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 How to Spread the Message of 
 Liberal Judaism* 
 
 By C. G. MONTEFIORE. 
 
 A Sermon preached at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, 
 January 6th, 19 17.
 
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 Annex 
 
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 600 
 
 How to Spread the Message of Liberal 
 Judaism. 
 
 WE read in the short book of Malachi these words : " The 
 priest's lips should keep knowledge, and men should 
 seek teaching at his mouth, for he is the messenger of 
 the Lord of Hosts." To-day no priests remain : we can only 
 use the words of Malachi in the light of a far older assertion, 
 " Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests." So far as there 
 can to-day be any question of priesthood, the whole community 
 must be the priests. But, if so, what is the teaching which men 
 should seek at our mouths ? If we are messengers, what is our 
 message ? 
 
 The questions are plain and justified, and I recently 
 
 heard them put with a kind of pathetic insistence, of almost 
 
 plaintive wistfulness. I was at a small propaganda meeting of 
 
 the Jewish Religious Union for the advancement of Liberal 
 
 Judaism, and two or three of us, including myself, had spoken 
 
 about our cause and our work. One or the other of us had, 
 
 perhaps too casually or conventionally, used the familiar 
 
 phrase " the message of Judaism." Then a man, in full sympathy 
 
 with our movement, but not wholly satisfied with what we had 
 
 said, got up, and in addition to several useful suggestions, he 
 
 made an observation to the following effect. " You have 
 
 spoken of the message of Judaism. But what is this message ? 
 
 Most of us have some sort of notion what it is, but the notion is 
 
 too often vague. It needs filling up and filling put. I think it 
 
 should be carefully formulated ; it should be stated with precision 
 
 and exactitude ; not too lengthily, but with adequate clearness. 
 
 If this were done, if we had a simple, precise leaflet, called the 
 
 Message of Judaism, we could grasp it and learn it ; we should 
 
 have it by us when we wanted it. If anyone should ask us a 
 
 question concerning Judaism, we could immediately reply, and 
 
 reply with accuracy. If an opportunity arose, or came our way, 
 
 for spreading the massage, we could make use of^it. We could 
 
 hand the message on. We could strengthen the doubting ; we 
 
 could reply to the enquiring ; we could, in fact, be messengers 
 
 with a message, of which we were in no doubt or hesitation." 
 
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 At the first blush, the request sounds highly reasonable. If 
 we are messengers, we must possess a message. And if there is a 
 message, it is surely possible for that message to be formulated 
 in words, and not only possible, but desirable. Every religion 
 may be presumed to have its message, and why should Judaism 
 be more chary than other religions to express it in words ? And 
 if I nevertheless desire to show why it is doubtful whether our 
 earnest friend's wish should be fulfilled- at any rate, in the 
 precise form in which he wanted it that is not because I do not 
 sympathize with his desire, or because I do not believe that 
 there is any message of Judaism which can be more or less 
 accurately precipitated into words, and certainly not because I 
 do not believe that Judaism has any message at all. 
 
 In order that I may put the case against myself at its worst, 
 I will say that there are, I think, some especial reasons why 
 Liberal Judaism, with the emphasis on this occasion upon the 
 adjective, cannot, or should not. attempt this clear, precise and 
 not too lengthy formulation of its message. That is putting 
 the case against myself at its worst, because I am well aware 
 that some people might answer and say: "You give yourself 
 away. What the orthodox critics say of you is justified on your 
 own confession. Your Judaism is so vague and flabby and 
 elastic and shifting that you will not and cannot define it, that 
 you are unable to put it down in definite propositions and 
 statements that he who runs may read." 
 
 Well, I have not been reluctant hitherto to proclaim that 
 Liberal Judaism has a message. But let me try to explain why, 
 as I believe, there is a certain danger in attempting to put 
 that message down in precise statements or in cut and dry pro- 
 position and paragraphs, numbered, perchance, from i to ja or 
 even to 13. 
 
 Liberal Judaism, as has often been said from this desk, 
 believes in Progressive Revelation. What we mean by Pro- 
 gressive Revelation we have, moreover, often explained. Now 
 because we believe in Progressive Revelation and teach it, we are 
 reluctant to say that the following ten or thirteen propositions 
 constitute Judaism neither more nor less. From Moses and Amos 
 to our own day there is a certain agreement, a certain development, 
 which enabtef us to speak of the religion by the same name 
 throughout all these generations. But together with this 
 sameness there goes a difference. The development continues. 
 The Judaism of 2016 will assuredly not be identical with the
 
 Judaism of 1916. And it may even be said that the concrete 
 defi niteness which makes such an abstract statement as ' God is,' 
 or ' God is One,' stir and move us, is just that part of the state- 
 ment, when filled out in words, which is most of all subject to 
 change. Hence our justified reluctance to attempt a too precise 
 formulation of the message. Moreover, such a formulation is 
 apt to become something of a dogmatic creed. We all know 
 the creed of thirteen articles which is found in the ordinary 
 orthodox prayer books. We should be very disinclined to set 
 up any rival creed or formula, for the same objections which we 
 have to the older presentation as a creed might justly be made 
 to our own newer alternative. And within the body of Liberal 
 Jews of to-day there are varieties. I should not like to assert 
 that my conception of Liberal k Judaism 'and of its message is 
 necessarily more true than your conception, or that it will 
 assuredly prevail in the future. 
 
 But to this reply I can hear a rejoinder. Let'me express it 
 in words. Someone might say : " You shall not elude me in this 
 manner. Even if there are varieties, there must be agreements, 
 and even if a presentation of the message be given which is 
 definitely stated to be the presentation of a particular person, 
 and which does not claim to be the final presentation of Liberal 
 Judaism as a whole even so, and with all these qualifications, 
 such a presentation would be of value. Your chariness to 
 formulate the message makes me fear that Liberal Judaism is 
 so flimsy and gauzy and elusive that it cannot be presented in 
 words because there is nothing to present. I fear lest the scruple 
 to formulate the message means that there is no message to 
 formulate." 
 
 Well to that objection I would in the first place reply by 
 saying that, so far as I myself am concerned, leaving others to 
 speak for themselves, I have not been altogether chary of giving 
 my views of Liberal Judaism and of its message in a number 
 perhaps all too numerous of books and essays and pamphlets. 
 And in those writings I hope that there is set forth something 
 substantial and even definite. 
 
 And if the rejoinder to this would be that people are very 
 busy, and that they need and like few words rather than many 
 words, a short and precise statement rather than elaborate 
 discussions and disquisitions, then I would like to submit a 
 deeper and essential difficulty though one less easy to put into 
 words.
 
 4 
 
 Let us assume that I or anybody else expresses the message 
 of Judaism, as he conceives it, in words; that he does what is 
 asked 'of him, and describes and defines Judaism in a series of 
 propositions and statements. But here is the trouble. Even as 
 he does so, Judaism has fled away. For Judaism (like any other 
 religion which is worth its salt) is not a series of propositions. 
 It is a spirit; it is a life. It is not expressable in words ; it is 
 only expressable in human lives ; in human character ; in human 
 action. Judaism has its theology : you can write cut this theology; 
 you can cut it up into paragraphs and statements. But the 
 result is words : not an experience, but at the best the record of 
 an experience. Judaism teaches that man ought to love God. 
 But this proposition is not really a. part of Judaism. The 
 experience is the part of Judaism, not the statement. The love 
 of God the love as felt by Jews and Jewesses, as experienced by 
 them, as translated by them into life, as worked up by them 
 into character that is part of Judaism no doubt, but not the 
 words. Describe this love, and the deeds and the character 
 which it causes, and the result is interesting and may be 
 valuable, but it is not the love itself; it is only a description of 
 the love. If I give you a careful botanical account of a certain 
 rose that may be accurate and valuable; but it is not the rose. 
 It is just words. 
 
 Here, then, is a deeper reason for a reluctance to put down 
 the message of Judaism in a leaflet. And if you say, ' why then 
 ever write about Judaism at all, why write a book about it, or a 
 treatise ? ' the answer is that the shorter and more categoric the 
 statement, the more it inclines to a series of cut and dry proposi- 
 tions, or to a series of articles of faith, the greater is the danger 
 lest these propositions and articles should be mistaken for the real 
 and living thing, or the intellectual assent to them substituted 
 for, and regarded as the equivalent of, the spirit and the life. 
 For you cannot deal with religion as you can with a mutton 
 chop. You can, I believe, to some extent, pound the mutton 
 chop, and condense it, and make the meat of it into a sort of 
 pill which you can swallow at a gulp. You cannot deal like 
 this with religion. If I say, Judaism is the love of God and the 
 love of man, or if, quoting the old Rabbi, I say that, 'seek God 
 and live,' is its essence and principle, my statement may be true, 
 but whether as a statement it can be helpful, except to the 
 mere understanding, is exceeding doubtful. So far as the 
 statement is tiue, it is true because it is the shorthand verbal
 
 expression of a spiritual experience, an exoerience which, as it 
 were, includes heaven and earth, which controls and transfigures 
 life, explaining all things and transforming them. To give and 
 to receive a series of printed propositions acceptable to, and 
 accepted by, the understanding, the intellect is neither to 
 give religion nor to receive it. That is why one shrinks from 
 trying to satisfy a demand that, on the face of it, seems so 
 legitimate and so reasonable. One shrinks from saying: 'Here 
 my friend, is Judaism ; here is its message; in this leaflet, in 
 these thirteen propositions, or articles, or injunctions, which all 
 can understand which all can read in four or five minutes by 
 the clock. Take them and distribute them, i'ou can have as 
 many copies as you like at five shillings a thousand.' We feel 
 that what we should distribute would not be Judaism, and 
 hardly even the message of Judaism: but only some printed 
 words, useful words, doubtless, and true so far as they go, but 
 yet misleading : a description, a catalogue, an inventory, but 
 not the spirit, the experience, the life. 
 
 Yet I would not end upon what looks like a note of negation 
 and refusal. I would say something, in spite of all, about the 
 message. For it might be supposed that I meant that, even if 
 there is a message, we cannot convey it, and that we must 
 always be silent. I do not mean that. I do not mean that we 
 must always be silent in words, still less that we must be silent 
 in our lives. For a message can be spread even without words. 
 Nor do I mean that reading is useless, whether for others or for 
 ourselves. We must certainly read, and so far as we have time, 
 let us study, but, above all, so far as we can, let us live and let 
 us experience. Or adding the object, let us live Judaism, let us 
 experience it. And when it comes to words, I think I should be 
 inclined to say, let us, perhaps, when opportunity offers, give to 
 a particular person a particular message. Let us, from our own 
 experience, in humility, but sincerity, learn how to 'speak a 
 word in its season to him that is weary.' 
 
 That part of the message of Judaism which you have 
 experienced, which you have felt, w^iich has helped and inspired 
 yott, that part, even as you envisage and realise it, you are best 
 fitted to hand on. May I use, by way of metaphor, the story of 
 David and thearmour of Saul? The King gives to David his hel- 
 met, his sword, his coat of mail. But not thus arrayed can David 
 set forth to fight with Goliath. He must employ his own simple 
 weapons ; he must use his own experience. ' I cannot go with
 
 these,' he says to Saul, 'for I have not proved them.' So it must 
 be with the message and ourselves. In the Jewish message 
 concerning God, for instance, we should read in any book or 
 pamphlet that He is One, that He is just, compassionate, holy, 
 that He hearkens to prayer, that He is without and within, 
 transcendent and immanent and so on. All very true, no 
 doubt, and all very good. But have you proved these truths? 
 That portion of them which has come home to yon, you can best 
 hand on to another. Is there a doubting heart to whom per- 
 chance, you, who have felt the power of prayer, may speak of its 
 comfort? Here is the. message for you. Is there someone to 
 whom God seems far off, while you have found Him near? 
 Here is the message. Is someone inclined to say, ' How can I 
 love an invisible spirit? Yet I might love a God, who once 
 became incarnate in man, and suffered for our sakes ' ? then do 
 you, who can and do love the Father, whose children we feel 
 ourselves to be, you, who love Him and jeel His love, speak of your 
 experience, humbly, but without shyness ; this is the message 
 for you, and this is its hour. Or are there stricken souls, for 
 whom the evil of the world is too sore and pressing and hard, 
 and have you found a way still to believe in divine righteousness 
 and divine love in spite of evil and suffering and anguish and 
 sin -here is your message and here is your opportunity. Or 
 have you felt, and do you feel, the bond of fellowship, the lesson 
 and the appeal of history, the tie with the past: have >ou 
 experienced the strength of saying ' Our God ' as well as ' my 
 God ' ? That, too, is the message : speak it in its season. Or 
 have you, like all of us, sinned, but have you also, not like 
 all of us, alas, made your repentance : have you felt the joy of 
 atonement, or the consciousness of forgiveness ; have you been 
 given strength to crush your sin or to make a very burnt offering 
 of your temptation ? Here, too, is a part of the message, and 
 perhaps in some quiet hour you may deliver it. Or are you a 
 worker in some good cause of charity or social service, and have 
 you found that this work is illumined by the faith in, and the 
 love of, God, and that the* truth of God is confirmed and 
 illumined by this work ; have you found that human love needs 
 the strength of the divine love, and that divine love needs to flow 
 forth into human love ? This, too, is the Jewish message, and of 
 this, too, may bear your witness. 
 
 These are just examples, and they can be easily added to. 
 But let us always remember that more than the words is the life,
 
 and that you, even in your humility, may be more than what 
 you say: you, whom another may esteem, or care for, or be help- 
 ed by, consciously or unconsciously, you may be the message 
 yourself. If you are observed by another to work for man, 
 because of your love for God, you are the message. If you 
 suffer bravely, and gladly make a sacrifice: if you are humble 
 and selfless, you are the message. If, by your life, you show 
 that the invisible Father is near you, and has helped you, and 
 that, in spite of failures and lapses, you seek to walk as in His 
 presence: you are the message. If it is guessed that to you the 
 bondage of duty is freedom, and that liberty is law; that to you 
 outward ceremonial strengthens inward faith, and that faith, 
 inspires and glorifies observance : you are the message. ' Speak a 
 word in its season ' to him that would ask and hear. This means of 
 spreading the message will come now and again, and you should 
 welcome it when it comes. But life, so long as life is with us, 
 must always be lived, and your life is the best message. Its 
 influences pass from soul to soul. Your life may bear fruit 
 which you can never guess, and the full and final value of which 
 you may never know.
 
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