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 By the same Author: 
 Aspects of the Bible 
 The Jewish Life 
 
 The Synagogue in Modern Life 
 The Varied Beauty of the Psalms 
 The Effects of Religion 
 The Faith of Israel 
 The Allied Countries and the Jews 
 The War and the Bible 
 A Jewish View of Jesus
 
 The Adequacy of 
 Judaism 
 
 H. G. Enelow 
 
 StacK 
 Annex 
 
 r 
 
 Bloch Publishing Company 
 
 New York 
 
 1920
 
 To 
 
 Mr. Samuel Qrabfelder 
 
 True friend and unwearying 
 doer of good 
 
 2096832
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE MODERN DISCONTENT WITH JUDA- 
 ISM 9 
 
 II. NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIANS? . 17 
 
 III. NEED JEWS BECOME ATHEISTS? . . 29 
 
 IV. NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIAN SCIEN- 
 TISTS? 43 
 
 V. NEED JEWS BECOME ETHICAL CUL- 
 
 TURISTS? 55 
 
 VI. NEED JEWS BECOME UNITARIANS? . 67 
 
 VII. WHY SHALL JEWS REMAIN JEWS? . 81
 
 The Adequacy of Judaism 
 
 THE MODERN DISCONTENT 
 WITH JUDAISM 
 
 "Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or 
 a land of deep darkness? Wherefore say 
 My people: We are broken loose, we will 
 come no more unto Thee?" Jeremiah 2, 
 31. 
 
 IN various circles nowadays we find dis- 
 content with Judaism. It shows itself 
 either in indifference or hostility to our 
 ancestral religion, or in actual defection 
 from it. At first blush, we are apt to 
 regard it as an entirely new occurrence 
 in Israel; but the student of history 
 knows better. Such discontent has ap- 
 peared among us, frequently, from earliest 
 times. Moses knew it; Samuel knew it; 
 and so did every subsequent prophet. 
 
 Perhaps the most poignant reference to 
 such discontent and desertion we find in 
 the pages of Jeremiah. And to that great 
 
 9
 
 10 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 prophet the conduct of his people seemed 
 the more deplorable because he realized how 
 much it was due to the people's lack of un- 
 derstanding and appreciation of the faith 
 they had inherited. Because they did not 
 know the contents of their religion, they 
 went astray, roaming about in quest of 
 other religions. "Why do you contend with 
 Me? saith the Lord. O generation, see ye 
 the word of the Lord! Have I been a wil- 
 derness to Israel, or a land of deep dark- 
 ness? Wherefore say My people, We are 
 broken loose, we will come no more unto 
 Thee?" 
 
 These questions might well be addressed 
 literally to the Jewish men and women of 
 our own generation, who neglect their re- 
 ligion because they are not aware of its 
 beauty and brightness. For that is just the 
 reason why so many are either averse or 
 lukewarm to their ancestral religion. 
 
 Of course, among those who neglect 
 Judaism, or abandon it, there are people 
 impelled by other motives, too. We know 
 that some drift away because they are too 
 materialistic, too earthy, to care for any-
 
 DISCONTENT WITH JUDAISM 11 
 
 thing of a spiritual character. Others are 
 breaking away because of a foolish snob- 
 bishness, which makes them think that they 
 can find greater happiness or satisfaction in 
 churches considered more fashionable than 
 the Synagogue. One even hears of people 
 who have changed their religion, strange 
 though it may seem, because of some per- 
 sonal slight or grievance. 
 
 But apart from such, there are a great 
 many who have grown apathetic or antag- 
 onistic to Judaism because of dissatisfaction, 
 spiritual dissatisfaction and their condi- 
 tion is the more to be deplored because it is 
 founded on error and lack of knowledge. 
 They have been led to think that Judaism 
 is spiritually poor, that it is incompatible 
 with the highest social and ethical demands 
 of the present, that it is inadequate to the 
 spiritual needs of the age. To them we 
 might well address the words of the Lord 
 in Jeremiah's days: "O generation, see ye 
 the word of the Lord! Have I been a wil- 
 derness to Israel or a land of thick darkness? 
 Wherefore say My people, We have broken 
 loose, we will come no more unto Thee?"
 
 12 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 In effect, the Lord certainly has not been 
 a wilderness to Israel, nor a land of thick 
 darkness. Even those who are most dis- 
 satisfied with Judaism at present, will not 
 deny that Judaism has meant a great deal 
 to the world. The history of the Jewish 
 people is the most wonderful of all histories. 
 That is conceded by all. The duration, the 
 heroism, the martyrdom of the Jew is the 
 marvel of mankind. They have gained the 
 tribute of admiration even from our foes. 
 No one denies that the Jew has made valu- 
 able contributions to civilization. Never- 
 theless, it is true that the chief glory of 
 Jewish history has come from Israel's re- 
 ligion, and it is by his religious teaching and 
 idealism that the Jew has made his most 
 valuable addition to the civilization of man- 
 kind. It matters not how much that ideal- 
 ism may have remained unrealized, the very 
 fact that the world has accepted it, and made 
 it the foundation of its foremost religions, 
 constitutes the greatest glory of Jewish 
 history. 
 
 No one, therefore, can say that Judaism 
 has meant nothing to the Jew in the past.
 
 DISCONTENT WITH JUDAISM 18 
 
 Nor can one forget that it is Judaism that 
 has formed the chief support of the Jew 
 himself, making his life spiritually rich and 
 strong throughout the centuries of persecu- 
 tion, and rendering him both ethically and 
 religiously superior to his environment dur- 
 ing the ages of superstitition and idolatry. 
 But does not the same thing hold good 
 today? Those who will take the trouble 
 really to examine Judaism will have to ad- 
 mit that today, no less than before, Judaism 
 not only is equal to all the spiritual needs 
 and ethical demands of the Jew, but forms 
 the foundation of what true and durable re- 
 ligiousness there is in the world at large. 
 Every religion, in these days of ours, is 
 called upon to examine and to revise its con- 
 tents : Judaism has nothing to fear from the 
 new age as far as its own principles and 
 precepts are concerned, if we consider what 
 men today regard as the requisites of a 
 religion. 
 
 For one thing, people today require a 
 religion that shall combine two qualities 
 reasonableness and spirituality. No one
 
 14 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 wants a religion which runs counter to rea- 
 son. On the other hand, no one wants a 
 religion which ignores the heart, or the 
 spirit. "Religion is the poetry of the heart," 
 a French writer has said. An arid rational- 
 ism is quite as offensive to modern man as 
 an irrational superstition. 
 
 This combination of qualities is just 
 what Judaism possesses. The heart and 
 the mind reason and spirit have always 
 played an equally important part in its do- 
 main. From the very first, and throughout 
 its history, Judaism has stood for the culti- 
 vation of the mind as part of religious duty. 
 It has not only sanctioned but required the 
 application of reason to the perception of 
 the religious mysteries and the pursuit of 
 the religious life. No religion has ever been 
 so clearly opposed to superstition as Juda- 
 ism. On the other hand, the teachers of 
 Judaism have known and taught that the 
 greatest thing in the understanding and ful- 
 filment of religion is the heart or the spirit. 
 If today we find Jewish men and women 
 who think that they cannot cling to the re- 
 ligion of their fathers because they want a
 
 DISCONTENT WITH JUDAISM 15 
 
 religion compatible with culture and spiritu- 
 ality if it is because they miss this quality 
 in Judaism that they are dissatisfied with 
 it then, I say, they wrong Judaism. Philo 
 certainly was a man both cultured and spir- 
 itual; so was Moses Maimonides; so was 
 Moses Mendelssohn; so are many men and 
 women of our own time whom one might 
 name. And they have found Judaism 
 adequate. 
 
 No less do those wrong Judaism who 
 leave it alone because they are interested in 
 the social questions of the age. Such people 
 we find in all classes,but particularly among 
 the working classes. Because they are con- 
 cerned with the improvement of the common 
 lot, they think they must go to cults which 
 deal with such questions more earnestly than 
 Judaism. But is there any excuse for such 
 a course? Is it not true that no religion ever 
 laid such stress on the importance of social 
 justice as Judaism? Were not the Prophets 
 the greatest champions of the poor and the 
 oppressed that ever lived? Were not Moses 
 and Elijah and Amos the most uncompro-
 
 16 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 mising fighters for social righteousness the 
 world ever knew? Is it mere accident that 
 so many of the foremost social reformers 
 have sprung from Israel, or is it not rather 
 due to the passion for the common good 
 with which Judaism has filled its devotees? 
 "Israel," says Renan, "first gave form to 
 the cry of the people, to the plaint of the 
 poor, to the obstinate demand of those who 
 hunger and thirst after righteousness." If 
 any one turns his back upon Judaism be- 
 cause of concern for the common good, he 
 shows lack of knowledge of the contents and 
 the commission of his religion. 
 
 It is such lack of appreciation of Judaism 
 that is at the basis of most of the modern 
 discontent with it. 
 
 This condition it is our duty to try to 
 change. As friends of Judaism, we should 
 seek to spread knowledge of it among our 
 fellowmen, and especially among our own. 
 
 Let us realize the riches and truth of 
 Judaism; then will discontent give way to 
 love and fidelity.
 
 II 
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME 
 CHRISTIANS? 
 
 "Why gaddest thou about so much to 
 change thy ways?" Jeremiah 2, 36. 
 
 THE discussion of the question of 
 whether Jews need become Christians, 
 I do not mean to take up in a spirit 
 of controversy or strife. Rather do I wish 
 to approach it in the spirit of Abraham's 
 words to Lot, recorded in the old story. 
 "Let there be no strife," said the Patriarch, 
 "between you and me, between thy shep- 
 herds and my shepherds, for we are men 
 and brothers." Similarly, Jew and Chris- 
 tian may well seek to avoid quarrel and 
 strife. There are many things in which 
 Judaism and Christianity might work to- 
 gether, for the common good. And it is for- 
 tunate that there are numerous instances of 
 the shepherds of both religious groups work- 
 ing together in a spirit of manly fellowship. 
 
 17
 
 18 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 Yet, that does not exempt the Jew from the 
 duty to come to the defense of his own sa- 
 cred cause when its work and future are 
 imperilled. 
 
 The observer of Jewish life cannot fail to 
 see what a large number of Jewish people 
 have lately drifted into Christian churches. 
 There are those who either ignore this phe- 
 nomenon or attach no importance to it. But 
 no true lover of the Jewish people and its 
 religion will adopt such an attitude. Better 
 far to face the fact, and to see what can be 
 done. 
 
 The fact, however, is that in one form or 
 another Judaism has lost a considerable 
 number of its adherents, or of those born 
 into its fold. A large number of Jews in 
 recent years have been lost to Judaism either 
 because they have joined outright Christian 
 churches, or because they have joined or- 
 ganizations on the borderland between Ju- 
 daism and Christianity and forming a tran- 
 sition to Christianity, or because they are 
 living under the impression that Christianity 
 is better than Judaism, and thus are likely
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIANS? 19 
 
 to become Christians eventually. Besides, 
 it is purblind to overlook the earnest and 
 widespread effort put forth by Christian 
 groups to evangelize the Jew; in other 
 words, to convert Jews to Christianity. 
 Right here in New York there are societies 
 actively engaged in such work, and many 
 Christian missionary agencies are united in 
 the endeavor to win Jews, and particularly 
 Jewish young people, over to the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 Is it not time to face these conditions 
 squarely? Is it not our duty, at least, to 
 try to answer the question as to whether 
 Jews have any good reason for quitting 
 Judaism in favor of the Christian religion? 
 I think it is. "It is time to act for the Lord, 
 when so many are forsaking the Divine 
 Law." 
 
 The reason chiefly given by those who 
 would have the Jew turn Christian, is that 
 thus only can one hope for salvation. Time 
 was when such an affirmation was considered 
 a good argument. The word salvation had 
 a cryptic meaning which, though not under-
 
 20 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 stood, was deemed sufficient. It overawed 
 the faithful the person of religious bent. 
 But is the use of the word salvation today 
 enough to convince anybody? Today we 
 like to analyze the terms we use, whether 
 the terms be spiritual or social, political or 
 religious. The trouble is that often we 
 employ terms we really do not understand. 
 Today we seek clarity. If people knew 
 better the meaning of the words they use, a 
 great deal of the present-day confusion and 
 misunderstanding would disappear. 
 
 What, then, is meant by salvation? If it 
 means salvation of the soul in the hereafter, 
 no sensible person will agree that one must 
 leave one's own inherited religion or forfeit 
 one's soul in the hereafter. Why should one 
 have to become a Christian in order to safe- 
 guard one's happiness after one's death? 
 Why should one assume that all those out- 
 side the Christian churches have any less 
 chance beyond the tomb than the followers 
 of Christianity? The hereafter is shrouded 
 in mystery for all of us for the Christian 
 as much as for the non-Christian and it is 
 presumptuous for any one to affirm that we
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIANS? 21 
 
 must accept his creed in order to secure our 
 share in the world to come. Certainly, the 
 ancient rabbis were more generous and more 
 religious when they affirmed that the right- 
 eous of all nations shall have a share in the 
 world to come. Modern men, who do their 
 own thinking, will surely prefer such a doc- 
 trine and hope to that of the religious re- 
 strictionists who would have us believe that 
 unless one turns Christian, one may not hope 
 to be saved in the hereafter. 
 
 Salvation, however, may mean another 
 thing. It may signify spiritual satisfaction 
 and peace in this world, rather than bliss 
 later on. Indeed, this sort of spiritual satis- 
 faction is sought by all those who are con- 
 scious of a soul, and to whom the soul is the 
 most important possession. Such people 
 may well inquire whether, being Jews, they 
 can secure deeper spiritual satisfaction and 
 serenity by abandoning Judaism and adopt- 
 ing the religion of the Christian world. 
 
 Naturally, this would be the case if Chris- 
 tianity were superior to Judaism as a re- 
 ligious doctrine and system. But is it su- 
 perior? I can conceive that one born into
 
 Christianity might say yes, inspired by 
 inheritance and environment. But no 
 thoughtful Jew could possibly answer this 
 question in the affirmative, for the simple 
 reason that as a religion Judaism has all 
 the advantages and none of the disadvan- 
 tages of traditional Christianity. 
 
 Is not what is going on under our own 
 eyes instructive? Every student of the 
 Christian religion knows that when it first 
 came into being it derived some things 
 from Judaism and other things from Pa- 
 ganism, using the word Paganism not in 
 an invidious sense, but as representing the 
 thought and life of ancient Greece and 
 Rome. Early Christianity formed a coal- 
 escence of Jewish and non-Jewish teach- 
 ings, ideals, and ceremonies. What we 
 witness today, however, is a gradual elimi- 
 nation from Christianity of its non-Jewish 
 elements and concentration upon those parts 
 that came to it from Judaism. Faith in 
 God, insistence on righteousness, the inter- 
 pretation of religion in terms of justice and 
 service these are the notes struck today
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIANS? 23 
 
 with increasing force and clarity as consti- 
 tuting true Christianity. 
 
 On all hands, we witness efforts to repre- 
 sent Christianity as a religion standing for 
 such concepts and commands. Those dog- 
 mas which once upon a time formed the 
 gravamen of Christian argument, one hard- 
 ly meets with in public discussion or prac- 
 tical propaganda. They have been either 
 abandoned or relegated to the background. 
 But the elements which are accentuated to- 
 day are the very ones which Christianity 
 inherited from Judaism. It is Judaism that 
 taught that faith and service were the all-in- 
 all of religion, and Judaism has the advan- 
 tage of never having lent itself to those other 
 concepts which have proved a millstone 
 about the neck of Religion, and which now 
 are being rejected. 
 
 Why, then, should any Jew today leave 
 his own religion in favor of Christianity? 
 How could he possibly hope to find it more 
 productive of spiritual contentment and 
 bliss? 
 
 I know there are those who are fascinated
 
 24, THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 by the figure of Jesus. They are fascinated 
 by his life and teachings by his idealism 
 and martyrdom. But that surely is no rea- 
 son for abandoning Judaism. For, Jesus, 
 as the student knows, was a Jew, from birth 
 to death, and whatever he taught was a re- 
 flection of the Jewish Scriptures or of his 
 own Jewish soul. This is a truth recognized 
 not only by the Jewish student, but admitted 
 more and more by Christian students as 
 well. Only the other day I received from 
 abroad a new life of Jesus, by Professor 
 Wernle, of the University of Bale, one of 
 the leading writers on the subject. His very 
 first sentence is a declaration that Jesus was 
 a Jew and a product in both flesh and spirit 
 of the Jewish people. Whoever does not 
 like the fact, says Professor Wernle, or is 
 prone to ignore it, need but open the Gos- 
 pels and read them with open eyes. 
 
 As far as the religious and ethical teach- 
 ings of Jesus are concerned, there is nothing 
 in them but a confirmation of Jewish ideal- 
 ism, and no one needs turn Christian in 
 order to understand them or to reiterate 
 them. On the contrary, it were better
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIANS? 25 
 
 far Christians turned Jews they might be 
 more likely then to penetrate the spirit of 
 Jesus's teaching and seek to put it into 
 effect in so-called Christian civilization. 
 
 Unfortunately, there are some who imag- 
 ine they can ingratiate themselves with the 
 world, or rise on the social ladder, by turn- 
 ing Christian. In reality, that is seldom the 
 reward of apostasy. In his heart of hearts, 
 the sincere Christian detests conversion to 
 his church for worldly ends or for the sake 
 of social recognition. Such traffic in convic- 
 tions is an insult to every true believer, and 
 while a Christian may want to make con- 
 verts, he detests any one who comes over 
 to his denomination for the gratification of 
 social vanity. Instances have been known 
 where Jews who have joined fashionable 
 churches in order to secure social honors, 
 have been duly snubbed by their new co- 
 religionists even changes of name and of 
 nose proved futile. Besides, as far as prej- 
 udice is concerned, baptism is no cure. In 
 the middle ages there was a certain pope 
 whose ancestors, several generations back,
 
 26 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 had been Jews. That pope met with certain 
 opposition, and his antagonists kept on re- 
 ferring to him as the Jew pope. One does 
 not escape prejudice by apostasy. It only 
 aggravates the bigot. Zanah Yisrael tobh 
 oyebh yirdepho says the Prophet: "When 
 Israel forsakes the good which, say the 
 rabbis, means the Torah, his faith the foe 
 pursues him the more." One is more likely 
 to gain respect even the respect of bigots 
 by a manly loyalty to one's faith. 
 
 When Lord Reading was British Am- 
 bassador to this country, I am told, he was 
 invited by a large commercial organization 
 of this city as a guest of honor to one of its 
 functions. The affair happened to fall on 
 a Saturday, and Lord Reading declined the 
 invitation because it was on a Saturday, his 
 Sabbath, saying he was not in the habit of 
 attending social functions on the Sabbath. 
 Down in Kentucky I had a friend, Mr. 
 Lewis N. Dembitz, who was both a cele- 
 brated lawyer and great scholar. Mr. Dem- 
 bitz was an observant Jew. He never 
 attended court on Saturday, and that fact 
 became so well known, and was treated with
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIANS? 27 
 
 such respect, that whenever a case in which 
 Mr. Dembitz was to appear was set for a 
 Saturday it was postponed by the court to 
 some other day. 
 
 Is not such manly conduct more likely to 
 down prejudice than apostasy? 
 
 Besides, how can one possibly hope to 
 gain spiritual satisfaction and peace by be- 
 traying one's own soul? It is the great 
 teacher of Christianity who is said to have 
 asked the question, What shall it profit a 
 man to gain the whole world if he lose his 
 soul? 
 
 What we need is a deeper appreciation of 
 our own religious heritage and a greater 
 regard for the things of the spirit. If we 
 acquire that, we shall realize that we need 
 not go outside our own faith that we need 
 not roam about changing our ways in order 
 to find spiritual contentment and peace. 
 
 Yet, have we done our full duty by merely 
 answering the question we have put, and 
 proving that there is no good reason for 
 Jews becoming Christians? 
 
 No! We have another duty: it is our
 
 28 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 duty to do something to counteract the 
 efforts of those who are taking Jewish men 
 and women away from us. It is our duty 
 to try to save Jews from the perils of apos- 
 tasy surrounding them. We should try to 
 multiply centres of Jewish education and 
 agencies of Jewish propaganda. That is 
 where the duty of the modern Synagogue 
 lies, and particularly in America, which at 
 present forms the great hope of Judaism, 
 since the centres of Jews in the Old World 
 have been destroyed or impoverished by the 
 war, and more particularly in New York, 
 where Jews are most numerous and the dis- 
 integrating influences most powerful. 
 
 Let us emulate the missionary zeal of our 
 Christian neighbors. Let us work in behalf 
 of Judaism, and maybe we shall recover for 
 it in some measure the love and the loyalty 
 of our people!
 
 Ill 
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME ATHEISTS? 
 
 "By the Lord shall all the seed of Israel 
 be justified, and shall glory." Isaiah, 
 45, 25. 
 
 IT is one of the paradoxes of modern life 
 to find so many Jews among the atheists. 
 Religion has been of the very essence of 
 Jewish existence. The Jews have been called 
 the Chosen People, and they have been in- 
 timately associated with the God idea and 
 with the Divine Name. "The Holy One 
 and Israel are one," said an ancient rabbi. 
 Moreover, it is from the Jew that the world 
 has gotten both its God and its Bible. 
 Therefore, it is very strange to find so 
 many Jewish men and women at present 
 who either declare themselves openly as 
 atheists, or live a life which stamps them 
 as such. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are people who con- 
 sider this of no moment. What difference 
 
 29
 
 30 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 does it make, they ask, whether a Jew is an 
 atheist or no ? A Jew is a Jew for all that ! 
 If a man has a Jewish heart, or a Jewish 
 soul, it is enough. These, however, are 
 empty phrases. 
 
 The fact is that it matters a great deal 
 whether Jews continue to hold on to the 
 God-idea and the God-belief, or do not. It 
 is the Jew's religion that has formed the 
 justification of his existence and the glory 
 of his life throughout the ages, and it is a 
 demonstrable fact that according as he has 
 abandoned his old faith, the Jew has been 
 shorn of much of his traditional splendor. 
 
 This is not to say that there are not ex- 
 ceptions. There are. Some Jews have 
 drifted away from their old religion, and 
 yet have retained fine ethical and spiritual 
 qualities. In some cases they have even 
 given new expression and exemplification to 
 their ancestral heritage. But as far as the 
 majority are concerned, abandonment of 
 their religion has been followed by moral 
 and spiritual deterioration. If we witness 
 today a wide-spread disintegration of Jew- 
 ish life, if we witness large numbers of
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME ATHEISTS? 31 
 
 Jewish people living on a low moral plane, 
 if we witness an increase of materialism 
 among us in the sense not merely of wor- 
 ship of worldly goods but of deadness and 
 apathy to things of the spirit it is due to 
 nothing so much as to decline of genuine 
 religion among us and to relinquishment of 
 what forms the foundation of true religion 
 belief and faith in God. 
 
 Indeed, this is one point made by Chris- 
 tian missionaries in defense of their work 
 among Jews. We do not mean, they say, 
 to convert any Jews who are loyal to their 
 God and true to their own religion : our aim 
 is to win those who have abandoned their 
 own religion, and who have become atheists 
 or believers in nothing and of such there 
 are a great many. Such, they add, are a 
 drawback, a danger, to American life. 
 
 When we hear such arguments, we grow 
 indignant. We resent missionaries of other 
 faiths trying to make converts in our midst. 
 Yet, the better course is to face the truth, 
 and to admit that the encroachment of irre- 
 ligion upon our territory is a deplorable 
 condition and a menace to our life and repu-
 
 32 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 tation. It is a fine pass we have come to 
 when it is said as, alas, it is said that 
 Jews are the least responsive to the religious 
 appeal, that to speak to Jewish people in 
 the name or in behalf of God, is to address 
 deaf ears. It is certainly proper, under such 
 circumstances, to seek to answer the ques- 
 tion whether there is any ground for Jews 
 abandoning their traditional attitude to re- 
 ligion and becoming atheists. 
 
 Let us look at the history of the Jew, 
 first of all. 
 
 Does our history justify us in becoming 
 atheists ? 
 
 It is said that Frederick the Great once 
 asked a certain philosopher for proof of the 
 existence of Divine Providence and that the 
 philosopher referred him to the continued 
 existence of the Jew. If there were no 
 Providence, he said, the Jews would not have 
 perdured. Similarly, Judah Ha-Levi, in 
 his classic work on Jewish philosophy, em- 
 ploys the history of the Jew as first proof 
 of Divinity. When the King of the Kha- 
 zars, in his quest of an adequate religion,
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME ATHEISTS? 33 
 
 turns to the Jewish scholar, the latter in his 
 exposition of Judaism speaks first of all 
 of the God who has revealed Himself in the 
 history of Israel. That is his first argu- 
 ment the metaphysical considerations come 
 later. 
 
 I know that today many will not be so 
 easily satisfied. They will refuse to accept 
 the mere survival of the Jew as proof of 
 Providence. For, they will say, if the Jew 
 has survived, is it not true that he has suf- 
 fered all kinds of outrage and persecution? 
 If the Jew is God's chosen people, then why 
 has God permitted so much hardship and 
 misery to overtake him? Why all this mar- 
 tyrdom of the Jew, this millennial martyr- 
 dom, which has not yet come to an end? 
 People ask why the Armenians have been 
 allowed to suffer such terrible persecution 
 at the hands of the Turks why God per- 
 mits it. With much more reason might they 
 ask concerning the hardships of the Jew! 
 
 Yet, who will deny that suffering is the 
 secret and source of all progress, of all hu- 
 man beauty and achievement? It is part of 
 the mystery of being. Our rabbis have told
 
 34 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 us (long before Mr. Wells) that God Him- 
 self suffers with His children when they are 
 afflicted. Betsarathom lo tsar "When they 
 are afflicted, He also suffers." 
 
 The Jew's history, thanks to his very 
 martyrdom, has become one of the noblest 
 records of mankind the sacred tablet in the 
 sanctuary of the human race. We realize 
 that that history would have been impossible 
 without the faith in God which formed the 
 soul of Jewish existence, and which still in- 
 spires so many Jews in the lands of persecu- 
 tion and pogroms. Abraham odenu omed 
 Uphne Adonay: "Still do many sons and 
 daughters of Abraham stand steadfast be- 
 fore the Lord!" But we cannot contemplate 
 that history, notwithstanding its troubles 
 and hardships, without feeling the operation 
 of a divine power and a divine purpose. No 
 man can rise from a study of Jewish history 
 with its heroism and achievement with- 
 out feeling fortified in faith. 
 
 Nor is there anything in modern philo- 
 sophic or scientific thought to impel a Jew 
 to become an atheist. It is not so very long
 
 ago that people were encouraged to believe 
 that in order to keep abreast the most ad- 
 vanced thought of the day, they had to give 
 up religion and adopt atheism. Philosophy 
 was not supposed to go hand in hand with 
 religion, nor science with faith. "Whoever 
 has Art and Philosophy," said Goethe, "has 
 Religion; whoever has no Art, nor Philos- 
 ophy, let him have Religion!" Such was 
 the substance of old-time Positivism. 
 
 Right now we have in our country M. 
 Levy-Bruhl, the distinguished French so- 
 ciologist, who is lecturing at Harvard Uni- 
 versity. He is a disciple of Auguste Comte, 
 and Comte taught that there were three 
 stages in the development of human thought 
 the theological, the metaphysic, and the 
 positive (or scientific) and that these three 
 stages succeeded one another but could not 
 go together. For a long time that teaching 
 was accepted as the last pronouncement of 
 philosophy. 
 
 Yet, what do we see today? Philosophers 
 and scientists are among the foremost critics 
 of such a gospel. We have learnt that phi- 
 losophy cannot fathom the whole mystery
 
 36 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 of Creation and that Science has not read 
 the whole of its secret. Time and again the 
 utterances of Science have proved inade- 
 quate. At this very moment Professor 
 Einstein's discovery is occupying the atten- 
 tion of scientists the world over, and we are 
 told that some of the fundamental formula? 
 of physics and mathematics might require 
 revision as a result. What wonder that 
 philosophers have turned more and more to 
 a spiritual interpretation of life, not only as 
 supplementary to Science, but as part of 
 Science? And who says Spirit, says God. 
 
 "They flock together like tired birds. 'We sought 
 Full many stars in many skies to ken, 
 But ever knowledge disappointment brought. 
 Thy light alone, O Lord, burneth steadfastly !' ' 
 
 The emperor Hadrian, the rabbis relate, 
 once asked Rabbi Joshua whether there 
 really was a Master in the universe. Surely, 
 answered the rabbi, the world is not owner- 
 less. Who created the world? demanded the 
 ruler. God, answered the rabbi. If so, con- 
 tinued Hadrian, why does He not show 
 Himself every now and then, so that men
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME ATHEISTS? 37 
 
 might see Him and stand in awe of Him? 
 Because, rejoined the rabbi, men cannot 
 bear to see His splendor. I shall not believe 
 you, insisted the emperor, unless you make 
 me see Him. At noon the rabbi turned him 
 toward the sky and said: Look at the sun 
 and you will see Him! The emperor re- 
 fused. Who can stare at the sun? he de- 
 manded. Quite so, answered the rabbi; but 
 think well of what you are saying. If it is 
 impossible for any creature to look at the 
 sun, which is only one of His myriad minis- 
 ters, how much more so to see the Holy 
 
 > 
 
 One whose splendor fills the universe ! 
 
 The scientist and the philosopher of today 
 are realizing that lack of physical proof 
 does not spell, nor compel, the denial of 
 God. "Nor is it strange," as Dean Swift 
 has written, "that there should be mysteries 
 in divinity as well as in the commonest 
 operations of Nature." 
 
 But, it is said, can we consider our own 
 personal experience and yet believe in God? 
 Indeed, from a certain point of view, there 
 are in the world many things that tend to
 
 38 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 upset our faith. But it depends upon the 
 notion that we have of God. Some people 
 believe that if there is a God, everything in 
 the world should always be lovely and pleas- 
 ant. Therefore, why is there so much 
 trouble and affliction in the world? But 
 that is not necessarily the correct idea of 
 God. Is it not more nearly true to say that 
 God is the Spirit that pervades the world 
 and makes for Beauty and Righteousness 
 the Spirit that lives in us too and impells us 
 to struggle toward Beauty and Righteous- 
 ness? If there is suffering and illness, it is 
 part of the struggle, but life with it is cer- 
 tainly more beautiful and significant than 
 otherwise it would be. Take this Spirit out 
 of the world and of human life, and what 
 are they worth? 
 
 No one knows better the emptiness of a 
 world without God, and the barrenness of 
 human life without God, than some of our 
 own people who have forsaken their religion 
 because everything has been well with them. 
 "Their gold and their silver have made them 
 idols" said the Prophet. Alas, that is still 
 true all too often. Grown rich, they grow
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME ATHEISTS? 39 
 
 godless. But what does it profit them? 
 Soon they discover the nudity of their ex- 
 istence, and we hear them speak of the want 
 of spiritual nourishment, and of soul hunger, 
 and what not. 
 
 Rather than join the ranks of atheists, 
 modern Jews should try to diffuse their own 
 idea of God in the world, and to convert 
 their fellowmen to it. The world today is 
 seeking and sifting it is trying to find a 
 theism worthy of acceptance. Is not the 
 theism of the Jew worthy of such accep- 
 tance? A recent Chinese writer has said 
 that in Europe they have a religion which 
 satisfies the heart but is at odds with the 
 head. The Jewish God-idea, however, satis- 
 fies both the head and the heart. It is 
 spiritual, it is ethical, it is progressive and 
 comprehensive. 
 
 We need but think of the Jewish God- 
 idea as revealed in the experience of the first 
 and foremost of Israel's Prophets. When 
 the Lord appeared to Moses, He appeared 
 for an ethical purpose, in behalf of Free- 
 dom and Righteousness. Moreover, He
 
 40 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 showed Himself a spiritual God Moses 
 saw no image, he heard a Voice. And, 
 finally, He declared Himself progressive, 
 as when Moses demanded His name, the 
 answer was: Ehye asher ehye, which is 
 usually Englished "I am that I am," but 
 which should really be translated: "I shall 
 be what I shall be." Israel's God-idea was 
 to be progressive, in accord with the unfold- 
 ing need and advancing intelligence of the 
 ages. And such the Jewish God-idea has 
 remained ethical, spiritual, and progres- 
 sive the very kind of theism men are seek- 
 ing today. 
 
 What we need is to be more eager and 
 more energetic in spreading this God-idea 
 among our fellowmen and in making it 
 active in the promotion of human happiness. 
 "Too long has Israel been silent," as Mr. 
 Israel Zangwill has said. 
 
 To thy task, then, O Irsael ! Make you a 
 new heart and a new spirit as the Prophet 
 demands for why will ye die, O house of 
 Israel die a spiritual death, the death of 
 the soul? Let us give heed to the teachings
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME ATHEISTS? 41 
 
 of our history to the course of contem- 
 porary thought to the lessons of our own 
 experience, and we shall realize that there is 
 no good reason why we should forsake our 
 God. On the contrary, now as of yore, it is 
 by loyalty to the Lord, and by doing the 
 Lord's work in the world, that sons and 
 daughters of Israel shall be justified, and 
 shall glory !
 
 IV 
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME CHRISTIAN 
 SCIENTISTS? 
 
 "Lo, they have rejected the word of 
 the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?" 
 Jeremiah 8, 9. 
 
 ONE watches with amazement the vast 
 number of Jewish people who are 
 joining the Christian Science Church. 
 The proportion of Jewish converts to this 
 cult must be very high. Indeed, it is said 
 that some Christian Science churches in the 
 city of New York consist well-nigh entirely 
 of former Jews. I say former Jews, be- 
 cause it must be clear that one cannot be a 
 member of such a church and yet call him- 
 self a Jew. Judaism has never tolerated 
 such combinations. If it has been said jest- 
 ingly that Christian Science is neither sci- 
 entific nor Christian, it may certainly be 
 affirmed that one cannot join a Christian 
 
 43
 
 44 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 Science church and still call himself an ad- 
 herent of Judaism. So much the more 
 reason for trying to answer the question 
 whether Christian Science has anything to 
 offer which would justify a Jew in quitting 
 his own faith in its behalf. 
 
 Let us consider what it is that this new 
 cult stands for, and what attracts so many 
 people to it. Let us consider the best 
 motives that inspire people to embrace it. 
 No doubt, some go to it from lower motives. 
 There are those who become Christian 
 Scientists because so many others have 
 done so. They are mimics. They change 
 religions as lightly as one changes a coat. 
 Others probably use the cult as a gateway 
 to association with non-Jews. But apart 
 from these two classes, there is undoubt- 
 edly a large number who go into Christian 
 Science for what it offers them and for the 
 help they get out of it. Let us, therefore, 
 think of what these boons are and try to de- 
 termine whether for the sake of them, one 
 needs forsake the faith of one's fathers 
 whether, indeed, Judaism does not offer the 
 same gifts even more abundantly than any
 
 JEWS AND CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS 45 
 
 other faith to all such as will turn to it in a 
 sincere and willing spirit. 
 
 As far as we know, Christian Science 
 stands for three things: a cheerful attitude 
 to life, first of all; then, a method of spirit- 
 ual healing; and, finally, the denial of the 
 existence of evil. These are the benefits 
 which we are constantly told its devotees 
 obtain from Christian Science. It makes 
 them more cheerful than they ever were be- 
 fore. It cures them from disease without 
 the aid of physicians or drugs. And it con- 
 vinces them that evil has no real existence 
 in the world that evil is a mere figment of 
 the imagination or a mental error. 
 
 If all this be so, how shall we blame people 
 for turning to such a creed? Happiness is 
 something everybody wants. All the world 
 is looking for the blue-bird of M. Maeter- 
 linck's fancy. And if Christian Science is 
 the universal blue-bird, who could be blamed 
 for embracing it? 
 
 The truth is, however, that Christian 
 Science is far from being the religious pana- 
 cea that some people represent or imagine
 
 46 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 it to be. That it contains some good ele- 
 ments, no one will deny. That it has helped 
 people, no one will deny. But it is equally 
 true that it contains certain elements which 
 no rational person can possibly accept, which 
 far from removing error, are in themselves 
 grossly erroneous, and which certainly are 
 inferior to the teachings and the ideals of 
 the Jewish religion. Moreover, it is certain 
 that whatever is good in Christian Science 
 was foreshadowed and promulgated by Ju- 
 daism long ago, and a Jew need not go out- 
 side his own religious heritage to find such 
 good. All he need do is to turn to the teach- 
 ings and treasures of Judaism, and he will 
 find all he seeks, if indeed it can be found. 
 
 Right here we touch the radical difference 
 between Judaism and Christian Science a 
 difference which to every logical person 
 must demonstrate the superiority of Juda- 
 ism. Christian Science insists on a cheerful 
 attitude to life. But so does Judaism. The 
 keynote of Judaism is joy. Ibhdu eth Ado- 
 nay be-simha might almost be called its 
 motto. "Serve the Lord with joy!" "Work
 
 JEWS AND CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS 47 
 
 with the Lord in joy!" "Worship the Lord 
 joyously!" All this is implied in the He- 
 brew word Ibhdu. This is the spirit of 
 Judaism. It is not a lugubrious religion. 
 And we know from the history of the Jew 
 that this joyous element of Judaism has 
 helped both the whole Jewish people and 
 millions of Jewish individuals over the 
 rough places of life helped them to live, 
 to toil, and to endure. Judaism has incul- 
 cated joy just as much as any religion 
 founded on faith and hope. 
 
 At the same time, Judaism has never been 
 guilty of confusing true joy with false joy. 
 There is a certain kind of cheerfulness which 
 is not genuine it is assumed, superficial, 
 forced and such hypocritic cheerfulness is 
 worse than none, for it hides the truth and 
 leaves the heart empty. There is too much 
 of such feigned cheerfulness in the world. 
 It does no good. It is like taking opiates. 
 The victim is the worse for it when the effect 
 is over. 
 
 Much more beneficent is the joyousness 
 which Judaism tries to develop. It does 
 not deny that there is in life many an oc-
 
 48 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 casion for sorrow. Indeed, some of the most 
 beautiful things in life may spring out of 
 the heart of sorrow. Sorrow not only is 
 real, but it is beneficent. Some of the 
 world's noblest achievements have been 
 inspired by sorrow. Sorrow has brought 
 forth some of the world's noblest poetry. 
 "Our sweetest songs," says Shelley in his 
 ode "To a Skylark," "are those that tell of 
 saddest thought." Heine has said that it 
 was out of his great sorrows that he made 
 his little songs. "He who would like to 
 sing well," says a Spanish song, "Let him 
 sing when grieved at heart." Similarly, 
 some of the world's noblest philanthropies 
 were engendered by sorrow. The most 
 adored teacher of the Christian world is 
 called by his devotees the Man of Sorrows, 
 as the Prophet called Israel the Man of 
 Sorrows, through whose suffering and afflic- 
 tion the world was to be healed. 
 
 Judaism, I say, recognizes not only the 
 reality but the beneficence of sorrow. Yet, 
 it bids us turn sorrow into joy through the 
 ministry of faith and hope those chief 
 elements of the religious life. "Light is
 
 JEWS AND CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS 49 
 
 sown for the righteous and joy for the up- 
 right in heart!" This is the conviction with 
 which Judaism seeks to fill our heart. It 
 would not have us go about everlastingly 
 smiling and grinning, as if that were our 
 sole duty, it would not dull our hearts to 
 sorrow, when sorrow comes, and thus rob us 
 of sensibility, but rather come what may it 
 would have us make sure we are on the side 
 of the right, and then trust in that light and 
 joy which are stored up for those whose 
 heart is clean and straight. "Observe mercy 
 and justice and hope upon thy God con- 
 tinually!" And, with all due deference to 
 Christian Science, I believe this is the more 
 wholesome and more helpful doctrine. 
 
 The same may be said in regard to disease. 
 
 To know anything at all about these mat- 
 ters, is to know that many an ailment can 
 be treated by spiritual means more effec- 
 tively than with drugs. No physician worthy 
 the name is ignorant of this fact, nor fails 
 to act upon it. Of Dr. Osier, the illustrious 
 physician who died the other day, Walt 
 Whitman, who was treated by him, said
 
 50 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 thirty years ago: "Osier believes in the 
 gospel of encouragment of putting the 
 best construction on things." No physician 
 of worth has ever failed to take account of 
 the spiritual element in healing; certainly 
 not those Jewish physicians who like their 
 great prototype, Maimonides, combine medi- 
 cal skill with philosophic and religious un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 But to jump from this fact to the affirma- 
 tion that every disease is a mental error, and 
 can be cured by mental or spiritual means, 
 is an exaggeration or aberration which no 
 rational person can accept. It matters not 
 how many arguments may be advanced, or 
 how many passages of Scriptures may be 
 twisted, to fortify such a thesis. It goes 
 counter to the facts, and no person in his 
 senses can subscribe to it. 
 
 Indeed, in reality even Christian Science 
 does not accept this thesis. In France I 
 met some Christian Science healers, who 
 made the rounds of the hospitals where 
 many of our American men were sick and 
 wounded. No doubt, they helped them by 
 their kindly ministration. Some of them
 
 JEWS AND CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS 51 
 
 did admirable work. But would they for a 
 moment have asserted that they could help 
 those men, or save their lives, without the 
 intervention of the surgeons? 
 
 Just here we find Judaism much more 
 true. It does not brush aside disease as 
 unreal, as an error of the mind. It warns 
 us against the kind of life which results in 
 illness. It lauds the physician who seeks 
 to cure the sick. It urges us to combat 
 disease and to create agencies for the dimin- 
 ution of its ravages. But at the same time 
 it reminds us of the great help which faith 
 with the exercises of faith affords in the 
 healing of disease and the gaining of health 
 and fortitude. 
 
 "Whence comes Solace? Not from seeing 
 What is doing, suffering, being: 
 Not from noting Life's conditions, 
 Not from heeding Time's monitions; 
 But in cleaving to the Dream, 
 And in gazing on the gleam 
 Whereby gray things golden seem." 
 
 Nor can we deny that Judaism is more 
 sound than Christian Science in its attitude 
 to the general fact of evil in the world.
 
 We are asked to believe that evil does not 
 exist in the world that if we think it ex- 
 ists, it is a fault of our own mind. We are 
 asked to think nothing but joy, and good- 
 ness, and happiness, and so forth. The 
 question is, Does such an attitude really re- 
 move the evil from the world? Does it, for 
 instance, abolish all the misery that exists 
 in the world today as a result of the war? 
 It is to shut oneself up in the worst of fool's 
 paradises to have such illusions. Today, 
 when the world is full of misery, when in 
 some countries men, women, and little chil- 
 dren are starving, and dying, and being 
 massacred today for us who are comfor- 
 table and content to maintain that there is 
 no evil, is to be guilty of sin against the very 
 Holy Spirit. Moreover, to comfort oneself 
 with such notions is to make impossible all 
 improvement among men, all progress in the 
 elimination of evil from the world. What 
 we want is to face the evil that does exist 
 among men, and then make every effort 
 possible to uproot it. And this is what the 
 true prophets of Judaism, and all true Jews, 
 have tried to do not to heal the wounds of
 
 JEWS AND CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS 53 
 
 the world lightly, crying Peace, when there 
 is no peace but rather to expose and to 
 deplore the evil and to move mankind to get 
 rid of it and to put the good in its place. 
 Who can fail to see that in this regard also 
 Judaism is right? 
 
 This being so, what advantage have they 
 who leave the Jewish religion for the sake 
 of Christian Science? "Lo, they have re- 
 jected the word of the Lord, but what wis- 
 dom have they got?" Of course, we have 
 a right to joy and health and the good. But 
 they can be gotten only if we live so as to 
 earn them. Otherwise, we possess only 
 shadows. 
 
 The trouble, however, is that often we 
 neglect Judaism, and then we wonder why 
 it does not help us. There is many a Jew 
 and Jewess who never looked at the Bible 
 with their native Jewish eyes, though now 
 they scan it through the spectacles of Chris- 
 tian Science and think it full of marvelous 
 things. 
 
 Let us love our Judaism, let us study it, 
 let us work for it heart and soul, let us
 
 54 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 work as hard for Judaism as do the con- 
 verts to Christian Science for their new 
 cult and then we shall find what rich gifts 
 it has in store for its devotees, far surpass- 
 ing those of any other faith.
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME ETHICAL 
 CULTURISTS? 
 
 "The Lord hath a controversy with His 
 people, and He will plead with Israel." 
 Micah 6, 2. 
 
 AMONG the various new cults that 
 have taken Jewish people away from 
 their own religion, none has sur- 
 passed Ethical Culture. It is not my 
 purpose to quarrel with the founders or 
 promoters of that movement. No one can 
 deny that the movement has done some 
 good. It has been associated with several 
 activities of undoubted educational and 
 civic importance. It has unquestionably 
 stimulated its members to ethical effort in 
 different directions and contributed to the 
 diffusion of ethical idealism. Nevertheless, 
 one cannot help asking whether the ideals 
 and the work of the Ethical Culture Society 
 are such as to justify a Jew in leaving his 
 own faith, and whether a Jew needs depart 
 
 55
 
 56 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 from his own religion, in order to do the 
 things which Ethical Culture demands. 
 
 For, this is what it comes to. Jews identi- 
 fied actively with the Ethical Culture move- 
 ment are as a rule lost to Judaism. It is 
 distinctly a movement away from Judaism, 
 though it was founded by Jews, and though 
 it is regarded by some good and loyal Jew- 
 ish people as in no way injurious to Juda- 
 ism, or even as one phase of modern Jewish 
 activity. No doubt, some few may join the 
 Ethical Culture group and yet remain loyal 
 to the old faith; but the majority not only 
 abandon Judaism, but become hostile to it, 
 regarding it as something inferior and to be 
 ashamed of. While originally Ethical Cul- 
 ture was designed as a substitute for both 
 Judaism and Christianity, it has finally led 
 to relinquishment of Judaism and partial 
 adoption of Christianity, if it has not be- 
 come wholly a gateway to Christianity. 
 
 Take, for instance, the holidays. That 
 they do not observe the Sabbath, the tradi- 
 tional symbol of Judaism, goes without 
 saying. But other Jewish holidays, even 
 those fraught with much ethical significance,
 
 JEWS AND ETHICAL CULTURISTS 57 
 
 they have also brushed aside. Christmas 
 they observe, but Hanukkah they ignore. 
 They keep Easter, but Passover does not 
 exist for them. Holidays founded on the 
 theology of Christianity a theology which 
 even many Christians are discarding they 
 find acceptable, but holidays carrying the 
 heroic message of Israel's fight for freedom 
 and morality are not good enough for them. 
 Who will deny, then, that Ethical Culture, 
 with its numerous recruits from Judaism, 
 means either immediate or ultimate apos- 
 tasy? 
 
 Granting, then, that the aims of the 
 Ethical Culture movement are good, is there 
 any good reason why Jews shall leave their 
 own faith and religious obligations in order 
 to pursue those aims? If we examine this 
 question calmly and conscientiously, I think 
 we shall say No. 
 
 For, what is the chief aim of Ethical Cul- 
 ture? It is the love, the study, and the 
 pursuit of the right. "Dedicated to the 
 ever-increasing knowledge and practice and 
 love of the right" thus reads the legend
 
 58 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 on the wall of its meeting-house. This is 
 what Ethical Culture has stood for. Theol- 
 ogy, it says, does not count. Metaphysical 
 speculation does not matter. The right 
 counts. Ethics is pragmatic. What makes 
 it worth while is the practical acceptance 
 of it and its application to everyday life. 
 Therefore, the Ethical Culture group dedi- 
 cated itself to the love, and the study, and 
 the practice of the Right. 
 
 But can anyone at all acquainted with 
 Judaism say that this very thing has not at 
 all times formed the essence of Judaism? 
 Judaism has had a long history. It has 
 gone through many stages. It has been in 
 touch with many forms of thought and 
 culture. It has undergone many minor 
 changes. But in one respect Judaism has 
 remained invariably the same. It has al- 
 ways been an ethical religion, a religion 
 which made love and practice of the right 
 both the foundation and the keynote of its 
 structure. This is so true of Judaism, that 
 one need not have much knowledge of Jew- 
 ish doctrine or history to be able to confirm 
 it. It is something he who runs may read.
 
 JEWS AND ETHICAL CULTURISTS 59 
 
 Indeed, one need but think of some of the 
 fundamental phrases and outstanding per- 
 sonalities of the Jewish religion in order to 
 recall this fact. 
 
 What is the classic phrase of the Bible 
 for religious conduct? "To walk before the 
 Lord and to be perfect." This is the Bible's 
 understanding of the religious life. The 
 tribute it pays to its own early heroes is that 
 they walked with the Lord and were per- 
 fect with Him tamim, wholly with Him, 
 as the Hebrew has it. To be wholly at one 
 with God in one's conduct, is the Bible's 
 idea of perfection. "Ye shall be holy, for 
 I the Lord your God am holy!" The ideal 
 of religion was the ideal of ethical integrity, 
 of moral perfection and holiness. Israel 
 knew no other concept of religion. 
 
 And when we think of the Prophets, the 
 chief men of Israel, what then? We are 
 reminded of men who were the most power- 
 ful champions and advocates of the Right 
 the world has ever known. To them the 
 right was the most important thing not only 
 in human life but in the universe. It was 
 the basic principle of the world, the most
 
 60 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 enduring thing in Creation the mountains 
 might depart, nations might vanish, their 
 own people might be destroyed, but Right- 
 eousness nevermore: such was their faith. 
 
 "The heavens shall vanish away like smoke, 
 And the earth shall wax old like a garment, 
 And they that dwell therein shall die in like 
 
 manner ; 
 
 But My salvation shall be for ever, 
 And My righteousness shall not be dismayed!" 
 
 And the Prophets could see no salvation 
 nor happiness for their own people, nor for 
 humanity, as long as the demands of the 
 Right were violated. "Cease to do evil, 
 learn to do right!" was the plea of Isaiah. 
 Dirshu tob weal ra lemaan tiheyu begged 
 Micah. "Seek study demand pursue 
 the good, and not evil that ye might live !" 
 Had Israel followed the right, the Prophet 
 affirmed, they would have escaped downfall. 
 And today, as we survey the course of 
 civilization and the history of human failure 
 and suffering, we may well ask whether, if 
 mankind had followed the precept of the 
 Prophets, its misfortunes might not have 
 been avoided.
 
 JEWS AND ETHICAL CULTURISTS 61 
 
 "Oh, that thou wouldst hearken to My command- 
 ments ! 
 
 Then would thy peace be as a river, 
 And thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." 
 
 Certain, however, it is that no one can read 
 the records or recall the history of Judaism 
 without realizing that the love, the study, 
 and the practice of the right was central to 
 its teachings. Moses, said Josephus, did 
 not make religion a department of virtue, 
 but the various virtues departments of re- 
 ligion. Why, then, should any Jew aban- 
 don Judaism because of concern for ethical 
 pursuits ? 
 
 I know some will say that Ethical Cul- 
 ture cut loose from the God-idea, from 
 theology and speculation, and therefore it is 
 superior to Judaism. It confines its interest 
 to ethics alone. But has this really proved 
 a sign of superiority? Has it proved pos- 
 sible for Ethical Culture to ignore the 
 question of God and to refrain from specu- 
 lation on the meaning of life and of human 
 destiny? 
 
 The fact is that the people of the Ethical
 
 62 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 Culture group can no more escape these 
 topics than any other rational person. At 
 first, in the exuberance of youth, a man 
 may be content with action. But the more 
 mature he grows, the more contemplative 
 he must get. He cannot act long, without 
 being prompted to ask the meaning and 
 purpose of action and of life. Particularly 
 in profound moments, at critical turns of 
 human experience, in moments when the 
 human soul, as M. Maeterlinck has said, is 
 most alone, in moments of birth and of 
 death at such times we cannot escape those 
 questions which touch the core of our life 
 and destiny. At such moments we are 
 likely to turn to divine faith for the strength 
 we need. 
 
 An incident I heard of the other day will 
 illustrate it. There was a Jewish lady in 
 this city who had been among the first mem- 
 bers of the Ethical Culture Society. Both 
 she and her husband attended the meetings 
 of the Society for many years. Yet, when 
 her husband died, much to the surprise of 
 her family, she produced her old Jewish 
 Prayer Book and began reading anew the
 
 JEWS AND ETHICAL CULTURISTS 63 
 
 old prayers she had known in youth but had 
 laid aside for many a day. It was in those 
 old meditations she sought solace when 
 trouble came. This story I heard from the 
 lips of her own son, who himself was a mem- 
 ber of the Ethical Culture Society, and as 
 I heard it I could not but think of those 
 pregnant words of Isaiah, in which he tells 
 us of what becomes in moments of real sor- 
 row of the pleasant plants we have planted 
 as we forgot the God of our salvation: 
 
 "For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, 
 
 And thou hast not been mindful of the Rock of 
 thy stronghold; 
 
 Therefore thou didst plant plants of pleasant- 
 ness, 
 
 And didst set it with strange slips ; 
 
 In the day of thy planting thou didst make it to 
 grow, 
 
 And in the morning thou didst make thy seed to 
 blossom 
 
 A heap of boughs in the day of grief 
 
 And of desperate pain!" 
 
 At such moments, I say, we feel the 
 strength that comes from divine faith. 
 
 And, indeed, does not the very practice 
 of the right depend, in large measure, on 
 the support and constraint of faith on the
 
 64 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 urge of religion? It is all very well to laud 
 and to commend the right. It is all very 
 well to sing the praises of an ethical life. 
 But when it comes to the actual living of 
 the moral life with the self-denials and 
 self-discipline and sacrifices it entails does 
 not ethics prove a more complex thing than 
 the academic lecturer would have us believe? 
 Does not the question arise why we should 
 consider ethics at all? If the world is a 
 place without God, then who is there to lay 
 upon us any ethical compulsion and to set 
 before us any ethical ideals? 
 
 The nobility of Jewish ethics has been due 
 to the high standard and the exalted pat- 
 tern upon which it is founded. "Ye shall 
 be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy!" 
 Perhaps in ordinary moments we can get 
 along with an ethical doctrine based solely 
 on our own impulse of right. But in dif- 
 ficult moments, in decisive moments, in mo- 
 ments of temptation and confusion, we need 
 something higher and stronger than that: 
 we need an ethics loftier and more potent 
 and inspiring that the dictation of our own 
 caprice or desire. It is at such times that
 
 JEWS AND ETHICAL CULTURISTS 65 
 
 we feel the ethical value of faith. Akh ba- 
 Adonay tzadoqoth we-oz, as Isaiah has it: 
 "Only through the Lord do we gain strength 
 for life and its ethical tasks." Or, as the 
 medieval Christian mystic has it: "Divine 
 faith is the beginning of every grace, of all 
 gifts, and of all divine virtues, since it is a 
 certain supernatural light and the founda- 
 tion of all good." 
 
 No wonder in recent years we have wit- 
 nessed renewed discussion of religious topics 
 among Ethical Culture people. They are 
 now trying to make religion a department 
 of ethics. But if Religion is needed, surely 
 none better exists for devotees of Ethical 
 Culture than Judaism Judaism with its 
 simple creed Judaism with its emphasis on 
 ethics Judaism summed up by one of its 
 Prophets as a fusion of justice, love, and 
 humility; and surely none better for those 
 devotees of Ethical Culture who themselves 
 are, or were, Jews. 
 
 This is the controversy the Lord today 
 has with his people, this His plea with 
 Israel!
 
 66 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 Why shall we abandon Judaism for the 
 sake of the very things Judaism has taught 
 the world and for the vindication of which 
 Jewish martyrs have time and again given 
 their lives? "Whatever the scientific stu- 
 dent of culture may think of Hebrew ethics 
 and religion," Professor Ellwood writes in 
 his book on "The Social Problem," "he must 
 acknowledge the conquest of the Western 
 world by Hebrew ethical and religious ideas 
 and ideals to be one of the most wonderful 
 phenomena of recorded history." But this 
 religion and this ethics the Jew not only 
 taught; he fought for it, also, and suffered 
 for it. Did not the Maccabees shed their 
 blood so that Righteousness might live, and 
 did not their sacrifices save the moral civili- 
 zation of the world? Is not this the story 
 we read in the lights kindled in their mem- 
 ory? Is not this the message of Judaism? 
 "O, house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the 
 light of the Lord!" Let us learn to know 
 and to love our faith, and we shall find we 
 need none other to satisfy our ethical needs 
 and to spur on our ethical ideals !
 
 VI 
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME 
 UNITARIANS? 
 
 "Lo, this is our God: we have waited 
 for Him, and He will save us." Isaiah 
 25, 9. 
 
 THE other day I had a rather strange 
 experience. A gentleman brought 
 his children to our Religious School, 
 and registering them for admission, he re- 
 marked that he himself belonged to a certain 
 Unitarian Church, yet he was willing his 
 children should receive instruction in the 
 Jewish religion. Later on, he added, they 
 might decide for themselves whether to re- 
 main Jews or to become Unitarians. 
 
 This incident served to remind me of the 
 considerable number of Jewish people who 
 lately have identified themselves with the 
 Unitarians, and of the overtures made to 
 other Jews to follow their example. It is 
 an open secret that even on the governing 
 
 67
 
 68 
 
 boards of certain Unitarian churches are 
 found the names of former Jews, just as we 
 find such names on similar committees of 
 more orthodox Christian churches. May 
 we not, therefore, stop to ask the question 
 nay, ought we not to ask the question 
 whether there is any good reason why Jews 
 should become Unitarians? 
 
 At first blush the arguments advanced in 
 favor of such conversion might seem very 
 plausible. There is not much difference, we 
 are told, between Unitarianism and Juda- 
 ism. The two religions stand for the same 
 spiritual and ethical ideals. Unitarianism, 
 we are informed, rejects those very dogmas 
 of Christianity which Judaism has always 
 opposed. Unitarianism, we are assured by 
 some of its exponents, even recognizes that 
 its noblest ideas of religion and morality 
 came down to it from Judaism. Inasmuch, 
 therefore, as Judaism and Unitarianism 
 have so much in common, why shall not 
 Jews give up their separateness and become 
 Unitarians? 
 
 Though such arguments may seem allur-
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME UNITARIANS? 69 
 
 ing, they cannot satisfy the thoughtful 
 person. No such man will abandon his own 
 ancestral religion simply because another 
 religion has come to adopt its views and 
 visions. On the contrary, if Unitarians 
 have come around to the Jewish point of 
 view such a person will say then let them 
 adopt Judaism. Religion is much too seri- 
 ous a part of life for an honest man to give 
 it up lightly in favor of another religion. 
 "The strength and the weakness of a man," 
 an eminent English critic has said, "are 
 rooted in his religious belief. It presides 
 over the beginning and the end of his days; 
 it hallows his going out and his coming in." 
 One condition only might justify us to 
 abandon Judaism and become Unitarians, 
 namely, if it could be proved that Uni- 
 tarianism as a religion is superior to Juda- 
 ism, and not merely that it has certain things 
 in common with the old religion. 
 
 Is, then, Unitarianism superior to Juda- 
 ism? 
 
 We are told it is superior, first of all, be- 
 cause Unitarianism is a universal religion,
 
 70 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 embracing people of different kinds, whereas 
 Judaism is merely a racial or national re- 
 ligion. If this were a true description of 
 Judaism, it would form a serious indict- 
 ment. But that it is not true must be 
 admitted by everybody familiar with the 
 contents of Judaism and with its influence 
 upon the world. The very fact that Uni- 
 tarians admit that they got their ethical 
 and religious ideas from the Jews proves 
 that they contradict themselves when they 
 maintain that Judaism is not universal. 
 The fact is that Judaism has been a uni- 
 versal religion in its ideals and teachings 
 from its very beginning, and though in name 
 it has not been generally adopted it has 
 exercised practically a universal influence. 
 We need but think of the Bible. It is 
 the most universal book man possesses. 
 There is nothing like it in the whole range 
 of the world's literature. It has been trans- 
 lated into hundreds of tongues, from the 
 most refined languages to crudest dialects, 
 it has been carried to the remotest corners 
 of the globe, and it has served as founda- 
 tion to the moral codes and spiritual systems
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME UNITARIANS? 71 
 
 of most diverse peoples. Does not this show 
 that the Bible is a universal work that 
 what it tells and teaches is able to appeal 
 to all manner of men and races? 
 
 Moreover, would this have been possible 
 if Judaism, which produced the Bible, were 
 a mere tribal religion? No Bible rises 
 higher than its source. The Jewish Bible 
 could not have become so universal a book 
 if the Jewish religion from which it sprang 
 were not universal, as universal it always 
 has been, notwithstanding affirmation to the 
 contrary, in its construction of the world, 
 in its precepts of righteousness, in its ideals 
 and hopes. When Isaiah utters the words 
 of Israel's God, "Turn unto Me and be 
 saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God 
 and there is none other!" when Isaiah, I 
 say, utters those Divine words, he sums up 
 the universal character which has distin- 
 guished Judaism from beginning to end. It 
 is true that Israel was charged to do the 
 work of Judaism in the world, but the work 
 itself was designed for the whole world, and 
 none was excluded from joining in the doing 
 of it.
 
 72 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 Why, asked the ancient rabbis, was the 
 Torah given in the wilderness? It was 
 given publicly and on common ground- 
 in the wilderness for the reason that had 
 it been given in the land of Israel, the Jews 
 might have asserted that the other peoples 
 had no share in it: therefore, it was pro- 
 claimed in a public place, so that any one 
 who wished to embrace it might come and 
 do so. Nor, added the rabbis, was the 
 Torah given in the night time, or in silence, 
 any more than to a limited number : On the 
 contrary, the Bible relates that the Torah 
 was proclaimed in the day-time, "when it 
 was morning," and all the people saw the 
 thunderings. It is as if the Lord had said, 
 When first I gave the Law I did not give 
 it in a place of thick darkness, nor said I to 
 the children of Jacob, To you have I given 
 it and not unto others: I have not limited 
 it to a few ! 
 
 The more people learn the truth about 
 Judaism, the more they realize the foolish- 
 ness of denying its universalistic character. 
 No doubt Unitarianism has attracted and 
 influenced many good people. Some of the
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME UNITARIANS? 73 
 
 most noteworthy figures in the political and 
 literary history of America have professed 
 Unitarianism ; but who can possibly com- 
 pare its scope with that of Judaism? 
 
 But, we are told, Judaism has outlived its 
 usefulness. A great and influential religion 
 once upon a time, it has come to the end of 
 its task: it has accomplished its work. This 
 may sound definitive ; but may we not ques- 
 tion the correctness of such an assertion? 
 Has Judaism really finished its work? Not 
 if we judge it by its ideals and purposes. 
 
 The work of a religion is like that of an 
 idealist. It is not done until the ideal has 
 become real. That is the only test. There 
 is no other test. What Christian would 
 affirm that the work of Jesus has been done, 
 simply because the world possesses the story 
 of his life and his teachings? Or, that 
 Christianity has done its work, because it 
 has produced such men as St. Francis of 
 Assisi or Leo Tolstoy? Is it fair, then, to 
 say that Judaism's work was accomplished 
 when it produced Jesus of Nazareth? It is 
 by its ideals that we must judge the task of
 
 74 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 Judaism. Nor will its task be done until 
 its ideals have become real in the life of 
 mankind. In his great vision of the celestial 
 ladder, with the angels going up and down 
 between heaven and earth the most sug- 
 gestive vision of religion recorded in litera- 
 ture the Patriarch Jacob hears the Lord 
 saying, "I shall not leave thee until I have 
 done all that I have spoken to thee." Nor 
 will the Lord let go of the Jew until all that 
 He has spoken to and through the Jew has 
 been done. He will not leave the Jew go, 
 no matter how many Jews may try to run 
 away from their task, and no matter how 
 often it is said that the Jew's work is done. 
 Have, then, the ideals of Judaism been 
 fulfilled? Not if we think of the teach- 
 ings of Judaism, on the one hand, and of 
 actual conditions in the world, on the other. 
 Judaism, for instance, teaches goodness, 
 justice, human fellowship, and peace. Its 
 supreme ideal is to turn the world into a 
 divine dominion. Are these the things we 
 are facing today round about us? Judaism 
 has preached and even predicted the Mes? 
 sianic age. Has the Messianic age arrived,
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME UNITARIANS? 75 
 
 though some think it came nineteen hundred 
 years ago? In the face of such conditions, 
 for any one to try to read Judaism out of 
 court on the ground that it had accomplished 
 its work, is sheer nonsense. What we need 
 is to realize how far the world still is from 
 having absorbed the doctrines and fulfilled 
 the ideals of the Jewish religion, and to 
 redouble our efforts this, rather than keep 
 on babbling about the discharge of Judaism 
 from the service of humanity. 
 
 Still, we are informed, Judaism suffers 
 because it does not accept Jesus. In this 
 regard, at least, Unitarianism is supposed 
 to be superior. Jesus, we are reminded, is 
 the leading religious teacher of the world. 
 He was a Jew, and yet the Jews do not 
 accept him, while Unitarianism does. 
 
 But in this regard, also, Judaism is rather 
 right than wrong. It is inaccurate to main- 
 tain that in the Unitarian sense Jews do not 
 accept Jesus. For, we must bear in mind, 
 that today there are two kinds of Jesus: 
 there is the Orthodox Christian Jesus and 
 there is the Unitarian Jesus the former
 
 76 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 associated with the various metaphysical 
 notions of traditional Christianity and the 
 latter merely an ethical and spiritual leader. 
 If, however, it is merely a question of 
 Jesus's personality and ethical teachings 
 and spiritual idealism, there is a large num- 
 ber of Jews who appreciate him as whole- 
 heartedly as anybody else. 
 
 But this is quite another matter from 
 what the Unitarians would have us dp 
 even the most liberal of them. They would 
 have us accept Jesus as the supreme and sole 
 leader as the exclusive religious leader 
 and this the intelligent Jew can do no 
 more than Ralph Waldo Emerson could do 
 it. When Emerson left the Unitarian min- 
 istry, one reason was his inability to accord 
 such preeminence to Jesus as Unitarianism 
 demanded. 
 
 Nor can we accord Jesus such exclusive 
 preeminence. On the contrary, though we 
 recognize his uniqueness and grandeur, we 
 are convinced that he is not sufficient to all 
 our needs. Jesus himself turned to the 
 Prophets of Israel for light on the pro- 
 foundest questions of life. Could we do
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME UNITARIANS? 77 
 
 less? There is many a question agitating 
 the world today for a proper solution of 
 which we need the Prophets of Israel, with 
 their teachings of justice and righteousness 
 and mercy, even more than Jesus ; and there 
 is many a non-Jew that recognizes it. 
 
 It is significant that when the other day 
 one of the leading newspapers of New 
 York printed a symposium on the meaning 
 of Christmas, Mr. Edgar Lee Masters, the 
 eminent American poet, had the following 
 to say in regard to Jesus: "If your mind 
 was highly sensitive but wholly strange to 
 Homer, ^Eschylus, and the Synoptic Gos- 
 pels, and they were placed before you for an 
 opinion, what story would you say was the 
 most moving, the most profound, the most 
 significant, the most beautiful? Would you 
 not say that the Gospels are the most beau- 
 tiful literature in the world and the most 
 articulate of every phase of the soul's experi- 
 ence in this world? But," he added, "sup- 
 pose you knew after reading these Gospels 
 for the first time that they have caused more 
 suffering and more war than all the other 
 things put together, a hundred times over,
 
 78 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 and are today the mainstay of this terrible 
 world as it is, what would you say? I 
 would say, after thinking as hard as I could, 
 that so far as the world has now gone, it 
 would be better if Jesus had never been 
 born." 
 
 What was in Mr. Masters's mind was that 
 the teaching of Jesus had not proved suffi- 
 cient to make the world a better place, nor 
 is it enough for the solution of the problems 
 confronting us. Why, then, shall we decry 
 Judaism because it does not share the Uni- 
 tarian view of Jesus, which, by the way, is 
 neither Christian nor Jewish? 
 
 If, however, Unitarianism is in no wise 
 superior to Judaism, why shall any Jew 
 turn to it in preference to his own religion, 
 with all its heroic history and manifold 
 achievements? If for no other reason we 
 should prefer our own religion because of 
 the great history that it has had because 
 it has stood the test of many ages and many 
 lands, compared to which Unitarianism, 
 with no matter what good it may have done, 
 is but as of yesterday.
 
 NEED JEWS BECOME UNITARIANS? 79 
 
 Let us think of the magnificence of 
 Judaism's history, of the loftiness of its 
 ideals, and of the universality of its influ- 
 ence, and we shall see reason enough for 
 preferring it to any other more recent or 
 more fashionable faith.
 
 VII 
 
 WHY SHALL JEWS REMAIN 
 JEWS? 
 
 "Thou hast avouched the Lord to be thy 
 God and the Lord hath avouched thee 
 to be His own treasure." Deuteronomy 
 26, 17-18. 
 
 IT is not seldom one hears the question 
 asked nowadays why Jews shall remain 
 Jews. 
 
 There was a time when such a query 
 would have seemed inconceivable. Jews 
 used to regard themselves as the Chosen 
 People, and it was held a privilege as well 
 as a duty for a Jew to be a Jew. Jews con- 
 sidered themselves everlastingly committed 
 yes, consecrated to Judaism. To be 
 born a Jew meant to remain a Jew. It was 
 one of the paramount duties and permanent 
 facts of life. 
 
 At present, however, this is not so uni- 
 versally recognized. Young people particu- 
 
 81
 
 82 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 larly want to be convinced that there are 
 some positive reasons for adhering to the 
 faith of their forefathers. They refuse to 
 be governed by the past alone. The mere 
 fact that their ancestors were Jews is not 
 enough for them. Nor is it sufficient to 
 persuade them that other religions are not 
 superior to Judaism. All this is negative. 
 They want to know whether there are any 
 positive reasons why a Jew should remain 
 a Jew, notwithstanding the difficulties and 
 inconveniences connected with such loyalty. 
 None can deny that remaining a loyal 
 Jew is bound up with certain difficulties. 
 Even in this country of freedom and equal- 
 ity, the Jew has to suffer from certain dis- 
 criminations and prejudices, which some 
 of us feel very keenly. For example, I 
 have often heard people complain of the 
 difficulties they encounter in placing their 
 children at desirable schools. It is certainly 
 not pleasant to have one's child turned 
 away from a certain school simply because 
 he is a Jew. Nor are the other discrimina- 
 tions practiced against Jews agreeable. It 
 is idle to play the supermundane aristocrat
 
 WHY SHALL JEWS REMAIN JEWS? 83 
 
 and to brush these facts aside as nothing. 
 Of course, compared to the persecutions 
 which Jews have suffered in other times and 
 which they still endure in some parts of the 
 world, what we encounter in America is of 
 little consequence. Yet, the very fact that 
 such things occur even in this land dedicated 
 to liberty, equality, and the unhampered 
 pursuit of happiness, emphasizes the sacri- 
 fice which is involved in remaining a Jew, 
 and it is responsible for the defection of not 
 a few. No wonder, we hear people demand 
 the reasons why, quite apart from con- 
 siderations of the past, Jews should remain 
 Jews? 
 
 Now, I believe, the first reason is one of 
 self-respect. It is commonly admitted that 
 the root of man's moral and spiritual in- 
 tegrity is in self-respect. If a man has lost 
 his self-respect, he has lost the chief element 
 of character and contentment. Nothing 
 in the world can compensate for it. For 
 all beauty of character and all peace of 
 mind come from within. To have cast away 
 one's self-respect, therefore, means to have
 
 84 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 destroyed the roots from which true charac- 
 ter and happiness grow. 
 
 It is impossible for a Jew to turn his back 
 upon Judaism without forfeiting in a meas- 
 ure his self-respect. No matter how much 
 he may try to conceal or to explain it, he is 
 conscious in his heart of having done some- 
 thing fundamentally wrong, and, therefore, 
 subversive of ethical and spiritual integrity. 
 He might be content if he were convinced 
 that Judaism really is the inferior and ob- 
 solete religion it sometimes is represented 
 to be. But that he knows not to be the case. 
 
 For, after all, wherever he turns he finds 
 indications of the grandeur and the beauty 
 of Judaism, of its perfection and persis- 
 tence. Everywhere he finds traces of the 
 tremendous part Judaism has played in the 
 history of mankind. Everywhere he en- 
 counters tributes to Judaism and the Jewish 
 people even from the mouths of their an- 
 tagonists. Everywhere he finds proof of 
 the important part Judaism still plays in 
 the expression and direction of human 
 thought. 
 
 If, for instance, he reads Mr. Austin
 
 WHY SHALL JEWS REMAIN JEWS? 85 
 
 Harrison's discussion of the economic strug- 
 gle going on in the world today, he finds 
 it presented as a contest between two an- 
 tagonistic Jewish ideals. "The world's 
 message is Jewish," affirms Mr. Harrison, 
 one of England's foremost publicists. If 
 it is "The Emancipation of Massachusetts," 
 by Mr. Brooke Adams, that the intelligent 
 Jew happens to read, with its Preface which 
 has caused so much discussion, what does 
 he find? That though the author presents 
 a preposterous portrayal of Moses, and is 
 guilty of some supercilious generalities 
 about the Jews, he admits that Moses was 
 the first great optimist of whom any record 
 remains, that he was the prototype of all 
 those who have followed, that the moral 
 principles which he laid down have been 
 accepted as sound from that day to this, 
 and are still written up in our churches as 
 a standard for men and women, however 
 scantily they may be observed, and finally 
 that "the great Jewish epic always has had, 
 and always must have, a capital influence 
 on human thought." 
 
 Everywhere, I say, the open-minded Jew
 
 86 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 finds traces of Jewish influence and tributes 
 to the genius of Judaism. How, then, is 
 it possible for any Jew to discard Judaism, 
 to abandon such a heritage, without losing 
 his self-respect? Suppose there are difficul- 
 ties, hardships, even sacrifices. So much 
 the more reason for clinging for remaining 
 true to the heroic example set by the Jew 
 throughout the ages. And if a man is will- 
 ing to do the thing that robs him of self- 
 respect, how can he expect his fellowmen 
 to have any respect for him? There are 
 those who think they can ingratiate them- 
 selves with fashionable non-Jews by con- 
 cealing their own Jewish identity, or by 
 changing their original names, or by trans- 
 forming their native noses, or by belittling 
 their inherited faith; but it requires little 
 knowledge of the world to know in what 
 contempt such people are held by the very 
 people with whom they curry favor. Such 
 renegades may be exploited by their pa- 
 trons, they may be flattered, they may be 
 even tolerated socially, but they are not 
 trusted, nor admired. They certainly do 
 not enjoy true contentment. "Self-knowl-
 
 WHY SHALL JEWS REMAIN JEWS? 87 
 
 edge, self -reverence, self-control," Tenny- 
 son has said, "lead man to sovereign power." 
 But central to all is self-reverence, self- 
 respect. Therefore, one may well affirm 
 that for the sake of their own self-respect 
 Jews should remain Jews. 
 
 But it is no less desirable that for the 
 good of the world Jews should remain Jews. 
 Because Judaism has something to say to 
 the world at present. 
 
 Since the war we have heard a great deal 
 about a new social order. But the more the 
 subject is discussed, the more people must 
 realize that a new order cannot be brought 
 about by political and economic factors 
 alone. It will result from spiritual forces. 
 Even those that discuss the present situa- 
 tion from an economic or political point of 
 view admit it. Economically and politically 
 the nations have gotten themselves into a 
 whirligig, from which it is hard to see just 
 how they are going to emerge. The only 
 hope for civilization, says Mr. John Gals- 
 worthy, lies in "a change of the directing 
 mood." Or, as Mr. Meynard Keynes puts
 
 88 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 it, "In one way only can we influence the 
 hidden currents (which flow continually be- 
 neath the surface of political history) by 
 setting in motion those forces of instruction 
 and inspiration which change opinion." 
 "The assertion of truth," he adds, "the un- 
 veiling of illusion, the dissipation of hate, 
 the enlargement and instruction of men's 
 hearts and minds, must be the means." The 
 world's future depends upon the setting in 
 motion of spiritual forces. "States," says 
 Mr. Galsworthy, "must reorganize educa- 
 tion spiritually in other words, must intro- 
 duce religion." 
 
 Religion will play a part in the making 
 of the new day and of the new social rela- 
 tions. If this be so, there is no religion so 
 competent to help humanity at this juncture 
 as Judaism. And this for the simple reason 
 that Judaism has always taught and fought 
 for those very things which today are most 
 needful to the improvement of the hu- 
 man lot. Judaism has always championed 
 Righteousness as the governing principle 
 of life Righteousness rather than force.
 
 WHY SHALL JEWS REMAIN JEWS? 89 
 
 Judaism has stood for Reality in the ap- 
 praisal of life, rather than for romantic and 
 self-indulgent delusion reality in the sense 
 of viewing and valuing things as they are, 
 rather than throwing over them a mantle of 
 pious illusion, reality in the sense of seeing 
 and speaking the truth about men and 
 conditions, however disagreeable the truth 
 might be. And Judaism has preached and 
 demanded Reform as a means to happiness 
 Reform, which the Prophets sometimes 
 called Repentance and sometimes Return, 
 and which means an honest recognition of 
 the imperfection of human life and of social 
 systems and an earnest effort to eradicate 
 the evil and to improve. These have been 
 the three R's of Judaism: Righteousness 
 Reality Reform. And these are the three 
 things the world needs today to be taught 
 by Religion and to translate into practice 
 if we are really to have a new order worthy 
 of the ideals and the sacrifices of the war. 
 
 Thus, for the good of the world no less 
 than for our own sake, we should remain 
 Jews. The other day I ran across a recent 
 study of the Hebrews by a Spanish histo-
 
 90 THE ADEQUACY OF JUDAISM 
 
 rian. In his concluding sentence this author 
 has the following to say: "If the history of 
 the wars of Israel do not occupy an eminent 
 place in the world, the religious doctrine 
 founded by their great thinkers has placed 
 the Jews for ever in the front of the move- 
 ment of ideas of humanity. This is their 
 glory, which the injustice of men can never 
 destroy." 
 
 The religious doctrine of Israel, however, 
 still has much to do and much in store for 
 mankind. It is idle to say that the doctrine 
 of the Jew can be taken care of by others. 
 Even Christian scholars now acknowledge 
 the value of the continued existence of the 
 Jewish people to the conservation of that 
 religious and ethical doctrine which the 
 world gained from the Jew. The Jew is 
 the appointed custodian and apostle of this 
 doctrine, and if he were to cease, the doc- 
 trine itself would be imperilled its purity 
 and persistence might be lost. 
 
 Let us think of the grandeur and the 
 glory of Judaism ! Let us think of its value 
 to ourselves and to the rest of mankind!
 
 WHY SHALL JEWS REMAIN JEWS? 91 
 
 Let us think of its needfulness to the men 
 of today, and we shall see ample reason 
 why Jews should remain Jews now and 
 forever ! 
 
 "Instead of being forsaken and 
 hated, with none to heed, I shall 
 make thee the pride of the world, 
 the joy of all generations."
 
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