A NORMAL JEW SERMON PREACHED AT KOL NIDRE SERVICE BY MARTIN A. MEYER RABBI TEMPLE EMANU-EL SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. A NORMAL JEW Sermon preached at Kol Nidre Service, by Martin A. Meyer Rabbi Temple Emanu-El, San Francisco, Cal. Stack Annex 00 THE world is full well-nigh to overflowing, not only with prejudices against the Jew, but also with mis- conceptions about the Jew. It is pathetic, if not discour- aging, to note how persistent these misconceptions be. The world still holds that every Jew is rich, despite the appearance in our Western civilization of the Jewish proletariat, whose insistent demands have reached even non-sectarian relief agencies. Fagin and Shy- lock persist in the minds of the average man as repre- sentative of the Jew, despite our oft-told tale of the misrepresentative character of such fiction. The theo- logical world still speaks of us as stubborn and stiff- necked, even when liberalism prevents the conception of the Jew being damned eternally by reason of his rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. German uni- versity professors repeat the old anti-Semitic scandals of Eisenmenger and Rohling, oblivious of the scientific contributions from the pens of Jewish savants which prove the falsity and the cruelty of such contentions. Yet, most pathetic of all, is the insistence in the minds of the world that the Jews form an international body organized and officered and in control of untold wealth, which is sent hither and thither as need demands. Probably at no time was this canard given greater prominence than during the Dreyfus affair in .Q^ France, when it was contended by Drumont and his associates that the International Jewish Syndicate stood behind Dreyfus, intent upon ruining France and her army. What a huge joke this is can only be appreciated by the Jew who knows how largely divided and mutually antagonistic the elements of his people really are. If it only were true! What a power we would be if we were such a unit! True, we are influential, but it is the influence of individuals, of isolated communities, strong because of their own accomplishments and achievements. If we were a unit ! How we could bring Russia to time, teach Roumania a well-deserved lesson, and beat down the battery of venomous assault in Germany and Austria! If we were a unit, we could solve our Jewish problems for I fear that we have problems rather than a problem in a trice. Yet, the truth is, we are divided and subdivided into an almost infinite number of sects, parties, classes, rituals, etc. East is arrayed against West, North against South. Lordly Sefardi despises Askenazi, maligned Tedesco. German looks down upon Russian, and Russian in turn upon Roumanian and Galician; and all unite in one effort against the latest comer into the whirl of West- ern civilization. Among the orthodox we find reason- able, conservative, modern; among reformers extrem- ists, middle-of-the-roadsters, and conservatives. Anti- Zionist struggles with Zionist, and practical Zionist finds himself at odds in turn with the cultural and political factions. The world is arrayed against Amer- ica and America against the world. And in our own communities, up-town wrestles with down-town; east- side suspects west-side; south of Market Street is ostracized by Western Addition ; each its own type of Jew, each insistent upon its own virtue, proud of its achievements and keen for the maintenance of its right, and in many cases each conscious that he alone represents the saving element in Jewry. Racial type, national prejudices, ritual forms, philosophic interpre- tation all have entered and reduced the body of Juda- ism to a veritable chaos of tiny segments, each cherish- ing its own ideal and hope for the Jew and his destiny. Jewish history has been tragic because of this one fact. With the Romans pounding upon the walls of Jerusalem and threatening the integrity of the Jewish people, partisan belabored partisan within the walls, so that the last day dawned upon a handful, survivors of their own internecine struggle as well as the enemies' darts and spears. What a miserable picture is pre- sented to us time and again throughout history of men within the camp itself reporting, informing a common enemy, whose constant presence did not seem to be a sufficient stimulus to bring the people to a reasonable realization of their own common danger, and so weld them into a solid unity ! Nor has Judaism on its spiritual side been the hard and fast and unyielding thing the Christian world has thought it to be. The average non-Jew thinks that the Jew and Judaism developed up to the time of the death of Jesus and have survived since then dead and lifeless through the twenty centuries that have passed. If there be one thing which an intimate knowledge of the history of the Jew has demonstrated, it is just this : that the Jew and Judaism have been living vitally, developing through all these centuries, and that the Judaism of to-day is not the Judaism of the eighteenth century, no more than was the Judaism of the eigh- teenth century the Judaism of the fifth century. Indeed, every variation has been an evidence of growth. Para- doxical as it may seem, each division, each sect, each party is an evidence that Judaism is a living thing, capable of growth and development. Biologists tell us that the cell evidences life so long as it maintains this power of division and subdivision. So, too, does this differentiation within the body of Judaism evidence its vitality. It is a Jewish ideal, which has been dem- onstrated through Jewish experience, that unity can be and is maintained through variety rather than through uniformity and conformity. The church in medieval Europe attempted to enforce its ideal of unity through uniformity, with results so dire to the general civilization of the world as to suggest the question of the validity of such an ideal. All disturbing elements were to be eliminated at any cost, however great it might be, and sixteenth- century Spain, rid of Jews and Moors and heretics, conforming from the Pyrenees to Gibraltar, reduced to a dead level, was the result of such a process, which conduced to the spiritual and economic decay of Spain more than any other one fact. And so, too, whenever Judaism played false to its ideals and imitated the vicious customs of the world, it not only played false to itself, but endangered its highest interests. Seven- teenth-century Amsterdam Jewry was not big enough to retain in its midst a man who found God along other than the traditional lines. The Shofar blown and the curse pronounced against Benedict Spinoza not only drove him from the camp of Israel, but were the signals of the inner decay and spiritual degeneration of medieval Jewry. Heresy trials find no place in modern Jewry, not only because we have no central ecclesiastical authority, but because the Jew feels that such activities are essentially out of keeping with the ideals of his history and foreign to the spirit of the Jew and Judaism. Confessedly, this is at once our strength and our weakness, for each party is a new evidence of the Jew's interest in the problems of Jewry. Each party is a sign that the Jew thinks. His thinking has been his salva- tion. The fact that he has always been conscious of what threatened him both from within and without, of what he could do and what he could not do this con- sciousness has been the saving factor in his checkered career, for there has been an ideal unity throughout all these varieties. It would be just as idle to assert that there was no Judaism because of these varieties as that there was no life because of its myriad manifestations. In the heated and animated discussions of the recon- struction period of our history, which we called the Talmudic Period, the principle was laid down that all differences which were for ideal needs were justified and justifiable. "For the sake of Heaven" is the term used; the ideal justifies indeed. And so every dissent- ing thought which has had as its aim the establishment of a bigger, better, and more quickening life for the Jew has been justified, and, indeed, has justified itself. In the ninth century of the modern era there ap- peared what was called the Karaite heresy. Wearied with the endless discussions and the traditional casu- istry, Anan, the father of this sect, turned the atten- tion of the Jewish world once more to the treasures of the Bible and brought it face to face with the original sources of its inspiration. Despite the tem- porary uproar in the camp, and the noise of con- tending armies, the end more than justified the dissen- sion. The Jew was turned away from the sole consid- eration of what Akiba had said and how Hillel had interpreted this and Shammai that. Attention was directed to the Bible itself, and one of the most glorious periods of Jewish history was inaugurated in which 8 Saadiah, Rashi, Ibn Esra, and Kimchi stand out as lights in the exile. So, too, when a century ago the Jew merged into the modern world and demanded that his religion be restated in conformance with the ideals of his prophets and the spirit of the times, reform not only justified itself in its own activities, but in the manner in which it brought the old school to time. The greatest achievement of the reform school was the demand on the part of Sampson Raphael Hirsch and his school, that, while preserving all the traditional values of the Jewish world, these be given a modern statement ; that modern thought be invoked to establish them. So, too, I take it that the Zionist movement will have justified itself in its final results, even if the funda- mental proposition of the Zionist be not realized in the establishment of a Jewish nation on the soil of Pales- tine ; but its emphasis upon the validity of Jewish things in the modern world, where these things had been lost sight of, its demands of more and not less Judaism, its call to Jewish manhood to stand by its ideals, its appeals to Jewish self-respect all these have tran- scended the limits of the movement itself, and have added new strength and vigor to the Jewish life of our day and generation. Teaching the Jew not to turn the other cheek, standing upon his rights, jealous of his duties and his obligations, Zionism, whether it be prac- ticable or not, has given something to the Jewish world, without which it had been infinitely poorer, with which it finds itself progressing with new vigor and vitality. Let us lay, however, all possible emphasis by itera- tion and reiteration upon the thought that it is only when the ideal is high and lofty, only when the ideal of a better Israel is before our minds, that the con- tinued diversification of Jewish life is an indication of vitality and foreboding of good. For with pain and regret we are compelled to note the appearance of cer- tain classes in modern Jewry whose presence is not the result of so high an ideal, but rather a sign of weakness and internal decay, whose perpetuation is a more or less covert attack upon the integrity of the household of Israel, whose eradication is the prime duty of every loyal son of the covenant, whose destruction is the object of all Jewish striving. Let us see who they be, so that by contrast we shall the better know who are the normal, the dependable, the onward progressive sons of Israel. First of all, a word about a class who, profaning the sanctity of the ideals of toleration, are at heart indifferent, if not actually antagonistic, to the house of Israel. This class is so liberal that it has liberated itself from all bonds of loyalty. Misunderstanding the demands of tolerance, they confound liberalism and in- difference. Liberal to all save those who disagree with them, they are more illiberal than the medieval fanatic 10 himself. Toleration is not indifference to all forms of faith as equally meaningless or even as equally valuable. It is a positive conviction of one's own viewpoint which at the same time allows for honest difference of opin- ion among others. I believe that when a rabbi is in- vited to conduct a service in a Christian church and to preach the sermon, both the rabbi and the church are mutually tolerant. Each has a different point of view, each holds to his point of view ; yet each is willing to listen to the presentation of the other side. If the rabbi had no convictions, and the church had none, neither would benefit by the contact. Similarly, if we were too narrow-minded to permit of the contact, tol- eration would be out of the question. But the danger- point comes here, good friends, that we Jews are too eager to strip ourselves of all of that which is ours and stand naked and bare before the world, a target for its assaults as well as for its sneers. There is no logical place for the Jew who has been dejudaized and who holds himself aloof from the Christian church. We have been far too ready to go more than half way, far more than the world around us. A note of warning must be sounded, for despite the splendid liberalism of the modern synagogue we fail to find a corresponding movement in the outside world. Pro- fessors of liberal German theology continue to repeat the same old lies about the Jew, Christian pulpits to reiterate the same old scandals, secular papers to 11 discriminate, and the world at large little minded to meet us even half way. In this connection I believe an experience may be typical : A number of years ago I attended an assembly of the New York State Conference of Religion in the little city of Pough- keepsie, New York. The programme for this partic- ular evening was a discussion of the mutual debts of Christianity and Judaism. What Christianity owed Judaism was eloquently and ably presented by Pro- fessor Toy of Harvard. One of the liberals, so-called, of American Jewry, one who is no more a rabbi, then presented the theme, What Judaism owes Christian- ity. When he had completed his fulsome, empty liberal praises of Christendom and Jesus, a pious soul seated before me turned to her neighbor, and with divine joy in her tones, announced, "Thank God, at last the Jews are coming to Jesus." In this connection, may I call attention ,to the strikingly similar phenomenon in a book which has created a positive furor in theological circles in Ger- many "The Christ Myth," by Professor Arthur Drewes. The thesis of this book may be summed up in this statement : That Jesus of Nazareth never existed and that the gospels and the epistles are the results of the myth-making faculty of the world of two thousand years ago. One might expect that in a book of such liberal tendencies a generous attitude would be had by the author towards the Jew and 12 Judaism ; yet truth to relate, Professor Drewes is as bitter in his animadversions against the Jew as any reactionary preacher of a backwoods town in undis- covered America. These things may be but the straws which indicate the way the wind is blowing, but they are indications which we who would be watchmen for the house of Israel must regard, and meeting them, combat them, lest the people be done new harm. I find the same attitude of mind in many whose slogan is non-sectarian charity, who, with the cry upon their lips that need knows no creed, are willing to give the full strength of service, both personal and financial, to everything and anything save Jewish de- mands. You know what it is to be rebuffed by the unwilling with that sententious yet meaningless cry. I wonder how many of us know just what non- sectarian charity means. On the one hand, it means that no discrimination or distinction be made be- tween the different Protestant sects. Conscious of the fact that it would be exceedingly difficult to carry on relief work for each separate church, the numer- ous Protestant churches united to do their relief work in common. The work was non-sectarian so far as Protestants went. The very fact that the Catholic Church has always abstained from partici- pation in such non-sectarian movements indicates that they appreciate this fact. Yet we Jews, all too 13 gullible, susceptible to every high-sounding phrase, willing to prove our good faith to the world, have turned this consideration aside and have plunged in, in many cases to our hurt, without measure and without restraint. On the other hand, the bulk of non-sectarian charity means this: A maximum Jewish support with a minimum of returns to such Jews as may present themselves for assistance and aid. The sad experiences which come to our notice from time to time but demonstrate that we have mildly put the case. I am not to be misunderstood as discouraging Jewish participation in non-sectarian work. I appre- ciate our duties to the general community as well as to our own, but I contend, and ever shall contend, that they who follow non-sectarian lines to the neglect and the shame of our Jewish community are not discharging their obligations, either as men or as Jews, in such a manner as to bring peace. I cannot sympathize with the attitude of mind which fur- nishes thousands for the Y. M. C. A. and not a penny for the Y. M. H. A. ; with that type which is willing to expend exertion beyond all measure in giving a happy holiday to thousands of little Christians at Easter or similar church festivals, but to whom any effort is too great to bring a bit of joy to the toiling masses of Jews at their holy seasons and festivals. Truth to say, the bulk of these illiberal liberals who are loyal to no faith, who admire every God save the 14 God of Israel, only remain nominal Jews because the world will not forget they are Jews. Let us beware of our liberals, who, buzzard-like, are insensible to the beauty and to the glories of Israel. They represent a destructive force. They are not for us. They are not with us. In last analy- sis, they are against us. I am not reactionary nor an obscurantist in any sense of the word, nor would I have my people so; but I am eternally opposed to so false a liberalism which degenerates and destroys when it should reconstruct and revive. We stand for the liberalism which recognizes the good abroad because it knows and loves the good at home. We are opposed to the liberalism which, as the old rab- binical apologue has it, bores a hole in the boat be- neath its own seat, supremely contemptuous of the rights of others in the self-same boat. With but little, if any difference of degree of the menace to the perpetuity and integrity of Israel is the class we call the parasitic Jew. This is a class loud in its praises of the glories which were. They tell us of their pride in what the Jew was and what he has accomplished, but whose Jewish pride fails at the test of present service. The race Jew is a first cousin to this stripe, for their whole energy is absorbed so far as they are Jews by an empty pride in the past. They boast loudly, they criticize vigorously. They are our knockers. Nothing in heaven nor on earth suits. 15 Everything is sharply criticized. Absorbed in the con- templation of the glories of the past, they have no energy and strength for present service, or, rather, to tell the truth, their good-will is lacking. It reminds me of a story told of a Jew in New York City who was approached by a committee from the Mt. Sinai Hos- pital and asked to contribute to the institution. He at once launched into a tirade against sectarian institu- tions. When informed that the hospital accepted pa- tients without regard to creed or race, he turned on the committeemen with a second tirade against the wrong of using Jewish money to support the very class who at any time might turn against the Jew. In a word, he would not contribute to the institution, no matter what course is pursued. And so, with the parasitic Jew. What little Jewishness is left in his heart is but the pale reflection of things that were. His strength is de- rived from the inherited greatness of others, and not from the exercise of his own right arm. Giving the ap- pearance of power, he is the weakest of weak mortals. He is a jelly-fish individual, lacking in backbone, in moral fiber, in power and in force. He is unwilling to exert himself so as to transmit his Judaism, and, after all, the test of our loyalty is our willingness to trans- mit to our children what we ourselves may be. In the Midrash we find the story of the Roman official ap- proaching an octogenarian who was busy planting fruit- trees, and demanding of him why he at his advanced 16 age planted trees whose fruit he could never hope to enjoy. The old man replied : "I plant for my children, as my fathers planted for me." It is the Jew who will work for his children and children's children as his fathers and grandfathers worked for him who is the dependable, vital factor in the situation, and just at this point the parasite fails absolutely. The historical con- sciousness of his people has not vitalized him and his activity. He may be a walking Jewish Encyclopedia, but he has never "made the connection between the boiler and the engine." You know the creature. Ap- proached to join a synagogue, to contribute to the fed- eration, take up a bond for the hospital, he is all too ready with his assaults upon the several institutions and insistent in his refusal to co-operate ; yet he does not hesitate openly to brag of the good work which "we Jews" do. He is a parasite, and although the parasite be as lovely as the loveliest orchid, he remains an in- ferior, threatening element of life. It is the semblance of life and not the reality. Nor from this list of undesirable Jewish factors can we afford to omit the class we dub professional Jews. They are Jews because it pays to be a Jew. Many, indeed, as have been the returns to Jerusalem via a beautiful Jewess, still more numerous are the returns via the possibility of profit. There is many a young man who has blushed his way through college in his shameless attempts to conceal his Jewish identity, who 17 suddenly discovers when he emerges a full-fledged practitioner of his profession that his Jewish relations and his father's Jewish friends promise most for his future career. He makes his living out of the Jew. He is a Jew for that reason and none else. But most conspicuous in this class, and most despicable, is the so-called Hebrew politician. You rarely find him contributing to our charities or affiliating with the synagogue, or even with our so-called Jewish clubs, save perhaps on the eve of the election, when he hopes to profit by his affiliation. Yet, because he is a Jew by birth, the politician thinks he can swing the Hebrew vote, and because his party expects him to do this he is a Jew. His rise in the world is due to his group affiliation, and he is wise enough to capitalize this fact. But he is an incubus upon his own people. Nine times out of ten he misrepresents us, and is more of a menace than a blessing. The professional Jew is just one step lower than the parasite class, for his affiliation is purely selfish, and, unfortunately for us, his activity cannot be controlled. Yet most contemptible is the one who is ashamed of his Jewish affiliations who will associate with fifth or sixth-class Gentiles just because they are not Jews, and think themselves improved socially and morally because they are frequently seen in such company. Strange, indeed, how when this madness seizes us no level is too low. It is the Jew who tries to hide himself 18 in the Unitarian Church or the Christian Science meet- ing-house in the mad hope that they might conceal who they are and whence they came. It is the blushing Hebrew who is never so happy as when he is mistaken for a Gentile swell, who apologizes for his name, for his face, for his family, in his mad and frantic efforts to escape what he terms his bonds. Of what, pray, of whom may you be ashamed? Chiefly of yourself, of your own pettiness, of your own incapacity, of your own ignorance, of your own inability to see beyond the end of your nose, of your own puny mentality, of your own narrow selfishness, of your own vaunting ambitions. How ignorant and blind you be ! The Jew need not be ashamed. His role in history is by no means despicable. His career for three thou- sand years as the banner-bearer of God's truth, as the missionaries of God's law, as the teachers of the nations, is perhaps a difficult role, but not by any means a contemptible one. The attainments of the Jew are by no means mean. He has been able to overcome the repeated onslaughts of discrimination. He has been able to achieve what none others have achieved under similar difficulties. His history has been glorious, and his dream of future power most wondrous. Not the dream of empire, not the dream of worldly riches, not the dream of dominion, but the vision of the world transformed and saved by the indwelling of these splen- did spiritual qualities which raise man out of himself 19 and put him in the realm of the divine. There is nothing to be ashamed of either in the past or the present or the future. Problems may be bitter and the way may be difficult ; but to hang the head in shame, to feel the heart and soul crushed down by morbid self-consciousness, there is no occasion for anything like this. With all these the pseudo-liberal, the high-colored parasite, the self-seeking professional, and the blushing ashamed I ask you to contrast the normal Jew. He is proud, not in the sense of self-sufficiency or arrogance, save that in the presence of the ashamed he is deter- mined to hold his head higher still. He is not morbid, though he be self-conscious. He knows himself, his people, their powers, their problems. He is contented, for he "dwells in the midst of his people," and being contented, realizes how his efforts can contribute towards developing his people to higher efficiency and the greater expression of their powers and capacities. Firm and fast in his own convictions, he is neither nar- row-minded nor indifferent towards any man whatever, no matter what be his creed, his color, his race, or his position in life. Proud of what the Jew has done, he is willing to lend himself and his service and his sac- rifice that a bigger and a better Judaism might yet come to pass. Representative of his people and their best interests, he is ever ready to efface himself for 20 the demands of service consistent with the dignity and capacity of his people. He knows, and he knows with passion. He reads his Bible, and reading, he feels himself part of the people with whose blood it has been written, and whose lives have sealed and consecrated it. It is more than literature. It is the expression of a people's experience in their search for God and the godlike in the man life. He repeats his Shema, and with him in ever-increasing chorus the myriads of Israel chant the glorious confession of the faith. To him the formula of the divine unity is no mere philosophic concept. It is more than a theological statement. It is an historical experience to which he and his people have borne witness throughout time. It is an inner conviction, vocal for the moment on his own lips. As the rabbis put it, with its utterance he "assumes the yoke of the kingdom of heaven," in which, as a citi- zen of the city of God he consecrates himself each night and day anew to the realization of his people's ideals. His prayer book is the treasure-house of his people's spirit, and his Bible the inspired inspiration of his daily conduct. Hallowed by the love and devotion of the centuries, by the lives of his fellows, each phrase is vibrant with truth's own song and flaming with light's own beauty. He knows with passion, the passion of intimate knowledge, keen appreciation and holy aspiration. 21 He works, too, does this normal Jew. He works full well as much if not more than he boasts or criti- cizes. As a worker, he is appreciative of the work of others and ready to recognize merit and talent wherever it may be found. His zeal is big enough to bring him to the altar of service and of sacrifice. He wants Judaism to live, to grow, to develop, to unfold, to reveal her powers more and more as the years go by. The future is as real to him as the present or the past. It calls with its promise and lures with its hopes. Such a one is jealous of the good name of the Jew and the honor of his people. To him it is as sacred as life itself, dearer than his own honor ; for in that good name and sacred honor reposes the welfare and the well-being of unnumbered who are yet to come. So he is as keen in hunting down those who disgrace the good name of his people as he is in upholding the hands of those whose arms grow weary with toilsome service. His own life is a revelation of what the Jew can be, as his labor is indicative of his love, zeal and loyalty. He knows himself. He knows the validity of the values of Jewish life and the emphases which the Jew has stressed throughout his history; and knowing these, he is conscious of the mission of the Jew to himself and to the world. He lives a life of love and service. He lives among his people, sharing their burdens and glad in their joys. Before God and man he is a man in his own heart and conscience. He is a potent Jew. Each 22 day's sunset is the promise of a morrow, whereon the rising sun suffuses the world with the blood red of a greater promise and a greater hope. Before the world, contented and happy, striving and sacrificing, he pro- claims himself a normal Jew. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one." "Verily, such a one is a true Hebrew." 23 YOM KTPPUR SERMON "Here will I give peace." Hag. 2 YOM KIPPUR invites reminiscence. Many is the one indeed who is led to the synagogue on this day of days by the tender memories of days gone by. The dear old father, patriarchal in his white robes, himself, a tender lad clinging to his side ; the dear old mother, fast- ing and praying in her secluded balcony ; the bouquet of flowers brought with a loving message as to her com- fort ; the rosy apple thickly studded with spices ; the fervid prayers, the quaint old chants, the passionate beating of the breast in confession, the gathering shad- ows in the dimly lit house of God, the final outburst of the Shema and the thrilling Shofar blast, how these linger in the memory and border with the fine lace of rare experience days which are dead and gone. Many a one finds himself drawn to the synagogue, the home of his father and his father's God, by such memories of old, rich in love and in reverence. The day invites such reminiscences, for Judaism rests upon the love and the loyalty of her sons to their fathers and to their father's God. The very ritual invites reminiscence. Such is the underlying thought of the Memorial Service, that solemn hour of the day, when not alone do we call to memory the blessed dead, but in their name and because of their devotion appeal 27 once more to hearts untouched and irresponsive to live in the same light and under the same consecration. And our solemn afternoon service, with its pathetic references to the Atonement Day of old as practiced in the Temple on Zion. Israel sighs in reminiscences, and well may she sigh ; for the Temple of Zion was the very heart and center of her national and her religious life. That temple consecrated its people, and the people, devoted to their temple, added luster to the great shrine of Jehovah. Well may we sigh as we recall those glorious ceremonials attended by fervid devotees from all parts of the known world, bearing sacrifices and gifts and lifting up their hearts in prayers symbols of a powerful, world-conquering zeal. Well may we sigh for the destruction of Israel's shrines, both of which, strangely enough, fell upon one and the same day, a sad and solemn day in the life of our people. Friend and foe agree in describing the Temple on Zion in most glowing panegyric. The white stone temple, orange brown in the sunlight, the glittering spires and steeples, the vari-colored Oriental crowds thronging the court-yards, the white-robed priests, the thousand-throated chorus of singers and musicians, the solemn processions, the clouds of incense, the mur- mur of countless prayers, and most solemn of all, the High Priest in his vestments of glory, surrounded by his assistants, making atonement for himself, his house- 28 hold, his people, mankind ; hesitatingly, yet confidently, entering the Holy of Holies this once in the year. What a history gathered around that spot! Legend added to legend till the love and the devotion of the people conceived it as the very center of the universe and yielded it the passionate love of an emotional race. Abraham is supposed to have offered there his well- beloved son. David's heroism recaptured the site and dedicated it to its holy purpose. Solomon's buildings made it renowned throughout the world and centered the greed and the lust of many a conqueror upon its priceless treasures. Here the people sacrificed and prayed, priests taught, and prophets roused the dormant conscience of their folk. Here kings were proclaimed and priests acknowledged. It was the center of Jewish life. Its glory dimmed forever the fires of the petty pagan shrines scattered up and down the land, and the central sanctuary contributed as much as any other single force to weld the diverse elements of the tribes into a unity and to give content and power to those tribes as the nation of Israel. The Temple made the people conscious through its all-pervading symbolism of the presence of God in its midst and of their consecration to Him and His law. Each time the Holy City was threatened they rushed impetuously to its defense; each time it fell into the hands of the conqueror, piled high about the sacred place, piled high, uncounted and uncountable, the life- 29 less bodies of the loyal and the best gave silent, eloquent testimony to the love of the Jew for that place, hal- lowed by the prayers of Israel for generations and for centuries. In its fallen state it never lost its hold upon the love of the Jew. Returning from Babylonian ex- ile, the first thought of the returned exiles was to rebuild their House of God. Humble, indeed, in com- parison to the first Temple, so humble that the tears of the elders flowed without cessation when they re- called the former glory, yet the house of Israel's God. Need, indeed, then for the prophet to cheer and to comfort : "Yet greater shall be the glory of the second House than that of the former, and in this place shall I give peace." And, indeed, Israel found peace in that Temple, where it seemed to him that heaven met earth and man was in closest communion with God. Here was peace peace from weary ambitions and the name- less heartaches of the exile. Here was peace, for here was God. Here was life, love, freedom and truth. Here was all that made life worth the while. Now a new and saving element entered Jewish life. The scribe found his place in the Temple economy. More and more the priest became a mere ritualist and official of the sanctuary ; the function and privilege of teaching the people fell into the hands of the scribes, the guardians of the sacred Word, of that Word of which it has been said, "Great peace have they that love thy law, there shall be no stumbling unto 30 them." Scribes built schools and synagogues indeed, taught in the very Temple itself; and the lessons of religious zeal, ethical probity, and moral uprightness grew strong in the very stronghold of the cult. Chris- tian misrepresentation has affected even the popular Jewish estimate of their work. It is no small praise. We honestly hold them as the saviours of Juda- ism. A new source of peace was found aside from that arising from mere ritual conformance and cere- monial correctness. A glorious history of another five hundred years brought the second Temple to a tragic end, when, stained with the life-blood of myriads of Israel's sons, it fell before the prowess of Roman arms. The hastily flung torch of the Roman legionary com- pleted what the huge siege engines had begun. But Israel never lost its love for that spot. No true Jew can visit it to-day without experiencing the deepest, the profoundest emotions. The orthodox will not cross the silent court-yard, now the property of the Moslem, lest he might unwittingly enter the spot of the Holy of Holies or defile the sacred utensils which an ill-founded tradition says were buried beneath the centuries-old flag-stones. But the Jewish visitor who goes not only to satisfy his tourist curiosity at the splendid archi- tectural remains, but to be reminiscent for a moment, to recall the scenes of the days that were, is blessed with a vision, with a thrill not to be compared with any experience in the world ; for he stands at the birth- 31 place of his faith, at the cradle of his people's past, and memory peoples the vast courtyards with the specters of those who served and sacrificed, of those who lived and died for him and his. And he, the Jew, is their child in his veins their blood, in his heart their faith, in his soul their vision the vision of the day when one shall say to another, "Come, ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths; for from Zion shall come forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem," and for the once he knows peace ! He sees, but not with the eye ; he understands as only the brimful heart can understand. When the Temple no longer stood, and the sacrificial cult no more centered the religious loyalty of Israel, the schools and the synagogues which had long before begun to flourish among the Jews became the center of the new reconstructed and regenerated life; and the sages and the scholars of Israel restated Judaism in terms of prayer, charity and law, for they said that "the world rested upon the triple fundament of Torah, Abodah and Gemilut Hasodim." For the heart of the Jew cried out its insatiable longing for peace, and the answer of the Jew was then as it is now : peace is the spiritual condition which conformance with the laws of God and life bring to him who loves that law of life, who pursues it and follows it and tries in him- 32 self to realize something of that "heaven which men strive for here on earth." Peace is the portion of him, who, loyal to the dreams and ideals of his fathers, devotes himself and consecrates his life to the bring- ing in of that day on which "the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." Peace is the portion of him 'who dwells among his people, lives, dreams, works, and dies with them in love and in hope. Probably the most remarkable fact of the religious life is the universality of that life. There is no one fact that makes more for religiosity than the unques- tioned universality of the religious impulse. The ig- norant black man before his formless fetich, the cul- tured Athenian lost in silent admiration of the match- less Athene of Phidias, the devout Christian in the solemn silences of his great cathedral, the simple meet- ing-house of the Evangelical, the ubiquitous synagogue of the Jew, the devotions of the barbarous, the savage, the civilized, the prayers of the fifteenth century B. C. and of the twentieth century A. D., all one in their expression of the religious need, all reaching out to that unknown God whom ignorantly men serve, all a unit in their imperative cry to know the peace of God. Life calls, the heart cries, problems press ; religion gives the answer. Here in its bosom will God give peace the peace of life and love. Man may, indeed, be said to be incurably religious. 33 The onslaughts of philosophers, the logic of logicians, the researches of scientists each in turn battles wildly, yet idly, against the battlements of the religious life. Let Nietzche and Haeckel and Romanes and Voltaire destroy what they will and how they will, phoenix-like religion rises from its ashes. The shell may be de- stroyed. The kernel unharmed persists. New churches are founded and built and dedicated to God, for the human heart cries out its need of the divine. It is ex- pressive of a human need Nordau would say of a biological need. Bad as men may be, vicious as they may be, ignorant as they may be, they demand some form of religious expression. It may be the ecstacy of the dervish, the silence of the yogi, the solitude of the saint, the fury of the commune, the prayer of the Jew, the absorption of the mystic whatever it is, it is the expression of the human need for peace, for a bigger, more satisfying interpretation of life. Just as the new-born babe turns to its mother and fumbles at her breast, so man turns to the secret of the universe, and like a child in the night, draws nourishment for its heart and soul from the God of things that are. For let us not forget that religion exists because man exists. There may be religion among beasts for all we know. Just as Caliban in Browning's poem looked upon Setebos as his God, so may perhaps the dog and the cat at our domestic hearths look to us as the divine masters of their destiny. But there is no 34 need to speculate about those outside humanity. We are humans, and the universal human experience cries out its need and demands its satisfaction. It cries, and great shall we call them inspired? men have arisen and taught in the name of the great God. Mis- taken Voltaireans ! mere priestcraft could never have so enslaved the human spirit. It is not as they would claim, that all religions are equally negligible because equally false. We approach the problem, too, of the multiplicity of religions and their failures, but with the higher and holier thought of the newer theo- ries; that in all manifestations of the religious life there is something real and lastingly divine; that they are all adumbrations of the eternal truth towards which mankind is ever up-struggling. Religions may be many, but religion the cry of the human is one. The religious teachers of the world have been the great- est of men because their inspiration alone has helped man to find peace and to rest at ease in the universe of trial and pain and aspiration. Ages ago did the great law-giver of Israel teach his people that the Torah, religion, was given to man for his good. God has no need of this. But to reach the godlike, to reach up into the self bigger than ourselves, to attain the heights through strength where peace may be, man accepts the teachings of his prophets spoken in the name of his God. Religion's function is manward and not otherwise. It enters as a factor 35 into human life for the blessing and uplift of mankind. It has entered in to lift man step by step out of the depths of animality ; it has brought that emphasis upon the divine possibilities resident in every heart and soul, bidding man look upward and outward. And it is most satisfactory to us as Jews to know and to understand that Judaism has ever emphasized living this worldly values. Not faithless of a larger life beyond our ken, we have, nevertheless, emphasized the necessity of faith and righteous conduct in this world. It is not that we were less faithful, but rather more. Trustful of God, anxious to perform his will, the Jew has lived his best in the consciousness of the abiding goodness of Him for whom time is not and before Whom all is clear as the noonday sun. To us, the approach to God has ever been through service to our fellow-men. When the old scholars, saints and rabbinical mystics, whom Dr. Schechter has so charm- ingly portrayed in his Jewish studies, when they would approach God, it was not only through the pious exercise of study and prayer, but with the words of Job upon their lips : "I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, and the cause of him who had no friend I ad- vocated." Do you remember that noble passage in the second part of Goethe's "Faust," the climax of that superb drama of the human soul when Faust cries out to Mephistopheles, "Stay, thou art so fair." It had been 36 covenanted between Faust and his satanic master that when once he should experience a moment so surpass- ingly satisfactory as to suggest its repetition that the bond between the two should be dissolved. True to his promise, the devil had sated his protege with all the pleasures of the world and of sense. He had known love, but it turned to ashes in his hand; the sciences, the arts, all the knowledge of the world and men was his; still persistent in his pursuit of the ever-receding ideal, he finally comes to the bit of marsh land which he drains and rids of its fevers and turns it over to a busy colony of men and women for their enjoyment of life. The contemplation of the joy which he had brought to these, his fellows, and the peace he had brought to himself causes the student of the eternal Truth to Cry out, "Stay, thou art so fair." He sounded the depths of the secret of life in that moment of moral enthusiasm. Saturated with the highest and holiest emotions, he experienced the vision of God which re- leased his soul from its fatal bondage. Aye, peace was his is ours on the one eternal condition that he would find his peace with God by satisfying his own heart and his own soul, by serving his fellowmen, and adding to the joy and to the gladness of the universe. Jewish sanity has never better exemplified itself than in its avoidance of emphasis upon the other world. Alluring as is the pictured glories of a heavenly Jeru- salem, its streets aglow with gold, its saintly cohorts 37 gleaming in purple and white, singing psalms and feast- ing on the Leviathan, it is debasing to be compelled to preach goodness at such a price. It is barbaric, for it represents little better than the dream of the Indian revelling in the unstinted game of the happy hunting ground. And, as Pascal pointed out, who would not forego temporary pain for the prospect of such eternal pleasures? And the very turning of the attention of men away from the concerns of this world to those of the world beyond has been fraught with the saddest consequences to the world. The emphasis upon monas- ticism as a preparation for the world beyond robbed Europe in times of her greatest need of her noblest and her best. The devastations of war did little less to hinder civilization's progress than did celibacy and monasticism all evidences of the other worldly ideal. It encouraged contempt of this world. It neglected the things near at hand, permitting wrongs to flourish and grow strong, stilling the crying heart with the promise of a happy day in another and better world. It would not have been possible for the myriad of social injustices to have fixed themselves so firmly in the heart of human life had it not been for this neglect of the affairs of this world and their subordination to the concerns of the mystical existence in the great be- yond. Ours is still the ideal of that old master in the Mishnah : "Serve not your master like slaves, who serve but for the sake of reward." The highest moral con- 38 duct such as has been exemplified by the faithful Jew throughout time is possible only when right is accom- plished for right's sake, honesty because it alone is right, and not because it is good policy ; for there must be times even when it is not the best policy. Yet the right and the true must be served. Religion for us has been no opiate. We have not invoked it to stifle the conscience and put men's spirit to sleep. If I am correctly informed by my medical friends, the use of opiates, though expedient and at times even necessary, in the long run is dangerous, destroying the fabrics of the body and undermining the stability of the mind. And so it must be, too, with the use of religion as an opiate. Let him who dares abuse its normal functions. I have heard romanticists com- plain because our service furnished no intoxicant as does that, for example, of the Catholic church, with its insinuating incense, sensuous music, its soft chants, its elaborate ceremonials, its promise of heaven and hell, its traffic in indulgences, its confessional, its mystic communion and sacraments. Yet even the conscien- tious Catholic knows these are but externalities, sym- bols of ideals. To be sure, such service is appealing. To be sure, it is easy. It is too easy, this religious opiate, for, just like the unreason of Christian Science, it lulls to sleep and numbs the normal faculties. It brings peace, to be sure, but it is not the peace of life. It is a numbness, the numbness of death. It is the 39 sleep of the soul, and not its awakening, seductive, to be sure, but the end we shudder to contemplate the possibilities of the end. Let De Quincy unfold the tale of the opium eater; listen to the stories of his dreams, to the seductive moments, in which, oblivious to life and its demands, he lives in another world; his heart and soul are ab- sorbed in the fiction and the fancy of his dreams ; his mind revels in the ecstacy of forgotten life, of duties thrust aside. Ah, yes, he forgets ; the world, life, duty, conscience all are stilled for him, and he is at peace. But at what a price! More opium and more dope to discover himself at last a hopeless weakling, his man- hood undermined, his character weakened, his initiative lost, his life a ruin, his very dreams a hideous grinning of reptiles whose cankerous kisses befoul his soul. Unless religion is able to develop life, unfold char- acter, reveal new and unsuspected depths of the heart and soul, unless it is able to give a firmer grasp upon life's realities, and help us discriminate between the incidental and the abiding, it is false to its mission and traitorous to its possibilities. A Jewish sage once said, and never in his whole career more Jewish than at that moment, "I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly." He spoke the message of religious truth to his hearers. "This is a law by which ye shall live" ; and life is life, not the seeming of life. Religion abides to-day because it has been able to in- 40 crease the validity of the values of life, and not to blind us either to its defects, its sorrows, its trials ; it is be- cause it teaches us how to master life, and not be mas- tered by life. What good, indeed, to tell the heart- broken mother, the widowed bride with her babes, that her loss is not real, but only seeming? What good to administer an opiate and leave the patient unattended with the sage advice to continue the administration of such sleep-producing thoughts? What good unless the sickness itself be removed to prate about the unreal- ity of the real and the unreality of daily experience? Let our religion give us strength and not the appear- ance of strength, peace and not a seeming peace, but real, vital, helpful, the peace of an abundant life and not the peace of death, powerless, ineffectual and soul- destroying. It is indeed, the function of religion, of the church and the synagogue, to give peace, but not peace at any price nor peace without honor. It can, it will, give a firmer hold upon life's realities. It can, it does, give an exalted point of view, looking out from which, man, like the old law-giver on Nebo, can look out and see all behind him and before him behind him the honest achievements and the honest failures of an honest life ; before him the glorious Land of Promise of ever in- creasing performance and aspiration. Yet, to give this peace, the church must needs thunder and denounce and bring unrest and pain, for 41 peace is not mere smug self-satisfaction. When the church is truest to itself it cries, "No peace" where there is no peace. Like the prophet Nathan of old, it calls out fearlessly, "Thou art the man," and startles us out of self-contentment, even into miserable self- reproach. Just so does this Day of Atonement come into our lives, not to lull us into any fancied, unreal sense of security. Its prayers, its castigation, its sac- rifices do not, cannot, bribe either God or man. They can only arouse arouse us from our stupor, arouse us from our selfish contentment, and demand in the name of God, of the world justice, of the world love, of the world truth, of the ever righteous, that we throw off those habits which do not square with the eternal truths of things, and highly, serenely, solemnly resolve to amend. The church comes as often with the sword to rouse the slumbering conscience as it does with the soothing word to calm the tired heart and dismayed soul. It is unsparing in its demands. It knows no high, no low, no great, no small. Truth is truth and love is love. There can be no compromise. Before God there is no concealment. I can conceive of the church fulfilling its function to the highest degree by causing men to grovel in the dust of self-abasement, conscious of their sins, their short-comings, their hypocrisy, their pretense, man at war with himself because he knows himself at last, and the end is peace, though the way be weary and thorny. In its function as the teacher 42 of God, of the eternal verities, in its function as the prophet who sees clearly and speaks plainly, the church must create pain and panic. Indeed, the preacher could be supremely satisfied if each time he delivered him- self in his pulpit he sent some one away at war with his old self, at war with his opiated conscience in which the platitudes and the bromides and the self-accusatory excuses had lulled his best self to rest and given him the appearance of peace. We preach of peace of a peace which is honorable, the conformance to the highest things in life, the peace of honest understanding, peace which knows no com- promise with wrong, and which will give no rest till the ideal is fulfilled, till that "all the ways of life be pleasant and all its paths be peace." And even more, Judaism at its best can promise and does promise no peace for mere ritual conformance. That is too easy a kind of religion to be a vital religion. We cherish our historical forms as expressive of the Jewish spirit. We honor and hallow them by our love and our loyalty, but their mere performance is no guar- antee of peace either with God, with the world, or with one's self. Our religion, in last analysis, is one of moral ideals ; and the ever-receding character of the ideal assumes that no service can satisfy the demands of the ideal. Many a one finds himself in the position of Chanticleer, whose crowing seems to him to cause the brilliant orb of day again to suffuse the world 43 with its light. Disillusioned, he learns that the eternal demands service service which will bring light and love into the hearts of others by its sacrifice and its joy, even when unable to control the rising of the stars or the destiny of the universe. Yet each can, aye, must, do his share so that "a nightingale may always sing in the forest." As the rabbis of old put it, the work is great, but it is not encumbent upon you to complete the work; each to do his loyal best, each to do his share, each to accomplish something in his sphere, something of useful activities, but that something so in- sistent, so persistent as to give no peace until its de- mands have been met at least in part. Prayer, ritual, ceremonial, song and chant may all reach down into our souls and help us out of ourselves into a bigger and broader thought of life, but these are futile, meaningless unless with love and with loyalty we serve that ideal preached by the prophets and re- peated in every generation by the seers of Israel : "And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, I am the Lord" the sanctification of life by the peace of aspiration, conscientious performance of duty, love and loyalty to the highest and the best. Ah, here will God give peace to those who have striven earnestly, loved deeply, served honestly and lived devoutly. There is a balm in Gilead. There is peace for the troubled soul and the harrowed con- science in the eternal truths of life. There is peace 44 and comfort in the consciousness of God and the abid- ingness of the spirit of man. There is peace in this day's regeneration through solemn repentance and in the still more solemn resolve to act rightly. There is peace in life, in love, in goodness, in faith, in hope. There is peace in Judaism for those who will under- stand, and, understanding, live and practice. There is peace in this Day of Atonement for him whose heart is clean and whose hands are pure, whose prayers are sincere, and whose devotion honest, whose life shows on the morrow the blessings of the service of to-day. Oh, ye who are sorrow laden, oh, ye who are bowed down with grief, here is peace in the House of Israel's God. Oh, ye whose conscience accuses, whose life is not whole and pure, whose lips are not clean, seek ye then peace ? "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean." Here, indeed, will I give peace to him who "hath clean hands and a pure heart, whose soul hath not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation." "Peace, peace, then, to him who is near, and peace to him who is far off." "There is no peace to the evil- doers," saith my God. Here, here, then, in the presence of the eternal truths of life, in the presence of Israel and Israel's God, whose blessing is ours and our chil- dren's, here do we this day find Him. 45 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES A 000080713