 
 are young and when they have grown up. Of all this 
 the present book is not the place to speak. 
 
 But a word may be added about the positive 
 observance of the Sabbath within the home. Of 
 great and enduring value upon the character of the 
 child may be the ceremonies connected with the 
 incoming of the Sabbath. I am inclined to think 
 that, from every point of view, it would be desirable 
 to maintain or reintroduce such ceremonies, adapting 
 them doubtless here and there so as to make them in 
 no wise jar upon our deepest convictions, but yet pre- 
 serving their historic and traditional character. Next 
 to, or even before, the ceremonies which appertain to 
 the Sabbath eve would come the use of family prayer 
 where, as is so often the case, a suitable synagogue 
 service is not available. For it is far better to have 
 a short family service than to make children attend 
 a synagogue of which the arrangements are unsuit- 
 able and unsympathetic to them. And outside 
 London or the big towns there is often no question 
 of a synagogue at all. But that the positive, regular 
 
252 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 observance of the Sabbath should be intermitted for 
 a single week is a grave evil, which should in no 
 wise be tolerated or allowed. 
 
 A dear friend of mine one of the best and noblest 
 of men was very keen upon daily family prayers 
 in the home. I think such prayers would be excellent, 
 but I fear that the exigencies of family life render 
 them very difficult to introduce and to keep up. 
 But the weekly Sabbath service, which can be held at 
 an hour to suit every member of the household, 
 including its male head, is essential. It is one of the 
 most important religious institutions which can be 
 observed to-day. It is capable of much variety : 
 each household can arrange a service or a " reading " 
 in accordance with its own views and needs. Such 
 a service, like all religious ceremonial, will remind 
 the child of God and of all that God implies ; it will 
 give him an opportunity for private prayer (for 
 u all public prayer is also private prayer ") ; it may 
 stimulate his Judaism ; it may even tend to sanctify 
 the whole of his week-day life. 
 
 A Sabbath without synagogue or family prayer 
 is a Sabbath with much of its influence and meaning 
 cut away. 
 
 Once more, before I leave the subject, let me urge 
 and entreat every Jewish parent, man or woman, 
 to remember that because he or she may have to 
 work upon some portion of the twenty-four hours of 
 the Sabbath, that is absolutely no reason for not using 
 the remaining hours sabbatic ally. On the contrary. 
 It is all the more reason why an attempt should be 
 made to make all the better and finer use of those 
 hours which are left over. It is just here that Liberal 
 Jews should show their fidelity to Judaism and their 
 power of rising above the constraint of circumstance. 
 
xvi THE SABBATH 253 
 
 They must not be the slaves of their environment, 
 but in a sense its masters. They must live in the 
 freedom of the spirit, and in that very freedom give 
 the letter its due. " Half a loaf is better than no 
 bread." This is true of material bread ; it is still 
 truer of spiritual bread. For here I can well conceive 
 that the half may be more than the whole. I can 
 conceive of a household of which one member, or 
 more than one member, may be compelled to work 
 upon Saturday, but where the Sabbath may neverthe- 
 less be observed more purely, more devoutly, and to 
 nobler purpose, than in other households where no 
 professional work need be done. Let not, therefore, 
 those who have to work upon the Sabbath despair. 
 With a good will and with a little trouble the values 
 and the blessings of the Sabbath may still be theirs. 
 
 It is not necessary for me to dwell in detail upon 
 the other occasions on which Jews and Jewesses should 
 meet for public worship in the synagogue, and which 
 they should also observe as festivals or holy days in 
 their own homes. 
 
 It is, however, very desirable to remark that the 
 Pentateuchal festivals and holy days should still 
 continue to be the festivals and holy days of Liberal 
 Judaism. Parents should observe them faithfully, and 
 teach their children to observe them faithfully. All 
 the motives which I alluded to before for the main- 
 tenance of ceremonial institutions in the abstract 
 apply with increased force to the maintenance of the 
 festivals and holy days of the Pentateuch. I will 
 recall these motives. (i) The maintenance of a 
 bond with the past. (2) The maintenance of an 
 institutional and public religious or ceremonial 
 bond with other Jews all over the world. (3) 
 The desirability, even the necessity, of having 
 
254 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP 
 
 an outward and distinctive embodiment for any 
 particular religion. (4) The difficulty, even the 
 impossibility, of creating any brand - new embodi- 
 ment for any historical religion. In every phase of 
 Judaism it will surely be desirable to maintain the 
 observance (in synagogue and home) of Passover, 
 Pentecost, and Tabernacles, of the Day of Memorial 
 and the Day of Atonement. 
 
 On the other hand, it is not only legitimate, but 
 desirable and even necessary, gradually to charge 
 these old festivals and holy days with fresh and deeper 
 meanings. In doing this, we are simply following 
 precedent. The Pentecost of the Rabbis was a very 
 different festival from the Pentecost of the Penta- 
 teuch, and the same may be said for their Day of 
 Atonement as compared with the " Day " which is 
 instituted and described in the sixteenth chapter of 
 Leviticus. 
 
 From that double point of view maintenance, on 
 the one hand, gradual development of meaning upon 
 the other let me briefly pass the Pentateuchal festivals 
 and holy days in review. 
 
 First, then, the Passover. The Passover is the 
 only one of the five festivals or holy days which may 
 be said to possess a "national" or racial character. 
 All the others (including Pentecost) could equally 
 well be celebrated by men of every race. I am by 
 no means sure that the Passover, with some develop- 
 ments of meaning, could not also be celebrated with 
 fervour and interest by proselytes of every race. 
 Whether this be so or not, one thing to me is clear : 
 namely, the urgent present duty of all Liberal Jews 
 to observe the Passover. And when I say " to observe " 
 it, I mean to observe it properly, with its ancient 
 symbolism and its ancient forms. This means that 
 
xvi THE FESTIVALS 255 
 
 Liberal Jews must (a) observe the first and seventh 
 day of Passover as days of " rest " and worship ; 
 () observe the old ceremonial whereby for seven 
 days unleavened bread is eaten at meals. It is also 
 eminently desirable to retain in some modified form 
 the domestic service upon the first night of the 
 festival. 
 
 I do not believe, and when such questions can 
 suitably be brought to the notice of children, I should 
 be ready to tell them so, that God directly ordered 
 Moses to bid the children of Israel eat unleavened 
 bread for seven days. The origin of the rite of 
 unleavened bread, the combination of the Pcsach 
 with the Mazzot) were not actually what they arc 
 described in the Pentateuch. The more modern and 
 critical text-books on the history of Israel's religion 
 give the actual, as distinct from the recorded, origin 
 of the present observances. 
 
 But none the less I strongly urge the maintenance 
 of the unleavened bread. For (a) a week's observ- 
 ance of this kind is not anti-social ; () it is not 
 improperly burdensome ; (c) it is interesting in itself ; 
 (d) it is suggestive and useful for children ; (c} it 
 possesses many valuable symbolic meanings. 
 
 The Passover celebrates the deliverance of the 
 Israelites from Egyptian bondage. The sanest and 
 best modern investigation and criticism hold that 
 some of the Israelite tribes at least did reside for 
 a period in Egypt, that they were " oppressed," 
 and that they did, under their leader Moses, make 
 good their escape. 
 
 Thus a basis or residuum of historical fact 
 remains, and this residuum is adequate for the 
 continued maintenance of the festival. But deeper 
 meanings must be poured into the residuum. The 
 
256 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Passover celebrates the beginnings of the self-con- 
 sciousness of Israel ; the setting forth of Israel upon 
 its mission. Thus the Passover, which in one sense 
 may seem to be the most restricted and national 
 of the five festivals or holy days, may be also 
 regarded as the most distinctively universalist. It is 
 the festival which commemorates the giving of a 
 charge, the founding of a mission, the institution 
 of a brotherhood, which were intended to spread 
 the knowledge of God throughout the world. Can 
 a more " universal " festival be desired ? 
 
 Again, the Passover is the festival of Liberty- 
 liberty in political life, liberty in moral life, liberty 
 in religious life. How immense the range ! 
 
 But what is Liberty ? It is freedom through law. 
 Passover leads on to Pentecost, the festival which 
 celebrates the giving of the Law. The attitude of 
 Liberal Judaism to law has already been described. 
 It is so important and intimate that our critical 
 standpoint towards the miraculous incidents recorded 
 in Exodus becomes of very minor significance. The 
 Festival of Law may therefore fitly be observed by 
 Liberal and Conservative Jews alike. 
 
 Tabernacles is the nature and harvest festival, 
 the festival in which we think of the omnipresence 
 of the Divine Being, and of his relation to the world. 
 The later legislation of the Pentateuch shows a desire 
 to bring the festival into relation with history : like 
 the Pentecost it also is made to commemorate the 
 exodus from Egypt (cp. Exod. xxiii. 16, xxxiv. 22, and 
 Deut. xvi. 13 with Lev. xxiii. 42, 43). And I think 
 we may include in the celebration of Tabernacles 
 a reference to God in " history " as well as to his 
 relation to " nature." The two days of rest involved 
 in the festival of Tabernacles should be no less 
 
xvi THE FESTIVALS 257 
 
 faithfully observed than the two days involved in 
 Passover and the one day of Pentecost. The total 
 number of such rest days, even when none fall 
 upon the Sabbath, is after all only five. 
 
 To these five must be added, thus making seven 
 days of rest in all, the Day of Memorial and the 
 Day of Atonement. I have said something about 
 these two holy days in my Bible for Home Reading 
 (vol i.). I do not propose to dwell upon them here 
 in detail. Suffice it to observe that these two holy 
 days, in their modern form and charged with their 
 modern meanings, are broadly human. They are 
 the two holy days which deal with the problems of 
 sin, repentance, atonement, forgiveness problems 
 which relate to and concern all human beings alike. 
 As the New Year, the Day of Memorial seems to 
 me to have little significance. For all the Liberal 
 Jews of the West the New Year must be the first of 
 January. But as the holy day opening the short 
 season of solemn reflection, which is to culminate in 
 the Day of Atonement, the Day of Memorial seems 
 to have ample justification and scope. The relation 
 of God to man and of man to God as regards 
 repentance, the " new life " of virtue, and the 
 abandonment of the " old life " of sin, is so im- 
 portant and so delicate that two days of worship 
 and holy rest are none too much for its adequate 
 consideration. The long service on the Day of 
 Memorial, and the still longer all-day service upon 
 the Day of Atonement, seem to me spiritually profit- 
 able and thus religiously justifiable. 
 
 Should Liberal Jewish parents teach their children 
 to abstain from food for the twenty-four hours of 
 the Day of Atonement ? Such abstention can no 
 longer be regarded by us as a verbal command of 
 
258 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 God. It must, therefore, be considered upon its 
 merits. From the superstitions which have some- 
 times been generated by the Day of Atonement, 
 Liberal Jews will, it is hoped, be utterly free. 
 They can still, therefore, observe the bodily fast 
 without the smallest danger that any of them will 
 think that in the fast as such lies any virtue or 
 merit. The fast is no amulet. Our whole con- 
 ception of " forgiveness " is so spiritualised that 
 superstition can hardly come in. As therefore this 
 is so, I am inclined to think that the bodily fast 
 should be maintained. The objection to it is that, 
 in some cases, it makes people wish the day to 
 come to an end, and that, combined with the often 
 stuffy atmosphere of the synagogue, it causes weari- 
 ness and headache rather than keen introspection 
 and eager thought. If the fast makes the mind less 
 fit for, and responsive to, the religious opportunities 
 of the day, I doubt whether a small breakfast before 
 an early departure for synagogue (which I regard as 
 important) is not better than complete abstention. 
 On the other hand, the bodily discipline has its 
 distinct advantages. And there are so very few 
 ascetic incidents in Judaism, as our modern life is 
 organised, that it may be very undesirable to abolish 
 the one such incident which remains. I would prefer 
 to leave the question without any dogmatic assertion 
 upon the one side or the other. As to the supreme 
 importance of the " Day " in itself, and of the 
 desirability of spending it in public worship with 
 one's fellows, I have no hesitation or doubt. 
 
 Of the non-Pentateuchal festivals and holy days 
 which are observed by Conservative Jews, the only 
 one which Liberal Judaism should retain is, to my 
 thinking, the Feast of Chanukah or Dedication. That 
 
xvi THE FESTIVALS 259 
 
 festival celebrates the heroism of the Maccabaean 
 martyrs and warriors, and the preservation of the 
 Jewish religion at a season of the utmost peril. 
 How it should best be celebrated, and the newer 
 and larger meanings which may, perhaps, be given 
 to it, need not, however, here be discussed. The 
 " lighting of the lamps," associated with Chanukah, 
 is, one must add, a beautiful symbolical rite, which, 
 whatever its real origin, has many claims to be main- 
 tained. And it possesses the additional advantage 
 that the Chanukah lamp may be a picturesque orna- 
 ment in the Jewish home. 
 
 With the Sabbath, with Passover, Pentecost, and 
 Tabernacles, with the Day of Memorial and the Day 
 of Atonement, and with the festival of Chanukah, 
 the individual and the community have a series of 
 ceremonial institutions, festivals, and holy days 
 which should be fully adequate for their religious 
 requirements, so far as such requirements can so 
 be met. May Liberal Jewish parents teach their 
 children to honour and maintain them ; may they 
 teach their children to use them for their own 
 religious benefit, for the welfare of Judaism, and for 
 the glory of God. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OF PROPHETIC JUDAISM AND OF LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 The last seven chapters of my book were written after 
 the resolution had been taken to turn it into a book for parents 
 and teachers instead of a book for children. It has, 
 moreover ', unfortunately not been possible for more than 
 one of my dozen critics to read them, and for the re- 
 mainder of my work the reader will, therefore, be de- 
 prived of the benefit of their suggestions and amendments. 
 
 The present chapter, like those which follow it, is not 
 intended to be presented by the teacher or the parent to 
 young children under fifteen. But I see no reason why, 
 at a fairly early age^ children should not be made familiar 
 with the great salient teachings of the Prophets, or why 
 they should not be told that it is the Prophets who laid the 
 true foundations , and proclaimed the essence, of the Jewish 
 religion as we hold and profess it to-day. In the pre- 
 critical age men reverently taught their children that the 
 Law came first and then the Prophets. In the critical 
 age we can reverently teach our children that the Prophets 
 came first and then the Law. Why Judaism (in the 
 form in which we present it to them) is still in a sense a 
 legal religion can be simply explained to them. But it can 
 also be simply explained to them why Judaism, in a still 
 more intimate sense, is a prophetic religion, deriving from 
 the Prophets its very essence and core. 
 
 260 
 
CH.XVII PROPHETIC JUDAISM 261 
 
 Again, the thought which I have expressed in saying 
 that Liberal Judaism is a democratic religion can also 
 be put before children ', in a simplified form, at a fairly 
 early age. They will be taught the great adage of 
 the Book of Proverbs : " The rich and the poor meet 
 together : the Lord is the maker of them all" They 
 will be taught how the idea of equality comes into 
 religion , and how it enters, at least to some extent, 
 into the ideals of the Golden Age. In various ways 
 such as these they will be prepared for the fuller and 
 more definite teaching which is suggested in the present 
 chapter. 
 
 WE have seen that in a certain very real sense 
 Liberal Judaism may still describe itself as a religion 
 of Law. It still looks to the Pentateuch as to one of 
 its main sources. But even more intimately is it 
 connected with, even more closely is it related to, 
 the Prophets. I have sought to explain the con- 
 nection with Law and with the Pentateuch. In very 
 brief words I will seek to explain the relationship 
 with the Prophets. 
 
 I will not base this relationship upon the mere 
 historic fact that the Prophets were the creators of 
 Jewish Monotheism. For the Law, following in the 
 footsteps of the Prophets, teaches Monotheism like- 
 wise. But I would rather base the close relationship 
 upon two great characteristics of the prophetic Mono- 
 theism, two modes in which their conception of 
 religion is expressed. 
 
 The first is their well-known, but never obsolete, 
 opposition to ritual and form, where such ritual and 
 form are not the vehicles of the spirit, and where the 
 higher ethical form and the higher ethical ritual are 
 absent. u I desire love and not sacrifice." " What 
 
262 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 does the Lord require of thee ? Justice, compas- 
 sion, humility." The freedom which Liberal Judaism 
 claims for itself in adapting forms and ritual to suit 
 the needs of the age, to make them a vehicle for 
 the spirit of religion instead of an obstruction, is 
 ultimately derived from prophetic teaching. Forms 
 which generate formalism are suspect. Again, that 
 forms have little or no value in themselves, that they 
 are means not ends, is true prophetic doctrine. If a 
 man observes forms and thinks himself a pious soul 
 for doing so, he is on the high road to becoming 
 self-righteous : he is on the high road to becoming 
 an example of one of those types of character which 
 were abhorrent to the prophetic mind. The Prophets 
 taught that the true forms and ritual of religion, the 
 true outward expressions of the worship and the love 
 of God, were to be found in ethical and not in 
 specifically " religious " acts. To do a just or 
 loving deed was a " form " superior to offering a 
 lamb (or, as we should say, to going to synagogue). 
 You serve God best by "serving" man. ("He prays 
 best who loves best.") This doctrine Liberal Juda- 
 ism still maintains. However important it may hold 
 religious forms to be, however important to name 
 the chief " form " it may consider public worship, 
 it can never forget that the service of Him who is 
 essentially moral perfection must be expressed in 
 moral endeavour. 
 
 But this, the first, is not the special characteristic 
 of the Prophets upon which, in this brief chapter, I 
 desire to dwell. The second is implied in the first 
 characteristic, but is not identical with it. The 
 first characteristic declares that the true service of 
 God, the true forms, the true expression of religion, 
 are justice and compassion. But what special sort of 
 
xvn SOCIAL PROBLEMS 263 
 
 justice and compassion ? This is the subject of the 
 second characteristic. 
 
 Those who are in any degree familiar with the 
 prophetic writings know that the justice and com- 
 passion of which they speak are of a markedly 
 social type. The Prophets are the spokesmen of 
 the poor. What they look forward to is a state of 
 things in which there will be less inequality than 
 exists in the society around them ; not only will 
 all " know " God, but all will be happy, and all I 
 think I may go so far will be prosperous. Doubt- 
 less the few will be less rich, but the many will be 
 less poor. The few will own less land, but the 
 many will own more. They desiderate, they even 
 demand, a happiness which shall not merely consist in 
 serenity of soul, in the consciousness of right-doing, in 
 the search for and the communion with God, but also 
 in those external conditions which are not without 
 their effect upon the inner life of the mind and the 
 heart. 
 
 This particular type of justice and compassion is 
 reflected in the Law. " Like the teaching of the 
 Prophets, the Law manifests a striking sympathy for 
 the poorer classes, an unflagging respect for their 
 equal humanity. The manhood of the poor was 
 more sacred to it than the property of the rich. . . . 
 [Many] provisions of the Hebrew Law were meant 
 to counteract the separation of the people from the 
 land. It sought to prevent the growth of great 
 estates and a landed aristocracy upon the one side, 
 and the growth of a landless proletariat upon the 
 other. ... Its regard for the rights of the poor, its 
 tenderness even for their finer feelings of self-respect, 
 are so noble and humane that we cannot study its 
 social features without a thrill of sympathy and 
 
264 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 admiration." l Both the Prophets and the Law may 
 justly be called " democratic." There is a true sense 
 in which their ideals or some of their ideals might, 
 without inaccuracy, if anachronistically, be described, 
 in the familiar words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. 
 
 Now, if all this be true and unexaggerated, as 
 I believe it to be, what is the moral ? Let us 
 think it out very calmly, but fairly, open-eyedly. 
 
 Liberal Judaism, like orthodox Judaism, takes 
 no side in party politics. In England, for example, 
 some of its adherents are politically Radicals ; 
 others are politically Unionist or Conservative. I 
 have no doubt that the same phenomenon would 
 hold good in America and in Germany. It is, 
 moreover, not infrequently the case that religious 
 Conservatism goes with political Liberalism, and 
 religious Liberalism with political Conservatism. It 
 would be very unfortunate, I think, for various 
 reasons, if the lines of political cleavage tallied 
 with those of religious cleavage, if, in England, 
 for example, all Liberal Jews were politically Liberal, 
 and all Conservative Jews politically Conservative. 
 For one thing, I am glad to believe that religion, 
 and the best religion, can sweeten and purify all, or 
 almost all, political opinions. Political Liberalism 
 and political Conservatism may be held selfishly or 
 held unselfishly : by some persons the good of all 
 is sincerely supposed to be better furthered through 
 the domination of the one party, by others through 
 the domination of the other party. Thus Liberal 
 Judaism would seek to include within its ranks those 
 who politically have very different opinions and are 
 found in wholly opposite camps. 
 
 But whether we are Radicals or Tories, we are all 
 
 1 Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, pp. 19-21. 
 
xvn SOCIAL PROBLEMS 265 
 
 to-day participators in a common democracy. The 
 best Labour men would not deliberately desire to be 
 unjust to the minority of persons who, according 
 to the party tests, are outside the ranks of Labour. 
 The best Tories would not deliberately desire to be 
 unjust to working men. No one professes to-day to 
 care only for his own class or order, though the 
 members of each class too often predicate this of 
 the other, and though the predication is doubtless 
 much too often accurate and true. No one to-day 
 would deliberately say that certain persons with their 
 descendants have any right to be happier and wiser 
 than any other persons, or that opportunities should 
 not, so far as possible, be equal for all. 
 
 In that sense, then, the ideals of the Hebrew 
 prophets have won a very general acceptance, what- 
 ever the special views of men may be upon land 
 tenure, old age pensions, or compulsory insurance. 
 
 It will not then evoke opposition from any of its 
 supporters, if, letting others speak for Conservative 
 Judaism, I say of Liberal Judaism that it is a 
 democratic religion. I call it a democratic religion 
 for two main reasons. The first is that it is a priest- 
 less religion. It places every one, man or woman, on 
 a footing of equality before God. Each soul should 
 be able to approach him on the same free conditions. 
 Each soul has a right to claim that he counts before 
 God as one no less and no more. The second 
 reason is that, following its founders and leaders, 
 Liberal Judaism must, I think, regard both the mani- 
 festation and the goal of religion as consisting in 
 social betterment as well as in individual purification. 
 Earthly life is both an end in itself and a prepara- 
 tion for another life. If the one goal is individual, 
 the other is social. Liberal Judaism desires that 
 
266 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 earth should become a very much better place for 
 the majority of its human inhabitants to live in than 
 at present it is. 
 
 And now it is reasonable to go a step further. It 
 is necessary that parents and teachers should gravely 
 call to mind that religions have shown a certain 
 tendency to become identified with the maintenance 
 of things as they are. They require money for their 
 external upkeep for churches and synagogues and 
 they have shown a tendency to become ruled by, 
 and closely connected with, the classes and the persons 
 who provide this money which they require. The 
 lay rulers have to some extent set the tone and the 
 tune for the clerical teachers. Alms-giving has 
 been commended, but hardly social reform as a 
 whole. The great reforms have not usually come 
 from the biggest churches. Official religion has 
 tended to become the religion of the comfortable 
 and the well-to-do. So long as the Jews lived in the 
 ghetto amid adversity and persecution, they and 
 their religion were little subjected to these influences. 
 But now in England and in America things are dif- 
 ferent, and Judaism must beware lest it incline to 
 become the religion of one class rather than of another. 
 
 Other causes and influences are tending to the 
 same result. We know that a large number of 
 Russian Jews, transplanted into England and America, 
 are shaking off the beliefs and practices of Conserva- 
 tive Judaism, but are none the more adopting the 
 beliefs and practices of Liberal Judaism. Why is 
 this ? It behoves Liberal Jewish teachers to consider. 
 The fact may be due to many causes, but one cause is 
 the vagueness of the attitude taken up by Liberal 
 Judaism towards social problems and social reform. 
 We must, however, not leave these problems and 
 
xvn SOCIAL PROBLEMS 267 
 
 this reform, outside our Jewish thought, our Jewish 
 activities. We must not regard them even as merely 
 broadly human, and not specifically Jewish. We 
 must not let them be taken hold of by active 
 Christians and stamped as specifically Christian. 
 Still less must we let any body regard them as outside 
 the province of religion. For these problems and 
 this reform, both for the eager poor and the earnest 
 rich, for him who would help and for him who 
 suffers, are the things upon which very many minds 
 are bent and very many hearts are set. And the 
 danger is very real and keen lest Liberal (or Con- 
 servative) Judaism be thought to concern itself only 
 with our attitude to the past to the Bible and the 
 Talmud or with men's relations to the life after 
 death about which nothing can be known. There 
 is a real danger lest it be thought that Liberal 
 Judaism has no concern with the things about 
 which the hearts of men are palpitating now, about 
 the things which make them suffer, or about the 
 things which might make them suffer less, or about 
 the things which cause excitement and tension and 
 the quarrels of class with class. If Judaism is sup- 
 posed to concern itself only with public worship 
 and the private relations of the individual soul with 
 God, it will tend to lose the interest both of the 
 eager young man who wants to help, and of the big 
 mass of toilers who are face to face with all the 
 economic and social problems that beset us all. 
 Liberal Judaism must, indeed, think of the individual 
 soul and God, but it must also think of society and 
 God. It must lead men on, and lead men back, 
 from the second to the first. It must remember the 
 kingdom of God upon earth : it must remember the 
 Golden Age that is to be. 
 
268 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Thoughts of this kind have been for some while in 
 my mind, but I must frankly state that I was induced 
 to give expression to them in this chapter by a 
 remarkable book (from which I have already quoted) 
 entitled : Christianity and the Social Crisis. The 
 author, Walter Rauschenbusch, Professor of Church 
 History in the Theological Seminary of Rochester, 
 U.S.A., writes, I admit, from the distinctively 
 socialist point of view, but all men, whether socialists 
 or individualists, would, I believe, find his book 
 interesting, suggestive and helpful. Not least should 
 find it so Jewish readers, Jewish teachers and parents, 
 adherents of Liberal Judaism. When Prof. Rauschen- 
 busch writes : " It cannot be denied that there is an 
 increasing alienation between the working class and]the 
 churches/' let us substitute the word " synagogues " 
 for " churches," and ask how far the sentence is 
 still true, and if it be, how far the causes and the 
 remedies which are suggested for the churches would 
 be accurate and suitable for the synagogues. 
 
 Let us substitute Jewish for Christian terms in 
 the following passages and ask how far it still remains 
 valid : 
 
 "The [Synagogue], to have full power over our 
 age, must be the highest expression of the moral and 
 religious truths held by that age. If it lags behind 
 and deals in outgrown conceptions of life and duty, 
 it will lose power over the ablest minds and the 
 young men first, and gradually over all. In our 
 thought to - day the social problems irresistibly 
 take the lead. If the [Synagogue] has no live and 
 bold thought on this dominant question of modern 
 life, its teaching authority on all other questions will 
 diminish and be despised. It cannot afford to have 
 young men sniff the air as in a stuffy room when 
 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS 269 
 
 they enter the sphere of religious thought. When 
 the world is in travail with a higher ideal of justice, 
 the [Synagogue] dare not ignore it, if it would retain 
 its moral leadership. On the other hand, if the 
 [Synagogue] does incorporate the new social terms 
 in its synthesis of truth, they are certain to throw 
 new light on all the older elements in its teaching." 
 
 It must be admitted by those whose religion goes 
 back to, and indeed is largely based upon, the teach- 
 ing of the Prophets, that social questions have their 
 religious side, and that religion cannot stop short 
 outside them. The problems of individualism and 
 socialism may not be for the religious teacher to 
 solve. But the end which the advocates of indi- 
 vidualism say can best be approached by individualism, 
 and which the advocates of socialism say can best 
 be approached by socialism, is also the goal of 
 the Prophets : it is the demand of religion. For 
 that end is better conditions, fuller well-being, wider 
 opportunities, for all the children of men. It is, in 
 other words, the realisation of justice and compas- 
 sion ; the accomplishment of the Prophets' dream. 
 
 For what, after all, is to be the content of the 
 Golden or Messianic Age ? It is no good to vapour 
 about the time when peace shall be supreme, and 
 tears shall be dried, and oppression shall be no more. 
 The question is, what do we really mean by such a 
 time, how far can man help to the drying of tears 
 and to the end of oppression ? We must translate 
 the terms of the Prophets into their modern equiva- 
 lents ; we must translate them into terms which 
 have a relation to actual life and to present 
 endeavour. If we so translate them, will not the 
 
 1 Christianity and the Social Crisis, pp. 329, 339. One of my critics aptly 
 reminds me that Dr. Stephen Wise in his addresses before the Jewish Religious 
 Union took very much Prof. Rauschenbusch's line. 
 
270 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Golden Epoch the Messianic Era denote a time 
 when (in addition to much else) to the upright and 
 honourable worker outward conditions will never pre- 
 vent the attainment of knowledge or happiness, when 
 there will be no sweating or shockingly inadequate 
 wages, and when, so far as possible, there will be 
 equal opportunities for all? Is not something like 
 this the modern equivalent of each man sitting under 
 his vine or his fig-tree and no one making him afraid ? 
 How we may best and most safely approximate to 
 such ideals is another question on which opinions 
 will for long widely vary. 
 
 But the ideals themselves seem to form at least a 
 part both of the prophets' Golden Age and of the 
 Golden Age which might be depicted by any democrat 
 to-day. And if, with the doctrine, the prophetic in- 
 terpretation ot the Golden Age or of the Kingdom of 
 God be also accepted by Liberal Judaism, then we may 
 say that the ideals of democracy are included in the 
 ideals of our religion. They are transcended, they are 
 purified ; they may be even transfigured with a higher 
 or more individual righteousness, but they are not 
 excluded. They are included. They are to be 
 reckoned with ; they are to be worked for ; they 
 are to be prayed for. They are part of the Golden 
 Age ; they are part of the Kingdom of God. Reli- 
 gion is more than good air, good water, good drains, 
 good food, good wages, but, at all events, in its ful- 
 ness in its social fulness it is not less. 
 
 If, then, what I have so far said is valid and true, 
 it follows that the social worker cuts himself off from 
 the finest stimulus and hope both for himself and his 
 fellows when he neglects, or drops off from, religion. 
 It also follows that the Synagogues and the Churches 
 must seek to speak a word on social questions, and 
 
xvn SOCIAL PROBLEMS 271 
 
 lend a hand in social work. These questions and 
 this work are not outside their province, but within 
 it. Religion must keep close to " life," but " life " 
 must be interfused with religion. The working 
 classes in the narrow and unsatisfactory sense (mean- 
 ing mainly those who labour with their hands), and 
 the social reformers of all shades of individualist or 
 socialist opinion, must be made to feel that they can 
 gain great strength by religion, just as religion can 
 gain great strength from them. Liberal Judaism 
 needs us all the rich and the poor ; the worker with 
 his hands and the worker with his brain ; the 
 " lower" class, the "middle" class, the "upper" 
 class. It needs them all. But it has something to 
 say to them all. It has to remind them of their 
 equality before God ; it has to make them social 
 instead of selfish, desirous for the good of all, instead 
 of seeking the good of their own particular class. 
 And it has something to give to them all a common 
 bond and a common strength ; a common hope and 
 a common faith. Liberal Judaism must ultimately 
 come by its own, which is at least nothing less than 
 all those who are born Jews, but all Jews must 
 ultimately come by their own, which is at least 
 nothing less than the depth and fulness of religion 
 the worship and the love of God. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 OF CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL JUDAISM 
 
 This chapter and the five which succeed it seem to 
 explain themselves, and scarcely need, I think, either 
 preface or introduction. They are avowedly written for 
 parents and teachers, and it will be for them to decide 
 what portions of 'them , in what form and dilution^ and at 
 what particular stage of child development, to bring 
 before their children. One point only I would venture to 
 reiterate. It is that the body of teaching presented in 
 this book is a whole, and that though it need not all be 
 given at one stage or time, it is unnecessary and undesir- 
 able to give to the child, at any stage and at any time, 
 teaching which conflicts with it. Liberal Judaism need 
 not be presented in its entirety to the young child, and 
 it need not be presented in the same form to the young 
 child as to the older child. But my contention and 
 belief remain that it should be always Liberal Judaism 
 which should be administered to the child (whatever 
 its age] which is born of Liberal Jewish parents, 
 and which is to be brought up to become a Liberal 
 Jew. He is not to be taught one Judaism as a child, 
 and then, off his own bat, to acquire another. Con- 
 servative Judaism does not (as I have already tried 
 to show] turn into Liberal Judaism by shrinkage. If 
 you take two objects which are allied but not alike (e.g. 
 a round box and a square box\ and chip off pieces, or 
 
 272 
 
en. xviii CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL 273 
 
 compress them, you do not turn the one into the other. Tou 
 simply make each object smaller, or rather, you simply 
 produce a truncated specimen of each. Chip off bits from 
 Conservative Judaism^ and you may obtain a truncated 
 Conservative Judaism, but you will not obtain Liberal 
 Judaism. Hence Liberal Judaism, like Conservative 
 Judaism, must be taught and must grow from the begin- 
 ning. It is for the skilful teacher and parent to show 
 exactly how, but the " how " cannot be by planting one 
 sort of seed and expecting a different flower. 
 
 THIS book is written for teachers and parents who 
 hold to that form of the Jewish religion which is 
 called Liberal Judaism. The term is not wholly a 
 happy one, for the word Liberal is used in so many 
 other senses. Liberal Judaism does not mean a 
 Judaism the upholders of, or believers in, which are 
 more generous than those who profess any other kind 
 of Judaism. It has nothing whatever to do with 
 party politics. There may be Liberal Jews who, as 
 I have already said, in politics are Conservatives, and 
 there may be Conservative Jews who in politics are 
 Liberal. Another word for the same thing, which 
 "liberal" has now largely displaced, was "reform" or 
 "reformed." But "reform" or "reformed Judaism," 
 has other objections as a title into which I need 
 not enter. It suggests a "reform" or modification of 
 details rather than a fresh presentation of the religion 
 as a whole. 
 
 Liberal Judaism stands in opposition to, or in 
 contrast with, what is often called Traditional or 
 Orthodox or Conservative Judaism. The opposition, 
 from our liberal point of view, is by no means a 
 happy one. For in a certain sense Liberal Judaism 
 is traditional too ; only Liberal Jews desire to 
 
 T 
 
274 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 carry the tradition forward and onward. Which 
 Judaism is orthodox is exactly the question in dispute ; 
 whose opinion or faith is right, or in the right, is 
 precisely the point which the future has to decide. 
 
 Whatever the names which should most fitly.be 
 adopted, there are, at any rate, two main forms of 
 Judaism which exist to-day, two main forms op- 
 posed to each other. But because these two forms 
 are in some respects opposed to each other, this 
 does not mean that they have not also very much in 
 common. And this is, indeed, the fact. 
 
 I am inclined to think that of the chapters in this 
 book which deal with the nature of God and of his 
 relation to man most would be passed, with slight 
 differences in detail and stress here and there, by Con- 
 servative as well as by Liberal Jews. The doctrines 
 of the Golden Age and of Immortality would be held 
 by both alike. The doctrines of prayer and of the 
 service of God by man would be in large measure the 
 same. The mission of Israel is championed by both, 
 though there would be certain differences in applica- 
 tion and detail. I do not know that there would 
 be important differences as regards sin and forgive- 
 ness and repentance and punishment and reward. To 
 both Conservative and Liberal Jews God is King and 
 Father ; to both he enters into relations with man, 
 and helps him to goodness and the new heart. 
 
 The differences come in regard to the questions 
 of miracles, of inspiration, of the Bible and the 
 Pentateuchal law. The differences are doubtless 
 large and important, but the agreements are very 
 much larger and more important still. What is 
 contained in the noun (Judaism) is larger and more 
 important than what is contained in the adjectives 
 (Liberal, Conservative). Hence the bonds of union 
 
xvin CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL 275 
 
 which keep together Liberal and Conservative are 
 larger, more important and no less distinctive than 
 the teachings which are at issue between them. 
 
 And before going further, there is another point 
 which I desire to make. It is often represented by 
 our Conservative opponents as if Liberal Judaism 
 were all negation ; as if, at least when it differed 
 from Conservative Judaism, it differed merely to 
 deny. Our opponents speak as if Liberal Judaism 
 were nothing but Conservative Judaism with seven- 
 eighths of Judaism cut off. This is, however, a 
 misrepresentation and a mistake. It is true that 
 Liberal Judaism denies certain doctrines of Con- 
 servative Judaism, but these denials are merely 
 the obverse, so to speak, of large and important 
 affirmations. 
 
 If we differ from Conservative Judaism, for 
 example, as regards the miracles recorded in the 
 Bible, as regards the doctrine of inspiration, as 
 regards the perpetual validity and authority of the 
 ceremonial law, this is because <?/", or this has led up 
 to, positive doctrines, no less important and definite, 
 and (as we believe) nobler and truer, than the 
 doctrines held by our Conservative opponents. In- 
 deed Liberal Jews are, on the whole, more disposed 
 than Conservative Jews to regard a consistent body 
 6f doctrine a systematic theology as necessary and 
 important. Liberal Judaism is, therefore, quite as 
 positive and affirmative as Conservative Judaism : its 
 own affirmations are as essential to it as other affirma- 
 tions are essential to Conservative Judaism, its rival. 
 
 In one sense alone would it be right to say that 
 Liberal Judaism is less dogmatic than one form at 
 least of Conservative Judaism, and that form the 
 truer and the better form. For there is a form of 
 
276 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Conservative Judaism which was started in the 
 nineteenth century, and has had, and still has, a 
 considerable vogue. It likes to call itself Historical 
 Judaism, and is even more fiercely opposed to Liberal 
 Judaism than the true old Conservative Judaism from 
 which it sprang. Historical Judaism declares that 
 Liberal Judaism has no connection with history, 
 that it is un-Jewish, that it has cut itself off from 
 the past, and that it is a mere vague Theism which 
 will soon entirely lose its slight Jewish veneer. 
 So far as its own beliefs are concerned, it lays 
 stress, it tells us, upon action and not upon belief, 
 upon conduct and not upon dogma. The thoughts 
 of man cannot be bound : his actions can. The 
 unity between Jews must be one not of beliefs, but 
 of observance. In the ceremonial Law resides the 
 essence of Judaism, and the Jew is he who observes 
 its enactments. Of miracles, of the date of the 
 Pentateuch, of inspiration and the origin of the Law, 
 one man will believe this and another that, but both 
 alike can and should observe the Law, and in that 
 common observance lie the common bond and the 
 common Judaism. 
 
 Liberal Judaism is strongly opposed to this 
 conception. It holds that faith and action, belief and 
 observance, must form a unity. Religious observance 
 must express and manifest religious faith. There 
 must be a correspondence between them. Observ- 
 ances which run counter to faith, which violate a 
 cherished belief, or which are not based upon belief, 
 have no religious value any longer. 
 
 On the other hand, Liberal Judaism, while keen 
 on its religious affirmations and doctrines, is opposed 
 to the formation of dogmatic creeds. It would not 
 attempt or desire to substitute in its prayer-books 
 
xvin CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL 277 
 
 another creed for that which is found in all the 
 orthodox prayer-books to-day. We do not claim to 
 have reached perfection and finality in the develop- 
 ment of Judaism. We can well believe that the 
 teaching of Liberal Judaism in 2012 will not be 
 wholly the same as the teachings of Liberal Judaism 
 in 1912. We trust that the later teachings will be 
 better and truer. But none the less do we profess and 
 cherish the teachings of our religion to-day. 
 
 Again, in the details and in the implications of 
 these teachings there is room for individual variety. 
 We ask for no dogmatic fixity, for no hard and fast 
 determinations. Within a certain measure of definite- 
 ness and agreement there must be room for diversity 
 and for development. We possess a bond of union 
 in our common faith, and yet we also possess a right 
 measure of freedom, with an absence of rigid 
 dogmatic chains. 
 
 I have alluded to the thirteen articles of creed, 
 or as they are also called in the authorised Prayer-book, 
 the thirteen " principles of the faith." They were 
 formulated by Maimonides, and are therefore now 
 more than eight hundred years old. It may be 
 convenient to run through them briefly, and to see 
 where Liberal Judaism is in agreement with, and 
 where it differs from them. 
 
 But this much must be premised at the outset. 
 The articles leave out, or are silent about, many 
 "articles of faith " which Liberal Judaism regards 
 as essential. If, therefore, we reject some of the 
 thirteen, this does not mean that our Judaism is 
 confined to the remainder, for, in the first place, our 
 rejections (as we shall see) will mean substitutions, and 
 in the second place, we shall ask for additions. 
 
 i. "The Creator is the Author and Guide of 
 
278 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 everything which has been created, and he alone has 
 made, does make and will make all things." 
 
 This first article plunges, as it were, into the thick 
 of things, and deals at once with a particular con- 
 troversy. The Articles do not deal wih the existence of 
 God and, above all, they are silent as to his moral per- 
 fection and his omnipresence. The controversy, to 
 which the first article alludes, is the so-called creatio ex 
 nihilo. If God has made all things, then he made some 
 things from no thing. Liberal Judaism is indifferent to 
 this controversy. Whether God is the " creator " of 
 " matter," and in what sense he is the " creator " of 
 the material universe, we do not know, and we do not 
 ask faith to take up any particular attitude upon the 
 subject. We are more keen on God's ruling than on 
 his making : God the Guide is more to us than God 
 the Creator so far as the world of matter is concerned. 
 That God is the source of life, and above all of the 
 human soul, that he is the origin of goodness and of 
 knowledge upon this (as we have already seen) 
 Liberal Judaism lays stress. If we drew up articles, 
 it is this point to which attention would be called. 
 
 2. " The Creator is a Unity, and there is no Unity 
 in any manner like unto his, and he alone is our God, 
 who was, is, and will be." 
 
 Liberal Judaism is in full accord with this article. 
 
 3. " The Creator is not a body, and he is free from 
 all the accidents of matter, and he has not any form 
 whatsoever." 
 
 We agree. Only we should prefer to put the 
 truth positively rather than negatively, and to say 
 that God is Spirit. 
 
 4. " The Creator is the first and the last." 
 
 This article means that God is eternal in both 
 directions. Agreed. 
 
xvin CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL 279 
 
 5. " To the Creator and to him alone it is right to 
 pray, and it is not right to pray to any being besides 
 him." 
 
 The controversial direction of this article is obvious. 
 We agree with it. 
 
 The Articles now pass from the doctrine of God and 
 go on to the Bible. They leave, as I have already 
 said, much out which ought to be in. The relations 
 of God to man, the divine spirit within man, the help 
 rendered by God to man, are ignored. They would 
 have to form important articles in the Liberal Jewish 
 faith. 
 
 6. " All the words of the prophets are true." 
 We too should have an article upon inspiration. 
 
 But we could not honestly declare that all the words 
 of the prophets, by which Maimonides means the 
 written words of the Hebrew prophets in the Bible, 
 are " true." This would imply that all the words 
 were perfectly good and perfectly accurate. Our reason 
 and conscience, when we study all the words of the 
 prophets carefully, do not allow us to believe this. 
 
 7. " The prophecy of Moses was true, and he was 
 the chief of the prophets, both of those that preceded 
 and of those that followed him." 
 
 Similar criticism must be allotted to this as to the 
 preceding article. Moses was doubtless a teacher, 
 and in that sense a prophet, but we should not care 
 to affirm that his inspiration was greater than the in- 
 spiration of Isaiah. Moreover, most of the words 
 put into the mouth of Moses are much later than the 
 Mosaic age. We therefore reject this article. 
 
 8. " The whole Law now found in our possession 
 is the same that was given to Moses." 
 
 Does this refer to the so-called Oral Law as well as 
 to the Pentateuch ? In either case we must unhesi- 
 
280 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 tatingly reject it. Most of the Pentateuchal Law is 
 much later than Moses, while the Oral Law is much 
 later still. 
 
 9. " This Law will not be changed, and there will 
 never be any other Law from the Creator." 
 
 The allusion to Christianity is obvious. In the 
 sense that we do not believe that Christianity sup- 
 planted Judaism, that Judaism, since the rise of 
 Christianity, is obsolete, and that it has no more 
 religious work to do, this article can be accepted. 
 The form which we should give to it would, however, 
 be very different. 
 
 10. "The Creator knows every deed of the 
 children of men and all their thoughts." 
 
 This article seems misplaced. It should surely 
 come among those which deal with the genera! doctrine 
 of God and of his relations to man. But, in any case, 
 the divine omniscience, however difficult to under- 
 stand and realise, must be accepted by Liberals as 
 well as by Conservatives. The divine perfection 
 must be equal to the immensity of its burden. 
 
 11. "The Creator rewards those that keep his 
 commandments, and punishes those that transgress 
 them." 
 
 Liberal Judaism would accept this article, inter- 
 preting the meaning of punishment and reward in a 
 spiritual sense, as indeed Maimonides himself was 
 wont to do. 
 
 12. "The Messiah, though he tarry, will surely 
 
 come." 
 
 The personal Messiah, by which I suppose is meant 
 a descendant of David, who will bring the Jews back 
 again to Palestine, and reign over them, as their King, 
 for a long while, is not believed in, or looked forward 
 to, by Liberal Judaism. This article is, therefore, 
 
xvni CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL 281 
 
 rejected, but we should substitute for it an article 
 about the Messianic hope, human progress and the 
 Golden Age. 
 
 13. " There will be a resurrection of the dead at 
 the time when it shall please the Creator." 
 
 In the form in which this article is composed, we 
 cannot accept it. For it refers to a simultaneous and 
 bodily resurrection of all dead persons at a particular 
 moment of the future. We do not believe in such a 
 doctrine. But we should substitute for this article 
 another which would express our faith in the 
 " immortality of the soul." 
 
 In addition to its omissions concerning the relation 
 of God to man, the creed is also silent about the mission 
 of Israel and the relation of Judaism to the world at 
 large. It is silent about the salvation of all men, of 
 the ultimate redemption and enlightenment of the bad 
 as well as the good. It omits other important 
 matters too, such as the relation of religion to 
 morality, the true service of God, the relation 
 of faith to works, and of both to religion, the 
 place of knowledge in religion, and so on. It 
 might be difficult, just as it certainly would be 
 undesirable, to draw up articles about these matters, 
 but they are none the less profoundly important, 
 and Liberal Judaism has important and definite 
 pronouncements to make about all of them. Thus 
 no one can fail to realise that Liberal Judaism has 
 a content, a body, a series of affirmative doctrines, 
 as rich, as large and as important, as those of Con- 
 servative Judaism. It is no less positive than its 
 rival. 
 
 We have seen that Liberal Judaism differs from 
 Conservative Judaism in doctrine. This difference of 
 doctrine brings with it a difference in outward form. 
 
282 LIBERAL JUDAISM CH.XVIII 
 
 But on these mere external differences this is not the 
 place to dwell. I mean by external differences, such 
 questions as the use of the vernacular in public 
 worship, the introduction of an organ, the sitting 
 together of men and women, the uncovered head, and 
 so on. All these external differences depend on 
 different conceptions concerning the origin, place 
 and value of the Pentateuchal and Rabbinic Law, and 
 concerning the permanent authority of customs. 
 
 But they also depend upon certain hopes for the 
 future, upon certain aims and ideals, in which the one 
 form of Judaism differs from the other. And, once 
 more, they depend upon our conceptions of the rela- 
 tion in Judaism of race to religion, of the relation of 
 the Jews to the countries where, and the peoples 
 among whom, they dwell. For here too most Liberals 
 differ from most Conservatives. Of these hopes and 
 ideals and relations it will be my duty to speak in the 
 next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 OF NATION AND RACE IN RELATION TO THE 
 JEWISH RELIGION 
 
 In this chapter I touch upon matters of acute con- 
 troversy. I hope I have touched upon them without 
 acerbity. Modern Jewish Nationalism is a younger 
 growth than Liberal Judaism, though doubtless it is 
 connected with, and can trace its descent from, the 
 Jewish Nationalism of the past. As to its future it 
 would be rash and unbecoming to predict. But though 
 there are some Liberal Jews who are Nationalists in 
 one sense or another, the number is, I believe, extremely 
 small. The larger group of Nationalists is undoubtedly 
 hostile to Liberalism. And this seems to me only 
 natural. For the aspirations of most Nationalist Jews 
 run counter to the aspirations of most Liberal Jews. 
 To our hopes and desires both for Judaism and for the 
 Jews, the ideals of most Nationalist Jews are opposed. 
 On the other hand, to their hopes and desires our ideals 
 are, in their turn, no less definitely hostile. 
 
 Before the boy or girl reaches the age of sixteen, I 
 would tell them much about the matters discussed in this 
 chapter. Before they reach the age of sixteen I want 
 them to be ardent lovers of England and ardent lovers 
 of Liberal Judaism. The subject of cleavage between 
 most Liberal Jews and Jewish Nationalists is of extreme 
 importance. Charity and toleration are always desirable 
 
 283 
 
284 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 and necessary. But seeing that Jewish Nationalists 
 consider that the future welfare and prosperity both of 
 Judaism and the Jews depend upon ideas which most 
 Liberal Jews consider false^ and upon a policy the 
 success of which most Liberal Jews consider would be 
 disastrous, and that precisely the same thing is true of 
 Jewish Nationalists in their estimate of the ideas and 
 policy of Liberal Jews, it is clear that upon this subject 
 men s minds must be deeply stirred, and their emotions 
 heavily charged with somewhat dangerous electricity. 
 As a Liberal Jew I regard right teaching about it as 
 one of the most important and urgent matters that could 
 possibly engage the attention of both parent and teacher. 
 Nevertheless, I hope that I have written without undue 
 heat and without unfairness. 
 
 WE speak of Buddhism, but we do not speak of the 
 Buddhist race. We speak of Christianity, but we 
 cannot speak of the Christian race. We speak of 
 Mahommedanism, but we cannot speak of the Mahom- 
 medan race. Why is this ? The answer is obvious : 
 It is because the Buddhist, Christian, and Mahom- 
 medan religions are spread over many races. Each of 
 these religions began as every religion must among 
 one race, but it soon became diffused among many 
 races. The three religions just mentioned, because 
 they count many races among their adherents, and 
 because they desire to count many or even all races 
 as their adherents, are rightly known as universal 
 religions. 
 
 We speak, however, not only of Judaism, but also 
 of the Jewish race. Why is this ? Is Judaism not a 
 universal religion ? The answer to that last question 
 is not wholly easy to give. 
 
 Judaism was in old times the religion of the 
 
xrx NATION AND RACE 285 
 
 Jewish people neither more nor less. This is 
 acknowledged on all hands. It was a national 
 religion. Now a national religion is one which has 
 national gods and a national worship. In ancient 
 times, as we know, men believed in many gods ; the 
 gods of one nation were not the gods of another. I 
 have explained all this in a form suitable, as I believe, 
 for parents to put before their children, in the first 
 few chapters of the present book. If, however, a race 
 of people begins to believe that there is only one God, 
 how can there be a national religion any more ? A 
 national religion which by its very definition 
 implies special gods for a special nation has then 
 become an inconsistency and an anachronism. A 
 national religion with one universal God could only 
 mean a religion in which the one God was supposed 
 to care specially for, or to show partial regard to, the 
 members of one particular race. A national religion 
 with a universal God is in some respects a worse 
 religion than a national religion with its special and 
 national gods. 
 
 And a national religion in this sense Judaism 
 unquestionably is not. Neither in its Conservative nor 
 its Liberal form does Judaism hold that God cares 
 specially for, or shows partial regard to, the Jews. 
 This divine partiality was indeed a trouble from 
 which Judaism suffered in the past. But, as I have 
 said in earlier chapters, the trouble has been com- 
 pletely got over. No Jew believes that the divine 
 Father shows partiality, or that he cares for one set 
 of his children more than for another. 
 
 On the other hand, though Judaism is not a 
 national religion in the only right and true sense in 
 which a monotheistic religion can justly be called a 
 national religion, in the sense, that is, that the one 
 
286 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 God is partial, it may perhaps be called a national 
 religion de facto though not de jure^ and it may be 
 called a national religion in a secondary sense for two 
 special reasons. 
 
 Why, to begin with, a national religion de facto r 
 Well, because, as a matter of fact, the Jewish religion 
 is almost entirely confined to the Jewish race. We 
 may deeply deplore the fact, but a fact is none the 
 less a fact because we deplore it. The Jewish 
 race scholars have shown is in all probability not 
 a pure race. It has received numerous infiltrations 
 from outside. Numerous proselytes to the religion 
 have been, as it were, adopted into the race. Never- 
 theless, we can still speak of the Jewish race, even 
 though it is not a pure race. We can still speak 
 of the Jewish race, though many of us may hold that 
 we cannot and should not speak of the Jewish nation. 
 
 This, then, is the reason why, de facto , Judaism is 
 still however much we may deplore it a national 
 religion. It has no adherents outside the Jewish 
 race ; and if a proselyte joins it, he or his children 
 become absorbed into that race. 
 
 Next, what are the two reasons because of which 
 in a secondary sense Judaism may be called a national 
 religion ? 
 
 The first reason is that though Judaism is em- 
 phatically a Monotheistic religion, and though it 
 believes in, and stands for, an impartial God, its out- 
 ward form, its ceremonial, wears a markedly national 
 hue. It wears such a markedly national hue more 
 especially among Conservatives, but to some extent 
 also among Liberals. For instance, the Passover is, 
 at first sight, a purely national festival. 
 
 Secondly and the second reason is more im- 
 portant than the first the One God is still, many 
 
xix NATION AND RACE 287 
 
 persons would say, in some special sense, the God of 
 Israel ; Israel is, in some special sense, his peculiar or 
 chosen people. God has special relations with Israel. 
 The divine partiality, chased out of one window, seems 
 to come back through another. 
 
 What are we to say to this ? It does seem to me 
 that, in the ordinary liturgy, traces of the old false 
 national conception remain. And one of the duties of 
 Liberal Judaism is so to modify the old liturgy that, 
 without losing its historic character, all traces of the 
 partial God, of the God who cares for, or thinks 
 of, or values, Israel more than other races may be 
 expunged. 
 
 But it may be urged the doctrine of the peculiar 
 or chosen people is not limited to Conservative 
 Judaism. It is also strongly maintained by Liberals. 
 They, too, hold that God has special relations with 
 Israel, that the Jews have a special religious vocation 
 or mission. Does not this mean partiality ? Does 
 it not mean a national religion of an anachronistic and 
 obsolete type ? 
 
 Surely not. We hold that the special relations 
 with Israel are not specifically for the sake of Israel, 
 but for the sake of the world, for the sake of true 
 religion. Certainly the special relations have never 
 resulted in outside prosperity. They have resulted 
 in trouble and persecution and suffering, and for the 
 majority of the Jewish race they still so result. It 
 has been an election to sorrow and pain ; a vocation 
 to suffering and privation and woe. 
 
 Thus the 4< mission of Israel " which is the only 
 apparently national feature in Liberal-Jewish doctrine 
 is, when rightly explained, not a national feature at 
 all. It is a religious doctrine pure and simple, and a 
 religious doctrine which looks outward, not inward, 
 
288 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 which thinks of others as the end and of Israel as the 
 means. 
 
 And so if the Jews, passing out of the limited 
 national phase, are to regard themselves, as most (I 
 do not say all) Liberal Jews think they should 
 regard themselves, not as a people, not as a nation, 
 not even as a race, but as a religious brotherhood, a 
 religious community or denomination, then Judaism 
 is in all respects a universal and not a national 
 religion. Its doctrine is universal : the mission of 
 Israel becomes the mission of a brotherhood, no longer 
 the mission of a race. The bond which holds them 
 together is the bond of religion. 
 
 But how then of the worship, the ceremonial, the 
 outward form ? In this book I cannot go into 
 details, but I have elsewhere shown that there need 
 be nothing purely national in the outward form or 
 ceremonial. The Sabbath is not national : it is not 
 even national because it is celebrated on the seventh 
 day. The Day of Memorial and the Day of Atone- 
 ment are not national. Tabernacles is not really a 
 national festival, and need not be nationally interpreted. 
 Of Pentecost, whether it be regarded as a nature 
 festival (in its Biblical form), or as the festival of Law 
 (in its Rabbinical form), the same may be said. There 
 remains the Passover, and I believe it to be quite 
 possible for the human and religious aspects of the 
 Passover to dominate and overshadow the purely 
 national aspects of that ancient and picturesque 
 festival. 
 
 But it may be, and indeed it often is said, that the 
 Jews show by their actions that they regard themselves 
 as a separate race or nation. For why do they only 
 marry among themselves, and why, if one of them 
 breaks away from that rule, do the others deplore it ? 
 
xix NATION AND RACE 289 
 
 It is most important that parents and teachers 
 should know the right attitude to take up as regards 
 this vexed question of intermarriage. It is most 
 important that Liberal Judaism should speak out 
 here with no uncertain note. It is most important 
 that it should be widely known, recognised and 
 realised that, on this question of intermarriage or of 
 mixed marriages, Liberal and Conservative Judaism 
 are practically at one. 
 
 Liberal Judaism accepts the reproach. It is 
 opposed to mixed marriages. But why? For purely 
 religious reasons. For the same reasons which used, 
 at any rate, to make the Quakers object to mixed 
 marriages, and which still influence Roman Catholics. 
 For the reason of the divine mission of Israel, 
 which, as we believe, can only be carried out by 
 the continued existence of the Jewish brotherhood. 
 But the Jews are a small minority living amid 
 huge majorities. If they contract mixed marriages, 
 they must inevitably die out and disappear. But 
 what would be fatal for the whole suggests a law 
 for the part. Each individual unit must not act 
 in a way which, if imitated by all, would end in 
 self-destruction. There is here nothing of national 
 pride or of racial distinctiveness. The reason is 
 a purely religious reason. Indeed, it should only 
 be a very big thing, such as religion, which should 
 be a valid bar to love. And, as we know, the law 
 forbidding a mixed marriage is often a barrier to 
 the satisfaction of love. 
 
 Liberal Judaism, of the type which I seek to 
 profess and teach, cares nothing for race. If the 
 woman whom the Jew, if the man whom the Jewess, 
 desire to marry can conscientiously accept the Jewish 
 religion and enter the Jewish brotherhood, the door 
 
 u 
 
290 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 is open, and the path is made smooth. The rite of 
 total immersion which Conservative Judaism exacts 
 of the woman, the rites of total immersion and of 
 circumcision which it exacts of the man, are not 
 demanded by most exponents of Liberal Judaism. 
 A reasoned profession of faith, a genuine promise of 
 fidelity these are considered adequate and sufficient. 
 
 And what now of the distant goal ? It is imper- 
 tinent and impossible to predict the future, but this 
 much I would say, that Liberal Judaism looks 
 forward to a time when the Jewish brotherhood may 
 be less closely limited to the Jewish race. It looks 
 forward to the wide diffusion of the Jewish religion. 
 
 But does not Conservative Judaism share the 
 same hope and look forward to the same goal ? In 
 a certain sense it does. But in a certain sense only. 
 
 Conservative Judaism looks forward to the ultimate 
 triumph of the Jewish conceptions of God and of his 
 relation to the world. The Jewish doctrines are for 
 the world ; but the outward embodiment of these 
 doctrines, the worship, the ceremonial, are for the 
 Jews alone. These are national, and are to remain 
 national. Thus the world is to receive doctrines, 
 but doctrines without form, teachings without cere- 
 monial, a religion without a cult. These it must, 
 I suppose, supply for itself. And meanwhile 
 Conservative Judaism does little to make the 
 world better acquainted with the doctrines which are 
 ultimately to be the world's doctrines. They are 
 enshrined in a national ceremonial ; they are hidden 
 away in a national, or at any rate a dead and 
 difficult, language from the ken and understanding 
 of the Gentile. 
 
 Liberal Judaism perceives and realises that 
 doctrines require ceremonials, and that religions 
 
xix NATION AND RACE 291 
 
 are composed of inward conceptions and outward 
 forms. It seeks gradually to wed its form to its 
 doctrine, so that both may be acceptable to, and 
 understood by, its own adherents first and foremost, 
 and then acceptable to, and understood by, all those 
 who choose to enter and to see. " Enlarge the place 
 of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains 
 of thine habitations unrestrained ; lengthen thy cords 
 and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt break on 
 the right hand and on the left." This was the 
 prophetic hope, and this is the renewed hope of 
 Liberal Judaism. " Strengthen thy stakes/' yea, 
 verily, and first of all ; but " lengthen thy cords " 
 too, " enlarge the place of thy tent." 
 
 The reader will realise, I hope, the extreme 
 brevity almost the scrappiness with which it has 
 been necessary to dwell upon topics, large, important 
 and complicated. No less must be the brevity with 
 which 1 must dwell upon another aspect of the same 
 root question, and one even more delicate and more 
 controversial, because relating not to the distant 
 future, but to the present day. 
 
 There is such a thing, it has to be admitted, as the 
 Jewish race. Some of us may regard the fact as to 
 us a fact of no religious importance : it may mean to 
 us religiously nothing. We think only of the Jewish 
 religious brotherhood : the men and women who pro- 
 fess a particular religious faith. But the fact remains : 
 there is such a thing as the Jewish race. It is a very 
 real fact to some Jews, and indeed there are some 
 Jews who seem far prouder of belonging to the 
 Jewish race than of belonging to the Jewish religion. 
 There are some Jews who seem to care for the 
 Jewish race much more than they care for the Jewish 
 religion. There are some Jews who seem to believe 
 
292 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 in the Jewish race much more than they believe in 
 the Jewish religion. 
 
 But we have to go a step farther. There are 
 some Jews who would speak not only of a Jewish 
 race, but also of a Jewish people. We should all 
 admit that there was a Jewish people when there was 
 a Jewish state, even when, as practically was the case 
 from 596 B.C., and even earlier, to A.D. 72, the Jews 
 were the tributaries and the vassals, and their 
 country a mere province and portion, of the empires 
 of Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, Egypt, Syria and 
 Rome. But some would claim that there is a Jewish 
 people to-day. 
 
 Liberal Judaism (though the statement would not 
 be true of all its forms and phases) denies that the 
 Jews are a people. Liberal Jews want, as regards all 
 else than religion, to be one with the nations among 
 whom they dwell. When an English Liberal Jew 
 speaks of " my people," he means the English people ; 
 when an American Liberal Jew speaks of "my 
 people " and " my country," he means the people 
 and the country of the United States. 
 
 The Nationalist Jews when they speak of " my 
 people," mean, not the English people, but the Jews ; 
 yet they claim to be good English patriots none the 
 less. I have no doubt that they are. Whether they 
 are theoretically consistent does not much matter. 
 That question can be allowed to rest. They say 
 that the Jews are a people who at present happen to 
 be deprived of their own land or of any land. And 
 what these Nationalist Jews would like is to make the 
 Jews once more a people with a land of their own. 
 Even as in our own day the Greeks, the Bulgarians 
 and the Servians, have become a people in and with a 
 land of their own, the land of their forefathers. 
 
xix NATION AND RACE 293 
 
 Now this is not the place in which a full and 
 fair discussion of Zionism or Nationalism can be 
 attempted. I will only say this. Almost all 
 Nationalist Jews or adherents of Zionism (but not all 
 such) are opposed to Liberal Judaism, and almost all 
 Liberal Jews (but not all) are (like myself) opposed 
 to Nationalism and Zionism. The reason is clear. 
 Liberal Judaism believes in, and aims at, a universal 
 Judaism, universal both in doctrine and in form. 
 Liberal Judaism holds that a national religion is an 
 absurdity, or, at all events, an anachronism. Just as 
 Buddhism, Christianity, and Mahommedanism have 
 adherents of many races, and by this very fact have 
 shown their universality, so must it ultimately be 
 with Judaism. The one universal God cannot fitly 
 be worshipped by a national cult. The national 
 ceremonial has become too narrow for the universal 
 God. The clothes do not fit the religion. More- 
 over, the national references do not fit in with the 
 consciousness of the worshipper. If the English 
 Liberal Jew had to compress his religion in the strait- 
 jacket of national forms, those forms should be Eng- 
 lish. Thus, whichever way one looks at it, a national 
 religion, whether in cult or creed, becomes to the 
 Liberal Jew an obsolete and outworn conception, from 
 which his faith must gradually be more and more 
 completely divested and freed. It is so freed as 
 regards its doctrines ; it must be gradually so freed 
 as regards its forms. 
 
 But it should be stated frankly and fairly that all 
 Liberal Jews do not see eye to eye with the present 
 writer in this matter. Perhaps the best and noblest 
 Liberal Jew whom the author knows is also a 
 Nationalist. There are two kinds of Jewish 
 Nationalists. The one kind cares little or nothing for 
 
294 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 religion. Of this kind I have here nothing to say. 
 But I fear that the men who compose it constitute 
 a large section of the Nationalist ranks. Then 
 there are others who do care for religion and for 
 Judaism, and who (however hard it may be for those 
 who think as I think to understand it) are Nation- 
 alists for the sake of their religion. And though most 
 of these belong to Conservative Judaism, as is indeed 
 only natural (though there are thousands upon 
 thousands of Conservative Jews who are opposed to 
 Nationalism), some of them are Liberals. I hope that 
 one day the friend of whom I have just spoken will 
 fully explain his position in a book. Meanwhile 
 in the absence of his book the clearest and briefest 
 statement of the position of such Liberal Jewish 
 Nationalists (which I happen to know) has been given 
 by Mr. Israel Abrahams in his wonderful little book 
 called Judaism} It is fair to my dear and saintly 
 friend, and to those who think with him, to append 
 what Mr. Abrahams says in this place : 
 
 " The national, as contrasted with the universal 
 aspect of Judaism is on the wane. Many Jewish 
 liturgies have, for instance, eliminated the prayers 
 for the restoration of sacrifices ; and several have 
 removed or spiritualised the petitions for the recovery 
 of the Jewish nationality. Modern reformed 
 Judaism is a universalistic Judaism. It lays stress 
 on the function of Israel, the Servant, as a ' Light 
 to the nations.' It tends to eliminate those cere- 
 monies and beliefs which are less compatible with 
 a universal than with a racial religion. Modern 
 Zionism is not a real reaction against this tendency. 
 For Zionism is either non-religious or, if religious, 
 brings to the front what has always been a corrective 
 
 1 It was published by Messrs. Constable and Co. in 1910, and costs is. 
 
xix NATION AND RACE 295 
 
 to the nationalism of Orthodox Judaism. For the 
 separation of Israel has ever been a means to an end ; 
 never an end in itself. Often the end has been for- 
 gotten in the means, but never for long. The end 
 of Israel's separateness is the good of the world. 
 And the religious as distinct from the merely politi- 
 cal Zionist, who thinks that Judaism would gain by 
 a return to Palestine, is just the one who also thinks 
 that the return is a necessary preliminary to the Mes- 
 sianic age, when all men shall flow unto Zion and 
 seek God there. Reformed Jews would have to be 
 Zionists also in this sense, were it not that many of 
 them no longer share the belief in the national aspects 
 of the prophecies as to Israel's future. These may 
 believe that the world may become full of the know- 
 ledge of God without any antecedent withdrawal of 
 Israel from the world " (Judaism, p. 44). 
 
 So far Mr. Abrahams. The bulk of Liberal Jews 
 do indeed believe that " the world may become full 
 of the knowledge of God without any antecedent 
 withdrawal of Israel from the world." Nay, it is 
 rather through Israel living in the world, through its 
 members being scattered among the nations, and 
 becoming one with them in their national life, that 
 we think that Israel can best help in the diffusion of 
 that knowledge. 
 
 And, in the last place, we still refuse to become, 
 as Dr. Herzl told me that he became, Nationalists 
 through despair. For some believe that the dislike of 
 the Jew is so rooted in the non-Jew that the former 
 will always be persecuted, oppressed, or at any rate 
 disliked and despised. They believe that the only 
 remedy for such secular oppression and dislike (con- 
 stantly breaking out in fresh phases and forms) is for 
 the large bulk of the Jews to be segregated to them- 
 
296 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP, xix 
 
 selves in a country of their own. It is, I admit, easy 
 for an English Jew who lives in comfort, liberty and 
 toleration, who has never felt his Judaism the tiniest 
 difficulty, but who, on the contrary (quite apart from 
 any spiritual or religious considerations) has been 
 helped by it on more than one occasion it is easy 
 for such a Jew to put forward the specious plea 
 that he does not think so basely of human nature ; 
 it is easy for such an one to combat the doctrine of 
 despair. I admit that ; I feel that. And yet I must 
 combat this doctrine of despair, however much I lay 
 myself open to the charge of indifference, or to the 
 charge of clinging to outworn ideals of the emanci- 
 pation era, or to the charge that there are none so 
 blind as those who will not see. 
 
 I still hold that we must and should cling to the 
 ideals of the emancipation era, to the universalistic 
 ideals of Liberal Judaism. I still believe that what 
 has happened in England can be even translated into 
 Russian. The night is long, but it may be I, for 
 my part, believe that it is the divine will that at 
 last the dawn will come, the dawn of liberty and of 
 enlightenment, the dawn of peace and of goodwill. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN JUDAISM AND 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The present chapter may be of use to parents and 
 teachers when they are talking to children of fourteen and 
 upwards. How we ought to regard the religion of the 
 immense majority of our fellow -citizens is not wholly 
 an easy question. We have to combine caring and 
 appreciation for our own religion with toleration and 
 respect for the religion of our neighbours. We have to 
 show to our children that beautiful and noble lives can 
 be lived as the outcome of different creeds ', and yet we 
 have also to teach them that, in the long run and in the 
 end, truth and goodness must go together, and that the 
 fullest truth must produce the fullest goodness. We shall 
 tell them (as I have already iudicated) that there may 
 be elements of truth in a religion other than our own, 
 which our own religion may not perhaps to-day emphasise 
 so fully or so clearly, while yet, as a whole, we neverthe- 
 less hpld that our own religion is the truest and the best. 
 The dispersion of Israel over the world gives us a great 
 and peculiar vantage-ground. We can adopt and assimi- 
 late aspects and pieces of truth from many quarters, and 
 thus we can make our Judaism still grander and fuller, 
 more adequate in its teachings to the immense complexity 
 and amplitude of truth. We shall maintain Judaism 
 while we develop it, and our descendants will do the 
 
 297 
 
298 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 same . Yet we shall not disguise from our children that 
 Judaism and Christianity do differ from each other in 
 certain most important particulars, as I have very plainly 
 stated in the present chapter. And we shall also point 
 out that among those who bear the Christian name there 
 are many who have abandoned, or softened down, some 
 of the old Christian positions, and who profess a religion 
 which is in many respects nearer to the Judaism of to-day 
 than was the Christianity of their forefathers. Though 
 we are a small minority ', it may nevertheless be that our 
 faith will be justified the faith, namely, that the central 
 doctrines of Judaism will become the ultimate religion of 
 the countries in which Judaism at present seems to play so 
 small and insignificant a part. 
 
 THE adherents of the Jewish religion live as a small 
 minority among a big majority of men and women 
 who profess a different faith. The vast majority of 
 the men and women of England are Christians, of 
 one shade or another, and of varying degrees of 
 orthodoxy. The English Jews form, or seek to 
 form, with this great majority a single nation, united 
 in all things except in religion. 
 
 But this very exception might, under certain con- 
 ceivable circumstances, cause a difference so acute and 
 wide that it would be impossible for non-Jew and 
 Jew to form one people, or in other words, that it 
 would be impossible for the Jew to find himself one 
 with his neighbours. Suppose that the other in- 
 habitants of England were all Polytheists, I doubt 
 whether a national unity of Jew and non-Jew, in 
 spite of religious diversity, would be possible. The 
 religious difference would be too wide, and its 
 implications would go too deep, for unity to be 
 attainable. For religion is not mere speculative 
 
xx JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 299 
 
 opinion about the super-earthly and the super- 
 natural. It enters into daily life ; it colours our 
 ideas of morality ; it inspires and controls our action. 
 It regulates our practice ; it determines our ideals. 
 If, then, two religions are both very keenly held, if 
 their influence upon their adherents is still very deep 
 and strong, and if the two religions are extremely 
 diverse, so that there is little which is common 
 between them and very much which is different and 
 opposed, then indeed it may well be that adherents 
 of the one and adherents of the other could not form 
 together a united and harmonious people. For it 
 would not only be speculative ideas about God and 
 the unseen world which would divide them. It 
 would be different conceptions of morality, different 
 moral and spiritual ideals, different goals of social 
 endeavour. 
 
 Such incompatibility is by many said to exist, for 
 instance, between Mahommedans and Hindoos in 
 India. Such, however, is not the case as regards 
 Judaism and Christianity. 
 
 For, in the first place, not only did Christianity 
 spring out of Judaism not only were its founder 
 and its earliest apostles Jews but it has retained 
 much of the religion from which it sprang. Chris- 
 tianity claims to be a Monotheistic religion. Its 
 Monotheism may seem in Jewish eyes less pure than 
 Jewish Monotheism. But this is a question of 
 opinion. Both religions are Monotheistic, though 
 each regards its own Monotheism as purer, better and 
 truer than the Monotheism of the other. 
 
 But the agreement goes a good deal farther. For 
 in their conception of God and of his relation to 
 man there is also a good deal of sympathetic con- 
 currence. Both hold that the one and only God is 
 
300 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 good and righteous and loving ; both hold that he 
 has relations with man ; both hold that he cares. 
 Both hold that man was " created in the divine 
 image," that God influences man and " inspires " 
 him. Both can speak of the holy and divine spirit 
 within the soul of man. Both believe that man can 
 commune with God. Both believe in prayer. 
 
 Again, the ideals of the one concerning goodness 
 and righteousness are very largely the ideals of the 
 other. Both to-day believe in the progress of the 
 human race upon earth of an earthly kingdom of 
 God to be worked for and prayed for, which is 
 drawing a little (if only a little) nearer and nearer. 
 Both believe in the immortality of the soul. 
 
 The Bible of Christianity is larger than the Bible 
 of Judaism. But though its most important part 
 is that extra bit which is peculiar to it, it neverthe- 
 less cherishes the Hebrew Bible as well, and holds 
 much of it exceedingly dear and high. Christian 
 admiration for the religious and moral ideals of the 
 prophets, for the spiritual fervour and beauty of the 
 Psalter, is not less than Jewish admiration (and 
 sometimes rests, to our shame, may I add, upon a 
 more intimate and familiar knowledge). 
 
 In the second place, though most Jews would 
 deny this, for they are very keen to deny any 
 admixture of outside influence upon themselves, 
 Christian ideals and Christian civilisation have in- 
 fluenced Judaism. I cannot attempt to prove this 
 assertion here (and it may be that I am mistaken), 
 but I am confident that the Judaism of an ordinary 
 English orthodox Jew the religion, that is, by which 
 he really lives and which is really his is not entirely 
 the same as that of an ordinary orthodox Jew of 
 Bagdad or Teheran. The difference is due to the 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 301 
 
 environment, to the hundred and one subtle in- 
 fluences, which have affected and affect the English 
 Jew on the one hand, the Eastern Jew upon the 
 other. And this environment is a Christian environ- 
 ment, soaked through and through with effluences 
 from Christianity and from Christian ideals. 
 
 The result of all this is that though there are 
 grave differences between Judaism and Christianity, 
 and even between English Judaism of to-day 
 and English Christianity of to-day, there are still 
 greater and deeper agreements. The Jews and 
 Christians can and do form one nation, one people, 
 one political community, united by common ideals, 
 affections, aims, united in the equal service of one 
 and the same Motherland. England can be and is 
 " Mother England " to the Jew no less than to the 
 Christian. 
 
 The impartial observer may also note the follow- 
 ing. Certain doctrines are claimed both as specifically 
 Jewish and as specifically Christian. And both 
 religions, or rather the exponents of both religions, 
 have a tendency to caricature the other. Both have 
 a tendency to judge the other religion from its defects 
 rather than from its qualities. Both are inclined to 
 shut their eyes to the fact that the other religion 
 has developed, and that the Judaism and Christianity 
 of the twentieth century are not the Judaism and the 
 Christianity of the first or fourth. 
 
 And the result of this is that there is more actual 
 agreement between both religions to-day than many of 
 their respective adherents would allow or are aware of. 
 But such agreements, even though unknown or un- 
 allowed, yet make for national unity and coalescence. 
 
 I do not propose in this chapter to draw out 
 and set forth the differences between Judaism and 
 
302 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Christianity in a regular and formal manner. I do 
 not think that it would serve much useful purpose 
 to say that Christianity teaches the " Divinity 
 of Christ," the " Incarnation," the " Trinity," 
 the " Atonement," " Mediation," and so on, and 
 that Judaism not only denies these doctrines, but 
 teaches other positive doctrines, opposed to, and 
 excluded by, the Christian doctrines just enumerated. 
 To do this would only be of use if I were to set 
 forth in detail and with fulness, accuracy and 
 fairness what these Christian doctrines actually 
 meant, and what they actually mean to-day. But, 
 in the first place, I have not the knowledge to do 
 all this, and, in the second place, it would mean 
 not a chapter in a book, but a book all to itself, and 
 that book not a very short one. I shall touch on 
 the differences in a very informal way, and make it 
 more my object to set forth what I conceive to be 
 the Jewish point of view than to set forth the 
 Christian point of view. For, after all, I know my 
 own religion much better and more intimately than 
 I know the religion of my neighbours. 
 
 First, then, as to the Jewish and Christian 
 conception of God and of his relation to man. I 
 need not repeat again what I have said in my first 
 few chapters about the Jewish conception of the 
 Divine Unity. I would only here desire to em- 
 phasise the point that we do not hold that the 
 Divine Unity, though perfect, is therefore poor. 
 On the contrary, we believe it to be immensely rich. 
 And that God has many aspects^ who would wish to 
 deny ? That you may, if you please, think of God 
 in himself, that you may think of him in relation 
 to the world, and that you may think of him in 
 relation to man three main " aspects" may also 
 
xx JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 303 
 
 be conceded. But his Unity none the less remains 
 perfect and supreme. 
 
 The fact is that how we regard God, apart from 
 a particular event in human history, is not the real 
 question at issue. This is not the real stumbling- 
 block to the Jew ; this is not the real point of 
 difference between himself and the Christian. The 
 real point of difference is in the doctrine of the rela- 
 tion of God to man. 
 
 The dogma of the Incarnation has taken many 
 forms and been interpreted in different ways. I 
 suppose the interpretation of it by a Liberal 
 Christian to-day is not the interpretation of it by 
 even the greatest Christian minds of the fourth and 
 the fifth century. But whether this is so or not, I 
 am not competent to speak. So much, however, I 
 can say, and say with assurance and authority, that 
 to no existing form of the dogma of the Incarnation 
 is Judaism both Orthodox and Liberal Judaism 
 anything but opposed. 
 
 Let me seek to explain why, even though I adopt 
 (for fear lest I misrepresent it) the not very logical 
 course of omitting to state what that dogma of the 
 Incarnation actually is. 
 
 Judaism does not seek to deny what may be 
 called-L-with some danger and unsatisfactoriness 
 the divinity of man. It does not put God on one 
 side, and man on the other, with no relation or bridge 
 between them. It affirms that man was " created 
 in the image of God " ; that man has a spark of 
 the divine fire ; that God's holy spirit is in man ; 
 that man can commune with God, and that God can 
 have relations with, and inspire, man, just because 
 there is a kinship between them. Man has received 
 a divine element from the divine source. 
 
304 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 But at that point Judaism stops. If it asserts the 
 communion and the kinship, it lays no less stress 
 upon the difference. The very essence of religion 
 for man lies to Judaism in the difference, no less 
 than in the kinship. Man's divine spark is essentially 
 dependent and derivative. Man is imperfect ; God 
 is perfect. Man is finite and errs ; God is infinite 
 and faultless. Man can never become God ; God 
 can never become man. There have been many 
 men who were very good and very wise ; there 
 never has been, and there never can be, a man who 
 was perfectly good and perfectly wise. I have just 
 read an article in the Hibbert Journal by the Rev. 
 W. Wooding. This article ends with words which 
 struck me as so curiously at one with my own 
 Jewish feeling that I cannot refrain from quoting 
 them. The writer says : " It serves no useful or 
 legitimate purpose to break down the distinction 
 between the human and the divine. They are not 
 the same, however true it may be that God is in all 
 that exists, and that we live and move and have our 
 being in Him." 
 
 I would not deny that the dogma of the incarna- 
 tion of God in Jesus has had its effects for good 
 as well as for evil. But none the less do Liberal 
 Jews hold that it rests on a confusion, the confusion 
 of a man with God. And we will never accept, or 
 help to perpetuate, a confusion which, as Mr. 
 Wooding writes, " though fraught with good as well 
 as ill, is none the less confusion, and ought not for 
 any human purpose to be maintained." 
 
 Judaism, while recognising the omnipresence of 
 the Deity, is yet the enemy of Pantheism. It 
 clings, sometimes with an almost exaggerated one- 
 sidedness and pertinacity, to the self- consciousness 
 
xx JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 305 
 
 of God. He is a " person though not as our- 
 selves." With the purity and emphasis of its 
 Theism Judaism stands or falls. The Father is 
 no less real than his human Child. Indeed he is 
 far more real : far more a Unity, far more a 
 self-consistent reality. Only because he is all this 
 is he the Father : only because he is distinct from 
 the child, and because the child is always the child, 
 is he for ever and ever the Father. Father and 
 child is the metaphor we love, even more than 
 father and son : for the wisest and the best of us 
 must, as compared with him, be mere babies. 
 Whether in this life or in another, we are always 
 the Children, and he is always the Father. Very 
 near is he, yet also very far : like unto God shall 
 man become ; like unto God the best men have 
 been, but uniquely divine never. God is righteous, 
 and no righteousness is perfect except his own. He 
 is loving, and no love is perfect except his. 
 
 I said that Judaism teaches that God, in his 
 unique perfection very distant from man, is also 
 very near. The Christian doctrines of the Atone- 
 ment, and of the Mediation, of Christ have, like the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation, meant different things 
 in different ages and to different thinkers. And 
 these doctrines to Liberal Christians to-day mean, 
 I fancy, something different again. But they can 
 hardly, I imagine, take any form or receive any 
 connotation to which Judaism would not be opposed. 
 
 It is sometimes thought that Judaism teaches a 
 very stern and severe God. So far as his relations 
 with his worshippers are concerned, this description 
 of the Jewish God would be inaccurate even for 
 the Judaism of the Talmudic and mediaeval periods. 
 I am, however, not concerned with Judaism in the 
 
 x 
 
306 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 past ; I am only concerned with the Judaism of 
 to-day, and more especially with Liberal Judaism. 
 And of modern Judaism it might perhaps be said 
 that it errs, if at all, on the side of teaching a too 
 easy-going and good-natured God. However this 
 may be, Judaism stands in need of no mediator and 
 no mediation. It brings together in close relation 
 man and God, and it declares that there is, and need 
 be, and can be, no other being or thing to act as 
 bridge or go-between or intercessor. 
 
 Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can 
 
 meet 
 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. 
 
 That is Jewish doctrine. Between the personal and 
 immediate relations intimate and sacred of the 
 Father and the Child none must intervene. They can 
 be allowed to have their own dealings with each 
 other, and none need interfere. No priestly rite, 
 no sacramental ceremonies, are required. Modern 
 Judaism is a priestless religion. 
 
 God is justice, but he is also love. He is no 
 more the first than the second, for he is One. To 
 us there is but one atonement the atonement 
 wrought by human repentance and the divine forgive- 
 ness ; by God's grace and help upon the one hand, 
 by human remorse and effort upon the other. 
 
 The process is doubtless very subtle, but put into 
 words it is simple, and in practice it is efficacious and 
 works. That is the Jewish atonement : we know 
 no other. We see the need for no other. Indeed 
 any other would deny the sufficiency and power of 
 ours. And therefore it is that in no other can we 
 believe. 
 , I need not refer here to the doctrines of " Original 
 
xx JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 307 
 
 Sin " and to the " Fall," for these are no longer 
 prominent points of difference between Judaism and 
 Christianity. The majority of cultivated Christians 
 believe in a " Fall " in the old sense no more than 
 we, and as to the doctrine of sin, whether it be 
 " original " or no does not seem to matter much, 
 for as to its practical universality both religions 
 seem fairly well agreed. " There is no man that 
 sinneth not," said the author of Solomon's prayer, 
 and this is still the doctrine of the synagogue. 
 
 More important is the point that modern Judaism 
 is strongly universalist as regards the life after death. 
 It holds that to all men shall come enlightenment 
 and salvation. How far every form of modern 
 Christianity teaches the same doctrine I am not in a 
 position to say. 
 
 Again, modern Judaism declares that religious 
 belief or unbelief is no bar to such universal enlighten- 
 ment. And if there be stages (as it would seem only 
 rational to believe) in the attainment of salvation, 
 Judaism would lay stress for the speedier attainment 
 of such " salvation " upon conduct rather than upon 
 belief. 
 
 It is sometimes still said that Judaism teaches 
 justification by works, and that Christianity teaches 
 justification by faith. Each religion interprets this 
 difference to its own advantage. Judaism says that 
 God looks, not to what a man believes, but to what 
 he does. Let a Christian, Mahommedan, Buddhist, 
 yes, even an atheist or a pagan, seek to do what his 
 conscience or his particular faith tells him is right, 
 and he shall be " saved." Christianity, Jewish 
 teachers say, declares that salvation is dependent 
 upon holding that certain doctrines are true, and 
 that certain alleged events actually happened. So 
 
308 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 far as this is the meaning of justification by faith, 
 or so far as it has degenerated into meaning this, 
 there can be no question, to my mind, that the Jewish 
 doctrine of justification by works is nobler, truer 
 and more consonant with the goodness of God. 
 
 And in certain respects Liberal Judaism champions 
 it to-day. We still hold that conduct is more import- 
 ant than belief, and that right and noble conduct can 
 spring from, or connect with, many varying religious 
 beliefs. We still hold and preach that to seek good- 
 ness and perform it is the greatest and best exposition 
 and interpretation of the true knowledge and service 
 of God. 
 
 But Christian teachers would, I believe, tell us that 
 the Jewish explanation of their doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith is very inadequate and tends to caricature. 
 It is inaccurate, at all events, as regards that doctrine 
 at its best. 
 
 I will not set forth what the Christian doctrine 
 actually is. I will only point out certain needful 
 corrections of the Jewish doctrine, which may incline 
 us to believe that the complete truth is a combination 
 of both justification by faith and of justification by 
 works. 
 
 A Christian teacher might tell us that man must 
 not be judged or merely judged by what he does, 
 but by what he is. Two men may do the same 
 outward deeds from very different motives : the 
 one from the love of God ; the other for self- 
 glorification. What a man is his true character 
 is partly conditioned by, or is partly the effect of, 
 not so much his beliefs, as his faith. If a man not 
 only " believes " in God, but has a living faith in 
 him as the source of goodness and of truth, a faith 
 in the divine love and in the divine help, will this 
 
xx JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 309 
 
 faith not influence his character and find expression 
 in his deeds ? If a man did not have this faith, and 
 then it came to him, might it not, to use a familiar 
 phrase, make a new man of him ? Is not there- 
 fore the faith the source of the deeds ? If a man 
 has such a living faith, is not that faith the fountain 
 and origin of his actions ? His faith is the core of 
 his character, and his faith pervades and illumines 
 his whole personality. If that man is justified by 
 anything of his, surely it must be by his faith^ by 
 his own inmost self. 
 
 In lessening degrees we all have our faiths not a 
 parcel of beliefs held intellectually or on authority, 
 but the principles by which we live, the characters, 
 or the cores of the characters, which we are. Our 
 faiths may be weak and poor ; they may be held 
 loosely or freely, but such as they are, and in the 
 manner that they are, they are ours. They form the 
 springs of our actions, and in and through them our 
 characters are manifested and expressed. To that 
 extent it would be true to say that if what is ours 
 justifies us, we are justified by our faith. For our 
 faiths, or in our faiths, are we. 
 
 Thus 1 we may seek to "justify " both justification 
 by works and justification by faith, and then we 
 may seek to harmonise and reconcile them. We 
 need them both : each possesses its measure of truth. 
 I cannot help believing that this old point of differ- 
 ence between Judaism and Christianity may gradually 
 be done away with. Each will recognise that the 
 fuller truth lies in a combination of doctrines hitherto 
 thought opposed and alien to each other. 
 
 Now I have already said that Judaism is inflexible 
 as to the derivative and imperfect character of human 
 goodness. It denies the special and unique Incarna- 
 
3 io LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP, xx 
 
 tion of God in any human being. What, then, is its 
 attitude to the man (and that man a Jew) in whom 
 Christianity holds that this unique incarnation was 
 achieved ? What is the Jewish attitude to Jesus of 
 Nazareth ? 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 // will perhaps be said by some persons that any 
 answer to the question put at the end of the last chapter 
 has nothing to do with Judaism, and that it should 
 not therefore Jind a place in any book which essays 
 to deal with> or speak of, the Jewish religion. Jesus 
 of Nazareth, it will be said, was the founder of 
 Christianity, but though he and Paul were Jews, 
 neither they nor the New Testament have anything 
 to do with Judaism or with the history of the Jewish 
 religion. 
 
 I am not concerned to rebut these propositions : I 
 rather prefer to turn their flank. It will hardly be 
 denied that the differences between Judaism and Chris- 
 tianity should form part of a book which attempts to make 
 suggestion^ to parents and teachers. Living as we do 
 in a Christian environment, seeing that most of our chil- 
 dren attend Christian schools, talk with Christian friends, 
 and of necessity read Christian (because English} books, 
 we ought surely to make our children acquainted at some 
 period or other with our relation to Christian teaching, 
 so far as it markedly differs from our own. I remember 
 that in the Confirmation lectures which Mr. Marks used 
 to deliver, year by year, to boys and girls of the average 
 age of fourteen, at the West London, or Reform, Synagogue, 
 he always used to finish his course with a couple of 
 
 3" 
 
312 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 lectures or lessons on the differences between Judaism and 
 Christianity. 
 
 With some of these differences I have dealt in the 
 last chapter. But is not one of them the attitude which 
 Judaism has taken up, or should take up, towards the 
 person and the teaching of Jesus ? Our boys and 
 girls know well enough that the Bible to the whole 
 civilised world in a sense even to the civilised non- 
 Christian world does not mean what the Jews mean 
 by the Bible. It means something larger. It means the 
 addition of writings which are found appended to every 
 English Bible, writings which , as our boys and girls can 
 easily discover for themselves, have had gigantic influences 
 in the world, and which, as they also can easily dis- 
 cover, are commonly rated as, in many respects, supple- 
 mentary and superior to the other collection of writings 
 which alone form the Hebrew Bible and the Bible of the 
 Jews. Our children cannot be very old, and need not 
 be very learned, before they will hear that a section of 
 this portion of the general or Christian Bible contains a 
 record of the life of one who is supposed to have lived 
 an ideal life of goodness, and to have made a voluntary 
 sacrifice of his life for the benefit of mankind. They will 
 read quotations from the New Testament, which, to say 
 the least of it, may not seem to them without moral and 
 religious attractiveness. They may be inclined to read 
 for themselves, whether permitted or unpermitted, a book 
 which is not very long and is so very easily obtainable. 
 
 It seems, therefore, far better that something should be 
 said than that stony silence should be preserved. Such a 
 silence is only too likely to whet the appetite of our children 
 for a subject or a book about which there is something 
 queer, taboo, secret, or uncanny. On the other hand, in 
 this place it is clearly only possible to touch upon the 
 subject in the briefest and most fragmentary way. 
 
xxi THE NEW TESTAMENT 313 
 
 So far as my last chapter is concerned, there is 
 little in it, I think, which may not be taken as an 
 average or ordinary view of Liberal Judaism about 
 the subjects with which it deals. I may be perhaps 
 a little more impartial than some other Liberal Jewish 
 writers, but I do not suppose there is any very great 
 difference. The Liberal Jew is in some respects still 
 further removed from orthodox Christianity than the 
 Conservative Jew. Such an assertion may seem odd, 
 but it is nevertheless true. The Liberal Jew who no 
 longer believes in the miracles of the Old Testa- 
 ment is not likely to accept the miracles of the New. 
 He who has learnt to apply the canons of historical 
 criticism to the Pentateuch will not fight shy of 
 applying them to the Gospels. It was once said of 
 the present writer by an orthodox Christian that, in 
 spite of certain supposed advances towards a due 
 appreciation of the teaching of Jesus, there was no 
 one further from Christianity, no one more fixedly 
 rooted in bigoted and one-sided Judaism, than he ! 
 
 It is, however, these supposed advances towards a 
 right appreciation of the teaching of Jesus that may 
 be involved and come to the fore in the present 
 chapter. Hence, while, as I have said, my remarks 
 in the previous chapter may be taken as the average 
 holdings of Liberal Judaism in regard to the 
 differences between Judaism and Christianity, it may 
 be fair in the present chapter to warn my readers 
 that my remarks are more peculiar to myself. They 
 must not be looked upon as the average pronounce- 
 ments of Liberal Judaism. 
 
 The whole situation, if I may use that word, in 
 regard to the New Testament has totally changed 
 in the last thirty or forty years. What was then 
 thought of and talked of was whether Jesus fulfilled 
 
LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the prophecies, whether he was the Messiah. If it 
 could be shown that he did not fulfil the prophecies, 
 and that he could not conceivably have been the 
 Messiah whom Isaiah and other Hebrew seers 
 expected and predicted, then the whole business was 
 concluded. The Gospels were looked upon as 
 wholes, and at their face value. 
 
 From that point of view things were easy. It 
 could be shown, it can still be shown, that the 
 Messiah who, for example, is spoken of in the 
 eleventh chapter of Isaiah is quite a different sort of 
 person from Jesus of Nazareth, that he was to live a 
 different life, and to die a different death. It could 
 and can easily be shown that the events which were 
 to follow upon the advent of the Messiah the King 
 of the seed of David certainly did not happen upon 
 the coming of Jesus. No peace has ensued ; no 
 kingdom of God upon earth ; no universal righteous- 
 ness and prosperity. It could and can most easily 
 be shown that the Hebrew Prophets say nothing of 
 a second Messianic coming, separated from the first 
 by an interval of hundreds and perhaps thousands of 
 years. It could and can easily be shown that the 
 use of the Hebrew Prophecies in the New Testament 
 is strained and absurd, and that the prophecies 
 which are supposed to tell in favour of the Messianic 
 claims of Jesus, tell, in truth, most emphatically 
 against them. It could be shown that the fifty-third 
 chapter of Isaiah refers, not to an individual at all, 
 but to Israel as a whole, or to the ideal Israel in 
 particular. Quite as easy was it to demolish the 
 Biblical argumentations of Paul. They rest on a 
 method of interpretation which is opposed to common 
 sense and to actual fact. Not one of the peculiar 
 Pauline doctrines the efficacy of the death upon 
 

 xxi THE NEW TESTAMENT 315 
 
 the cross, the resurrection, and so on can be 
 proved from the Old Testament writings. 
 
 The old Jewish refutation of orthodox Chris- 
 tianity, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, is 
 complete and triumphant. It is even acknowledged 
 to be so by the best Christian scholars themselves. 
 The prophecies are supposed to have been fulfilled 
 in Jesus, or by Jesus, only in a spiritual or world- 
 historic sense, and so on. That is to say, it is acknow- 
 ledged that the old so-called proofs have hopelessly 
 broken down, and it comes to this, that in their 
 determined opposition to those proofs the Jews 'were 
 wholly in the right. 
 
 We no longer need argue to-day at length, and 
 with solemnity, that Jesus did not fulfil the pre- 
 dictions of the Prophets. We can make very short 
 work of that. He certainly did not fulfil them, 
 whether in his life or in his death. We can easily 
 tell young people, when we begin to speak to them 
 about Jesus, that it is much under dispute whether 
 Jesus regarded himself as the Messiah or not, and if 
 he did, in what sense. We can further tell them that 
 we do not know whether Jesus foresaw his death, 
 or whether he regarded that death as a quenching, 
 or as a fulfilment, of his expectations. We can tell 
 them that it may be that he thought that before his 
 death God would intervene and deliver him and 
 establish the Messianic kingdom, and that perhaps 
 he went up to Jerusalem not to die, but (as he 
 thought) to conquer. 
 
 All this is easy and straightforward. But as 
 we no longer believe in the coming of a personal 
 Messiah, and thus no longer believe in or teach the 
 literal accuracy of the Messianic predictions of the 
 Prophets, we do not bother our heads about the 
 
316 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Messianic claims or consciousness of Jesus. If he 
 did not think he was the Messiah, his teaching 
 about God and man will not therefore (in our eyes) 
 be the better, and if he did erroneously think he was 
 the Messiah of the Prophets, or if he thought he 
 was the Messiah in some peculiar sense of his own, 
 his teaching about God and man is not the worse. 
 The question of his Messiahship, and of what he 
 thought about it, is psychologically, historically, 
 biographically, of very great interest ; but, from 
 the religious point of view, to Liberal Jews it is of 
 no interest at all. It does not matter ; it leaves them 
 cold. 
 
 Similarly the discussions about the Old and 
 the New Covenant have lost their flavour. From 
 the literal, orthodox point of view the Jewish 
 interpretation has won a complete victory. The 
 Pentateuch says, and means to say, nothing what- 
 ever about a New Covenant. It never antici- 
 pates that the Law is only to be observed as regards 
 its ceremonial side till the advent of the Messiah. 
 It never says that the commands are for a season. 
 On the contrary. They are to be " statutes for ever, 
 throughout your generations." Again, it is perfectly 
 easy to show that the orthodox Christian concep- 
 tion of the sacrificial death of Jesus and of his 
 vicarious atonement is opposed to the teachings of 
 the Pentateuch, and, as interpreted in olden days, 
 and up to modern times, that the conception was 
 also opposed to the teaching of the fifty-third chapter 
 of Isaiah. It can be easily shown that Jeremiah in 
 his famous thirty- first chapter did not mean by a 
 New Covenant what Christian teachers have supposed 
 that he meant. 
 
 All this is easy, but to a large extent unnecessary. 
 
xxi THE NEW TESTAMENT 317 
 
 For Liberal Judaism no longer teaches the eternal 
 validity of the Pentateuchal laws or law : we teach a 
 progressive religion, a progressive apprehension and 
 unfolding of the will of God. A fixed and definite 
 opposition between old Covenant and new Covenant 
 has ceased to have for us any practical meaning or 
 importance. The controversy, like so many other 
 controversies, has become obsolete ; it has burnt 
 itself out. 
 
 It is just into this progressive conception of 
 religion and of Judaism that I think we have to 
 bring and fit the teaching of Jesus and of Paul. We 
 need have no fear or anxiety if that teaching con- 
 tained elements of truth and beauty which were 
 new elements which had at one time or another 
 been parts of our religion, but which we had our- 
 selves let go, or on which we laid insufficient stress, 
 or again elements which have either won their way 
 into Judaism by other channels, or which have still 
 to be (as they profitably could be) incorporated and 
 adopted into our religion. We shall have no fear 
 of showing that the teaching of these two great men 
 (and we shall not hesitate to call them great, both 
 for their historic results and for themselves) con- 
 tained both true elements and false elements, accept- 
 able things and doubtful things, and that sometimes 
 true doctrines were cast in a false and unacceptable 
 form. 
 
 On these lines, and from these points of view, we 
 have, I think, to approach, to deal with, and to 
 speak of, the teaching of Jesus and of Paul. I do not 
 see why we need be so excited about it, whether 
 we approve or whether we criticise. But I do think 
 that it would consort with the divine character less 
 well, and perchance with the principles of the divine 
 
3i 8 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 rule less well, so far as human reason can dimly 
 apprehend them, if the founders of a great religion, 
 such as Christianity which we admit to have brought 
 many to God, which we admit, like every other 
 great religion, to have grown up with God's will 
 and to be the executant of his purposes, which 
 we admit to have wrought very great good (if also 
 much evil) were common impostors or even common 
 or ordinary men. 
 
 That Jesus, therefore, had a noble character, 
 that his teaching was in many things, or as a 
 whole, original and good and true, and that he was 
 therefore in so far inspired instead of conflicting 
 with my conception of God, agrees and consorts 
 with it. Instead of weakening my belief in Liberal 
 Judaism (adjective and noun), it strengthens and 
 confirms it. And if I feel like this myself as re- 
 gards these views about Jesus and his teaching, and 
 their relation to God and to Liberal Judaism, why 
 may I not put them before others? I believe that 
 they can be put before young people simply and 
 clearly, and that the result will be that these young 
 people, so far from becoming Christians, will become 
 all the better Jews, Jews of that large and compre- 
 hensive Judaism which is to become more and more 
 the one great Judaism of the future both in the Old 
 World and the New. 
 
 Into the details of my conception both of the 
 character and the teaching of Jesus I cannot enter. 
 Those who would wish to know them can easily find 
 them in my little book called, The Religious Teaching 
 of Jesus, and in my larger work, The Synoptic Gospels. 1 
 
 Here let me only say that Jesus seems to me to 
 
 1 Both books are published by Macmillan. The former costs 35. 6d. and 
 the latter i8s. 
 
xxi THE NEW TESTAMENT 319 
 
 take up again, amid changed and in some respects 
 more difficult conditions, some of the teaching which 
 was put forward by the Prophets : I mean especially 
 as to the relation of inward and outward religion to 
 each other, and as to the service of God being shown 
 in the service of man. His teaching in regard to 
 retribution, to merit, to the love of one's enemy, 
 seems to me both original and striking, and to deserve 
 the fullest and most careful consideration. His 
 teaching respecting repentance, forgiveness, humility, 
 and many other things, seems to me to be essen- 
 tially Jewish, if not essentially original, and to 
 present Jewish doctrine in sayings and parables of 
 great power, beauty and impressiveness. Some 
 of his teaching, again, is much more doubtful : it 
 may, however, be true and valuable in the spirit 
 though not in the letter. It requires discussion. 
 Here I should especially allude, if I were talking to 
 young people, to his teaching about prayer, about 
 riches, about non-resistance. Some of his teaching, 
 again, seems to me erroneous, involved in the limited 
 outlook of his time. Such would be his teaching 
 about the " strait gate," about the many who take the 
 wrong way and are lost, about the few who take the 
 right way and are saved, about Gehenna and its fire. 
 The net result would, however, be that the false 
 elements can easily be dropped out, and that we can 
 and should concentrate our attention, even as we do 
 in the case of the Prophets and the Psalms, upon 
 what is helpful and good and true. 
 
 I should say much the same sort of thing about 
 Paul and his epistles. Only as regards Paul, while 
 holding him to be one of the most original and 
 powerful minds who have ever written about religion, 
 we shall, I think, have to tell our young people 
 
320 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 that very much of his doctrine, and very many of 
 his arguments, have become obsolete. The keynote 
 of his whole teaching is false. It turns upon con- 
 ceptions, such as that of the Fall, which are obsolete, 
 and is itself therefore all the more obsolete and 
 false. Paul puts a divine being (for his Christ is 
 neither man nor God) between us and God, and 
 nothing is more opposed to Judaism, and nothing 
 do we hold to be more false, than this. We 
 do not require, we revolt from, his doctrine of 
 mediation ; we do not require, we reject, his teach- 
 ing about the sacrificial death of Christ ; we do 
 not require, we reject, his doctrine of atonement 
 and salvation. 
 
 But, on the other hand, we can find more than 
 one teaching of nobility and of truth in the Pauline 
 epistles, though sometimes the teaching may be cast 
 in an erroneous or inadequate form. Thus the 
 Pauline doctrine of faith contains elements of great 
 value, though also elements of falsity and of danger. 
 Again, it is Paul (and not Jesus) who brings the 
 Prophetic universalism to its full and final conclusion. 
 " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
 bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for 
 ye are all one in Christ Jesus." We greatly improve 
 upon Paul, for we say : " There is neither Jew nor 
 Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither 
 male nor female : for all are the children of God, 
 and this whether they believe in God or do not 
 believe in Him." But though our universalism is 
 grander and truer than Paul's, we will not ignore 
 the world's debt to him, or forget, in the history of 
 universalism, to assign to him his high and his 
 rightful place. 
 
 Many other points of value could be picked out 
 
xxi THE NEW TESTAMENT 321 
 
 from the Pauline epistles, but I have no space to do 
 so here. 
 
 In accordance with our estimate of the teaching 
 of Jesus and of Paul should be our estimate of the 
 New Testament as a whole. We shall accept, and 
 gladly learn from, what seems to us good and true 
 in it ; we shall reject what seems to us erroneous and 
 bad. 
 
 The Bible of the world contains both the Old 
 and the New Testaments ; the Bible of the Jews 
 contains only the Old Testament. Should this 
 limitation always be maintained ? Should the Jews 
 be willing to include within their Bible the New 
 Testament as well as the Old ? It might be said that 
 pur doctrine of inspiration is different now from what 
 it used to be, that we no longer suppose that only the 
 Hebrew prophets, or the writers of the Hebrew Bible, 
 were inspired, but that if Jesus, for example, said 
 anything which was new, good and true, we are 
 not unwilling to recognise in such words the only 
 source of the good and the true, not unwilling to 
 say that the Divine Spirit rested also upon him. 
 It might be said that we admit errors in the Old 
 Testament as well as in the New, and that we cannot 
 limit our Bible to the Old on the plea that the 
 one Testament is perfect, the other imperfect. 
 
 In spite of these and similar arguments, I am of 
 opinion that the Bible of the Jews and of Judaism 
 must continue to be the Hebrew Bible and the 
 Hebrew Bible only. I touched upon this subject 
 at the end of the second volume of my Bible for 
 Home Reading, which was first published in 1899, 
 and I have not changed my opinions since. I do 
 not know that I can do better than repeat here what 
 I there said. I am the more inclined to do so because 
 
322 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 it has been suggested by an opponent of my views 
 that I have changed my mind, and that I now desire 
 to include the New Testament in the Bible of 
 Judaism. But in spite of my deep and abiding 
 admiration for the teaching of Jesus, it will be seen 
 that if I now re-enunciate what I said in 1899, and 
 declare that I have never modified my attitude, the hint 
 which my opponent threw out was neither justified 
 nor accurate. 
 
 There is much in the New Testament which is great 
 and noble, much which is sublime and tender, much which 
 is good and true. Of this " much," the greater part consists 
 in a fresh presentment of some of the best and highest 
 teaching in the Old Testament, in a vivid reformulation of 
 it, in an admirable picking and choosing, an excellent bring- 
 ing together. But a part consists in a further development, 
 or in a clearer and more emphatic expression of certain 
 truths which previously were only implicit or not fully 
 drawn out. Thus of its excellence part may in this sense be 
 called old, and part may in this sense be called new. But in 
 close and curious combination with what is good there are 
 some things which are erroneous and harmful, and there are 
 others which are liable to dangerous perversion, or which 
 hold within them the germs of evil, and have borne evil fruit. 
 
 Among the good and true elements of the New Testa- 
 ment may be mentioned important and suggestive modi- 
 fications of the doctrine of retribution and of the relation 
 of suffering to sin, a fresh and noble restatement of the 
 old prophetic doctrine, " I desire love and not sacrifice," a 
 passionate enthusiasm for the moral and religious regeneration 
 of the outcast and the sinner, fine teaching about the nature 
 and power of love and the duty of forgiveness, fresh con- 
 tributions to the conceptions of self-sacrifice, suffering and 
 religious inwardness, suggestive (if somewhat dangerous) 
 teaching on the subject of the divine immanence and of 
 the divine in man, a striking presentment of the true and 
 intimate relation of the human child to the divine Father, 
 and, last not least, a clear and emphatic recognition that this 
 
xxi THE NEW TESTAMENT 323 
 
 divine fatherhood extends equally to the Gentile and the 
 Jew. It should be noted that parallels to many of these 
 excellent teachings are also to be found in the Rabbinical 
 writings. It was indeed perfectly natural that the same 
 religious ideas and developments should occur independently 
 to several Jewish minds. Thus, for example, the deep reply 
 which, according to the Talmud, was made by the "wise 
 men of the south " to the king of Macedon is the precise 
 equivalent of one of the most notable sayings attributed to 
 Jesus of Nazareth. (" Alexander said to them, c What should 
 a man do that he may live ? * They said, c Let him kill 
 himself.' c And what should a man do that he may die ? ' 
 They said, 'Let him seek to keep himself alive.* ") 
 
 Among the elements of the New Testament to which 
 Jewish critics (as it seems to me most rightly) take strong 
 exception, there may be mentioned the serious weaken- 
 ing of that fundamental doctrine of Judaism which declares 
 the unity of God, the exaltation of a man into partner- 
 ship with Deity, the strange conception of the absolute 
 incarnation of God in human form, the putting of an 
 intermediary, half God and half man, or wholly man and 
 wholly God, between the human child and the divine Father, 
 certain teachings about atonement, demoniacal possession 
 and punishment after death, and a one-sided conception of 
 faith containing within it the seeds of persecution and 
 fanaticism, and sorfietimes tending to the severance of 
 morality from religion. 
 
 For good and for evil and the two have often been 
 strangely mixed up and interwoven together the New 
 Testament has been of enormous influence in the moral and 
 religious history of the world. For that reason alone all 
 Jews who, like other civilised persons, want to know about 
 that history must read the New Testament, and read it, if 
 they can, with impartial minds, ready to receive the good 
 and to reject the evil. But it cannot be admitted into a 
 Jewish Bible for Home Reading. Not only that the critical 
 study of it is unsuited for the young. There is more than 
 this involved. For if it be said that in the Hebrew Bible 
 too we have found higher and lower teaching, doctrine to 
 reject as well as doctrine to receive, this argument would not 
 
324 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 suffice for the inclusion of the New Testament into the 
 Bible of the Jews. It is one thing to observe, with growing 
 thought and developed conceptions of religion and morality, 
 deficiencies and unevennesses in the sacred scriptures which 
 have been your community's sacred scriptures for two thousand 
 years j it is quite another thing to add on to those scriptures 
 other writings in which evils and errors, some of which I 
 have mentioned above, are known and recognised to exist. 
 Moreover, the grave errors which we Jews think that we can 
 detect in the New Testament are very closely connected 
 with, even if they do not actually constitute, its most 
 essential teachings. These errors are in fact among the 
 very points which the great mass of Christians regard as its 
 most peculiar characteristics and its most vital truths. Some 
 of them, at any rate, seem to us to contradict the teaching 
 of the Old Testament just where that teaching is at its 
 truest, its purest and its best. For these reasons, even if 
 there were no others, the Bible of the Jews must remain 
 limited to the books which now compose it. 
 
 The Jews must ever remain, so long as the funda- 
 mental religious doctrines of Judaism are not univer- 
 sally acknowledged, the anxious guardians of the 
 purest Monotheism. In spite of the sublimity of 
 much of the teaching attributed to Jesus, there is a 
 good deal in the New Testament (though not in the 
 teaching which is most probably its hero's) in which 
 that Monotheism is, as we believe, dimmed and in- 
 jured. On the other hand, to the world as a whole, 
 and to all non-Jews, the Bible will, I think, always 
 continue to include the New Testament as well as 
 the Old. Just as Liberal Jews of to-day treasure the 
 Old Testament for all that is good in it and true, 
 rightly neglecting and passing over what is incon- 
 sistent with that goodness and truth, so will it be 
 with the New Testament and the outer world. The 
 errors, the crudities, the falsities, will (as in the case 
 of the Jews and the Old Testament) be slurred over 
 
xxi THE NEW TESTAMENT 325 
 
 and neglected ; the beauties, the truths, the excel- 
 lences, will abide. For these things (and in both 
 Testaments enough of this second category will always 
 remain) it will continue to be cherished and beloved. 
 To the Jews the Pentateuch will always retain a 
 peculiar value, but I can hardly conceive a time when 
 by the general world it will religiously be more prized 
 than the Gospels. Hence, both as regards what is 
 said of Jesus, or of the New Testament as a whole, I 
 should by no means recall, or regard as inconsistent 
 with the quotation from the Bible for Home Reading, 
 a passage in my Synoptic Gospels (vol. ii. p. 594) which 
 may have induced the misunderstanding above alluded 
 to. The passage is, I admit, strongly and rather 
 rhetorically worded, but I honestly believe it to be 
 true. Here it is : "I cannot conceive that a time will 
 come when the figure of Jesus will no longer be a 
 star of the first magnitude in the spiritual heavens, 
 when he will no longer be regarded as one of the 
 greatest religious heroes and teachers whom the world 
 has seen. I cannot conceive that a time will come 
 when l the Bible'' in the eyes of Europe will no 
 longer be composed of the Old Testament and the 
 New, or when the Gospels will be less prized than the 
 Pentateuch, or the Books of Chronicles preferred to 
 the Epistles of Paul. The religion of the future will 
 be, as I believe, a developed and purified Judaism, 
 but from that developed and purified Judaism the 
 records which tell, however imperfectly, of perhaps its 
 greatest, as certainly of its most potent and in- 
 fluential teacher, will not be excluded." 
 
 The conclusion of the matter would, therefore, 
 seem to be that, so long as the Jews have to remain 
 a distinct religious community (and this must surely 
 mean for a very long time indeed), their Bible must 
 
326 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP, xxi 
 
 be the Old Testament only. But when Jewish 
 Monotheism has conquered the whole world, 'the 
 Bible ' of the whole world will contain both the Old 
 Testament and the New. 
 
 I personally would not be frightened to tell 
 young people that there is much in the teaching 
 of Jesus which I greatly admire. The religious 
 worth of the New Testament and of the teaching 
 of its hero is, as I have already said, an " open 
 question " among Liberal Jews, but I believe that my 
 own position is not only true, but capable of being 
 put before young people of sixteen and seventeen in 
 a simple and straightforward way, and with eminently 
 satisfactory results. It will, I believe, ensure their 
 loyalty to Judaism, while at the same time satis- 
 factorily explaining to them that profound admira- 
 tion of the teaching of Jesus which they will find 
 practically universal among educated Europeans, even 
 though a large number of these may no longer believe 
 in the dogmas of the Church. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 OF IDEALS AND LOVE, AND THE LOVE OF ENEMIES 
 
 / want to speak in this chapter of some alleged 
 differences between Judaism and Christianity, to which 
 I have not yet alluded. But these differences are very 
 unlike the others : some of them are differences which 
 are rather apparent than real, some of them are 
 differences which many Christians declare to exist, but 
 which many Jews would deny, and others are differences 
 which many Jews would declare to exist, but which many 
 Christians would deny. Why I speak of these less real 
 or more disputed differences is because they will give me 
 an opportunity to set forth what 1 conceive to be Jewish 
 or Liberal Jewish doctrine on the points concerned, and 
 they are all points of importance. 
 
 BOTH Jews and Christians believe in a world to come, 
 in the dogma and the hope of immortality. But it 
 used often to be said by Jews (perhaps it is less said 
 now than it used to be when I was a boy) that 
 Christianity over -accentuated the other world in 
 relation to this world, while it used to be said by 
 Christians that Judaism over-accentuated this world 
 in comparison with the other. I have alluded to 
 these allegations in another chapter and another 
 connection. They may be taken together with the 
 familiar saying of Bacon : " Prosperity is the blessing 
 
 327 
 
328 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 of the Old Testament (that is, of Judaism) ; ad- 
 versity is the blessing of the New Testament (that 
 is, of Christianity)." We have, however, seen that 
 these alleged differences and oppositions are false. 
 They are probably false on both sides, for a vast 
 number of Christians would deny the frequent Jewish 
 assertion of my boyhood, that Christianity declares 
 this world to be, and always intended to be, a vale of 
 tears. What the sober and temperate adherents of 
 both religions would, I think, assert, what sober and 
 temperate Jews would, I feel sure, assert, is, that a 
 right place in their religion is given to both worlds. 
 Perhaps, however, Judaism has been less inclined (in 
 spite of the secular persecutions to which the Jews 
 have been subjected) ever to regard this world or 
 this life as under the rule of any imaginary devil 
 rather than of the One God. This life has an end 
 in itself, though it is also a preparation for another. 
 Jewish teaching has been most wholesome when it 
 has thought least of the teaching of its rival. It has 
 been at its best when it has not been looking with 
 one eye at itself and with one eye at Christianity. 
 When this squinting process has taken place, Jewish 
 teaching has sometimes been perverted and made 
 one-sided in supposed contrast to Christianity. It is 
 not true Judaism, so far as this life is concerned, to 
 regard prosperity as the sole and only divine blessing. 
 And it is not true Judaism (as I have said elsewhere) 
 to depreciate or deny the value of all asceticism. 
 The old Rabbi quoted in Chapter XV. knew better 
 and said truer than that. We may, however, rightly 
 say that the sanctification of life by the taming 
 and hallowing of human instincts, passions and 
 desires rather than by their disuse and excision 
 (whether it be or no a doctrine of Christianity) is an 
 
xxn IDEALS AND LOVE 329 
 
 essential feature, a cardinal doctrine, of Judaism. 
 Thus, to take a salient point, Judaism places marriage 
 above celibacy. The reproductive instincts are also 
 to be tamed and used in the service and to the glory 
 of God. And in the sanctification of life and in the 
 service of God man is to find and will find not 
 mere perpetual struggle and pain, but highest satis- 
 faction and happiness. 
 
 Now this theory of life can be interpreted in more 
 than one way in a low way or a high way. Perhaps, 
 also, there may be said of it that, like many other high 
 and difficult ideals, it is easily capable of degeneration. 
 
 Judaism says : " Use your instincts ; hallow them ; 
 be happy." The result is that there is a tendency to 
 think that when you live an ordinary, decent life, 
 honest to your neighbours, faithful to your wife, 
 kindly to your children, giving them and yourself 
 good dinners and a " good time," you are Jiving an 
 admirable Jewish life, and that there is nothing 
 more to be said or to be done. In this way ideals 
 tend to disappear ; idealism tends to vanish, and the 
 conception of Judaism and of religion tends to be 
 cheapened, degraded and caricatured. For in truth 
 there is a good deal more to be both said and 
 done. But just because Judaism lays down one 
 ideal for all men, refusing to allow that some 
 men and women are to be " in religion " and some 
 " in the world," but asserting that all are to be 
 "in" the world, though not "of" the world, is 
 there so much danger lest the ideal be insensibly 
 lowered and obscured. For the existence of a class 
 of men and women set apart to live a life of special 
 difficulty and holiness, of special privations and hard- 
 ships, of special sacrifice and self-surrender, may have 
 two opposite effects upon the general mass of men 
 
330 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 and women who live without. It may make them 
 say or feel : " Well, religion and ideal morality are 
 provided for by these holy men and women : they 
 live a life dedicated to the glory of God ; that is 
 their metier ; we are in the world, and we need not 
 do anything like that\ our ideal is rightly and properly 
 a much lower one ; in fact, if we live decently 
 and respectably, we may enjoy ourselves in com- 
 fort and ease." And so they do enjoy themselves, 
 and the ideal becomes lower and lower, and the 
 service of God, which they think is demanded of 
 them, becomes poorer and more poor. 
 
 On the other hand, the existence of the dedicated 
 class, who live for the service of man and of God, 
 may have quite another effect. It may make the 
 men and women of the world remember what the 
 ideal is ; it may make them, at all events, acknow- 
 ledge that that ideal is not merely to be happy and 
 comfortable, decent fathers, kindly husbands, law- 
 abiding citizens, but that it is something far higher, 
 harder, and more comprehensive. It may, at any 
 rate, make them reverence a goodness and a love 
 which can never be wholly theirs, or it may make 
 them admit and recognise that this goodness and 
 love can be realised by other men and women, if it 
 cannot be realised by them. And this recognition 
 and reverence of the high ideal, as at least partly 
 realised in actual men and women whom they honour 
 and admire, may react upon their own lives, and help 
 them to mount a little farther upward on the moral 
 and spiritual hill. 
 
 Now Judaism puts the same ideal before all men ; 
 it asks that all, in their various degrees, should seek to 
 realise it in their lives. Let us, therefore, remember 
 that this ideal is not something low or average or 
 
xxn IDEALS AND LOVE 331 
 
 easy, but high, difficult, unattainable. Judaism teaches 
 that the highest love of God and the best service of 
 him are not easy, but hard. Judaism teaches that 
 men must renounce and endure in order to achieve 
 and to perform. It does not teach that sainthood is 
 easy ; it does not suppose that many can attain to it. 
 Those who give up all for God and the Highest 
 can only, and will always, be few. 
 
 A religious community, in order to be healthy, 
 must, as I have elsewhere said, produce and possess its 
 saints. But it can only do so if its ideals are high. 
 
 And this leads me to speak of a supposed differ- 
 ence between Judaism and Christianity, the observa- 
 tion and emphasis of which by Jews has not always 
 been to the advantage of Judaism. 
 
 Judaism has always put forward ideals. In 
 old days for example, in the Pentateuch it 
 tended to make the ideal a law, and perhaps there 
 has been something of this identification ever since. 
 The moral law to Judaism has not been the minimum 
 of morality, as Mr. Westermarck seems to hold that it 
 is and it must be, but the maximum of morality. For 
 to Judaism the Law is not merely a series of enact- 
 ments which, if not observed, can be enforced, but it 
 is a " super-obligatory " ideal. It includes, therefore, 
 not merely " the commandments of duty/' but the 
 " free and lofty aspiration to live up to," or rather 
 to live towards, " an ideal, which, unattainable though 
 it be, threatens neither with blame nor remorse him 
 who fails to reach its summits." l 
 
 The Pentateuchal law " be ye holy," the Rabbinic 
 law " imitate God," are not mere commands : they 
 are ideals. 
 
 1 Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. i. p. 153. 
 Quoted in my Synoptic Gospeli, vol. ii. p. 98. 
 
332 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 If the ideal were not above us, and beyond our 
 attainment, how could we progress ? If a man thinks 
 he has attained moral and religious perfection, what 
 a self-righteous fool he must be 1 Surely 
 
 A man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what's a heaven for ? 
 
 Our ideals must, then, be in their fulness unattain- 
 able, or they are no true ideals. 
 
 But here some Jewish critics begin to cavil. They 
 say : " There are ideals and ideals. The right ideal 
 must be at least capable of partial realisation by all. 
 We all know that none can love God perfectly. We 
 all know that none can be perfectly holy. But all 
 can love God somewhat : all can be somewhat or 
 fairly holy." And in addition to this I think they 
 would say : " The ideal must be extremely broad : 
 'be holy/ 'love God/ 'love man/ It must not 
 enter into details." They would, I feel sure, say : 
 c< An ideal which none can realise might serve for 
 angels ; it is no good for man." Or again : " An 
 ideal is no good (and that is why it must be so 
 broad) if only some men can fulfil or seek to fulfil 
 it. An ideal must be an ideal for all. All must 
 aspire to it ; all must be able to mount at least the 
 lowest rungs of its ladder." 
 
 Now, how did Jewish critics come to make 
 these criticisms ? They came to make them, be- 
 cause in the Gospels Jesus sets up ideals which his 
 followers say are higher and nobler than the laws 
 and ideals of the Old Testament in general and of 
 the Pentateuch in particular. And the Jewish critics 
 have been at pains to show that these supposed higher 
 and nobler ideals are unsuited for mankind, im- 
 possible of attainment. Or again : they are not ideals 
 
IDEALS AND LOVE 333 
 
 for all y because only a very few can even seek to fulfil 
 them. 
 
 I will mention here two of these ideals perhaps 
 the most important two as examples. Jesus declares: 
 " Every one that does not renounce all his posses- 
 sions cannot be my disciple." In other places he 
 seems to lay down the principle of complete self- 
 denial and self-surrender. The Jewish critics say : 
 u Self-denial is an ideal. But self-denial in the sense 
 of being a celibate, or of giving away all your posses- 
 sions, is not an ideal, for not only can all men 
 not be celibates and give up all their possessions, 
 but it is not desirable that any should do so. The 
 ideal is both impracticable (because it is not universal), 
 and it is also false (because it is undesirable)." 
 
 I am not sure that the Jewish critics are right. 
 Who is to say where the ideal of self-denial is to 
 end ? Who is to say where, in any particular case, 
 so much self-denial is good and a little more is 
 wrong ? May it not be that for some few persons 
 it is better not t6 marry ; that some can serve 
 God and man better unmarried than married ? I 
 do not see that this is by any means impossible or 
 unlikely. And even though, in our present social 
 order, to give away all one's possessions may be 
 inadvisable to use them well, the Jewish critics 
 might rightly say, is the higher and better ideal one 
 may, in a sense not sophistical, renounce them all, 
 even though one still possesses them. A man may 
 reduce his personal requirements to a minimum : 
 a man may become more and more independent of 
 outward things. Who shall say to what extent, in 
 any individual case, this renouncement should be or 
 may be carried ? 
 
 Jesus, therefore, was, I think, wrong if he meant 
 
334 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 that no one who does not give away all his possessions 
 can be a true lover of God and man. He was, how- 
 ever, not wrong in making of self-denial and re- 
 nouncement an ideal, to which no limits can rightly 
 be assigned. 
 
 " Self-denial is good/' That is acknowledged by 
 Jew and Christian alike. But let us take great care 
 that the broad maxim or ideal of self-denial, which 
 the Jewish critics admit and approve, is not made so 
 broad that it fails to influence. Self-denial is good, 
 but self-denial in what ? May it not be self-denial 
 in possessions, self-denial in things you like, self- 
 denial in outward success? 
 
 I hope that Jewish parents and teachers may 
 reflect on these queries and on the difficulties which 
 they imply. 
 
 Again, self-denial for whom or for what? And 
 with this I shall gradually come to my second ideal. 
 I suppose the answer can only be : for oneself, or 
 for others, or for God. 
 
 It is a curious feature of Jewish criticism of 
 Christianity (but it may conceivably be both curious 
 and true) that it attacks Christian teaching on two 
 opposite grounds. Christian teaching is, on the one 
 hand, too selfish, on the other hand, it is impossibly 
 altruistic. 
 
 It is alleged that the Christian motive for all this 
 self-denial is personal salvation. And the Jewish 
 critics say (or in my boyhood they used to say) that 
 we are not to bother about our own salvation. Let 
 us help others and do our duty, and our salvation 
 will come of itself. We can leave it to God. And 
 it is quite true that if a man were to say : " I do not 
 myself desire to help my neighbour or to lead a life 
 of self-denial. I hate it. But I believe it will secure 
 
xxn IDEALS AND LOVE 335 
 
 me a seat in heaven, and therefore I will practise self- 
 denial, though sorely against the grain," he would 
 justly be despised. And possibly the insistence upon 
 the immense importance of our earthly life, in view of 
 the eternity which is to succeed it, may have actually 
 led to such perversions of morality and of religion. 
 But in itself the bidding to prepare for the eternal 
 life is surely not ignoble or undesirable. The old 
 Jewish Rabbi did not think so when he said, " Prepare 
 thyself in the vestibule that thou mayest (be allowed 
 to) enter into the hall." The injunction, " Choose 
 well, thy choice is brief and yet endless,'* may be 
 exaggerated, for we believe in the ultimate enlighten- 
 ment and beatitude of all, but it has, at any rate, its 
 measure of truth. If there be another life, and if 
 this life affects our well-being, or the stage at which 
 we begin, in another life, would he not be a fool who 
 did not determine to order his life on earth in 
 conscious reference to his life beyond the grave ? 
 If he realises, as Judaism teaches he ought to 
 realise, that the love of man is the best passport 
 to heaven, he will be wholly free of the taint of 
 selfishness. It is perfectly true that he is to trust 
 God, and not to be always anxiously thinking : "What 
 are my future prospects ? How stands it with my 
 soul ? Will this line of action help me rather than 
 that ? ' But it is also true that he is to consider and 
 remember that for him, as for others, this life is the 
 " preparation " for another. Now you do not " pre- 
 pare for " a thing without from time to time thinking 
 of the thing for which you are preparing. You think 
 of it in relation to yourself ; you think of yourself in 
 relation to it. 
 
 I do not therefore hold that there is much in this 
 particular Jewish criticism, and I do not see much 
 
336 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 difference here between an enlightened Judaism and 
 an enlightened Christianity. " Prepare thyself in the 
 vestibule that thou mayest enter into the hall " is 
 good Jewish teaching and it is good Christian teach- 
 ing. Neither religion need, I fancy, go farther ; 
 both religions must, I fancy, go as far. 
 
 I come now a little nearer to the second example, 
 where Christian teaching is said to be impossibly 
 altruistic. A little nearer, but yet I cannot get to it 
 quite at once. 
 
 I alluded before to the statement, which I used (if 
 I remember right) to see in Christian books, that the 
 God of Judaism was just, but that the God of 
 Christianity was loving. Or, again, that the God of 
 Judaism was righteousness, but that the God of 
 Christianity is love. Jewish critics have met this 
 criticism in two ways. The first, which is, I think, 
 the true, way is that of denial. The God of Judaism 
 is both righteousness and love. His love is never in 
 conflict with his righteousness ; his righteousness is 
 never in conflict with his love. For God is One. 
 
 The second way in which the Jewish critics 
 have met the Christian statement is, however, very 
 different. 
 
 Whereas the Christians, in making the statement, 
 mean to imply that the conception of the Godhead is 
 nobler, truer, and higher in Christianity than in 
 Judaism, inasmuch as love is higher and nobler than 
 righteousness, the Jewish critics declare that the God 
 of Judaism is indeed righteousness, for righteousness 
 is superior to love. 
 
 Which is correct ? Is love better than righteous- 
 ness, or is righteousness better than love ? Is 
 perfect righteousness superior to perfect love, or is 
 perfect love superior to perfect righteousness ? 
 
xxn IDEALS AND LOVE 337 
 
 What I fancy the Christians mean is, that love is 
 superior to righteousness, because love is more active. 
 Love seeks out ; love eagerly desires to save and 
 help and give. Love renounces and sacrifices. 
 Love is ever anxious to do and to aid : it yearns to 
 fight and to redeem. Love makes allowances and 
 pities ; love consoles and comforts ; love cares and 
 forgives. Love suffers gladly ; love endures for the 
 sake of the beloved. Love bears another's burden. 
 Love, in fact, loves. Love gives up itself. Love is 
 willing to renounce and to die. 
 
 Righteousness does the right and correct thing at 
 every juncture and on all occasions. But does it go 
 out of its own way to help and succour, to forgive 
 and pity and redeem ? If not, love is higher than 
 righteousness, and the yearning compassion and the 
 infinite goodness of God must be less akin to 
 righteousness than to love. There is no word which 
 expresses the divine goodness so well as that one 
 simple monosyllable. No sentence can express the 
 divine nature so truly as those three short words : 
 God is love. 
 
 But the Jews say : love is emotional ; love is 
 partial. What sins have not been committed in the 
 name of love ! What evil results have not ensued 
 from the false estimates, and the foolish actions, 
 dictated by love ! 
 
 Righteousness is goodness, which is wise, which 
 looks before and after, which reflects and judges and 
 weighs. Righteousness includes justice that great 
 virtue, the full supremacy of which would mean the 
 advent of the Golden Age. Love is a feeling, and 
 the feelings need not and cannot be dictated to. 
 They will go and come of themselves. But let 
 men nerve themselves and strain themselves to the 
 
338 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 knowledge and the doing of justice and righteous- 
 ness -justice and righteousness to one and to all : 
 let this be done, and the Messianic Era will have 
 arrived. And the virtue which, if fully, con- 
 sistently and persistently practised by men, would 
 mean the advent of the Golden Age that virtue 
 must be the highest ! That virtue is the divinest 
 of all. And if we have to describe the nature of 
 God by a single word, how can we do better than to 
 say : God is righteousness ? He is that virtue, 
 which, if men but practised it to the full, would 
 mean the removal of all wrong-doing and selfishness, 
 the removal of every evil, and the accomplishment of 
 constant rectitude and goodness. The perfect God 
 is perfect righteousness. 
 
 The Church with its ideal of love has been in 
 power for sixteen hundred years. Oh for sixteen 
 centuries of the rule of justice ! Social reform would 
 then achieve its term. The ideals of the prophets 
 would be realised. 
 
 It seems to me that there is a good deal in what the 
 Christians say and a good deal in what the Jews say. 
 I do not mind myself which way you put it, so long 
 as you will allow me to include in my ideal both 
 righteousness and love. Either say that perfect 
 righteousness is loving and eager, and that it does 
 all the things which the Christians affirm that love 
 does, or say that perfect love is wise and righteous, 
 and that it does all the things which righteousness 
 does according to the Jews. The human ideal must 
 be loving righteousness, or righteous love. And 
 God himself must be the perfection of both. 
 
 Apart from the suggestion of controversy, the 
 Jews are, rightly enough, as I think, by no means 
 chary of using the word " love." The command to 
 
xxii IDEALS AND LOVE 339 
 
 love God follows the declaration of the divine Unity 
 in the Shema, accepted by all Jews, Conservative and 
 Liberal, as the corner-stone of the Jewish faith. And 
 from Jewish pulpits, no less than from Christian 
 pulpits, you may hear the human ideal summed up as 
 " the love of man and the love of God." But it is 
 only, as I think, fair to state that that aspect of love 
 of which I have just spoken the active aspect, in 
 virtue of which love goes forth, and gives freely, and 
 yearns to help and to save, in virtue of which it seeks 
 to succour and redeem the sinner, and is ever ready to 
 renounce, to sacrifice and to endure is largely asso- 
 ciated with, and strongly emphasised by, the teaching 
 of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. It is not 
 only, as I think, accurate and fair to say this, but I 
 should not be afraid (need we ever be afraid of the 
 truth ?) of saying this to children. Nor would I be 
 afraid to tell them that one of the noblest paeans on 
 love ever written by human hands is that which says 
 of it : <c Love suffereth long and is kind ; love 
 envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
 up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its 
 own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil ; 
 rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with 
 the truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, 
 hopeth all things, endureth all things." 
 
 And I would even add that this great paean was 
 written by a Jew named Paul ! Why should we be 
 afraid, for is not this love suitable and desirable for 
 Judaism ? Does it conflict with it ? Does it not 
 rather harmonise with it ? So that I would not mind 
 repeating to our children the story of that Spanish 
 Jew, Dr. Nunes, who, according to Wesley, was 
 wont to say that he wished the thirteenth chapter of 
 the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (wherein 
 
 Z2 
 
340 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the paean on love is found), were written in letters of 
 gold, and that every Jew were to carry it with him 
 wherever he went. And perhaps if to the ideal of 
 love were added the ideal of righteousness, I would 
 agree with Dr. Nunes when he said (herein, says 
 Wesley, judging rightly), u that this single chapter 
 contained the whole of true religion." 
 
 So much, then, as to the ideals of righteousness and 
 of love. They constitute the goal. The ideal for 
 man is not merely to be a kindly father, a faithful 
 husband and a law-abiding citizen, but it is the ideal 
 of perfect righteousness and perfect love. This is the 
 ideal the Jewish ideal towards which we must 
 strain and strive and struggle, and of which even the 
 best of us must fall short. 
 
 And now for the second example in which 
 Christian teaching is sometimes said by Jewish 
 critics to be impossibly and undesirably altruistic. 
 
 The Law speaks, we are told, to men, and in the 
 language of men. It bids men love their neighbours 
 as themselves. Whether when a man gives his life for 
 his friend, or whether when, as in a fire, a man even 
 sacrifices his life to save some one unknown to him, he 
 does not love his neighbour more than he loves himself, 
 I will not inquire. Such sacrifice of his life, such love 
 of another, whether it be as of himself or more than 
 himself, would be equally ordered and commended 
 by both Christian and Jewish ethics. 
 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," says 
 the Jewish Law. Even more : " Thou shalt love the 
 stranger as thyself," or, if we translate it as some 
 scholars think it should be translated, the bidding of 
 the Law becomes still more impressive : " Thou shalt 
 love the foreign settler in thy midst as thyself." For 
 this is a law which men find it exceedingly difficult 
 
xxn THE LOVE OF ENEMIES 341 
 
 to fulfil : it is an ideal which they find it exceed- 
 ingly hard to admit or to attempt. It is the Jaw, 
 or the ideal, which all anti-Semitism conspicuously 
 violates, contemns and denies. Certainly many 
 Christian nations, and an enormous number of 
 Christians, have very much to learn yet from the Law 
 which they suppose to be obsolete and superseded ! 
 It is hardly for them to claim that they possess a 
 higher law, a higher ideal, when they so conspicuously 
 violate the lower law, the lower ideal if lower indeed 
 it be. Perhaps the possession of a supposed Best 
 has been their enemy in the fulfilment of the Good. 
 
 But we must not let the sins of Christian nations 
 and of individual Christians prevent us from esti- 
 mating with judicial impartiality the worth of the 
 Christian ideal. 
 
 What, then, does the Gospel say about love ? 
 Does it outstrip the law ? It says : " Love your 
 enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them 
 that curse you, and pray for them that ill-treat you." 
 It is these injunctions which the Christian regards 
 as the crown and flower of the teaching of Jesus, 
 and which the Jew criticises and condemns. 
 
 I have discussed the command at length in my 
 edition of the Synoptic Gospels, and I will now 
 reproduce from that book some part of what I there 
 said. 
 
 The usual Jewish criticism of the injunction, "Love 
 your enemies," is that it is paradoxical, impracticable and 
 absurd. One never opens a Jewish book or pamphlet which 
 deals with Jesus and the New Testament without this 
 invariable criticism. Thus, for example, Dr. Eschelbacher : 
 " The Jewish law enjoined help and aid to be given to our 
 enemies when in need. It says : If thou meet thine 
 enemy's ox or ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring 
 it back to him again. The Jewish sages urged : Say not, 
 
342 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 I will do to him as he has done to me ; I will render to the 
 man according to his work. And again : If thine enemy 
 be hungry, give him bread to eat ; if he be thirsty, give 
 him water to drink. But Judaism has not ordered us to 
 love our enemies. It has regarded such a command as 
 unfulfilable. It has considered that the emotion of love 
 towards those who curse, hate, revile, and seek to destroy 
 us, is impossible. The very demand for such a feeling 
 is, perhaps, not even good. For even self-denial has its 
 limits : to fight is sometimes not only a necessity, but also 
 a duty. One can only legitimately ask that such a fight 
 should be exclusively directed towards wicked, threatening 
 and powerful antagonists ; there must be no attack upon 
 the conquered, the weak and the needy. These, on the 
 contrary, must be rendered every helpful support and assist- 
 ance. Such good deeds may then lead on to friendly feelings 
 and reconciliation. And the Christian command to " love 
 the enemy " has not led to any higher, nobler deeds towards 
 him than these. 
 
 It is, in fact, contended by Jewish critics that the defect 
 in the ethical teaching of Jesus is that it is strung so high 
 that it has failed to produce solid and practical results just 
 where its admirers vaunt that it differs from, and is superior 
 to, the ethical teachings and standards of the Pentateuch, 
 the Prophets and the Rabbis. . . . The bow is so bent that 
 it snaps altogether. 
 
 The history of Christianity, so the Jewish writers urge, 
 is a proof that their criticism of the teaching of Jesus is well 
 founded. For how often, they tell us, do we not hear Lessing's 
 statement repeated, in one form or another, that Christianity 
 has been tried for eighteen hundred years, but that the 
 religion of Jesus remains to be tried ? What does this mean 
 but a confession that the teaching of Jesus, in its most novel 
 and striking features, has remained virtually untried j that 
 its injunctions are a dead letter ? But the history of Europe 
 confirms, so it is alleged, the complaint of Lessing. For the 
 adherents of no religion have hated their enemies more than 
 Christians. The atrocities which they have committed in 
 the name of religion, both inside and outside their own pale, 
 are unexampled in the world's history. And even to-day 
 
xxn THE LOVE OF ENEMIES 343 
 
 it cannot be truly said that the various sects of Christians 
 love one another, while anti-Semitism is a proof that they 
 do not love those who are not Christians. Toleration is, 
 upon the whole, a product of scepticism, by no means a 
 direct issue of Christianity or of the teaching of Jesus. 
 Thus we see that the injunction "love your enemies" is an 
 injunction which has failed to produce a result. It was 
 conspicuously violated by Jesus himself, who, if he had loved 
 his enemies, would not have called them vipers, or enthusi- 
 astically predicted their arrival in hell ; it has always been 
 conspicuously violated by his disciples. But the existence 
 of it has caused men to forget, and ignore, and comfortably 
 to violate, the old useful commands which were practicable 
 (and not merely ornamental window dressing), and which 
 could be obeyed : " Bear no grudge ; do not revenge ; help 
 your enemy when he needs your help, and when you are in 
 a position to help him." Thus as regards public enemies 
 and the enemies of their religion, Christians, with their 
 brand-new command, " love your enemies," have hated their 
 enemies and persecuted and tortured them, just as much as 
 could conceivably have happened under the regime of 
 Pentateuch, Prophets and Rabbis, while as regards private 
 enemies, there is no reason whatever to believe that Jews 
 have not acted and lived up to as high an ethical standard 
 as Christians. What, then, are we to say of a teaching 
 which has so conspicuously failed in practical results ? " By 
 your fruits ye shall be judged," said Jesus, and by its fruits 
 his new and superfine teaching stands condemned. 1 
 
 How far is all this criticism just and fair ? 
 Some of it seems beside the mark. For what 
 does the injunction or ideal " Love your enemies " 
 actually mean ? Hardly that we are to feel towards 
 them the same emotion as towards our friends. 
 Hardly that we are to be as fond of them as we are 
 fond of wife or mother or companion. But " love 
 your enemies " first of all includes helpfulness. We 
 are to do them good when opportunity arises. Here 
 
 1 Synoptic Gospels, vol. ii. pp. 523, 524. 
 
344 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 the Jewish law and the Christian law are at one. 
 Next it means that there is to be no revenge, no 
 grudge ; no bitterness of heart, no retaliation in 
 thought or word or deed. Here again the Jewish 
 law is at one with the Christian law. But "love 
 your enemies " means something more still. This 
 more is just where the word love comes in. Love 
 includes, as we have seen, the element of desire, of 
 activity. " Love your enemies " would therefore 
 mean not merely that we are to harbour no hate 
 or resentment, not merely that we are, if oppor- 
 tunity unsought presents itself, to do them a good 
 turn, or to help them in need, but that we are 
 actively to seek to do them good. It means that 
 we are to pray to God that he may enlighten them 
 or destroy their sin : it means that we are to seek, 
 if we can, to enlighten and redeem them ourselves. 
 
 Now this ideal is very hard : it may, moreover, 
 for most of us be outside our purview and imprac- 
 ticable, either because we have no enemies, that is to 
 say, there are no persons who, to our knowledge or 
 belief, hate and despise us, or because, though we 
 might pray to God on behalf of such persons, no 
 opportunity ever arises in which we could do them 
 moral or material good, however much we might 
 desire to do so. 
 
 But I do not think that the command is absolutely 
 impossible of fulfilment, or that as an ideal it may not 
 be without its bracing effect upon the mind and the 
 heart of man. 
 
 Again, I feel sure that it is totally erroneous to 
 suppose that the ideal has not had its actual results. 
 Christians have greatly sinned, but there have also 
 been among them very many noble and exquisite 
 lives. Who shall number or measure the many actual 
 
xxn THE LOVE OF ENEMIES 345 
 
 results for good of this " impracticable " ideal ? How 
 many insults have been forgiven ; how many chances 
 of retaliation forgone ! How many " enemies " have 
 been won over to goodness and to God ! " Love 
 your enemies" is the expression of a passionate 
 idealism, but it is just this passionate idealism, this 
 eager and ardent enthusiasm of love, which are likely 
 to stir and stimulate the imagination and the will. 
 
 I come back, in conclusion, to laying stress once 
 more on the necessity for Judaism, and for the every- 
 day religion of average Jews, of unattainable ideals. 
 Without them we shall not produce the holy men 
 and women, whom every religion must produce if 
 it is to live and to prosper. We need ideals to 
 keep us fresh and pure and ardent. And the ideal 
 must be a true ideal, distant, hard, impracticable. 
 As I said in my Synoptic Gospels^ and I think 
 correctly : 
 
 A moral ideal should always be above our complete 
 accomplishment. Let it ask an ell, and man may produce 
 an inch. Let it ask an inch, and man will not even pro- 
 duce the inch. That the ideal is impracticable is by no 
 means a valid criticism against it. Every ideal is and must 
 be impracticable in its completeness. But we can struggle 
 nearer and nearer towards it, and through its constraining 
 power a great deal can be accomplished. . . . The value 
 of unattainable ideals is admitted and even emphasised by 
 philosophers who are by no means ordinary Christian 
 believers. Thus Professor Taylor writes : " The distant 
 ideal is the source of our direst mental tortures, and yet, 
 without it, existence would be unendurable. ... As moral 
 beings we can never exist without some still unreached ideal 
 to serve as a spur to our activity can never, like Faust, 
 rest on our oars and say to the present, ' Be thou my 
 eternity ' ; yet even when most irresistibly hurried forward 
 in the chase of our distant ideal, we know quite well in our 
 hearts that we shall only approach it to see it recede still 
 
346 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP, xxn 
 
 farther away from us. ... An end that is to be permanently 
 felt as worth striving for must be infinite, and therefore 
 infinitely remote, while any end that is infinite is for that 
 very reason out of reach of attainment, and as far from us 
 after a life of devotion to it as it was at first. . . . The 
 collective wisdom of mankind has long ago discovered that 
 our ideals, whether of sensual gratification, or of knowledge, 
 or of beauty, or of moral improvement, are, one and all of 
 them, unattainable. So that if indifference to the demand 
 for a practicable ideal be the mark of a dreamer or a fanatic, 
 contentment with a final and practicable ideal is no less 
 undeniably the mark of an esprit borne." l 
 
 Jewish teaching has to beware of becoming, 
 through its opposition to Christianity, what Rabbinic 
 teaching most undoubtedly was not, " the teaching 
 of an esprit borne" We must not seek to diminish 
 the passion, the sweep and the paradox of the ideal. 
 We must not seek to drag it down to the limits of 
 the practical. Otherwise we are likely to diminish 
 the beauty, the splendour, and the originality 
 of the characters, which (especially in days of 
 prosperity) only the ideal can effectively produce 
 and sustain. 
 
 1 Synoptic Gospels, vol. ii. pp. 526, 527, quoting A. E. Taylor, Problem of 
 Conduct, 1901, p. 401. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 OF FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 
 
 This last chapter should perhaps have come earlier in 
 the book. But if it had been placed earlier, it would 
 have taken a good deal for granted which has now been 
 said. So 1 have been content to leave it where it is. 
 And it is a condensed and difficult chapter, suitable, on 
 that account alone, for the end rather than for the 
 beginning or the middle. Moreover, I have rather 
 hinted at my conclusions than explained them fully. 
 Parents and teachers must supply what is wanting, and 
 expand what is said, for themselves. 
 
 Judaism does well to sing the praise of knowledge. 
 But it is also desirable that it should not exaggerate the 
 value of knowledge as an element of religion. It is against 
 this exaggeration that I here make a very brief, though 
 emphatic, protest. More of us can be good than wise : 
 more can be loving than learned. Therefore that great 
 number who can not be wise or learned can yet be lovers 
 of God. And therefore they can be most excellent Jews. 
 
 RELIGION, as we have now seen, includes many 
 things. It includes feeling, doing and believing. 
 It has an outward side and an inward side. It has 
 a spirit and a body. Or, rather, it is spirit, but for 
 men it must be clothed with a body. It requires 
 knowledge and it requires faith. 
 
 347 
 
348 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 Who is truly the religious man ? What must a 
 man possess, or do, in order that he may rightly 
 be called religious ? A great many answers can be, 
 and have been, given: many answers even from 
 within the pale of Judaism. Let me, however, 
 give an answer which does not pretend to be a 
 real definition, but which will merely enumerate 
 various important aspects of the religious man and 
 the religious life. 
 
 Faith surely must come first. Faith is the 
 primary requisite which the religious man must 
 possess. For how can a man, from the Jewish 
 point of view, be really religious without faith ? 
 And, as we have seen, faith will not mean mere 
 intellectual assent. Faith means that intellectual 
 assent assimilated and made one with our character. 
 Faith means that we not only believe, but care for, 
 and feel, that which we believe. Faith means 
 that this caring and active belief which is, and has 
 become, a part of character keeps translating itself 
 into deeds. Faith affects the will ; and through the 
 will it produces action. In this sense right faith is 
 clearly of enormous importance, for if there be a 
 unity in the world, and if the good God be the 
 world's ruler, from right faith must issue right 
 deeds. The purer and the better, the nobler and 
 the truer, our faith in God is, the better and the 
 nobler (given an equal intensity of faith) must be 
 the deeds which faith begets. It cannot, therefore, 
 matter little what is the nature of the faith, just as 
 it cannot matter little what is its quality or keenness. 
 It is accurate enough that from diverse faiths issue 
 noble lives, but it is no less accurate that from the 
 truest faith there must, in the long-run, be produced 
 the noblest life. It greatly matters what we believe, 
 
xxin FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 349 
 
 for belief is an element of faith, and faith is an 
 element in character, or we may say that, in one 
 aspect of character, faith and character are the same. 
 
 These last affirmations should, I think, be care- 
 fully considered by teachers and parents, and they 
 should be explained in adequate detail to children 
 of a suitable age. 
 
 Religion, then, is inward, in so far as it includes 
 faith) and it is inward, in so far as it includes feeling. 
 Religious faith (as transcending mere religious 
 belief) flows over into feeling, and the highest 
 realisation of religion is precisely in feeling. When 
 the Psalmist said : " Whom have I in heaven but 
 thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire 
 beside thee," he had a certain feeling, a certain experi- 
 ence. That feeling, that experience, are high forms 
 or aspects of religion. Faith produces joy. This 
 joy is the flower of religion. We have seen that 
 one of the highest forms of prayer is communion, 
 and that this communion it accompanied by a feeling, 
 an inward experience. Or rather it is the feeling, 
 it is the inward experience. And this inward experi- 
 ence is religion. 
 
 Here man has found one of the benefits ot forms 
 and ceremonies. Though they may degenerate, and 
 become formalism, though they may be gone through 
 in a perfunctory way, and though, worst of all, men 
 may think that the mere doing of them has a value 
 of its own, they may, nevertheless, become the vehicle 
 of true religious emotion. They may act as re- 
 minders. They may act as instruments instruments 
 by which communion with God and religious feeling, 
 together with religious aspiration and religious 
 thought, may be created or stimulated. 
 
 So far religion has been looked at as that which it 
 
350 LIBFRAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 emphatically is, a highly individual and private con- 
 cern, which has to do with the individual soul and 
 God in their relations with each other. But religion 
 is also social, and in its social and corporate aspect 
 the forms and ceremonies are no less, or even more, 
 useful and necessary. We are not mere separate and 
 selfish units ; we live a social and corporate life. 
 From the community we largely derive our strength, 
 to the community we must render our service and we 
 must bring our share. Religious feeling is aroused by 
 public worship and public prayer in a special and 
 peculiar way. The long experience of man has found 
 that private and public prayer sustain and strengthen 
 each other. Very few people can maintain private 
 prayer without public prayer, and with regard to these 
 few it may be questioned whether a still higher point 
 or degree of religion would not be attained if public 
 worship were superadded to their private communion, 
 just as it is wholly certain that the community suffers 
 by the withdrawal from the public rites of religion of 
 some fine and distinguished spirits. For all public 
 worship consists in a giving and a receiving. 
 
 Secondly, religion includes doing. The religious 
 man has to act. For religion is a service ; an 
 active devotion ; a performing love. And we know 
 that one of the most essential doctrines of the 
 prophets was to proclaim the inseparable connection 
 of religion with morality. This service, which is 
 one big aspect of religion, means the service of man : 
 it means justice and pity and love. To seek God 
 means to seek goodness ; to seek goodness means to 
 eek God. To love God means to love goodness ; 
 to love goodness means even if men cannot always 
 realise it to love God. 
 
 All this is so because God, as we believe, is good- 
 
xxni FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 351 
 
 ness, is righteousness, is love ; and hence his imita- 
 tion and his service can only be expressed or 
 achieved in terms and deeds of goodness, of righteous- 
 ness and of love. 
 
 But of this familiar and intensely Jewish aspect of 
 religion it is unnecessary to speak further. 
 
 How far, in the third place, is religion knowledge ? 
 Has the religious man to know as well as to do ? That 
 there is an intellectual element in religion cannot surely 
 be denied. Faith concerns the reason as well as the 
 feelings and the will. We could possess no faith 
 if we had no reason. The present conception of 
 God has been won by reason as well as by love. 
 Ignorance can never be a good, whether in religion or 
 in anything else. In the Jewish religion an intel- 
 lectual element has been markedly prominent. Great 
 stress was laid upon religious study the study of 
 the Bible, the Pentateuch, the Talmud. To many 
 Liberal Jews this study, as conducted by Conserva- 
 tive Jews, seems to be largely concerned with the 
 obsolete, and to involve considerable waste of time. 
 But on the importance of study in religion and of 
 study of religion, Liberal and Conservative Jews are 
 at one. It is a highly remarkable fact that the first 
 prayer in the Amidah the oldest portion of the 
 Jewish liturgy is not a prayer for forgiveness, 
 which comes third, or a prayer for the power and 
 will to repent, which comes second, but a prayer for 
 the gift of knowledge. " Thou favourest man with 
 knowledge, and teachest mortals understanding. O 
 favour us with knowledge, understanding and 
 discernment from thee. Blessed art thou, O Lord, 
 gracious giver of knowledge/' And we all re- 
 member the praise of wisdom in the Book of Pro- 
 verbs : " Wisdom is the principal thing : therefore 
 
352 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 with all thy strength get understanding." And like 
 passages frequently occur. 
 
 The power of the mind must, like our other 
 powers, be placed at the service of religion. We 
 must not carelessly accept the religion of our 
 fathers. When, or if, we are capable of doing so, 
 it is our duty to meditate upon its doctrines, and 
 to make them, if we can, a possession, if I may use 
 the phrase, both of the intellect and of the heart. 
 As this intellectual process takes place in many indi- 
 viduals, so the doctrines of our religion are purified 
 and developed. So have they been purified and 
 developed in the past ; so will they be purified and 
 developed in the future. We must have no fear of 
 thought, no fear of study. 
 
 " Lead us not," says another very old Jewish 
 prayer, " into the power of temptation." But per- 
 haps we may also fitly pray, ' Give us strength to 
 resist temptation," for by that resistance our character 
 is ennobled. And not only strength to resist 
 temptation, but insight to perceive the ugliness 
 and folly of sin, the beauty and wisdom of virtue. 
 So here, too, the intellectual element comes in. If 
 we thoroughly realised the nature and results of sin, if 
 we thoroughly realised the nature and results of good- 
 ness, we should yield much less often to temptation 
 than now we do : it has even been contended that 
 we should not yield at all. Perfect insight would 
 produce perfect right-doing. 
 
 But, on the other hand, we must not exaggerate 
 or misinterpret the place of knowledge in religion 
 and in Judaism. Religion is for us all : knowledge is 
 only for a few. Religion is for us all ; wisdom is 
 only for some very few here and there. 
 
 Again, let us look at the facts ? Who are the 
 
xxni FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 353 
 
 most religious people we know? Who are the 
 saints? Very often not learned people at all, not 
 even wise people in any fairly usual sense of the 
 word " wise," but people with perhaps very ordinary 
 brains, very limited understandings, very meagre in- 
 tellectual attainments. But they are people who are 
 loving, humble, prayerful. They are people who 
 worship and adore. They live in the presence of 
 God, and are filled with his strength and his peace. 
 If the few ideas or intellectual conceptions which 
 make up their store are adequately pure and good, 
 nothing else seems needed or required. Let them, 
 for example, believe that God is good, and that he 
 wants them to be good ; then, if goodness, as trans- 
 lated into human life, means for them patience and 
 unselfishness and self-sacrifice and humility and love, 
 the heights of religion can be reached with a very 
 small intellectual endowment, and with a still more 
 meagre equipment of knowledge. 
 
 Knowledge and the false estimate of knowledge 
 have their own moral dangers. They lead to conceit. 
 And conceit, it cannot be too strongly emphasised, is 
 the deadly foe of religion. Hence an ignorant old 
 man may be a far truer and nobler example of piety, 
 religion and the love of God than the most learned 
 scholar. 
 
 Religion requires knowledge, but it requires other 
 things much more. And these other things are 
 humility, reverence, abnegation, love. If he possesses 
 these as well, then the learned scholar may be a 
 nobler specimen of religion, and a grander saint, 
 than the ignorant old man, but if he has them not, 
 he assuredly must yield the palm. 
 
 Nevertheless, though knowledge is not the highest 
 element in religion, though she must "know her 
 
354 LIBERAL JUDAISM CHAP. 
 
 place," though " she is the second, not the first," yet 
 assuredly that second place is high. Religion grows 
 and develops through life and experience, through 
 feeling and action, but also through study, thought 
 and knowledge. Liberal Judaism has, in good sooth, 
 every cause to sound the praise of knowledge. For 
 through knowledge, study, thought, Liberal Judaism 
 has largely come to be. And yet higher and greater 
 than knowledge are righteousness and love. Last of 
 all, may it not often be seen that love begets knowledge, 
 or, shall we rather say, begets an insight which is even 
 keener than the insight of the understanding ? The 
 ignorant old man has his own knowledge, which 
 he has not won from study or from books. He has 
 not won it even from thinking. And this knowledge 
 is sometimes (as I believe) a knowledge of God as 
 well as a knowledge of man. How then has the 
 ignorant old man obtained this knowledge ? He has 
 won it from faith, he has won it from righteousness, 
 he has won it from love. 
 
 The book is ended. I know that it is very incom- 
 plete ', and that much remains to say. Big subjects have 
 been very sketchily and inadequately treated ; some have 
 been passed over with hardly a word. Perhaps, how- 
 ever, enough has been said to make good my case that 
 Liberal Judaism is a religion well furnished and 
 stocked with conceptions and doctrines. It is not a 
 residuum. It is not fairly described as consisting of a 
 very few affirmations, borrowed or taken over from 
 traditional Judaism, linked on to a bundle of negations. 
 It could, if it pleased, set forth Articles of Faith as 
 numerous as, or more numerous than, the Articles of 
 Maimonides. It is a religion of substance so to speak ; 
 no mere Theism (though the collocation of that noun with 
 
xxni FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 
 
 355 
 
 that adjective is extraordinarily inept), but something 
 more. It reaches back to the past, honours it, learns 
 from it. It does not break with Jewish history. Tet it 
 thinks more of the present than of the past, and perhaps 
 it thinks of the future almost as much as it thinks of 
 the present. Then, too, I trust that I may have shown 
 some teachers and parents, more skilled than I in 
 dealing with children, and in suiting the spoken word 
 to their full and living comprehension, that Liberal 
 Judaism is not only a religion for adults, just as it is 
 not only a religion for philosophers. Indeed if it were 
 only a religion for philosophers, it would certainly not 
 be mine. It is simple enough for ordinary men and 
 women, even though it be also profound enough for the 
 lovers of wisdom. The teachings which constitute it can 
 be gradually presented to children, for the children will 
 not be told everything at once, and the form in which 
 each doctrine is envisaged will be suited to their minds 
 and their sympathies. But as they pass from point to 
 point, and as the old points are dealt with more fully, 
 there will be no shock of surprise, no revulsion of 
 feeling, nothing to unlearn or explain away. And may 
 we not also hope that they will thus gradually appropriate, 
 and make their own, a religion which will be to them a 
 strength and a Stand-by in joy and in sorrow, a religion 
 from which they will not easily be driven or beguiled ? 
 Lovers of Judaism we want to make them, lovers of 
 Judaism and of God. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh^ 
 
TO Si on 
 
 OVERDUE. - ON T HE SEVENTH 
 
 D2l-ioo m . 7 .'39(402s) 
 

 943924 
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY