'THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST/ A SERMON DELIVERED IN THE SPANISH & POKTUGUESE SYNAGOGUE, BEVIS MARKS, LONDON, ON 5655 rae> SATURDAY, AUGUST ' 1895' BY THE REV. MELDOLA DE SOLA, OF MONTREAL. I'll I \T El) HY IIVQUEST OF TI1E GENTLEMEN OF THE I/. I// I MAD. LONDON : PRINTED BY WERTHEIMER, LEA AND CO., CIRCL'8 PLACE, LONDON \V.\l.l,. "THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST." 'na Dpain Drwo : -p-ipa -pn 'n nDBn -nya ba nns " Your eyes have seen that which the Eternal hath done because of Baal Peor ; for every man who went after Baal Peor the Eternal thy God hath destroyed him from the midst of thee. But ye who did cleave unto the Eternal your God are alive all of you this day." _ Deuteronomy iv. 3, 4. To address you, my dear brethren, in this time-honoured sanctuary, is at once a privilege to be cherished and a duty to be approached in a spirit of humility. Within these hallowed walls have worshipped men who have shed brightest lustre upon the community; within this vener- able shrine words of instruction, counsel and exhortation have fallen from the lips of preachers renowned for their learning and eloquence, no less than for their unswerving fidelity to the sacred cause of traditional Judaism. To a mere stranger the privilege of addressing you here would be fraught with deepest interest ; to me, whose kindred have filled every ecclesiastical office in this historic Congre- gation those of Haham, Dayan, Kazan, and Preacher the occasion is a momentous one ; and were it not that a common sentiment and a common interest assure me that my words this morning will not fall upon unsympathetic .ears, I might well hesitate to avail myself of the invita- tion that has been so courteously extended to me. Of what, then, shall I speak to you? To what direct your attention ? We are celebrating to-day 1*2113 rOE7, the n 2 2117120 Sabbath of Comfort. We have mourned Zion's misfortunes, we have bewailed Jerusalem's destruction, our thoughts are now turned into a brighter channel. With the soul- stirring words of Isaiah ringing in our ears, we look for- ward hopefully to the restoration of our national splendour, to the advent of that era when Zion's glory shall be even as in days of yore. At such a time we are necessarily im- pressed with the extraordinary manner in which Israel has been preserved, while nations, infinitely more powerful in a worldly sense, have been utterly blotted out, leaving behind them naught but a name and the record of their ignominious end. That writers of our race have made this marvellous survival the theme of many an eloquent out- pouring, is but natural ; for we should indeed be callous, we should indeed be devoid of all nobility of sentiment and character, could we contemplate with indifference the phenomenal preservation of our people. Far more signifi- cant are the utterances of those who differ from us in faith, infinitely more instructive their estimate of the miraculous survival of the seed of Jeshurun. Let me quote to you one or two specimens of their expressions. A well-known writer exclaims : " More will-power has been exhausted for extinguishing the Jew than for any other purpose since the world began. But somehow the Jew will not be ex- tinguished." Another writer of the dominant faith observes: t: Perpetually plundered, yet always wealthy : massacred by thousands, yet springing up from their undying stock, the Jews appear at all times and in all regions ; their per- petuity, their national immortality, is at once the most curious problem to the political enquirer, to the religious man a subject of profound and awful admiration." Yet another remarks : " Not all the atrocious cruelties that bigoted fanaticism could perpetrate ; not all the suffering that civil, ecclesiastical, or military authority could devise and inflict ; not all the pains and penalties that diabolical ingenuity could invent and unrestrained tyranny execute, have been able to destroy, or materially alter, the character of this heaven-chosen, heaven-afflicted, and heaven-pre- served race." And, commenting upon the supremacy of Rome in the days of Titus, he adds : " All lay dead at the feet of Rome. The Jew alone outlives the cruel mistress of the world. Death has no power over the Jeic, he is the im- mortal of history." Marvel you, my brethren, at this survival ? Stand you amazed at this miracle of miracles ? DHNT W3E7 Mb 'n ^N cn^O sb np3P 'On, "I the Eternal change not, therefore, O sons of Jacob, are ye not consumed." In the immutabi- lity of the Mighty One, who has constituted us " a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," and who has declared that the seed of Israel shall not cease from being a nation before Him during all time, we discover the reason of our pre- servation, and, so discovering it, are comforted for the misery of the past, and inspired with hope and confidence in the glory of the future. We have been preserved, then, by Providence ; and our survival as a nation without a national home, without a central authority to give cohesion to our scattered rem- nants, is admittedly one of the most stupendous miracles in the annals of mankind. But does Providence always invoke the supernatural in performing a miracle ? Are not human agents frequently employed ? Is a miracle less a miracle because natural instruments are utilised ? In our annals the supernatural has been an all-important factor, and we contemplate with awe innumerable circumstances of a supernatural character. But in our preservation since the destruction of the Temple we readily perceive the employment of natural instruments natural instruments in the form of men and women im- bued with intense loyalty to the law and traditions of Israel, with a keen appreciation of their distinction as God's witnesses, and consequently with an inflexible deter- mination to resist all religious assimilation with their neighbours of other creeds. A survey of Israel's history, then, must inspire us with profound admiration for those whose loyalty rendered them worthy of becoming God's instruments in effecting our 3 6 survival. At the same time it must equally impress us with the fate that has invariably overtaken those who have digressed from the path of strict duty. Addressing our ancestors in the plains of Moab, Moses exclaimed : " Your eyes have seen that which the Eternal hath done because of Baal Peor ; for every man who went after Baal Peor the Eternal thy God hath destroyed him from the midst of thee ; but ye who did cleave unto the Eternal your God are alive all of you this day." And so has it been throughout our history. They who have bent the knee to Baal Peor, who have proved disloyal to the law and traditions of Israel, have been literally " cut off from their people," while they who have remained faithful have been placed in that long unbroken line of patriots who have been the means em- ployed by Providence in preserving Judaism to the present day. Time will not permit me to multiply illustrations of this vital truth, but we have an all-sufficient one in the instance of the Hellenists. With the hostility of these old- time renegades to everything that could distinguish the Jew from his neighbour, with their persistent attempts to eliminate from Judaism all that was distinctly Jewish, you are perfectly familiar. I would but remind you of the fate of their movement a movement of which a well-known historian remarks : " It has left in Jewish history no me- morial excepting the ignominious contempt which naturally rests upon an undertaking that commenced with fickleness and ended in treason to religion and nationality." Let us apply the teaching of the text, with this suggestive illustration, to the present condition of Judaism. The Hellenist movement, we are told, commenced with fickleness. We recognise similar " fickleness " in our midst to-day. To a certain class of our co-religionists the hour of the morning service in Synagogue, even on the Sabbath, is entirely too early; the musical portions are not suffi- ciently artistic; the Congregation and Choir do not sing with the precision of an opera chorus; the language in which the sublime outpourings of a Moses and an Isaiah were given to the world is not intelligible and " does not appeal '' to the rising generation ; years of close study can be devoted to Latin, to Greek, to the classics, to the piano, but not to Hebrew. Hence the now fashionable clamour- ing for a mutilated service, for mixed choirs and the organ, for the introduction of English, and for other changes of a similar character, so that the aesthetic and intensely cul- tured may be " attracted " to the house of God. So much, then, for the "fickleness." Now let us contemplate the " treason to religion and nationality." In America there is not a single reform congregation of note whose so-called reforms have not commenced with changes such as I have just described. And to what lengths has American re- formed Judaism proceeded? To the repudiation of the ceremonial law; to a denial of the Mosaic authorship of the Decalogue ; to a demand for a Bible purified from its obnoxious elements note well these words, "a Bible purified from its obnoxious elements "\ to a denial of supernatural revelation ; to an assertion that the personal revelations of the Deity recorded in the Bible are mythical ; and to an abandonment of the belief in Israel's national restoration and the advent of the Messiah. Is this not treason to religion and nationality with a vengeance ? And the per- fection of the parallel is at hand; for the fate of those who bent the knee to Baal Peor, the fate of the Hellenists ages later, is fast overtaking, nay, has already overtaken, the radicals of America. They may choose to label their peculiar ideas "Judaism," but in reality they have cut themselves and their descendants off from the congregation of Jacob as absolutely as were those who were blotted out centuries ago. The moral is obvious. If we would escape the fate of those who have been cut off from Israel since the days of Moses an d Providence has been engaged in all ages in pruning off the decayed branches we must steadfastly " cleave unto the Eternal our God," and implicitly comply with His will. >b rrpnb trnsn p curw S-QSI, " I have separated you from the nations that ye may be mine," is His declaration to us, and He will not permit to pass with 8 impunity even the most insignificant attempt to break down the religious barrier which it has pleased Him in His wisdom to erect between us and our fellow-beings of other creeds. Let me exhort you, then, my dear brethren, to preserve most jealously the integrity of the religious institutions transmitted to you by your illustrious predecessors ; let me urge you most earnestly never to suffer the sacrilegious hand of the innovator to tamper with our time-honoured and beautiful minhag. In an old fable a blacksmith is repre- sented as permitting a camel to stand with one foot in his tent. Proceeding with his work he subsequently discovers that the animal has inserted a second foot. Finally there s room only for the camel. So with the introduction into the synagogue of forms that savour of the church. In the end there is not room even for a remnant of the old service. In many American reform temples a visitor finds it almost impossible to realise that he is within a Jewish place of worship, to such an extent has the form of service been revolutionised. It is providential that the Sephardim in this land enjoy the ministrations of a Haham who is fully alive to the fatal tendency of the so-called harmless changes for which it is now so fashionable to clamour. It is a guarantee that the disease which has proved so disastrous to our religion elsewhere will not be allowed to secure a foothold where he exercises authority. In these days of cowardly com- promise such a leader is a tower of strength even to those who are not immediately under his jurisdiction; and on the western shores of the Atlantic his decisions are honoured as those of a man who is imbued with true Maccabasan spirit, his publicly expressed opinions carry that weight, that force, which must ever attach to the utterances of an ecclesiastical chief who knows not what it is to compromise with the enemy. My dear brethren, to compromise with error is to sacrifice the truth. If a desired ritual change be wrong, it cannot be made right even by the most adroit manipulation. For instance, if it be contrary to our eccle- 9 siastical law to recite the Ten Commandments every Sab- bath as an integral portion of the Synagogue service, it cannot be in accordance with the spirit of that law to con- vert the Decalogue into what is styled a " Bible reading " in the pulpit. If a mixed choir be unorthodox, the subter- fuge of a screen between the male and female singers cannot make it orthodox. Ritual concessions for the sake of peace are a sad fallacy, for it is utterly useless to cry " Peace where there is no peace." They who have received such concessions in this community will not long remain satisfied with them. They entrench themselves behind each one, and will continue to demand more, until that point is reached at which there must be a refusal, or an orthodox schism a schism by those who do not propose to surrender their heritage. Mark, then, that the real adversaries of orthodox Juda- ism in this metropolis are not the members of the reform congregation, for their principles are openly and honestly avowed. It is within the ranks of orthodoxy that we discover its worst enemies men who sail under false colours; men who dare not openly proclaim themselves reformers, but who are manifestly in complete sympathy with the reform movement ; men who are supposed to up- hold the teachings of orthodoxy, but who are continually scheming to circumvent its laws, and to undermine the influence of their ecclesiastical authorities. These may be very unpalatable statements to many members of the com- munity, but they are plain truths, nevertheless truths that cannot be too persistently nor too emphatically pro- claimed. This Sabbath has been distinguished by the installation of a new Hazan to the congregation. It is my fervent prayer that the Almighty may bless him for many years with health and strength, and enable him to perform the duties of his sacred office efficiently and worthily. It is the policy of the advocates of the changes that have been engaging our attention to-day to attempt to lessen the im- portance of the Kazan's office. In their eyes the preacher 10 is the principal minister of the congregation, the Kazan a subordinate to be charged with the more fatiguing duty of reciting the prayers. They would thus practically minimise the importance of prayer, and encourage the people to neglect the study of Hebrew. What characteristic per- verseness do we recognise in such a sentiment ! The Hazan is the representative of prayer after the custom of our fathers ; he is the Tns H^uy, the " messenger of the con- gregation " before the Almighty ; he intercedes for his people when they appear as penitents and supplicants in the house of God ; he is their guide in those supreme moments when their souls are poured forth before their Maker. Can we conceive any duty more sacred ? Upon the new Hazan, then, it is incumbent to perform his duties with dignity, with zeal, with fidelity, and with humility ; while upon you, my dear brethren, devolves the obligation of strengthening his hands at all times. Let your con- sideration for his sacred office attest your determination to strenuously oppose the influence of that school, which under the cloak of culture, would assimilate Judaism with the dominant faith. In thus scrupulously preserving the distinctive institutions of your religion, you may, no doubt, be characterised as narrow-minded and intolerant. But remember that Judaism has been preserved under Provi- dence by the strong, not by the weak, and that there never yet was a Jew sufficiently strong in his faith to fight un- compromisingly against disloyalty and treachery who was not dubbed " bigot " and " fanatic " by the weaklings of his day. They whose efforts are in the direction of de-Judaising our form of worship, may possibly imagine that in doing so they will win the approval of their neighbours of other creeds. If so, they are sadly mistaken ; for our neighbours respect consistency. "Be Jews," exclaims an eminent divine of the dominant faith, " Be Jews, and be faithful to the light that has shone for you since Abraham crossed the river." Aye, my brethren, be Jews Jews in sentiment, Jews in practice, not merely Jews in name. Prove that '557120598 you recognise how transcendent is the honour you enjoy in having been selected from among all the nations of the earth to serve as the ministers of the Most High ; prove that you appreciate your extraordinary distinction in having been endued with national immortality in order that you may, in the fulness of time, realise the glorious destiny reserved for you ; prove this by reverently bowing to the Almighty's decree of Israelitish separatism, by faith- fully preserving the distinctive institutions of your religion, and by sternly opposing that misnamed enlightenment, that spurious liberality, which would de-Judaise your form of worship and your religious observances ; and not only will you gain the confidence, the esteem, the affection, the admiration of your neighbours of other creeds, who respect consistency, while they despise unfaithfulness, but, what is of infinitely more importance, you will win the approval of the Almighty, who, beholding evidence so genuine of an earnest desire to cleave unto Him and perform the dictates of His will, will assuredly bless you and bless those dear to you ; will preserve you and yours to the great congre- gation of Jacob ; will uphold you in all assaults upon your faith, and so accomplish unto you His promise : " When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee ; when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee; for I am the Eternal thy God, the Holy One of Israel thy Saviour." /n >3M >D WBRTUBIMBK, LKA ., Printer*, Circus Place, London Wall.