'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 <t <>., Printer*, Circus Place, London Wall.