A Book of Jewish Thoughts. Various
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thou increasest error. If thou find in the Law or the Prophets or the Sages a hard saying which thou canst not understand, stand fast by thy faith and attribute the fault to thine own want of intelligence. Place it in a corner of your heart for future consideration, but despise not thy religion because thou art unable to understand one difficult matter.
Love truth and uprightness—the ornaments of the soul—and cleave unto them; prosperity so obtained is built on a sure rock. Keep firmly to thy word; let not a legal contract or witnesses be more binding than thine verbal promise whether in public or in private. Disdain reservations and subterfuges, evasions and sharp practices. Woe to him who builds his house upon them. Abhor inactivity and indolence, the causes of destruction of body, of penury, of self-contempt—the ladders of Satan and his satellites.
Defile not your souls by quarrelsomeness and petulance. I have seen the white become black, the low brought still lower, families driven into exile, princes deposed from their high estate, great cities laid in ruins, assemblies dispersed, the pious humiliated, the honourable held lightly and despised, all on account of quarrelsomeness. Glory in forbearance, for in that is true strength and victory.
MOSES MAIMONIDES.
WHAT MAKES A MAN A JEW?
JUDAISM is something more than a badge, something more than a birth-mark; it is a life. To be born a Jew does not declare any of us to be of the elect; it only designates us for enrolment among the elect. God signs the covenant, but we have to seal it—to seal it by a life of service. ‘What makes a man a Jew?’ is a question that is often asked. The answer is, two things: membership of the Jewish brotherhood, and loyal fulfilment of the obligations which that membership imposes. To be of the Jewish race but to trample upon Jewish duty is to be faithless to Israel.
MORRIS JOSEPH, 1903.
‘I BELIEVE’
I BELIEVE in God, the One and Holy, the Creator and Sustainer of the world.
I believe that man possesses a Divine power wherewith he may subdue his evil impulses and passions, strive to come nearer and nearer the perfection of God, and commune with Him in prayer.
I believe that select individuals are, from time to time, called by God as prophets and charged with the mission of declaring His will unto men.
I believe that man is subject to God’s law and responsible to the Searcher of the human heart and the Righteous Judge for all his thoughts and deeds.
I believe that he who confesses his sins and turns from his evil ways and truly repents is lovingly forgiven by his Father in Heaven.
I believe that the pious who obey God’s law and do His will with a perfect heart, and those who truly repent, share, as immortal souls, in the everlasting life of God.
I believe that Israel was chosen by God as His anointed servant to proclaim unto the families of mankind His truth; and, though despised and rejected by men, to continue as His witness until there come in through him the Kingdom of Peace and moral perfection, and the fullness of the knowledge of God, the true Community of the Children of the living God.
M. L. MARGOLIS, 1904.
JUDAISM A POSITIVE RELIGION
SATISFYING the needs of anybody and everybody, of every moment and every fleeting season, is not the highest ideal which Judaism set before itself. Altogether I venture to think that the now fashionable test of determining the worth of a religion by its capability to supply the various demands of the great market of believers has something low and mercenary about it. True religion is not a jack-of-all-trades, meaning Monotheism to the philosopher, Pluralism to the crowd, some mysterious Nothing to the agnostic, Pantheism to the poet, and Service of Man to the hero-worshipper. Its mission is just as much to teach the world that there are false gods and false ideals as to bring it nearer to the true one. Abraham, the friend of God, who was destined to become the first winner of souls, began his career, according to the legend, with breaking idols, and it is his particular glory to have been in opposition to the whole world. Judaism means to convert the world, not to convert itself. It will not die in order not to live. It disdains a victory by defeating itself, in giving up its essential doctrines, its most sacred symbols, its most precious traditions, and its most vital teaching. It has confidence in the world; it hopes and prays and waits patiently for the Great Day when the world will be ripe for its acceptance.
S. SCHECHTER, 1893.
THE MISSION OF ISRAEL
Think of the meaning of that simple ceremony in our service when the Minister takes his stand before the Ark, and clasping the sacred scroll in his arms, proclaims the שמע, belief in the unity of One Eternal, Almighty God. This rite symbolizes the mission of Israel to the world: With the Law of God folded in his arms and its words engraved upon his heart, he has gone up and down the earth proclaiming his belief in the One Supreme Being—a Being whose spirit fills all time and all space, a Being never embodied, but made manifest to man in the glory of the creation and in His all-wise behests, which teach mercy, love, and justice. …
HERMANN ADLER, 1895.
A CLEAR and concise definition of Judaism7 is very difficult to give, for the reason that it is not a religion pure and simple based upon accepted creeds, but is one inseparably connected with the Jewish nation as the depositary and guardian of the truths held by it for mankind.
Far from having become 1,900 years ago a stagnant religion, Judaism has ever remained ‘a river of God full of living waters’, which, while running within the river-bed of a single nation, has continued to feed anew the great streams of human civilization.
K. KOHLER, 1904.
TOLERANCE
I
THOU art the Lord, and all beings are Thy servants, Thy domain;
And through those who serve idols vain
Thine honour is not detracted from,
For they all aim to Thee to come;
But they are as the blind,
That seeking the royal road could not find;
The one sank in destruction’s well;
Another into a cavity fell,
And all thought they had reached what they sought
Yet toiled for naught.
SOLOMON IBN GABIROL, 1050. (Trans. M. Jastrow.)
I CALL heaven and earth to witness that whether it be Jew or heathen, man or woman, free or bondman—only according to their acts does the Divine spirit rest upon them.
MIDRASH.
SALVATION is attained not by subscription to metaphysical dogmas, but solely by love of God that fulfils itself in action.