^ -fejl^ M./ BY THE SAME AUTHOR Messianic Expectations and Modern Judaism Cloth . . . $1.50 DISSOLVING VIEWS I\ THE HISTORY OF JUDAISM BY RABBI SOLOMON SCHINDLER OF THE TEMPLE ADATH ISRAEL IN BOSTON Tempora mitfnntur ; nosque mutamur in illis BOSTON 1888 LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers 10 MILK STREET NEXT " THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE' CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM NEW YOHK 718 AND 720 UKOADWAV C'DPVRKillT, 1888, BY LEF: AND SHKPARD. Alt nights Reserved. 4a3 S-33 THE AUTHOR DEDICATES THIS BOOK RESPECTFULLY TO THE OF THK Templp: Adath Israel of Boston. Lfwis Hecht, Sr., President. H. 8TBAUSS, Vice-President. Ph. Strauss, Trenntrer. Solomon Loewe; Secretary. ©itcctora. Gates Barnet. Aaron H. Moses. Joseph Feldman. Isaac Weil. Joseph Benari. Scf)ool (lommtttee. Edw. S. Goulston, Chairman. M. H. Schwarzknbero. M. HiRscHBERG, Secretary. N. SCHLOss. G. Barnet. Alexander, Jacob. Abraham, Ferdinand. August, M. Arnstein, A. Abrams, M. Baer, N. Beckhard, S. A. Benari, J. Buxbaum, A. Barnet, Gates. Cohen, Mrs. S. Dreyfus, Chas. (Salem.) Dreyfus, Isaac. Dreyfus, Jacob. Dellheim, Jacob. Dellheim, Simon. Engel, J. Ehrenreich, M. Erlebach, A. Einstein, L. Ellis, W. D. Friedman, Jacob. Friedman, Solomon. Frank, Daniel. Frank, Abraham. Frank, Mrs. K. W. Fellner, A. Fuchs, F. D. Feldman, J. Friedlander, S. IList of JJKcmbcrss (1888). Fischel, I. S. Freed, A. F. Gattman, J. M. Goldsmith, William. Goulston, Edw. S. Gross, J. (iross, R. (Worcester.) (TUggenheim,Jos.(Sexton.) Harris, L. Hecht, Jacob H. Hecht, Lewis, Sr. Hecht, Lewis, Jr. Hirschberg, M. Hirschberg, S. Habern, Cliarles. Heilbiirn, J. Heilbron, .1. Herman, J. M. Hahlo, M. J. Hyneman, A. Jacobs, J. Jesselsolin, L. Koopman, J. KafTenbiirg, .1. Kciller, L. Loewe, Solomon. Levy, J. Levy, L. J. Lissner, S. Lilienthal, A. L. Morse, Hon. Leopold. Jlorse, Jacob. Morse, Jacob C. Moses, A. H. Moers, C. J. Norton, Jacob. Pickert, L. Peavv, I. I'eav'v, J. (Watervillc, Jle.) Phillips, J. Rosenfeld, M. Rosenfeld, N. Schwarzenberg, M. H. Sho)iinger, B. J. Shuman, A. Sliuinan, S. Stern, L. Schloss, N. Strauss, H. Strauss, L. Strauss, Ph. Strauss, L. Strauss, F. Wolf, L. Wallace, L. Weil, J. AVcil, Col. Charles. Weinberg, William. Wolfson, L. Williams, Ed. Young, J. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction (October 7, 1887) * 1 II. Moses and his Time (October 14, 1887) 12 III. Ezra and his Time (October 21, 1887) 25 IV. Simon, THE Last OF THE Maccabees (October 28, 1887), 39 V. Rabbi Jochanan Bex Saccai and his Time (Novem- ber 4, 1887) 53 VI. The Talmud (November 11, 1887) 66 VII. An AN Ben David and his Time (November 18, 1887) . 70 VIII. Saadia and his Time (November 25, 1887) 93 IX. Abulhassan Jehuda Halevi and his Time (Decem- ber 2, 1887) 108 X. Moses Maimonides (December 9, 1887) 122 XI. Joseph Albo and his Time (December 16, 1^87) . . 136 XII. Don Isaac Abrabanel and his Time (December 23, 1887) 149 XIII. Reuchlin and Pfefferkorn (December 30, 1887) . . 163 XIV. Joseph, Prince of Naxos, and his Time (January 6, 1888) 179 XV. Joseph Karo (January 13, 1888) 190 XVI. Manasse Ben Israel and his Time (January 20, 1888), 202 XVTI. Baruch Spinoza and his Time (January 27, 1888) . . 215 XVIII. Jonathan Eibeschuetz and his Time (February 3, 1888) ' -228 XIX. Moses Mendelssohn and his Time (February 10, 1888), 240 XX. Boerne and Heine and their time (February 17, 1888), 253 XXI. Abraham Geiger and his Time (February 24, 1888) . 266 XXII. Moses Montefiore and his Time (March 2, 1888) . . 279 XXIII. Rabbi Isaac M. Wise and his Time (March 9, 1888) . 296 XXIV. The Present Hour (March 16, 1888) 314 XXV, Conclusion (March 23, 1888) 327 • Pate of Lecture. DISSOLVING VIEWS I. INTRODUCTION Authors and the reading public are generally found at variance with each other in regard to the desirability or necessity of a preface. Authors, as a rule, are convinced that a preface is indispensable to a better understanding of their books, and they seldom fail to insert some prefatory remarks between the title page and the first chapter, de- ceiving themselves with the presumption that the "kind" reader will peruse their roman-n umbered pages before reading the book itself. The reading public, on the other hand, also as a rule, considers the preface a superfluous addition to the book. " If the author cannot make him- self understood and appreciated by his work," readers will say, " he will surely fail to do so by the most elaborate preface ; if the book is interesting, if it contains some use- ful information it will float by its own merits, and rise to the surface without the aid of the prefatorial life-preser- ver." This difference of opinion between author and public is more quickly and more pleasantly adjusted than one would expect. The knot is untied in the simplest possible manner. The public permits the author to write as many pages of preface as he sees fit, but preserves for itself the privilege of skipping these first pages. As stub- boi'nly as authors persist in pinning prefaces to their pub- 1 2 DISSOLVING VIEWS lications, so stubbornly does the public refuse to read them, and this silent agreement between the interested parties seems to give satisfaction all around. For the fourth time since the dedication of this temple, I appear before you to reopen our Friday evening services for the coming season. As in previous years, I am again prepared to address you in a course of consecutive lec- tures on topics which, as I hope, will not only prove in- teresting to you, and afford you some desirable informa- tion, but which will help build you up, both intellectually and morally. I hope through my lectures not only to make you wiser, but, by removing errors and reinstating truth in its lawful domain, to make you better; and right here I find myself in the self-same predicament with the rest of authors. I think that a preface is needed to intro- duce the course of lectures which I have laid out, while you may think that such an introduction is out of place and superfluous. I think that I should like to explain a few points beforehand, for which, as it appears to me, I shall find no room in my lectures. You may think that they belong there and not elsewhere ; I think that you ought to be furnished with a plan of the structure which I intend to build up, that you may become familiar at once with its wings, floors, apartments and their purposes. You may judge that you could find out all such things by yourselves. It is fortunate that in this one respect the lecturer may incur the envy of his confrere, the writer of a book. He is not at the mercy of the reader who, by a slight movement of his impatient finger, can skip the obnoxious preface ; however, I do not wish to abuse my prerogatives, and I beg your pardon when I dare to place my judgment for a moment above yours and bring before you to-night a few subjects which I deem essential to a INTRODUCTION Q proper understanding of the series of lectures which I have prepared. It is no difficult task for aji architect to erect a building upon a vacant lot. He can break the ground according to his plans, and even if he has to blast here and there a rock that crosses his way, or if, as upon made land, he has to drive a number of piles into the soft ground, such obstacles are easily surmounted, — his work can progress system a ticall}^ and the walls will rise up at an early day. A far more difficult task is it for him to remodel an old house, to build where something else stands already. It is slow work to tear doAvn a foundation without harming that portion of the bnilding which rests upon it, and, as in old buildings the cement has often become hardened to such a degree that the stones would rather crack than be lifted out of the layer of mortar by which they are held together, it requires the utmost caution not to destroy more than is desirable. If to-day a race of the human species could be found which, though intellectually rip- ened, has never heard of religion, it would be compara- tively an easy task to teach such people a creed which would be purity itself and free from any admixture of superstition ; religious reformers, however, do not find such a desirable material, they must take men as they are, they must build on ground upon which something else stands already, they are compelled to remodel old struc- tures, to tear down on one side and to build up on .the other. They find frequently the most valuable material so deeply encrusted in errors, or errors so deeplj'' imbedded in excellent material, that all efforts to separate tliem are hopeless, and the stones not seldom break before the mor- tar will yield. Right in the very foundation upon which the structure 4 DISSOLVING VIEWS of religion is reared we have come in onr time to detect an error which must be removed before we can think of altering and improving the building. This error is so deepl}^ and so fii-mly imbedded that it will require time and repeated and strenuous efforts to lift it from its sockets. It is the error that religion is something solid, something that has been settled long ago, sometliing that, like Minerva, has sprung from the head of a God in per- fect condition, and has remained perfect to this day. Every religious sect holds that for an miknown length of time all mankind has been sunk in superstition, that not a ray of light had pierced the spiritual darkness, until at last God had sent their own prophet as a messenger, and had revealed to them the only true religion. Since then, this religion has i-emained the same, and the same it must remain forever. Being perfect, the very thought of im- proving it becomes an absurdity, as improvement implies a state of imperfection. Every attempt to alter the orig- inal religion would be sacrilege, it would be followed by disastrous consequences, and must, therefore, be sup- pressed at whatever cost. At the same time such zealots do not know that their alleged original religion was an innovation at the time of its birth, and had been ob- structed by exactly such zealots as they are. Whenever the question is raised, what is Judaism, Christianitj-, Mohammedanism, or Buddhism, the pro- pounders of the question expect a short and definite answer ; they suppose that these religions can be described like as many concrete objects, and they feel disappointed when evasive answers are forthcoming, when from a thousand persons they receive a thousand various explana- tions. The fact is that religion is not a firm substance which can be counted, weighed, or measured, but that it INTRODUCTION 5 is something ethereal, that it has been and still is con- stantly changing its forms and ingredients, that it has been one thing at one period and another at some other time, that it is one thing to one man and a different thing to the next. The fault rests with us if we fail to see, or do not wish to see, that religious thoughts must have kept stride with the accumulation of ex[)eriences, that religion has been simply the formula by which every age has expressed its highest intellectual attainments. In a people of limited knowledge, witli a narrow intellectual horizon, lofty religious principles can neither be found nor expected to be found, while a low standard of religion has always betrayed a low standard of civilization. Kelig- ion has followed as naturally the progress of humanity in arts, sciences, and experiences as the shadow follows the movements of the sun on the dial. It is of all grave errors the gravest to presume that religion has fallen meteor-like from heaven, some thousand years ago, and has since then remained unchanged, and it is equally absurd to presume of Judaism that it could be defined or described in a few words, as if it had been the same thing at all times and to all generations. The genial town folks of Schilda could sooner hope to catch the sunlight in a mouse-trap and to carry it into their windowless meeting- house, than we could hope to catch the volatile essence of Judaism within the wire grating of some definition. Although the laws which govern the universe have come into existence with it, although mankind has had the opportunity of watching and studjdng them since the day of its birth, one after the other has been what we call "discovered" only after long intervals of time. The law of gravitation was surely nothing new when Newton discovered it ; apples had fallen to the ground since times 6 DISSOLVING VIEWS immemorial, and the planets had gravitated towards the sun since they had been created. Millions of human beings had looked up to them with eyes of the same construction as those of Sir Isaac ; but it was only from the moment when he, suspecting a law of gravitation, applied his theory to his calculations, and found that, starting from that proposition, each and every astronomi- cal problem could be solved, that the law of gravitation was born to human knowledge. It was surely a fact as old as both sun and earth that the former stands still while the latter swings in a circle around it; but not until Keppler had applied this rule, and had found that it would work in all cases and explain all combinations, was the existence of such a law demonstrated. All such discoveries appear afterwards so simple that we wonder why they have not been made sooner. For thousands of years mankind has been puzzled by the ever recurring question, how to account for the variety of created beings, or how to account for the manifold religious de- nominations — in a word, how to account for the manifold forms in both the physical and intellectual world. All efforts to solve these riddles had been in vain ; an answer that would give apparent satisfaction in one sphere would prove to be utterly worthless in another, and, Avhereas the laws of nature are universal and allow of no exception, all such answers bore the mark of fallacy right on their faces. It was left to our century to remove the veil from the simplest of laws, that of evolution. No sooner do we apply its theory to a problem than its entangled threads become untwisted as if by magic. Applied to the phe- nomena of the physical world, all that had appeared to be exceptional or the result of a whim takes now its place as a necessary conseq^uence of an immutable law and be- INTRODUCTION 7 comes a part of a hanuunious unit. Applied to the ex- ternal or internal life o'L nations, to their political, social, or religious condition, the must beautiful order replaces at once the former chaos. Nothing is found to have been left to chance, one step is the necessary continuation of a previous one, one attainment the result of a preceding- one, one thought is built upon an earlier one. There is no interruption, no gulf yawns between one stage of de- velopment and the next. All our religious phenomena find their solution when the law of evolution is applied to them. It is by force of this law that religions have changed and do change imperceptibly ; it is by force of this law that Judaism has been evolved from a germ to its present state, assuming a new appearance upon every new stage of development. Seen by the light of the theory of evolution, the history of Judaism, a perplexing conun- drum otherwise, becomes lucid and transparent at once. The lectures which I intend to deliver during the coming season shall prove this assertion ; they shall be an application of the law of evolution to the history of Judaism. I feel, furthermore, the obligation resting upon me to explain the peculiar title which I have chosen for the whole series of my lectures. " Dissolving views " are, as you all know, pictures thrown by a magic lantern upon a screen. There is, however, a difference between " dissolving views " and the exhibition of a plain stereopticon. The latter throws the design abruptly upon the screen ; the operator withdraws one plate before he inserts another, and there is always an interval, be it ever so short, between one picture and the other. The apparatus by which " dissolving^ views " are produced is so constructed that one picture seems to dissolve into 8 DISSOLVING VIEWS mist, to melt into air, while the forms of another pic- ture appear underneath it and increase in strength in the same proportion as the outlines of the former vanish from sight. In nature and history we may observe a similar process, one creation fades away while the other rises into view : it is therefore my plan to picture in every one of my lectures some prominent person of Jewish history ; to let such a man stand forth from the background of his contemporary age, and to allow the whole picture to melt slowly away and to change into the forms of a new person and a new age. Thus, I think, I shall be able to show to you the evolutionary progress of religious thought from age to age, the differences be- tween two or more historical periods, and the remarkable changes which have taken place in Judaism in a contin- uous order to this day. The erroneous though well fortified idea that Judaism or any other religion is some- thing that has been transmitted or could have been transmitted in its integrity from generation to generation, or the still more erroneous idea that, while humanity has progressed in everything else, it has retrogressed, or could retrogress, in religion, will thus receive its proper refutation and be shown in its naked absurdity. Whenever you open a book that pretends to be a his- tory of Judaism or of the Jews, you will in most cases find that nine tenths of the book are devoted to a minute description of persons and events which belong to a period of which we have very little if any authentic information. The authors of such books, as a rule, write most about things of which they know least. With these nine tenths they cover a period of about twelve hundred years, the time which stretches between Moses and the destruction of the second temple, and, while they INTRODUCTION 9 go into details at the beginning, we find that the nearer they come to the end, the nearer they draw to real historical ground, the less do they say, and the longer grow the periods which they leave unnoticed. The last tenth of their historj^ is then devoted by them to the following eighteen hundred ^-ears, to the greater half of Jewish history, to a period for the exploration of which ample authentic material is not lacking. This deplorable mode of treating Jewish history has become so common that among both Jews and Gentiles the erro- neous idea prevails that very little such history exists, that for eighteen hundred years Judaism has been defid or at least asleep, and that during the greater part of its existence Judaism has not taken any active part in the intellectual work of the nations among whom Jews hap- pened to dwell. Not alone there is not a particle of truth in such assertions, just the opposite is the case. The post-biblical history of the Jews, of which no one seems to know much, is the history of Judaism. Where we are made to believe in stagnation, we find the most active and the most vigorous life ; where ignorance sup- poses a desert, there we find the most luxuriant vege- tation. If we desire to obtain an insight into Jewish life, we must turn to the larger portion of Jewish history, to that part which stands upon the ground of authen- ticity. It is this portion of Jewish history which I shall treat with especial care in my lectures. When we ask to wliat causes that general ignorance concerning the latter and most important part of Jewish history is due. or why it is that we cram the heads of our little ones with the myths and fables of what we call biblical history, and send them from our schools without 10 DISSOLVING VIEWS the least knowledge of what has transpired within Juda- ism during the last eighteen hundred ^^ears, we shall receive the same answer which will come to us when we ask why the Temple is not made a continuation of the Sabbath school, and wh}- preachers touch only slightly our latest histor}^ while, year in 3'ear out, they delight their pious listeners with a narrative of the adventures of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The cause for this deplora- ble state of affairsj in the first place, is the error upon which I have commented already, that religion came to us in olden times complete, and has never changed since. A second cause is that history is a science which is rather young. While the only book which contained some information regarding the early history of Judaism was read, re-read, and constantly commented upon, the study of history in general was neglected b}^ our ancestors, and when the new light dawned upon us, when, thrgugh the indefatigable labors of modern Jewish scholars, the gates of history were unlocked, and its stores laid open to inspection, the result did not harmonize with the well established and well fortified theory of the divine origin of religion. It was, therefore, not granted admission into the synagogue. The Jewish preacher, replacing the rabbi of old, was vain enough to copy his Gentile col- league in his costume, his mode of delivery, and even in his topics. Instead of following into the footsteps of his predecessor, and informing his hearers concerning all they needed to know, he began to exhort, to criticise, to threaten, in a word, to assume the haughty position of God's steward on earth. It is the latest and most modern school of Jewish ministers which has shoved aside such presumption, and has made it its object to teach and to inform, in a word, to transform the pulpit INTRODUCTION 11 into a platform. Young as is this new enterprise, it has been crowned so far with greater success than its most enthusiastic apostles ever dreamed. Within a few years the lecture has supplanted the sermon in almost all intel- ligent Jewisli congregations. A better understanding of Judaism has spread amongst both Jews and Gentiles, and superstition begins to withdraw from the sledge-hammer blows which able lecturers direct against it. This closes my preface, and my next lecture shall throw the first picture upon the screen ; it will represent Moses and his contemporary age. If the word of a poet is in place as a recapitulation of my introductory remarks, it will be tliis : — My thoughts are with the Dead ; with them I live in long past years, Their virtues love, their faults condemn, Partake their liopes and fears; And from their lessons seek and find Instruction with an humble mind. II. MOSES AND HIS TIME The mode of examining a witness in a lawsuit was, dur- ing the time of the second Jewish Commonwealth, far differ- ent from what it has been in any other country, or is now among us. Witnesses were restricted to the answering of two sets of questions : one in regard to time and placed the other in regard to relevant circumstances, and the testimony of at least two witnesses, agreeing with each other in the smallest details, was required to establish a fact as true. It is, therefore, not surprising that Flavins Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century, should have applied the same rule to the scrutiny of history in general, and that, in his answer to Apion, he should have established the following remarkable proposition : " The characteristic of true history," says he, "is the concord- ance of several writers as to subject, time, and place." Should we not expect of a historian who seems to have been so well aware of the unreliability of history that he would accept no statement as true unless it should have the support of at least two writers, who would be in strict accordance as to subject, time, and place, or should we suspect that he would have flagrantly contradicted- the statement of a book which he himself describes as written with the utmost caution and by the most reliable persons? Should we not rather expect that such a writer must have had superior evidence for his version of the 12 MOSRS AND HIS TIME 13 same event ? If Josephns had been familiar with the Bible, and about this there can be no doubt, or if the Bible had read in his time as it reads to-day, and if, furthermore, this book had been considered then to con- tain the truth and nothing but the truth, as it is in our time, it is utterly inexplicable how he could have pro- duced a history of the life of Moses such as he has. He differs so materially from the biblical record, he takes so much away from one side and adds so much to the other, that, if he should be taken as a second witness, his testi- mony would contradict that of the first witness in such a measure that, according to his own rule, a judge could place little reliance in either. You are all familiar with the short sketch of the life of the srreat law-giver as contained in the Bible. You have been told already, when on your mother's lap, how a cruel Egyptian king had desired to check the unprecedented increase of a subjected people by a law, demanding that every new-born child of the male sex should be drowned ; how one child was miraculously saved by the daugh- ter of that very king, and was educated under his very eyes ; how, afterwards, having accidentally killed an Egyptian officer, Moses fled the country, lived for fort}' years as a shepherd in Midian, and upon a call, miracu- lously received from God, returned to Egypt, liberated his people from bondage, brought them through a desert into a new land, and transformed them by wise legisla- tion into one of the most cultured nations on earth. Josephus must have heard and read the stories in exactl}- the same version as you have, but he who demands as a characteristic of true history the concordance of several writers as to subject, time, and place tells a still more romantic story of the ancient legislator. He is informed 14 DISSOLVING VIEWS that the king was advised by a dream that a Hebrew child would bring calamity upon Egygt, and that, there- fore, and for no such reason as given in the biblical record, he had ordered the massacre of all male children ; that one child, on account of its extraordinary beauty, was saved, hidden, educated, and protected by his daughter, whose name he even does know and gives us as Thermutis. He knows nothing of his quarrel with an Egyptian over- seer, but he tells a long story of how Moses was made general by the king to repel an invasion of the Abys- sinians ; how he defeated the hostile armies in several battles, and even carried the war into their own country ; how he besieged their impregnable capital and captured it, because his personal beauty had won the heart of the Ethiopian princess, who brought him the city as a dowry ; how the Egyptians had become envious of him on account of his marvellous success, and had forced him into a volun- tary exile. After such a departure from the biblical text, Josephus returns to that source and relates the rest in a similar manner, though frequently differing in regard to numbers and to time from the original. From what sources he had taken his biography of Moses, and what reason he had to ascribe a better authority to them than to the book which must have even then borne the stamp of divine authority, we have no means of determining. From a book written by Manetho, who flourished during the reign of Ptolemy, he may have obtained son^^ of his facts ; but why he has preferred the statements of so late a writer, and one whom he has found occasion to contra- dict several times, to the statement of the Bible, remains an unsolved riddle. I have promised to present to you a picture of Moses MOSES AND HIS TIME 15 and his tiine : for it is evident that, if we intend to embark for a research into the liistory of Judaism, we must find some begiiniing and start from some phice. It is, furthermore, evident that the first distinctive signs of the life of Judaism gather around the time and the person of a man who has become known to the world by the name of Moses. It is rather unfortunate for us tliat we have no other sources from which to obtain a true descrip- tion of the man and his time than the two which I have mentioned — the Bible and Josephus ; and whereas the latter, in spite of his theory that the characteiistic of true history must consist in the concordance of several writers in regard to subject, time, and place, lias not transmitted to us the least reason nor the least authority why he, as a later writer, has dared to set aside older records in so many things, his testimony receives con- demnation from his own mouth, and con^sequently only one witness, the Bible, remains on the stand. Whenever we have to deal with but one witness for the support of an assertion, it lies within our nature that we grow suspicious. A fact can be true notwithstanding that only one person was present when it occurred, and it would be absurd to reject it as false on that account, but the uncorroborated evidence does fail to convince us. Our nature demands a corroboration before it feels safe in accepting the statements of one witness as the truth. In such cases we look for what we call internal evidence. We inquire into the general character of the witness, we take pains to ascertain liis veracity, we submit him to severe cross-examination, and as soon as we find that there is the slightest contradiction between one of his statements and another, we throw out his testimony en- tirely, we search for circumstantial evidence, that is, for a 16 DISSOLVING VIEWS class of witnesses which, though they cannot speak, may still strengtlien and support his testimony. In regard to the Bible, the one witness which has re- mained for our research, the internal evidence, gives us no sufficient satisfaction. Bil)li('al criticism has proven, be- yond doubt, that the book as we have it has passed ■through many changes, that it was composed from sources which are now lost, and by men whose very names we do not know. If the events narrated in the book were such as would appear probable to us, we should hesitate less to accept them as true, but they are so fanciful and so utterly improbable tliat a direct intervention of God is required to account for them. Of circumstantial evidence none to speak of is forthcoming. For very many years, science has taken in hand the cross-examination of this witness, and all the researches which have been made in Egj^pt, the land which the witness fixes as the place of the occur- rence, liave been made with a hope of being able to forge a strong chain of circumstantial evidence, either in sup- port or refutation of the Bible. It was for the sake of obtaining such evidence that scholars have devoted a life- time to the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, that neither money nor labor was spared to wring from stones and mummies a testimony for or against the Bible. The pyramids have been opened and examined, the dead have been taken out of their coffins and questioned, both the king and the princess who are supposed to have played a prominent part in the history of Moses have been found, the linen bandages in which they had been wrapped have been removed, and the corpses can be seen now un- der ghiss covers at the museum of Bulaq ; their faces have been photographed and compared with the statues which they had erected for their own glorification, and have been MOSES AND HIS TIME 17 identified ; papyrus scrolls have been deciphered, which contain the description of the deeds of many kings — but all in vain ; not a single fact was gleaned either for or against the biblical account. Except the identification of two towns, Pithom and Rameses, of which the Bible speaks, absolutely nothing has been discovered ; not the least mention is made of the Hebrew nation ever having lived there, nor of Moses, neither as a plain Israelite nor as a renowned general, nor of the existence of a people numbering two and a half millions. There are long ac- counts of an invasion of shepherds into Egypt, of tlieir reign and of their final expulsion, but not the least proof has been forthcoming to connect or identify the Hyksos with the Hebrew race. From the unreliable report of Josephus, which he has taken from the still more unrelia- ble statements of IManetho, a hypothetical statement is made that Moses must have lived at the close of the 19th dynasty, either under the kings Rameses HI., Amenmes, Mineptha, Seti, Septah, or Setnekht. It would take years, and would finally yield no more than conjectural results, should I enter upon a detailed description of the "founds " that have been made of late upon Egyptian soil, and to the arguments to which they have given rise. My task is an entirely different one. Whatever is known of the biography of Moses you know as well as I do. I am not able to add one iota to it. It is little enough, and to augment the number of hypoth- eses by new conjectures might gratify our imagination, but would bring us not one inch nearer the truth. It is, therefore, immaterial to us to know when and where Moses has lived ; how he has come by his name ; whether or not he has written and left a biography of himself. Some such man must have lived in the early times of Jewish 18 dissolvijSg views history, and he left such an imprint upon his time that it never faded away, but, on tlie contrary, became the cause for his apotlieosis. What I consider more important for us to know is : what were the general religious views current at that time among the primitive Hebrews and among their neighbors ; in what relation did they place themselves to the universe, and what was the particular germ which produced in that small nation the develop- ment of an idea so different from that of others ? The results which so far have been gleaned from a knowledge of ancient Egypt annihilate a theory formei'ly in vogue, that the Israelites have merely copied Egyptian customs, and that whatever is good in Judaism has been derived from Egyptian sources. Judaism, though a near neighbor and contemporary with Eg3'pt, shows in its vital points the exact reverse of its religious principles. Egypt, though its more intelligent inhabitants may have believed in one God, was given to idolatry and filled its temples with representations of their divinities. Jii- daism opposed idol-worship. Egypt believed firmly to its last day in the immortality of the soul and its return to the body, and, therefore, always preserved so carefully the corpses of the deceased that we find them intact even to this day. Judaism shows but few traces of such a be- lief, and even they died out in course of time. Sacrifices, rare among Egyptians, were customary among the Jews ; the regal authority, held in the highest respect in Egypt, found a barren soil in Palestine, where demociatic institu- tions flourished, and kings rose only temporaril}^ to gen- eral acknowledgment. A man learns nothing quicker than to enjoy the comforts which the arts provide. If the Israelites as a people were for so many centuries under Egyptian influence, they would have learned MOSES AND HIS TIME 19 to accustom themselves to the high civilization which un- deniably flourished there during that period. But even at the times of Solomon, we find that they lacked arts of all descriptions ; that they were without knowledge of archi- tecture, and without ambitictn to attain such culture. Palestine offers but a poor soil for archaeological re- searches, and even to this day the Israelites have shown no predilection for the plastic arts. Thus it stands estab- lished beyond doubt that the Israelites were neither a tribe of Egypt nor did they live there long enough to become influenced by its civilization. We have for too long a time looked back upon the primitive history of Is- rael as upon its most glorious part ; we have idealized their condition, their accom]3lishments, and, above all, their leaders ; we have treated them as a national body that had risen into manhood without ever having had a childhood, or without ever having passed through an em- bryonic state. We have looked upon its law-giver as a man who has provided them with laws in advance. All such ideas we must give up in a historical research. We must allow ourselves to be guided by daily experience, and judge statements according to their probability. We know that a plant is not at once root and stem and foli- age, but that it is first a germ, and develops from one formation into another according to the laws of evolution. Neither does a nation spring into existence at once ; if we hear nothing of it before it has reached a period of such ripeness that it produces literary talent, and, having be- come a national body, begins to s[)eak, this does not im- ply that it has not passed through centuries of national infancy. Laws, moreover, are never made beforehand to meet future wants ; they spring into life one after another when necessitv demands them, and it is lono; afterwards bifore they ar« codified. 20 DISSOLVING VIEWS To form for us a picture of the condition of primitive Israel we may say that small tribes of shepherds must have migrated into the land of Canaan at unknown times. They may have come from the same stock and may have brought similar notions with them in regard to the ques- tions which since eternity have stirred humauit3\ Some of these tribes gained a settlement sooner, and some later ; a fact which may account for the different ages of the sons of Jacob, and that the tribe of Reuben, by claim- ing seniority, rivalled the influence of the larger tribes of Judah and Ephraim, who had arrived much later. They amalgamated partly witli the aboriginal inhabitants ; partly did they destroy them, and the memories of these struggles have offered to the writers of later times abun- dant material frOm which to weave an interesting story. Some tribes, for all we know, may have come from Egypt ; they may have crossed the desert, and thus added their reminiscences to those that were current. One of the leaders of these tribes may have gained such great re- nown among them that all traditions were afterwards concentrated upon him, and that when a codification of all the fluctuating laws was effected all these laws were ascribed not only to him as a mere law-giver, but as a messenger of God. It would be utterly impossible to trace from the meagre sources at our disposal the origin and time of every law, or to give a better description of the prehistoric life of the nation. You may as well try to describe the imj^erceptible growth of a plant, and to fix the second when the first leaflet has burst from its bud. What we may learn from an unprejudiced study of our only witness — the Bible — may be summed up as follows : The world was to the primative Israelite of very small circumference j he knew but few neighboring tribes and MOSES AND HIS TIME 21 few people beyond his confines; what lay beyond the Mediterranean Sea was unknown to him ; he represented the forces of nature by many divinities ; rocks were wor- sliipped, and holy places abounded in the land. Every tribe liad its own deity, and in Dan, Bethel, Bersheba, Shiloh, on Mount Gerisim and Karmel, were gods worshipped even in the latest times, not to speak of the mountain-tops and valleys where people would assemble to offer sacrifices to the gods. Out of the number of tribal gods Yahweh finally arose as the national god of all Israel. The knowl- edge and introduction of this god was ascribed to Moses, the most prominent of all leaders. Yahweh was consid- ered a god more powerful than the rest ; a god who could successfully compete even with the strong gods of Egypt and Assyria ; he was described as a God who had taken special interest in their nation, had given them their land ; he had accompanied them in their former wander- ings, and had, therefore, a right to their acknowledgment. Yahweh would not have been more than any other of the man}^ gods of antiquity, nor would his cult have produced a higher standard of morality had not two at- tributes raised him above the rest. Different from other gods, he was invisible ; no person could see him and live, and even Moses, his favorite, had never beheld him. He would not suffer any representation of his form, nor would he allow that any other god should be worshipped by his side. This struck the death-blow to idolatry, and paved the way for a purer conception of the Deity. In the second place, Yahweh was identified with the principle of morality ; he loved goodness and liated in- iquity, and desired man to strive after holiness and per^ fection. Thus Yehovism contained the first germ of an ethical plant which in after years developed into a 22 DISSOLV^ING VIEWS tree under the sliachnv of which the nations of the earth can find room. It is not at all certain that the great men of antiquity must have anticipated the wants of the future, or that they must have enjoyed the knowledge we possess to- day, or that they must have had as pure and lofty a conception of God and religion as we have. The great- ness of a man stands in proportion to the time in which he has lived and of which he has been the child. It may be true that a genius will prove himself a genius at all times, and if, for example, Moses could be reborn and could live among us, he would probably become as great now as he was among his contemporaries, that is, he would overreach us all in his conceptions and aspirations ; but we should deny at once the ability of humanity for progress should we allow that we have not risen far above the Moses who lived three thousand j^ears ago in science, art, and not less in religion. To him, or rather to the writer by whom we are informed about him, the conception of Yahweh was not as pure as it grew in a later period ; to him he was still an irascible and arbitrary god, a god that would bless but also curse. Though standing far above other divinities, he had not yet been entirely divested. of the attributes which a lower civiliza- tion had fixed upon their gods. He was still to be ap- peased by sacrifices, he was still expected to foretell the future when properly questioned. Three times a year every male person was bound to worship him at a chosen place. Though family life was. sacred to him, and the lewd practices of oriental nations an abomination, polyg- amy was still a legal institution, and in many cases even encouraged. To sum it up, we find that Judaism or Mosaism in its MOSES AND HIS TIME 23 earliest stage meant and stood for something else than what it meant and stood a few hundred years later ; that it was then the ver}' first glimpse of a better knowledge of God, the very first attempt to rise from superstition. A person might have been considered then a religious man if he promptly offered his sacrifices, paid his tithes, kept Sabbath and new moon, asked no other oracle for advice but Yah well, and offered homage to no other divinity. Intermarriage was then common, circumcision optional and even neglected, and the identity of religion with ethics had just begun to dawn upon the inhabitants of Canaan. It took several hundreds of years before the tribes had exchanged their roving and nomadic dispositioji for the more settled habits of agricultural life. The more the different clans and tribes were drawn together from political necessity, the more victoriously arose the Yeho- vistic idea, until it triumphed with the political amalga- mation of the tribes into one nation. Greater and greater grew the numbers of those who objected to idolatry and found comfort in the belief in the one invisible God of Israel. More and more became apparent the feebleness of gods of wood and stone, and the absurdity of worship- ping them, and higher and higher rose the perception of Man's duties to God and his fellow-beings. When the battle was over, when, with the return from Babylonian captivity, a new state of development was reached, the internal labors and struggles of five centu- ries were treated by the writers of that age not retrospec- tively, but prospectively. An old age was assigned to the earliest acquisitions, and out of the crowd of men who had contributed to the success and final triumph of Yah well arose the grand figure of Moses, the leader, the legislator, the servant of God, the hero who had sacrificed the 24 DISSOLVING VIEWS greater part of his life to the welfare of his nation, the modest man for whom had been reserved not even a grave in the land of Israel. At such a distance of time, and with such meagre sources as are at our disposal, it is difficult to determine how much humanity is indebted to him ; but if he had done nothing else than to hurl into mankind the ideas that God, no matter whether tribal or universal, is invisible, that he must not be represented or symbolized in any form, and that he is identical with morality, such alone would entitle him to a high rank among the benefactors of humanity and to the gratitude of all mankind. III. EZRA AND HIS TIIME If ever you have •turned your eyes contemplatively upon the jDast, and especially upon the events which, taken together, have made what, in general 'parlance, we call "our life," you ca*niot liave failed observing what seems to be a well appointed plan, in conformity with which your existence has been shaped. Every event seems to have formed into a link of a long chain of causes and effects ; if one had Jiot happened, the other would or coukl not have occurred ; what at first has appeared as an accident is afterwards seen as the necessary preparatory step for some important act of ours, be it for good or evil. While we feel sure that if one thing had not happened the other would not have occurred, the conclusion at which we arrive after such a retrospective meditation is that the nature of the events forming " our life " has not been accidental, but that we have been made to do what we did after a preconcerted plan over which we had no control. Whenever this providential current has lifted us upwards, whenever our conditions have been improved by that chain of events, the modest among us will praise the goodness and wisdom of Him who has designed the plan and carried it out so advantageously to ourselves, while the vain will ascribe tlieir successful career to their own wisdom, thrift, courage, or industry. When, how- over, the same current has whirled us do wii wards, when 25 26 ' DISSOLVING VIEWS what we call " our " plans have miscarried, we hesitate, on the one hand, to lay the blame at our own door, and, on the other, we fail to see that the plans of Providence were so wisely framed as we should have expected and we lament, though in vain, over " what might have been " — if — mark the ponderous little word — if this or that event had or had not occurred. To make myself better understood, let me give you an example : If thirteen years ago I had not accidentally read in a paper that this con- gregation were desirous of engaging a minister to carry out what then thfey called reform ; if, again, accidentally I had not decided to apply in person for the position, and if a thousand other ifs had not entered into the combination, I would not stand before you and address you to-night. As long as my present condition gives me satisfaction, I naturally look upon the events which pro- cured it for me as upon a wise dispensation of a Divine Providence. I know only of this one chain of events which have linked themselves to the first named accident and whereas all other combinations which might have occurred, if events had not taken this one t;ourse, are un- known to me, and left to the wildest flight of my fancy, I am liable at one and the same time to glory in my achieve- ments when considering that T might have done worse and discontentedly disparage them at the thought that I might have done much better. I hope you will now fulh' understand me when I apply the same experience to the life of Judaism. I shall leave it an open question to . decide whether the life of individmjls, nations, and institu- tions is governed after a preconcerted- plan or whether it is the play of accident ; whether the chain of events is forged by the hammer of fate or whether it is woven by the nimble fingers of chance, the fact remains that, as we EZRA AND HIS TIME 27 look back upon the past, we know only of the one chain of events which has been formed, no matter by what, fate or chance, and the millions of other possible combinations are mere conjectures, children of our imagination. To determine what might have been, if some event had not occurred, some man had not gained celebrity, some law had not been passed, or some precedent had not been es- tablished, may cause us amusement in an idle hour, but will never be followed by any practical result. Accord- ing to our wishes, we may either feel sorry that a certain occurrence has taken place and feel assured that, if it had not, all would have turned out for the better, or we may glory in it and praise Divine Providence for having done the very best for us. I shall now bring before you the picture of a man as the exponent of a time which has formed an auspicious link in the history of Judaism. If, on the one hand, Ezra had not existed, or if he had not forced his views, narrow as they may appear to us, upon his time, it is questionable wdiether Judaism and its children, Christianity and Mo- hammedanism; would have existed to-day. If, on the other hand, Ezra had been a man of broader views, Juda- ism might have been to-day the ruling religion on earth. Ezra, however, has been the Ezra he was. not more, not less. He has been welded into the only chain of circum- stances which history records either by a preordained fate which intended beforehand that all should come- to pass as it eventually did, or by chance which drifted the current of events unintentionally into the direction which, as we see, it has taken. Though the haze which hangs over the Jewish nation is not yet removed entirely, m'c begin to discern at least sojyie historical figures and events when we arrive at the [)eriod of Ezra's activity. We 28 DISSOLVING VIEWS know nothing more about him than wliat we find in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah and what Josephus tells of him. Still, some of the leading events appear to us in clearer outlines. The names and deeds of the Per- sian kings under whom he lived have become familiar to us. Through Grecian sources we have obtained at least a more detailed description of the customs of that time and of the political changes which have disturbed the peace of this age. We can accept as authentic the fact that between the mill-stones of Assyria and Babylonia the small Jewish kingdom was crushed, and that some of the inhabitants of this country, in accordance with ancient j^olicy, were transplanted to vacant districts in the interior of Asia, while Assyrian and Babylonian colonists were sent to settle in Canaan. Beyond offer- ing the fact that such a process of transcolonization has taken place, our sources are silent, or cannot be relied upon. All the details of such a transaction are covered with darkness, and all we know with some certaint}' is that when Cj'rus, the Persian conqueror, made himself master of Babylonia, he found large Jewish colonies both in the capital and in the country. How, within the few years of the reported captivity, the exiles could have become so prosperous that their representatives were found in the most secret council-chambers of the kings is as yet an unsolved riddle, unless we ascribe it, as we usually do in such cases, to the direct intervention of God. It seems that when Cyrus planned the conquest of Egypt, which his son, Cambyses, afterwards carried out, he wished to settle at the confines of the desert, which he had to cross, a friendly people who were ready to sujDply his army with provisions and to cover a possible retreat. He encouraged, therefore, the Babylonian Jews to return EZRA AND HIS TIME 29 to the land of their forefathers. That the yearning for such a return must not have been so strong as we are made to believe is proven by the fact that after consider- able urging and a long delay only one caravan was started. It consisted of some priestly, levitical, and aristo- cratic families who, not having succeeded in Babylonia, hoped to succeed better at home. It was protected by a detachment of Persian soldiers and headed by Serubabel, a descendant of David, and some five months later it ar- rived safely in Palestine, the nucleus for a new common- wealth, to build up the country and, before all, Jerusalem and the temple. The expectations with which that cai-a- van had started were, however, disappointed. The Baby- lonian settlers, proud of their aristocracy, their priestly descent, and of the protection of the Persian court, refused to enter into a political affiliation with the northern colo- nists, the Samaritans, who had been transplanted much earlier into the country. Strife arose between these near neighbors ; under great difficulties was the temple built, and under still greater difficulties was Jerusalem for- tified ; neither was the march of the Persian armies on their way to and from Egypt a blessing to the country, and the young colony languished through inward strife and was impoverished by the movements of the hostile armies. We have seen that, before the destruction of Jerusalem through Nebuchadnezzar, Yahweh had risen already to an acknowledgment as the national God of Israel. From the moment that the horizon of the Jews had widened through their conjiection with larger countries, the sphere of tlieir God became also enlarged. In their conception he grew now into a God of the universe. The more the feebleness of the Babylonian gods, made of stone and 30 DISSOLVING VIEWS wood, had become apparent by the downfall of that em- pire, the more our ancestors became convinced that their conception of the invisible God, the ruler of heaven and earth, was the correct one. In connection with this con- ception of God, the idea spread that their great national calamity must have been a consequence of the idolatry in which their ancestors had indulged. The few colonists who had been persuaded to return to Palestine, as well as the rest that remained in Babylonia (and who afterwards spread over all the provinces of the Persian empire), be- came convinced that the wrath of God was now over, and that he would restore to them the traditional glories and prosperity' of the Davidian kingdom, provided they would worship him and no other, and obey his commands. Comparing their pure conceptions of God with those of their neighbors, a spirit of caste was born among them, which afterwards became the remarkable characteristic trait of the Jewish nation. They imagined that God had chosen them of all nations to be his own people ;* that, not unlike the priestly castes of all countries, who pretended to be the chosen favorites of some god, and who kept themselves isolated from intercourse with their fellow- citizens, Israel should form a select priesthood of Yahweh, and keep itself, as such, isolated from the rest of the na- tions. When, however, in spite of these illusions, the young colony was not seen to prosper, when God still seemed to have withdrawn his hand from his people, the only cause for the divine reticence seemed to be that Israel did not yet fulfil the duties which Yahweh had a right to expect of his people. Ezra, a descendant of a priestly family, and born in Babylonia, formed, therefore, the resolution of regener- ating Israel, and of thus establishing better terms between EZRA AND HIS TIME 31 God and his cliosen people. Furnished witli letters of recommendation from the Persian court, he collected another caravan, mostly composed of priests, and migrated with them into Palestine, to become the father and founder of that Judaism which was not only destined for a life of several hundred years, but which has left its mark upon humanity to this very dny. Ezra was a zealot, and, like all enthusiasts, less of a genius than of a conscientious worker. He may have understood well enough what his own time needed, but he had no understanding of what the future would de- mand. Born and brought up a priest, his intellectual horizon was limited by priestly prejudices. He saw ev- erything through the eyes of a priest ; he felt and conse- quently acted like a priest. He followed an ideal, but lie would not allow the same privilege to others, and de- manded that every one should see things as he did. His ideal was that Israel should become a nation of priests, a holy people, and to the -realization of this conception he devoted his whole life. Fortunately, he did not stand alone, but was ably seconded in his endeavors by Nelie- miah, another enthusiastic admirer of the same ideal ; a man who, as he tells us himself, had given up the most influential position at the court of King Artaxerxes to be- come the governor of poverty-stricken Palestine. We cannot rely entirely upon the story of their adventures as it is told by them or their historians, but we may glean a few facts from them which are undeniably characteristic of the men of their time. The greatest and most remarkable work accomplished by Ezra is the collection and editing of all those liter- ary products which were current among the people about that time. What sources he consulted, how many co- 32 DISSOLVING VIEWS laborers he had, how long it had taken him and them to prepare the work, or how mucli he or his adjuncts have added to or taken away from the originals, we do not know. All we know is that suddenly Ezra claimed to be in possession of a book in which all the laws which God had given to Moses were contained. This settled at once the great question which troubled the Israelites of that time : " What must we do in order to be reconciled with our God ? " Nobody seemed to have known at that time of such a book, and it was great news to the people when he read to them some portions of it at the occasion of a great festival. From that moment it was understood that God had made known his will to Moses, and had or- dered him to preserve it in writing ; that the sacred scroll had been transmitted from generation to generation, and that now it was here ; every one who had eyes could see it, and every one who was able to read could read what God demanded of him. To facilitate the latter, Ezra changed the Hebrew letters into the plainer Assyrian letters, and what we now call Hebrew characters are, in fact, Assyrian characters. The Samaritans alone, and they objected to such a reform as an innovation, pre- served the old style of writing ; and when they too pro- duced a book purporting to contain the will of God, that book (the Samaritan Bible) was written in the old, genuine Hebrew characters. Thus the Bible was born, and with it the belief in the divine origin of that book. What an immeasurable influence this important achieve- ment of Ezra had upon the formation of ' religious thought, not only among Jews, but, in the course of time, amonof one-half of the inhabitants of the earth, is so well known that I need not dwell upon it. Where would Christianity and Mohammedanism be to-day if Ezra had EZRA AND HIS TIME 33 not introduced the Bible as a written message of the will of God to man ? Was it by accident or by force of pre- ordained fate that such a book was published ? Who knows ? We can simply state the fact, and it is best to reject as fruitless all conjecture of what might have been if this event had not taken place. Another introduction, we may call it an innovation, of Ezra, was the institution of the Sabbath. The Sabbath seems to have -been little if at all observed at his time. Whether it was introduced by him as entirely new, whether he had adopted it as a former Babylonian or Persian institution, or whether it had been a Jewish cus- tom from the beginning, we can scarcely ascertain to-day ; the fact is that at Ezra's time neither Jewish farmers, ar- tisans, nor traders observed such a day, and that the most stringent measures were required to compel the people to rest on the Sabbath. Even after the law was passed prohibiting all work on the Sabbath day, within the city, people would go outside the city walls and buy of foreign traders who exhibited their wares for sale. Not until these traders were compelled to close their stalls, and forbidden to sell goods on the day of rest appointed by the State, and not nntil buyer and seller were put under a heavy fine, did Ezra succeed in making the Sabbath day what it afterwards was — a landmark of Judaism. There is no question but that the institution of the Sabbath is one of the best and most salutary measures with which humanity has ever been blessed. There can be no question that a man needs a day out of seven for spiritual and bodily recreation. Nor can there be the least doubt that it is the duty of every government to enact proper legislation to that effect. It is immaterial to us from whence Ezra has received his inspiration. We 34 DISSOLVING VIEWS know only this much, that, through him and through the Jewish nation, the principle of the Sabbath, the principle of one day's rest out of seven, has made a circuit around the world, and is now an established fact among the civil- ized nations of the earth. When, about a year ago, the legislators of this state re- vised the Sunday laws, a great deal of complaint was heard from the part of those of our friends who thought that their citizens' rights had been curtailed and their liberty of conscience disregarded. It is true that they are hindered by the provision of the law in the pursuit of an otherwise legitimate business on a day which is not sacred to them, nor do I consider the Sunday laws as they were framed last year on Beacon Hill a model of legisla- tive wisdom ; but, to be fair, Ezra was guided by the same considerations in his day, and did exactly the same thing that we censure in our legislation. The minority, or the foreign traders, who cared as little or less for a Jewish Sab- bath than we might feel for the Christian Sunday, were compelled by him to submit to the laws passed and ac- cepted by the majority. They had to make the best of it, and so have we. A third and still more stringent measure was carried by Ezra. Intermarriage seems to have been not an ob- jectionable practice in his days. Even the colonists who had returned under Serubabel had intermarried with the inhabitants of the land without the least pang of con- science. Whether or not Ezra was married, we do not know. From his history it seems that he was not. In order to promote the priestly isolation of the whole peo- ple, he objected to intermarriage. He first exhorted them in a friendly manner, and afterwards forced them through the edicts of Nehemiah, the governor, to break off their EZRA AND HIS TnfE 35 alliances witli foreign women, to divorce the wives whom they had taken previous to his arrival, and to return them with their children to their relatives. It requires a high degree of bigotry and of religious fanaticism to advocate and cai-ry through a measure which must have cut so deeply into every household ; and while many may praise and applaud the rigorism of Ezra, I could never help shuddering at such an act of inhumanity, nor could I help admiring the noble conduct of the many who at that time severed the ties of communion with their people and went into exile with their alien wives and children, rather than to thrust them upon the mercy of a cold world. The measure, however, was carried, and ever since that time intermarriage has been looked upon among Jews as a stigma if not as a crime. Israel, it is true, has been pre served through this act, but it has remained isolated to this ver}' day. Two views open before us in regard to the conduct of Ezra, whicli seems unpardonable from our stand-point. If Ezra had been less rigorous, it is more than probable that the young and small colony would have been dissolved among the nations, and been lost in the current of time, and this is exactly the stand-point which many take in our flays, when the very problem has risen again into promi- nence and has become one of the burning questions of the day. "■If we open the flood-gates," they say, "and mix by intermarriage with non-Jews, Judaism will be swept from the earth in less than two generations," and who can prove that their fears are groundless ? If, on the other hand, Ezra had entered upon a more liberal policy ; if he had been broad enough to see in his Judaism a i-eligion that would elevate all humanity ; if he had grasped its spirit rather than the letter ; if he had endeavored to 36 DISSOLVING VIEWS spread it among the nations rather than to preserve it as the distinguishing inheritance of a small, isolated people ; if in consequence of such broader views he would have encouraged intermarriage instead of repressing it, who knows but that Judaism would have become the religion of the world, and neither Christianity nor Islam would ever have seen the light of da_y ? Why should we to-day fear for the existence of our religion so long as we are convinced that it contains the truth and nothing but the truth ? Why should we fear competition, knowing that the fittest will and must survive ? All our conjectures, however, as to what might or might not have been, or what may or may not occur, are vain. We can merely note the fact that, while through the rigorism of Ezra Jewish identity has been preserved, Israel has been left isolated and impregnated with the selfish illusion that the Jewish race has been chosen by God for a special jjurpose, that it is the aristocracy of the world, and that it stands higher in rank than the rest of mankind. We shall meet with the fruits of this seed further on in our researches. After Ezra and Nehemiah had long been dead and buried, their influence still prevailed. They had given to both the Jewish race and the Jewish religion an entirely new aspect. Judaism had changed entirely under their hands. The relio-ious views of that age mav be described as follows : Yahweh had grown into a universal God, and his name had become obliterated. Only once a year it was uttered by the high-priest. The common noun had taken the place of the proper noun. The name God, or my Lord, had been substituted for Yahweh. The belief had been established that God had manifested his will by a written document — the Bible — of which every word, on account of the divine nature of the book, must be ac- EZRA AND HIS TIME 37 cepted as true. Tliis sacred book couluined the history of the world in general, as the writer imagined it, and the history of Israel in particular. This latter history was made and fitted to be a proof that God had selected Israel from the nations, that he has given him his country, and, more than that, his laws, the wisest a nation ever could possess. As long as Israelites would obe}' promptly the commandments of God, so long would he protect and guard them. The requirements Avhich a good Israelite had to fulfil were to offer sacrifices to no other god, and in no otlier place than in Jerusalem ; to appear there three times a year, and not empty-lianded ; to pay promptly all taxes ; to rest on tlie seventh day ; to allow the land to rest every seventh year, and not to intermarry with neighboring na- tions. But, also, the laws of morality had risen to a higher appreciaton, justice was to be strictly enforced and charity was to be extended to the helpless, the stranger, the widow, and tlie orphan. Family life was to be sacred to God ; chastity and purity were considered the fitting attributes of a priestly people ; polygamy, though not yet prohibited, fell into desuetude. Pra^'ers to the father of mankind took a place in divine worship by tlie side of sacrifices, and the study of the laws of God as the source of all good actions rose into highest prominence. To what extent the religious status of the Jews at that historical period was indebted to Persian and indirectly to Buddhistic sources we shall never be able to determine. While it is a fact, on the one hand, that all human achievements ai'e due to the combined efforts of the whole race, even if we cannot trace every single act to its proper source, it is, on the other hand, not less true that each people works these influences into a peculiar tissue. Judaism may have been 38 DISSOLVING VIEWS influenced by the Persians, or by other nations, for all we know ; but it has not raerel}^ reflected their views, it has woven them into a pattern of its own design and making. Wider liad grov/n by that time the Jewish horizon, but not yet wide enough. It was still hemmed in towards the west. The time, however, was not far off when also the western sky should open to the Jews, when they should come in contact with new ideas born upon a western soil, with a new civilization developed upon European ground, with Hellenism. Be it accident or providential design, the Jew has been introduced into the world not by Egyp- tian priests, not by the Magi of Persia, but, incredible as it may seem, by the hands of Greek pliilosophers. IV. SIMON, THE LAST OF THE MACCABEES It is good advice, well founded upon experience, that we should not grieve about the welfare of our friends and that we should feel assured that they are prosperous as long as we hear nothing of them. News will reach us as soon as they are in trouble. It is a remarkable fact, and one that is to be highly regretted, that for about three hundred and fifty years, from the time of Ezra to that of the Maccabees, we hear almost nothing of the life and religious development of the Jewish people. That period, with the exception of one instance, is a total blank in history. Though time seems to have no value for us after it has passed, and though we are rather lavish in our disposition of it, and speak of a thousand or a few hundred years as if such a stretch of time meant absolutely nothing, we should alwa3^s bear in mind, when speaking of some historical event, what an immense amount of human hapj)iness and misery is com- pressed into one single year, what changes in views, cus- toms, and habits are likely to occur in a quarter of a century, and how many more must have taken place within three long centuries, comprising eight generations. We know very little of the life of our very grandparents ; of our great grandees we know, in most cases, nothing, not to speak of their eight precursors ; but have not thou- sands of notable events occurred during their time ? Did 40 DISSOLVING VIEWS not the fountain of life flow as richly and and diction ; they breathe a spirit of devotion and love to God, to religion, and to humanity, which cannot be sur- passed, though his paradise is situated rather in the past i!ian in the future, though he is retrospective rather than prosijective. He loves, and loves unsuccessfully, but tlie object of his love is not a fading beaut}'. It is no flirting- damsel whose fair face has enchanted him; liis lad}' love is an aged widow, it is Jerusalem. His muse is devoted to her alone ; he sings only her praise, he sees not the wrinkles in her face, but his imagination pictures her as still standing in the bloom of youth. Not unlike the knights-errant of his age, he offers his services to his lady love unselfishly, without hope even of reward. I cannot refrain from inserting here a few lines of the praise which Heinrich Heine has devotedly offered to the memory of the great bard of the twelfth century. With true poetic instinct, the poet of the nineteentli century recognizes and appreciates the merit of his forerunner, and enthusiastically he exclaims : — *' Ja, er war ein grosser Dicliter, Stern und Fackel seiner Zeit, Seines Volkes Llcht und Leuchte. Eine wiinderbare grosse Feuersaeule des Gesanges, Die der Schnierzens-karavane Israels vorangezogen In der Wueste des Exils. " Kein und wahrhaft, sender Makel, - War sein Lied wie seine Seele. Als der Sclioepfer sie erschaffen, Diese Seele, selbstzufrieden, Kuesste er die scboene Seele, Und des Kiisses holder Nachklang Bebt in jedem Lied des Dicbters Das geweibt durcli diese (inade." 110 DISSOLVING VIEWS Or in the English version which I have attempted : — Was indeed a genial poet, Star and flambeau of his nation, Light and lantern of his people. Pillar of fire, bright and mighty Was his song, inspiring, shining; Marching at the head of Israel's Caravan while it was moving Through the desert of the exile. True and pure, without a blemish, Like his soul were all his poems. A sweet kiss had the Creator Pressed upon his soul when sending It from heaven down to this world. And the echo of this parting Eass still vibrates in his poems Sanctified through Heaven's grace. Of his numerous worlvs I shall select only two for our examination, because they are the negatives upon which his time has left its imprint. The first contains the songs in which he has celebrated his lady love, Zion, and in which his yearning and longing for the sacred city burst forth like a powerful stream of light. They are written in a faultless Hebrew, so classical that the psalmists of old might not have been ashamed to acknowledge their authorship. The second is a philosophy of the Jewish religion, and, being by nature a poet, and not a dr-y philosopher, he establishes it in a kind of dialogue. This work was originally written in Arabic, and after many years was translated by one of his admirers into He- brew. Its title is " Cliozari," or, as it was rendered after- wards, Kuzari. The ruler of a nomadic Asiatic tribe, a pagan by birtli, is dissatisfied with the idolatrous practices of his nation ; he invites, therefore, a philosopher, a Chris- ABULHASSAN JEHUDA HALEVT AND HIS TLME 1 1 1 tian, a Mohammedan, and finally a Jew, to his court for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of their respective religions, and of then selecting that which would strike him most favorably. As could be foreseen, they all, with the exception of the Jew, failed to convince him, and he and his people embraced Judaism. In his Zion's songs we meet not only with an idealiza- tion of former times and conditions, in which a poet might have the right to indulge, but wath a yearning for a resti- tution of the past, and, above all, with the burning desire of visiting and seeing, at least, the Holy Land. This is an entirely new feature in Judaism. During the time of the Temple it had been the religious duty of every Israelite to visit Jerusalem three times a year, and those who in later years had settled in Persia, Egypt, Italy, and Greece had thought it incumbent upon them to visit the Temple at least once in their life, but after the destruction of the Temple, though for national and religious purposes its restoration had appeared desirable, we never find the desire of seeing and visiting the sacred spots so urgently and plaintively voiced as in the poems of Jehuda Halevi. The eyes of the Israelites had been directed for many centuries rather towards the universities of Sura and Pumbedita than towards the ruins of Jerusalem. How can we account for this yearning that so suddenly seems to have sprung up ? What caused it ? Wliat gave it such an intensity and made it so popular that it not only strung the harp of the minstrel, but secured for him an attentive, an enthusiastic, and an appre- ciative audience? We need not look very far for that cause, we can find it by turning over a few pages of his- tory. Let us see. After Christianity had passed through the struggles of the first three centuries, after it had de- 112 DISSOLVING VIEWS feated the opposition raised against it b}^ Greek philosophy and had ascended with Constantine the throne of the Roman empire, it was comparatively an easy task for it to subdue the barbarous nations beyond the borders of its realm. During the great emigration of tribes which, coming from the north, infused new blood into the de- caying southern nations, the foreign barbarians were easily converted to the new religion, that is, persuaded into the performance of some ceremonies and to belief in some stories which were given to the unsophisticated neophyte as the quintessence of divine truth. It had taken several centuries before the northern hordes were somewhat tamed, and the first coat of civilization spread over them. After they had learned how to read, they naturally turned to the one book to which the priests constantly referred, the Bible. They read and read and read again. All the events which that venerable book related had taken place within a small geographical circle, in Palestine, and especially in its capital, Jerusalem. It was near Jerusalem where their god had been reared, where he had lived and performed all the wonderful feats of which the holy book spoke. There he had been crucified and buried. At the time when the northern nations of Germany, France, and England had risen to this knowledge, the Holy Land had long ceased to be a part of the Roman empire or the property of the Roman church ; it had passed into the hands of the Turks ; the crescent had replaced the cross, and Caliph Omar had erected a mosque where the church of the holy sepulchre had been standing. Now, it is an experience which can be verified every day, that whenever a book greatly in- terests us we become eager to see the places of which it speaks. There is not a boy who, after having read Robin- ABULHASSAN JEHUDA HALEVI AND HIS TIME 113 son Crusoe, does not wish to visit and see the desohite island whicli he inhabited for so many years. And has not Verona been visited by many admirers of Shakes- peare, for the sake of finding the alleged tomb of Romeo and Juliet ? A desire s})rang up all at once and all over Christendom to visit and to behold the sacred places of which the holy book was telling them. This desire grew finally into a mania which, like an epidemic, swept all over Europe, and the force of which was not expended for several centuries. The devout Christian warriors began to ask themselves why the land of God should not be in their possession, why it should remain in the hands of the infidels? Would not God help them to conquer the Holy Land, as he had helped once before the valiant sons of Israel ? Would he not supply his faithful children with food and water on their march to the Promised Land, as he had done before, when Moses had led the children of Jacob out of Egypt? Toward the end of the eleventh century the storm broke loose. Irregular and regular armies began to move toward the Holy Land. Swarm after swarm followed, and a fierce war arose between Christian and Mussulman for the possession of the spot sacred to both of them. The Crusades have left a blood- stained trail upon the pages of the world's history, and there is no need of my repeating what we all know or may find in any encyclopaedia. Jerusalem was captured by the Christians after a long siege and great sacrifice of human life, to be recaptured again by the ^Moslems. In a word, the politics of the world turned around the one point — Jerusalem. The whole world conversed but of one city, and that city was Jerusalem. At this time Jehuda Halevi lived. The infection had taken hold of the .Jews, as well as of their luMglibors. 114 DISSOLVING VIEWS Their eyes, too, were now turned toward Jerusalem. Who knew more about that city than they did? Who was more entitled to the possession of that city than they were ? Now that the whole world manifested such an in- terest in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the}^ began to realize their unfortunate condition, and their wish fath- ered the hope that God might return their patrimony to them. People who did not travel at all, or little, are apt to idealize all foreign places, and to ascribe to them greater scenic beauties than to those to which they have become accustomed. Jerusalem appeared before the Jewish vision surrounded with a halo of glory ; to see the places where the glory of God had dwelt, where the Temple had stood, where the patriarchs had walked, where the prophets had spoken, where the miracles had been performed, became a longing which could be grati- fied by nothing less than realization. Jehuda Halevi's lyre was tuned to that key. What the prosaic Jewish masses uttered as a mere wish burst forth from the mouth of the poet as a lamentation, as a melodious wail- ing, as a mournful complaint ; and it found a response in every Jewish heart, because, being tuned alike, the vi- bration was the same. Jehuda Halevi's " Chozari," or Kuzari, is not so much of value to us on account of the refutation of all other re- ligions as on account of one point which I shall mention hereafter. It is as plain as daylight that in a book in which philosophy, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are put on the stand to testify to their inherent truth, a Jew-, ish author will describe other religions in such manner that their errors will become visible at once, while he will defend his own religion in such style that all attacks upon it will be met instantly and successfully. All such ABULHASRAN JEHUDA HALEY I AND HIS TIME 115 religious discussions are of little value, because the author naturally sees things through his own peculiar glasses, and ^sop's fable of The Lion and the Man finds an adaptation in every one of such cases. A lion, says ^Esop, once met a man at the gate of a cit}-, over which a sculptor had chiselled the scene representing Hercules slaying the Nemean lion. The man, pointing to the picture^ said, " Behold the superiority of man over you ! " " Pray, tell me," replied the lion, " who has made this engraving ? " " It is the masterpiece of one of our greatest artists," was the answer. " So it must be, in- deed ! " said the lion, " for if a lion had made it, the scene would have been the reverse of this one. The lion would have killed the man." Neither would it be profitable to rehearse the argu- ments of the different religions as they appear to Jehuda Halevi, because comparative theology, which in our days has attained so wonderful a development, and has yielded such marvellous results, has proven — if it has proven anything — that no religion can boast of being the exclu- sive possessor of all the truth; that all religions, ours included, have their weak as well as their strong points ; and that they all are honest and conscientious attempts on the part of humanity to rise to the sublime and to reach the highest possible perfection. It is, therefore, not his hilosophy, liis ethics, and his moral sensitiveness have been drawn, it was in this very address. Only a man who was nourished at the bosom of Judaism, as he was, and who has learned to understand it as well as he has, could have so distinctly marked the line by which true religion stands apart from the church. Speaking of his dispute with the churches and of the most important points of departure from them, he enumerates exactly the very same points over which Judaism has ever been in dispute with them, and in which it has ever departed from them. Originally, Judaism knew nothing of a creed ; it was meant and made to be a religion of deed; it never insisted upon preliminaries; it alwa3^s appealed to the conscience of man directly, and expected an immediate response. The Bible nowhere commands that certain things must be believed. It tells its story as well as its authors knew how to tell it, and teaches what the Israelite was expected " to do ; " how he was expected " to act." True that what Judaism recom- mended several thousand years ago is not applicable to-day, but it is not the law which makes or unmakes Judaism ; it is the demand made by Judaism upon its adherents, tliat they should endeavor to attain the highest 124 DISSOLVING VIEWS possible moral perfection, and to establish the purest and possibly happiest social relations by telling deeds. Creeds, the preliminaries of which Professor Adler speaks, which bar the way to a direct appeal to the human heart, are an undesirable admixture to our religion; we owe them to Christianity, and they have been alien to Judaism until the twelfth century of the common era. - We have noticed the first symptoms of that infection which Judaism caught from Christianit}' in the " Cho- zari " of Jehuda Halevi, and now we shall find it still more developed in some of the writings of Moses Maimo- nides. Moses Maimonides was tlie first Jew who insisted upon the preliminaries of a creed, which Professor Adler so justly opposes. He was the first Jew who offered a set of articles, a kind of a constitution, to which every Israelite was bound to subscribe before he should be admitted into the community and permitted to join actively in the religious work. Unless he accepted these articles, one and all, he was to be considered as standing outside of its pale. Great, however, as was the renown and the authority which Moses Maimonides enjoj'ed and exerted upon Judaism, you must not think that the Israelites ever consented to be incarcerated in the cells of a narrow creed. They revolted constantly against it, and, although his thirteen articles of creed were embodied into the prayer-books, although they were read and sung in every morning service and sometimes at the close of an evening service, although they were inscribed upon mar- ble tablets or upon the walls of synagogues, Israelites never subscribed to them in their totality, nor did they ever waste their energies on the propagation of these preliminaries, ignoring the vital principle of Judaism — MOSES MAIMONIDHS 125 deeds. The most curious fact, however, which, better than anything else, proves my assertion, is that not even the author of the thirteen articles of creed accepted them. He had inserted some of the planks of his platform as a kind of compromise, and ignored them so totally in his subsequent writings that he was taken to task for it ; others he interpreted in a manner to suit himself, and while the masses beheld one thing in them, he and his disciples meant quite another. While in his paraphrase of Israel's creed the belief in a personal God is stipulated, his conception of the divinity as given in his other works leaned decidedly towards the Aristotelian conception, and was not very different from the pantheism of Spinoza. He acknowledged prophetism, and Moses to have been the greatest prophet who ever lived ; he held that such an acknowledgment was one of the necessary prelimina- ries to which- every Jew must subscribe, but his inter- pretation of prophetism cuts right through this very plank and makes it unsafe to stand upon. The author of the thirteen articles of creed represented in his person the Judaism of his time. Some strange matter had been accidentally infused into its blood, and though its system yielded to the force of the poison, whatever of its nature was still sound endeavored to eliminate it. It is rather a hard task for any one, unless he be a scholar, to compel his imagination to dive into the past and bring up from its bottom a true picture of a jcertain period ; it is thus difficult for us to understand the logic of past generations, which to them Avas as clear as sun- light, or to judge them by their own standard of right and wrong. We are apt to admire what is not at all admira- ble, and to pity what is by no means pitiable, whenever we are confronted with the past. We are accustomed to 126 DISSOLVING VIEWS liberty of thought and speech; we listen patiently to the advocates of all kinds of theories, to Field as well as to Ingersoll, to Talmage as well as to Felix Adler, and we reserve our judgment ; we are, therefore, utterly unable to understand why a philosopher like Moses Maimonides should have yielded to the pressure of his time, and should have formed a creed, if his better Jewish senti- ment revolted against it. We forget, however, that at his time not only liberty of thought and speech was not granted, but that a person had to decide to which of the three religions he would belong. He was to be either a Christian, a Mohammedan, or a Jew. After he had decided, he was compelled to act in accordance with the prescriptions of his adopted religion. Each of these religions had drawn a circle around itself ; only he who stood within that line could partake of its privileges and blessings, wliile those standing outside of it were cursed. Excommunication, that is, the expulsion of a heretic beyond the boundary lines of society, was of frequent occurrence, and was a punishment worse than bodily death ; it was social death. The Jew, for example, whose reason would revolt against some Jewish institution, or who would find the present to be in discord with the past, could not live and act as he pleased ; if he left Judaism, he had to choose between Islam and Christianity, both of which were still less acceptable to him. We are living at present in a time of religious anarchy ; we acknowledge no religious government; every person is allowed to think for himself and to form his own religious opinion ; a rabbi or a leader of a religious community has no more authority to prescribe a rule than has any of his followers — he can only succeed in his work if he is able to convince his hearers that his proposed plans are feasible, beneficial, MOSES MAIMONIDES 127 and profitable; and it is, therefore, impossible for ns to transport ourselves into a tiiue when religious socialism was in its prime, when the representatives of religion did all the thinking for the individual, prescribed to him minutely what he was to do, and cajoled him into obedi- ence by threats of expelling him from its ranks if he should dare to resist. Christianity had established this religious socialism, Mohammedanism copied it, and Judaism, though reluctantly, followed in their wake. Moses Maimonides, or Maimuni, the son of Maimuni Ben Joseph, was born in Cordova, May 30, 1135. The fashion has lately spread among us to adopt some middle name, and, if parents neglect to select such an . addi- tional name for their children, the mistake is })romptly corrected by the young ones, and some initial is squeezed between their personal and family name. This fashion is by no means a new one. If Moses Maimonides should have ordered visiting-cards, the engraver would have had to inscribe upon the plate the following list of names : Abu Amram Musa Ben Maimuni Obaid Allah. His father was a man of great erudition and the teacher of his son. At his time the struggles between Islam and Christianity for the possession of Spain were nearing a final catastrophe ; step by step, the Moslems were pressed towards the south, but occasionally they would reconquer some of their lost territory and liold it for a time. No matter who the victor was in these struggles, the Jews had to suffer. In 1148 Cordova was taken by the j\Ios- lems, and both Jews and Christians were left the choice between emigration, conversion, or death. Maimonides emigrated with his family and settled down for a few years in Almeria ; but when also this city had fallen, in 1151, into the hands of the Moslems, who then displayed 128 DISSOLVING VIEWS a most fanatical and intolerant spirit, Maimonides was compelled to travel from place to place. Thus Moses grew up a young man. He learned whenever an opportu- nity was offered to him, from Jews, Christians, and Moham- medans, and by the latter he was introduced into the sciences of that time — medicine, astronomy, and phil- osophy. Aristotle became soon his model, the ideal which he endeavored to reach. While thus travelling he began a work which he did not finish for many years, viz., a commentary to the Mishna. Wonderful was the memory he possessed. He knew the Talmud by heart, and worked at the commentary without a library, even without the books which his commentary should elucidate. In 1159 the family removed to Fez, in Africa. Why they went to a country where religious intolerance was then prevalent is not known, but it is known and established beyond doubt that the whole family of Maimonides was compelled to embrace the religion of Mohammed. Some historians have never forgiven Moses his apostasy ; others have excused his step as having been a compulsory one, saying that in his heart he had ever remained a faithful Jew. Be this as it may, his intercourse with Moham- medans must surely have influenced a man of his genius more or less, and must have opened views to him which otherwise he would not have sighted. About that time some Jewish writer had issued a pamphlet in wliich he vehemently censured the apostasy of the Jews; he argued that it was a crime to accept Mohammed as a prophet or to join Moslems in their prayers, and that the Jews should rather suffer martyrdom than turn apostates. This pamphlet was to strike a blow at him and the many who had embraced the Mohammedan religion. People began to question themselves whether it would MOSES MAIMONIDES 129 not be more consistent to believe tlioroughly in Moham- med and to be satislied that the mission of Judaism had ended than to profess it hypocritically and adhere as hv[)ocriticalIy to the old religion. Judaism was to them at that time a set of ceremonies which every Israelite had to fulfil, if not openly, at least secretly, to avoid the visi- tation of God. Moses Maimonides must have been wounded to the quick by this shaft, for he undertook to defend the action of these pseudo-Mohammedans or pseudo-Jews. He brought proof from the Talmud that Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Elieser Ben Hyrcanos had done similar things, and still had remained not only Jews, but renowned Jews as well. Martyrdom was an excellent manifestation of a man's adherence to his religion, and those who had the courage to undergo it should do so, but he, for one, and with him many others, was lacking such a courage, and, being compelled by force to submit to the laws of the land, he could not consider himself an offender or a criminal as long as he was not a free moral agent. Mohammedanism was, finally, not idolatry. It taught the same One God and demanded no criminal action. The law was satisfied if the pseudo-Moslem pro- nounced the formula, " There is but one God, and Moham- med is his prophet," and if he visited the mosque for the purpose of prayer, but it did not watch whether he believed what he said or what he prayed. IMaimonides advised, therefore, to wait })atiently till times would change for the better, although he did not believe that the Messiah would come in the near future. This defence was written in 1164, and shows, on the one hand, an en- tirely new conception of Judaism, and, on the other, the endeavor to clear himself before his own conscience. The pamphlet, however, stiri-ed up the wrath of the Mo- 180 . DISSOLVING VIEWS hammedans, and he was compelled to flee for his life. In the night of April 18, 1165, he boarded with his family a vessel, and, after a stormy voyage, arrived on May 16 in Acco. Half a year later we find him and his family in Jerusalem, then in Alexandria, and finally in Cairo. The year 1166 was disastrous to him. His father died, and his brother, who had supported the family, was drowned in the Indian Ocean, With his brother was lost their fort- une, and he who formerly had devoted himself entirely to his studies was now compelled to work for his support and that of his family, which was enlarged by the depend- ents of his lamented brother. He established himself as a physician, but he had ill luck, little practice, and made only a scanty living. In 1168 he finished his commentary to the Mishna, a masterpiece of order and arrangement. In this work he showed already that his Judaism was one of his own making ; he gave a novel construction to rev- elation, denied miracles, and symbolized the ritual. He held that only such Talmudical traditions were genuine about which no difference of opinion had ever existed ; as truth could be only one thing, two different opinions could not both be correct. While his commentary illus- trated the Talmud and made it accessible to all, it under- mined its very structure. Deceiving himself in a similar way, he produced about the same time the thirteen articles of creed. He desired that every Israelite should examine them and not believe them blindly, but at the same time he considered the Israelite who would not subscribe to them to be a heretic, and one who should be excommuni- cated. Through these writings as well as through his numerous disciples his fame began to spread. He became then the physician of Sultan Saladin's son, and King Richard I. of England offered him a similar position at MOSES MAT MON IDES 131 his court, which, however, he declined. He became, furthermore, in 1177, the official leader of the Jewish con- gregation in Cairo; but his position of rabbi must not be compared to any such station to-day. It was an honorary office and no salary attached to it ; it was not his business to preach, pray, or teach a school, but, in conjunction with some other learned men, it was his duty to decide in re- gard to all such religious questions as were then consid- ered of great importance. From congregations near and far deputations arrived, questioning him in regard to relig- ious duties, and his decisions were considered binding. A second work, which spread his fame still further, was his Mishne Thora. It was a codified arrangement of the whole Talmudical law; a grand attempt made to bring order into the chaos of the Talmud. In this second work he shows again that he had formed entirely new ideas in regard to the old conceptions. His conception of the divinity and his interpretation of immortality were carved rather after the pattern of the Aristotelian philosophy than after that of the Bible. Firmly believing that the philosophy of Aristotle could not be shaken, and at the same time that the Jewish religion is undeniably true, he made efforts to prove that the latter was not more nor less than a revealed philosophy, and that Moses and Aristotle could not but agree in all points. Such strange theories were not allowed to pass unnoticed and without an adverse criticism. They were looked upon by contemporaries with distrust, and attacked during his life-time and still more fiercely after his death. His last and most remarkable book wns finished in 1190. He called it "More Nebuchim, or Guide of the Eri'ing." It was written as if it was an instruction to one of his disciples how to overcome doubt and how to reconcile 132 DISSOLVING VIEWS Judaism with science, or, what was the same, with philos- ophy. To discuss this remarkable work, from which not only Jewish but also Christian and Mohammedan philos- ophers have extensively drawn their supj^l}^, would take more time than can just now be devoted to it. It must suffice that the force of it is not yet expended, and that Moses Mendelssohn, one hundred years ago, has kindled his light on the fire of the "More Nebuchim," written by Maimonides in the twelfth century. Maimonides proves himself, in this work, the rational and logical thinker he is, although both his rationalism and logic are limited hy his defective knowledge of the universe. Defending Judaism with one hand, he builds up with his other a Judaism which must have been a new and strange sight to his contemporaries and at variance with the past. He conceives God as a creative force outside of the universe, which he divides into different spheres. He believes in the existence of angels, and thinks that the stars are directed by them ; that, inspired by the desire to reach divine perfection, they move towards God, and that their motions influence all the other beings whicli inhabit other spheres to follow them. The soul is to him not a distinct being, but a mere force, and he does not concede to it an immortality in the true sense of the word. If the divine spark in man is able, during the life on earth, to disen- tangle itself from the corrupting embraces of matter, it becomes fit to return to its source, and is united with it right after its departure from the body. The soul which was not able to keep itself at such a distance from the body perishes with it ; or, in other words, there is a Nirvana for good souls as well as an annihilation for wicked ones. The result was in both cases the same, and whereas only a very few could rise to divine sublim- MOSES MALMONIUES 133 ity, the great majority of people liad to hope for no further existence after death. Resurrection, a belief which he had formerly included in his articles of creed, was now entirely discountenanced in his " More Nebuchim." Prophetism appeared to him a peculiar force of imagina- tion, the attempt of the pure soul to lift itself to a higher level. All narratives in the Bible speaking of prophetism, or which are founded upon prophetism, must, therefore, not be accepted as real and genuine. He is not sure whether miracles may have occurred or not. The same creator might have created temporarily a new order of things, but the number of miracles in the Bible ought to be Hunted, and, after all, should not be regarded as proofs of the truth of any statement. Moses was the greatest of prophets ; he had so mastered his passions that his soul had risen to the sphere of the angels, and that thus all the covers which limited human sight had fallen from his eyes. His laws were, therefore, to be carefully guarded and respected by all Israelites. In regard to biblical ordinances, he endeavored to find their purposes when- ever they appeai'ed unreasonable or untimely. Sacrifices, for instance, he considered to have been merely a conces- sion made by Moses to a barbarous time ; the dietary laws to have been given for sanitary purposes, and other laws to enable the soul to extricate itself from the meshes of the tempting flesh. It is obvious that he was too much of a philosopher to believe in the literal meaning of the Bible, and too much the child of his time to draw the necessary philosophical deductions from jjhilosophical premises. He ap[)ear.s, therefore, to belie\e at one mo- ment, and t(. he a pronounced skeptic and rationalist at the next. It was felt by his admirers, and even by his most enthusiastic disciples, that his theories were not in 134 DISSOLVING VIEWS consonance with Judaism ; but his renown, his great learn- ing, and the official position which he filled near the per- son of the sultan, did not allow grumblers to express their opinion. On December 12, 1204, he died. He was buried amid the lamentations of his friends ; but no sooner had the earth covered what had remained of him, when the long pent- up dissension burst forth in a storm, and split Judaism again into two camps — one held by his defenders, one by his opponents. Attacking a man is always proof of his originality; and the fiercer the strife waxes, the more valuable are its results for the community. Moses Maimonides was an original thinker ; that is, original for his time. His works lifted Judaism out of the old and well worn ruts, and gave it a new direction. The direction, however, was one that worked both ways. While he had empha- sized once and forever tlie rationality of Judaism, he had, nevertheless, imprisoned it in the cell of a creed ; while he had made skeptics f»f liis fi'iends, he had sup[)]ied their opponents with weapons of attack ; while he had built up the Talmud by his commentaries, he liad under- mined it by the j^hilosophy with wliicli he saturated his treatises. The reason for such an ambiguity was that lie had been too far in advance of his time. Had he lived at our time, and in a country where he could have spoken and written what his heart impelled him to, he would have been probably more consistent in his deduc- tions, and would have given to the world a philosophy that would have astonished all. Whether it would have covered our present conception of Judaism is a, question of so problematic a nature that it is best not to attempt an answer. MOSES MAIMOMIDES 135 It is surprising that, in view of such facts, we are still admonished to defend the Judaism of our forefathers, and, as the phrase goes, " to transmit our hoi}' religion untram- melled to our children ; " but has ever a generation trans- mitted the same Judaism which it had received, to the next one ? Has not, on the contrary, every age changed it, added to it, taken away from it, and pressed its pecul- iar stamp upon it ? The Judaism of Maimonides was not the Judaism of Jochanan Ben Saccai, and still less that of any previous generation. How can it be expected that our Judaism should not be different from that of the past? We have found that during the twelfth century the dogma of belief had crept into Judaism, in spite of all the opposition which reason brought to bear against it, and that this dogma, originally Christian, had assumed form in the thirteen articles of creed composed by Maimonides. We shall now behold another and still more astonishing acquisition. We shall find that another doctrine, again Christian in its inception, has found or forced its way into Judaism. Strange to say, it is the doctrine of salvation, the idea that the highest aim of man is to be saved from an eternal perdition to which he had been doomed through the fall of Adam. Joseph Albo, a Spanish rabbi and physician living in the first half ot the fifteenth century, is the advocate and expounder of this theory. How such a theory, so contradictory to the very spirit and essence of Judaism, could have insinuated itself into the Jews of the Middle Ages, and could have been admitted by them into their homes, will be seen from a description of Joseph Albo and his time. XI. JOSEPH ALBO AND HIS TIME Moses Maimonides, of whom I spoke to you last week, is represented to have originated, or, at least, frequently used, a phrase which since his time has become proverbial. "•God," said he, "has placed the eye in a man's forehead, and not in the back of the head, that he may look ahead, and not backward." Which one of us would not gladly indorse that metaphor, or which one of us progressionists would not apply it to his own work, and proudly quote the great Maimonides as authority in support of it ? Oc- casions, however, are not rare when we would wish that an exception to the rule had taken place, and that some people's eyes were placed in the back part of their heads rather than in their foreheads. If, for example, all those who glorify the "good old times" at the expense of the present, who fail to see the progess which the human race has made from age to age, and who fear and predict still further deterioration of mankind in the future, if all such could have the position of their eyes changed for a mo- ment, if they could be made to look backward and to examine more closely those " good old times," they would learn, I am sure, not only to appreciate the present, but to love it, and, instead of dreading the future, they would place all their confidence and all their hopes in it. Man- kind has not deteriorated, it has grown better. A flood of light illumines the present world, and the intensity of 136 JOSEPH ALBO AND HIS TIME 187 that light is still increasing. There is less rudeness, less ignorance, less intemperance, less vice, less superstition, less intolerance to-day than there has been ever before. If people are still found with vicious inclinations, there were proportionately more of that class before ; if intem- perance is still a curse, what is it in comparison to the intemperance that reigned fifty years ago, to say notliing of those " good old times" when noblemen, the cream of society, held their drinking-matclies, and would not stop revelling until they were all lying dead-drunk under the table. Much is still to be wished for in regard to the establishment of purer rehitions among the sexes, but the offences committed in our age dwindle into nothing when compared with the flagrant unchastity of men and women in former ages. Would that all the pessimistic croakers who run down the present state of civilization were com- pelled to look backwards, or that they could be trans- ferred for a few weeks into the midst of the "good old times." To be sure, they would change their minds before long. In fact, things and conditions have changed so much for the better that we doubt and wonder that it was possible for by-gone generations to have been so igno- rant, so bigoted, so wicked and vicious as dry historical facts make them out to have been. If ever a time was anxious to get at the true inward- ness of a fact by listening to both sides of a question, it is ours ; if ever a time was eager to increase its knowledge by a controversy, it is ours. Newspapers and periodicals collect eagerly the differing views of different men recog- nized as authorities in a particular line, and place them side by side for the instruction of their readers, thus sup- plying with journalistic tact a popular demand. Debat- ing societies are formed everywhere, training the rising 138 DISSOLVING VIEWS generation not only in the arts of attack and defence, but, what is far more important, in the art of gracefully sub- mitting to the better argument and of appreciating merit even in an opponent. But after disputants have been heard twice, the case is left to the decision of the au- dience, be it as small as to comprise merely the few members of a village debating club, or as large as is the number of readers of a journal or periodical of wide circu- lation. Who would think to-day of settling by debate, for good, questions like the following: Is the pen mightier than the sword? Shall capital punishment be abolished? Is the system of prohibition preferable to that of license ? or. Is free trade of greater advantage to a countr}^ than protection ? Who would dream to-day of making an end to all conflicting religious opinions by summoning the representative leaders of the sects to a public debate, demanding that the side which is defeated in the theologi- cal tournament should adopt, either by free will or by compulsion, the tenets of the victorious party ; that, for example, Mr. Field should turn atheist if Mr. Ingersoll's arguments proved to be the stronger ones, or Mr. Inger- soll should be compelled to go, prayer-book in hand, every Sunday to the Presbyterian church, and to worship what he calls the " Presbyterian God," if Mr. Field's arguments are tlie better ones. The mere thought is so absurdly ridiculous that it is dismissed with a smile. But, my friends, all such and similar absurdities have been reali- ties in the " good old times." They are not fancies of an overheated imagination, they are ,no fairy-stories, they have happened in clear daylight, and many a soul has been subjected to agonies of which we to-day, thank God ! lack imagination. Were they not glorious times when witches were strangled, heretics burned, and religious JOSEPH ALBO AND HIS TIME 139 debates held on the question " Has tlie Messiah come, or is he yet to come ? " not for the mere purpose of investi- gating and illuminating the intricate subject, but for the purpose of a wholesale conversion of Jews. Were those not glorious times when such a dangerous .game was plaj'^ed, not for mere fun, but "for keeps," as the phrase goes among buys ; when the boys who gambled for sucli high stakes were not even a match for each other, but when the big boy forced the little one to play with him. Some of you, my friends, have probably read the poem, written by Heinrich Heine, entitled " Disputation." The story told therein so humorously and wittily must have appeared to you as one of those satirical effusions for which the writer is so famous. You must have thought that it was invented by him to ridicule both the Jewish and the Christian religions, because you could never have believed that such a tournament between rabbles and Dominican monks could have ever been enacted in real- ity. With a few slight touches, however, which were the outcome of the poet's humor, the main facts of the story are literally true, so true that the sarcastic Heine even hesitates to finish it, to tell the result of the disputation, and unceremoniously drops the curtain with a sneer, at a time wljen our interest in the debate had risen to the highest point. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the Roman church was passing through severe and disastrous trials. Two popes were contesting for the pa})al tlirone, both so unworthy of it that the council of Pisa declared them both schismatics and excommunicated them, while the holy spirit, resting (as was supposed) upon the conclave, chose a third pope-, who was not better than his rivals. 140 DISSOLVING VIEWS The two popes, though anathematized, still continued to officiate, and one of them — Benedict XIII. — who had found the stanchest support among the clergy of Spain, emigrated into the province (then the kingdom) of Ara- gon. There he opened a court, continued to issue his bulls as before, and both the clerical and the secular rulers of Spain yielded submissively to them. The three popes, each supported by some prelates and princes, waged a diplomatic war with one another which finally came to an end at the celebrated council of Constance. Benedict XIII., wishing to ingratiate himself to the Christian community by some great deed, struck upon the idea of converting all the Jews to Christianity, of con- vincing that obstinate race of the truth of the Gospel, and of compelling them to make amends for the alleged crime which they had committed against the founder of the church. Jesus of Nazareth had not been able to convince his countrymen that he was the long expected Messiah, still the corrupt pope^ Benedict XIII., thought that he could prove that fact to the Israelites. It is not yet proven to our satisfaction whether tlie plan originated in the brains of the pope, or whether a Jewish apostate, Joshua Lorqui, alias Geronimo De Santa Fd, had hatched out the scheme in order to retaliate for some injuries which he thought he had received from the part of liis former coreligionists on account of his apostasy. Whether Geronimo used Pope Benedict as a tool, or whether he was used as such by the pope, is, however, immaterial to us. It suffices to know that in 1412 the pope issued an edict, countersigned by King Don Fernando of Aragon, inviting delegates of the Jewish community to the city of Tortosa, for the purpose of discussing some important religious questions. He proposed to prove to them from JOSEPH ALBO AND HIS TIME 141 Bible and Talmud that the Messiah had already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. A heavy fine was laid upon the Jews if they should refuse to attend that confer- ence, and the pope, being sure that he could convince the upper and intelligent classes of the Jews of the truth of his assertion, had no doubt the rest wcnild follow their example, and gladly plunge after them into the baptismal font. If the Jews were thus converted as if by miracle, the pope not only could boast of his efforts as highl}' meritorious, but he could point to the direct aid of God and the H0I3' Virgin, who would not succor an undeserv- ing prelate. The plan was well laid, but the reckoning, as the adage has it, was made without the host. The Jews, having no choice in the matter, sent sixteen of their most renowned scholars, at the appointed time, to Tor- tosa, aiuong them Don Vidal Ben Benveniste and Joseph Albo. Tliey were well versed not only in Hebrew lore but in all the sciences of the age. Don Vidal, for in- stance, who was made their spokesman, s[)()ke Latin fluently, and Joseph Albo, a physician, was well acquainted with classical literature. If the debate had been held for the purpose of instruction, or if the Jewish delegates had been really free to speak their mind, they would surely have mustered sufficient courage to meet their adversa- ries with a bold front, but, alas ! they knew the result beforehand. No matter how skilfully they would play the game, they would be deprived of the stakes, tlrey would be the losers at all events. They begged to be excused, but the pope was determined. They agreed among themselves to work together, and not to contradict one another ; but their good intentions were scattered to the wind in the heat of the debate, because they them- selves were not of the same mind in all points. A part of 142 DISSOLVING VIEWS them clung to the rationalism of Maimonides, another part opposed his philosophy ; they offered, therefore, to the enemy no closed-up phalanx, and it was easy for him to put his wedge into the very point where the two wings departed from each other. The tournament was opened with imposing ceremonies, all of which were calculated to overawe the Jews, and the sessions were continued for a year and nine months. The pope assured them at the first meeting, with bland and suave words, that he would not do them any harm, but that, on the contrary, he wished for nothing better than to establish their welfare here and hereafter. He was sitting upon a high throne, surrounded by the cardinals and bishops of his own creation ; the audience was com- posed of the nobility, ladies and gentlemen of high rank adorned in their most costly and fashionable garments. The same old arguments were rehearsed by the Christians and answered by the Jews : the same biblical texts were distorted in the same old way, and were in vain set. aright by the Jews. Whatever they might say, their words were maliciously interpreted, and in falsified min- utes they were made to say things in previous sessions wliich they never uttered. When the validity of the Tal- mud was discussed, and the most absurd accusations were hurled against that book, as, for instance, that the Talmud would permit the Israelite to beat his parents and blaspheme God and to commit perjury, or that it enjoined upon him to persecute Christians, the Jewish defenders were hit in their most vulnerable spot. One party, — the rationalistic followers of Maimonides, — headed by Don Astruc Levi, denied the authority of the Talmud in all those agadistic passages which could be distorted to afford such accusations ; the other, and more JOSEPH ALBO AND HIS TIME 143 Orthodox party, headed by Joseph Albo, would not give up a particle of the authority of the Talmud ; they ac- knowledged the full authority of every word, gave a more correct interpretation of the offensive passages, and begged not to be judged by the letter but by the spirit of the ordinances. Sixty-eight sessions were held in all, and sixty-eight times were the defenders of Judaism, so to say, stretched upon the spiritual rack. When nothing could break their spirit, when the logic of the Gospel could not find access to their dull heads, when even the number of forcibly converted Jews, who were imported from all parts of the country to testify publicly in the hall where the sessions were held of the glorious results which the newly acquired religion had yielded them, could not induce the stubborn representatives to take a similar step, the pope dismissed the convention, hurling bulls and decrees against the Jews, in his anger, which would have extirpated them had they ever been enforced ; but before they became laws, Pope Benedict was deposed by the council of Constance, and died in the small town of Peniscola. Let us now drop the curtain, and let us ask the ques- tion, whether these " good old times " were indeed such that we should sigh for them, or whether we should feel obliged to accept as binding the religious opinions and views of our ancestors, which had been the fruits of a de- pressed spirit, the necessary consequence of the bigotry, the fanaticism, and the intolerance of the fifteenth cen- tury. Were, indeed, the best men of that period, men like Don Benveniste Astruc and Joseph Albo, whom we may admire as dauntless champions of their faith, so much more learned than we are, so much nearer the truth, so much less prejudiced, that we should accept their decisions 144 DISSOLVING VIEWS as binding ? And if they are no authority for us, why should any previous or later generation be selected by us for spiritual guidance ? Let us understand it well ; they have been the children of their time, as had been their ancestors before them, and their children after theiji ; as are we, and as our children will be after us. They have formed their own opinion; they have selected from the past what seemed plausible to them, and have recoined it with the stamp of their time ; whatever they did not care for they rejected. Exactly the same do we : what- ever of old principles can stand the test of our scrutiny, and gives us satisfaction, we recoin for our use, pressing upon it the die of our age ; whatever does not agree with our views, customs, and experiences we abandon and abolish. The fifteenth century is also remarkable for the changes to which Jewish principles have yielded. We are almost always correct when we conclude that a book which, at its time, had a wide circulation, and had won for itself a lasting renown, is expressive of the cur- rent public opinion as well as of the current public sen- timent. If such a book had contained nothing else than the private opinion of even an illustrious author, it would not have survived ; it would have been lost in the sea of oblivion, with the millions of other individual fancies. Such a memorial, from which we may glean the gen- eral drift of religious thought in the fifteenth cen- tury, we possess in a book written by Joseph Albo, who was, as we have seen, one of the foremost champions for the Jewish cause at the religious tournament at Tor- tosa; he called it "Sefer Ikkarim, or the Book of Prin- ciples." JOSEPH ALBO AND HIS TIMK 145 Joseph Albo was born about 1380, in Monreal, and died about 1444, in Soiia. We know very little of him. We know that he conspicuously took part in the disputation, that in consequence of it he was obliged to leave his na- tive country; that he was a skilful physician and a clever orator, but that is all. We know him mostly by his book, which has still a hold upon our present generation, in so far as all the catechisms used in our Sunday-schools have adopted his three cardinal doctrines, and that they are still thought by many to circumscribe Judaism. Even the Pittsburg Convention, composed of the most radical Jewish rabbles of this country, embodied Joseph Albo's principles, with very slight alteratif)ns, in their platform. They are the belief in one God, the belief in a divine revelation, and the belief in immortalit}'. The condensation of Mairnonides' thirteen articles of creed into three, by Albo, amounts to little, as he simply unites several articles of his predecessor under one head. The remarkable departure of ^Joseph Albo from Maimonides is the motive which underlies- his principles, and which finds its full expression in the third article. Judaism had so far never accepted the doctrine of immortality. What- ever the hopes of the Israelites might have been in re- •gard to future existence, the biblical writings leave us in the dark, and are not outspoken. When the question of immortality was discussed for the first time, by Pharisees and Sadducees, it turned solely around the hypothesis of bodily resurrection. Even Maimonides failed to settle the question, and vacillated between a resurrection and an ideal immortality, which was, in point of fact, anni- hilation. Christianity had been compelled by necessity to accept the doctrine of a heaven and hell, and had preached it now for about a thousand years. The Jews 146 DISSOLVING VIEWS living among them were infected, therefore, with similar ideas, and in Albo we find them digested and reproduced in Jewish form. He is the first Jewish writer who claims that the great aim and destiny of man on earth are to save his soul. With this point he starts, and with this point he ends his philosophy. To save his soul, man must not only do the right thing, but his motives, too, must be pure. He must have faith, he must believe. Society could establish, and among pagans it had established, excellent laws for its preservation, but man could never save his soul by merel}' leading a righteous life, by merely following up the rules which society had laid down for his conduct. He must believe in God, and, in consequence thereof, that God has made known his will to man. The Mosaic law, which contained 613 ordinances, was not given to make it difficult for man to attain his salvation. On the contrary, Albo claimed that a man would be saved if he performed only one of them, and that by the greater number of ordinances he had gained a greater choice, and hence an easier access to heaven. This queer interpretation led him naturally to the acceptation of sev- eral grades of happiness ; the more ordinances a man had fulfilled, the greater would be his joys in heaven. Albo found it difficult to prove his doctrine of immortality from the Bible or the Talmud ; but so strong must have been the popular current in favor of an adoption of such a theory that his most distorted and absurd quotations were received as good arguments. A still greater diffi- culty beset his way when he endeavored to prove that the Jewish law was valid for all times, and could neither be abrogated nor replaced by a new dispensation, such as was, for instance, the Christian or Mohammedan law. He had stated before that God had given his law on several JOSEPH ALBO AND HIS TIME 147 occasions ; first to Adam, then to Noah, then to Abra- ham, and finally to Moses. The question, therefore, arose, why could God not have revealed a new law to some other prophet, for example, to Jesus or to Mohammed ? Albo endeavored to escape the snare in which he had caught himself through the following loop-hole : God had given his laws to Israel directly in the presence of thousands of spectators ; it could therefore be annulled only by a similar direct revelation. He did not see that he thus limited the whole Mosaic legislation to the Ten Commandments, which both Christians and Mohamme- dans recognized as valid. Judaism consisted, so Albo claimed, of two parts, creed and deed ; and either one was not sufficient to save a man's soul. Creed without deed and deed without creed were both ineffective. It was no wonder that thus the Christian ideas of dogma, sacra- ment, and the salvation of the soul as a consequence thereof, should have found or forced their way into Juda- ism. You may as well hang some article in a chimney and ask it to keep itself free from smoke, or to expose a piece of sugar to the rain and demand that it not get damp or melt, as to expect that Judaism, surrounded by the waves of intolerant and ignorant Christianity, forced by it into protracted discussions in regard to its points of departure, should not be saturated with the very ideas against which it contested. Thousands of Spanish Jews had already forsaken the standard of their relig- ion, and thousands of others were prepared to follow their example. A few more years and Judaism was destined to become extinct upon the Pyrenean Pen- insula. The final catastrophe which overwhelmed Judaism in Spain is so memorable an event, not alone in Jewish but 148 DISSOLVING VIEWS in general history, that I shall offer it a place in my " Dissolving Views." My next picture shall therefore bring before you the sad sight of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.' As its central figure I have chosen Don Isaac Abrabanei. XII. DON ISAAC ABRABANEL AND HIS TIME The history of mankiud is by no means a book the pages of which have always been kept scrupulously clean. All the great events in the life of the colossus called man- kind have been accompanied by more or less misery and suffering of individuals ; no great innovations have been ushered into the world wdthout the most excruciating labor pains, or, to quote the words of Marat, the great rev- olutionist of the last century, " Revolutions were never perfumed with rose-oil." It almost seems as if historians had found nothing worth recording in the life of the human race but the miseries through which it has passed and the blunders which it has made, for as you turn the pages of that remarkable book you are treated to narra- tives either of the one or the other kind, and, while ample space is given to wars, revolutions, and i)ersecutioiis, to conquerers, adventurers, and mart5a*s, little s[)ace is granted to the exposition of the more amiable traits of human character. Surprising as this fact may appear, it is quite natural that it is so. We forget easily the good days through which we have passed, and, as a rule, we love to dwell con'iplacenfly up'on the misfortunes which have beset our way. We repeat with delight narratives of the evil days wdiich we have endured, of the dangers from which we have been rescued, of the sicknesses from which we have recovered; and the oftener we repeat these 149 150 DISSOLVING VIEWS stories, the more do we embellish them and the more do we enlarge the size of the fact, without any intent to fal- sify it. To capture the sympathy and gain the pity of our hearers, on the one hand, and, on the other, to show our wisdom, courage, or, if nothing else, the richness of our vital resources, we paint unconsciously the dangers which have surrounded us in the blackest possible colors ; and thus it has occurred that also manl^ind, considered as one great individual, has recorded rather its evil days than its happy ones. Another reason for this peculiar oc- currence is that we are quick to observe wickedness, but very slow to recognize virtue. A crime committed some- where is not only minutely lecurded in the news columns of a daily paper, but the facts are eagerly read and still more eagerly discussed by the public, while very much less attention is paid to the good that is constantly prac- tised by the many. Virtue loves secrecy, though it need not fear publicity, and the one criminal action of which we occasionally hear is a hundred-fold counterbalanced by the many honorable deeds which never reach our notice. Historians have been informed of tlie evil deeds rather than of the noble actions of the members composing human society, and thus they have recorded the ones, while they have failed to note the others, just as our newspapers re- cord daily the crimes perpetrated in the community, of which they keep themselves well informed, while they pass over in silence all the honorable actions, of which information rarely, if ever, reaches the editorial sanctum. I beg of you, ray friends, to keep these introductory re- marks well in your minds that you may better follow the drift of the argument which I shall bring forth in regard to that page in the history of the human race over wliic'... so to say, a whole inkstand liad been emptied v/liicii DON ISAAC ABRABANEL AND HIS TIME 151 presents to us one large blot, and which is so unredeema- bly spoiled that not even an effort is made to palliate tlie crimes recorded thereupon or to excuse the incriminated persons. The horrors of the Inquisition and of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, which occurred in the year 1492, two days previous to the departure of Christopher Columbus on his adventurous 'but world-famed voyage, are facts which we could hardly believe, were not the authentic proofs of their reality in our hands. Whenever that soiled page in the book of history is turned, the finger of the reader touches a sore spot on the bodies of both Jew- ish and Christian communities. The one becomes enraged, its blood boils over at the remembrance of the undeserved and pitiable fate that overcame its ancestors, a fate fol- lowed by graver consequences tlian that which drove them from their native soil and scattered them over the face of the earth fourteen hundred years before. The first calam- ity had broken up their nationality, the second crushed their spirit for many centuries. The other party stands aghast and covers its face in shame. Christianity would do all and everything could it tear out that leaf from the book of history, could it cleanse the blotted page, could it undo the cruel deed. Alas ! the inkstand spilled by the fanaticism of Torquemada, Ferdinand, and Isabella has soiled it forever. On account of this soreness, it has become a universal custom for Jews to assail their adversaries with great fnry and hurl at them all kinds of invectives whenever the ex- pulsion of the Jews from Spain is discussed. We feel instinctively that here we stand upon impregnable ground, that the other side is so much in the wrojig that it has no means of defence ; hence our courage waxes. There is 152 DISSOLVING VIEWS rarely an orator or preacher who will treat of that chap- ter of history without indulging in the strongest language at his command, and whenever or wlierever a controversy between a Jew and a Gentile ensues you can be sure that, while the one will dwell upon the crucifixion of the Galilean, the other will throw out some hints in regard to the Inquisition ; that while one will mention Ananias and Herod, the other will find a match for them in Tor- quemada, Ferdinand, and Isabella. All such contro- versies, however, lead to nothing ; they do not concern the present, nor can they create a better feeling or better understanding between the two contestants. They are no arguments for or against the one or the other religion. If ever the advice " not to cry over spilt milk " is a good one, it should be applied in regard to the evil deeds with which past generations may have sullied tlieir records. We are not responsible for them. As little as we could be held responsible to-day for any misdeed for which our ancestors some thousand years ago might have been to blame, so little is the present Christian church, be it Catholic or Protestant, responsible for the edicts of King Ferdinand. In all such and similar cases, we must not allow ourselves to be misled by the ire of even a well-meaning orator, but we ought to learn to divest all such events of the addi- tions and exaggerations which in course of time have crystallized around them. The student of history must cast all prejudices aside before he enters the library ; he must forget that he has some theories which he would like to establish by facts, and he must be satisfied to ac- cept facts as they stand, even if they run counter to and upset his favorite theories. In such a spirit let us ex- amine the woful chapter in the history of the Spanish Jews. DON ISAAC ABKABANEL AND HIS TIME 153 No country in the world ever had a more diversified history within a few centuries than that of Spain. A Phoe- nician province, it became incorporated into the Roman empire after the fall of Carthage. A rich and flourishing country, it was one of the first to be overrun by the barbarians and also one of the first which became rapidly Christianized. But scarcely had the Goths had time to develop under the new conditions, or the Christian religion to establish itself upon a firm basis, when the Moors con- quered the land, annihilated Christianity, and within a few centuries made it a paradise both in regard to useful art and to spiritural culture. Christianity was wiped out as if it had never existed there. After Charles Martel had won the battle of Tours, the Mohammedan tide began to recede. Step by step Gallic tribes pressed southward, bringing with them the cross, which in former ages had ruled over Spain. The mongrel population which had been formed by marriages between Goths and Moors were reconverted to Christianity, but they were a most dan- gerous element : they were no longer the Gothic barba- rians they had been when Taric conquered the land ; they were highly cultured, and they infused the church with a skepticism which threatened to become dangerous to its existence. Rome felt, therefore, that it Vvas called upon to stamp out the fire of rationalism, which began to send up pillars of smoke and was threatening a general confla- gration. The Inquisition was to perform that greiit feat ; but it soon learned to despair of the result, because for every skeptic or infidel which it killed on the rack or burned on the pyre a score of new ones arose. Its last hope was to so isolate the faithful from all corrupting in- fluences that not the least glimmer of light should ever reach them. The last Moorish kingdom was finally con- 154 DISSOLVING VIEWS quered. Granada had surrendered, and the Moors had either emigrated to Africa or had been made Christians. The Jews, who are said to have lived in Spain already in the pre-Roman times, had passed through all these changes; they had preserved their religious customs, though, as we have seen, they had accommodated them- selves to the times. During the last two centuries they had been tossed about like a ball between the two con- testants, the advancing northern Christians and the re- ceding southern Moors. A great many of them had allied themselves to the conquerors and had embraced Chris- tianity, but so lax had they been in their allegiance to the church, and so much were they still attached to their former coreligionists, that they were not only suspected by the dignitaries of the church on account of their ra- tionalism but feared on account of their skeptical tenden- cies. The inquisitory tribunal felt, therefore, that Christianity could never take root in Spanish soil unless the Maranos, the pseudo-Christians, were cut loose from the Jews, through whose influence they were still kept from a thorough amalgamation with the conquerors. Hence the desire to expel them, to obtain by brute force what could not be reached by arguments. The invaders had been ignorant barbarians, who, though they exhibited great martial courage and genius, were lacking in the knowledge of arithmetic as well as in the knowledge of the laws of finance. Of all the laws that govern society, these are the most intricate, and even to-day, though known somewhat better than before, they are a mystery to many. Great financiers, as a rule, act rather by inspi- ration and financial instinct than by calculation. This financial instinct had evolved through natural selection among the Jews daring many generations. It was DON ISAAC ABUABA>iEL AND HIS TIME 155 wonderful to behold how the money would flow, as if by a charm, back to the coffers of the Jews from which it was taken, how the Jews witli apparentlij little bodily exertion would obtain the means to live in greater luxury than their masters. It was entirely overlooked that the Jew worked as hard, if not harder than his Christian neighbor ; that he lived more frugally, and that the finances of the whole country were left to his man- agement because the Christian invaders did not under- stand how to control them, and it must be a queer horse who would stand by the full crib without getting fat and sleek. So little understanding had the Spanish grandees of finances that they farmed out the revenues and taxes from which the government was to be supported; too io-norant and too lazv to collect statistics or to orp-an- ize a good bureaucratic machinery, the}^ offered the in- come of a city or province to the highest bidder, and they were pleased when tlie Jews, forming syndicates, would take that onerous and, as they considered it, disreputable business off their hands. The Jew became, therefore, rich ; but to the race hatred, to the ill feeling which exists between different religions, and to that jealousy which the poor most a]wa3's feel towards the rich, was added the dislike wliich ever}-- tax-payer bears against the tax-col- lector. People are alwaj^s grumbling when they are called upon to pay taxes, and they rarely think it a crime to deceive the state in the payment of revenues whenever a good opportunity offers itself. King Ferdinand, who was always pinched for money, thought that he would improve the state of his finances by the sequestration of the wealth which the Jews were said to have accumulated during centuries of toil and labor. Tlmt his pnlicy was ;i mistaken one, that he was 156 DISSOLVING VIEWS ignorant of that very first financial law, that money is of value only as an agent of exchange between commodi- ties, is so well known that I need not enlarge upon it. On March 30, 1492, he issued the famous, or rather infa- mous edict, that after the 31st of July no Jew should further be seen upon Spanish soil. It is a lengthy docu- ment, and it has been preserved so that we can scrutinize it to the letter, but what do we find? Were the Jews to be driven from the country on account of any immoral or criminal action on their part? Had they been rude, riot- ous, or ungovernable? Not a word is said about that, not the slightest allusion is made to any improper or unlawful conduct on their part. Were they accused, as they were frequently in other countries, of being usurers or money- grabbers? Not with a word does King Ferdinand refer to avarice or ill-gotten wealth. He brings only one accu- sation against them, and upon this he dwells at consider- able length. Their only crime was that they opposed the Catholic faith, that they induced others to do the same, that they held fast to the laws of Moses, that they se- duced others to join them in their religious practices, that, they supplied the Maranos with unleavened bread or with m^at slaughtered with ceremonies, that they in- structed them in the Jewish laws. This was all he had to say against them and what he offered as a reason for their expulsion. In the second paragraph of the edict he allows them to depart in peace during the three months given to them, and apparently permits them to take their wealth with them. A clause, however, upsets his good-will and shows the true inwardness of his plan. He prohibits them to export gold, silver, jewels, and all such articles the export of which was interdicted before. Thus they were not allowed to take anything with them. DON ISAAC ABRABANEL AND HIS TIME 157 In tlie third paragraph he fiiuls it necessary to threaten with the severest punislinieiit all those of liis subjects who should aid, protect, or assist any of the emigrants after the time appointed for their departure had elapsed. Two days of grace were afterwards added to the three months, so that the Jews left Spain on August 2, 1492 (the ninth Ab., the day upon which the Temple was twice de- stroyed) while Columbus set sail on August 4 of the same year, thus unconsciously preparing a future asylum for the Jews. The anecdote has been frequently rehearsed, that Isaac Abrabanel had made to the king the tempting offer of six hundred thousand crowns if he would revoke his cruel edict ; that Ferdinand had hesitated, but that Torque- mada had appeared at the critical moment before the king with the crucifix in his hand : " Judas," he ex- claimed, " sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver ; do you sell him for more ? " And so the king was hardened, and the decree not repealed. The misery by which the departure of the Jews was accompanied has also been nar- rated repeatedly, with all the exaggerations which gener- ally cluster around such stories. The fact remains for ns that the Jews had been innocent, that their sufferinof was intense, and that Ferdinand, instead of gaining, lost by the transaction ; but there are several i)oints which we ought not to overlook, and which, though they do not palliate the crime, reduce its apparent enormity. With the exception of some ruffians, the people of Spain do not seem to have been in sympathy with the king's decrees. Although the Jews lingered to the last day, they were not molested by the people. Would it have become necessary to threaten with punishment of the severest kind the one who would aid the Jews, if the pcojtle liad InS DISSOLVING VIEWS been opposed to them? The sufleriiig of the emigrants began after they had left their native country. The king's edict prohibited the carrying away of gold, silver, and jewels ; but still, we are informed that the rich among the Jews assisted the poor ones, that they had mone}^ to pay their passage on ships, that they paid for the permit of settling temporarily in Portugal, and it is quite sure that no domicile would have been found for any one of them unless he had something to begin with. Abrabanel, who emigrated to Naples, did not live there as a poor man. How could all this have been done without the connivance and the good-will of the inhabitants ? If it is true that, as most historians agree, three hundred thou- sand persons were exiled, how is it that they did not rise in riot? They could have mustered quite an army, they could have drawn assistance from the Moors, who still bewailed the loss of Granada, and, as there was a chival- rous spirit among them, how is it that the whole affair ran off so peacefully, that the outrage committed against such laige numbers did not make a greater stir than if a flock of sheep were driven from one field into another? Three hundred thousand persons are no small concern. Were there, indeed, enough ships in all the Spanish sea- ports at that time to convey even sixty thousand people to other countries ? It seems to me that the dimensions of the expulsion have been cut out of whole cloth. It must have been neither so large as it is made out to have been, and, let us believe, not so cruel as the description of the sufferers make it. A continuous pressure of the Christians may have forced a great many Jews into exile, and may have driven a still greater number into the bosom of the Church ; it is still more probable that this pressure was felt more oppressively at one time than at another, DON ISAAC ABRABANEL AND HIS TIME 150 and that at that memorable occasion a greater number of Jews left the inliuspitublc jjeninsuhi than either before or later ; but the edict of Ferdinand, cruel as it was, must have had the fate of many other such edicts, which were hurled before and afterwards against our unfortunate ancestors, viz., that it was never carried out to the full extent which it had in view. We have had lately a simi- lar experience, which seems almost incredible in our age. Similar edicts have been promulgated against the Jews not only by the Russians, who are looked u[)on still as semi-barbarians, but, what is still more surprising, by the Germans, who pride themselves upon being the most en- lightened nation upon the European continent. A large number of Jews have suffered from them, it is true ; and when they tell their doleful stories, they sound similar to those written by Abrabanel : but the number of exiles comprises only a small fraction in proportion to those who are still living at home in spite of the decrees ; neither does the haste in which many of the Russian emi- grants returned to their native country, when an oppor- tunity was given to them, show that the treatment which they had received was so unbearable. This should not weaken the enormity of the crime committed by King Ferdinand ; it is inmiaterial whether the sufferers were few or whether they were many, the motives and inten- tions of the edict are infamous ; but we must not boil over in rage, and should reduce facts to their real pro- portions. Whether the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was instantaneous or gradual, it broke the spirit, not only of the exiles, but of all Jews, wherever they lived. Rea- son, furthermore, was suppressed for some time, and the night of ignorance began to fall heavily all over Europe. About this time the art of printing was invented. The 1B0 DISSOLVING VIEWS Church was greatly in fear of that " black and devilish art," from which it forebode no good, and it attempted to destroy, at the last moment, all such documents as could show the falsity of its claims. The Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and Hebrew books in general were greatly feared. Wherever and whenever the Church could get possession of them, it destroyed them unmercifully, and if it had not been for some Christian students, who valued truth more than religion, it is doubtful whether a scrap of all that grand literature would now be in existence. I have yet to give you the biograjihy of Isaac Abra- banel ; of the man who, a second Jeremiah, had seen and lived through all the miseries which the expulsion of the Jews from Spain had brought upon them. Don Isaac Abrabanel was born in Lisbon, in the year 1437. His family prided itself upon having descended in a direct line from King David, a claim against which nobody raised a voice at that time. His grandfather, Samuel Abrabanel, had accepted the Christian faith, during a time of perse- cution, but he had returned to Judaism as soon as cir- cumstances permitted him to do so. The whole family was talented ; his father, Judah Abrabanel, had already been the financial agent of a Portuguese prince. King Alphonso V. intrusted Isaac with the management of his finances, and througli his position he became intimately connected with the nobility of the country, and, through bonds of friendship, allied with Fernando de Braganza. Unfortunately, King Alphonso died, and his son, Joao II., inherited the throne of his father, thougli not the confi- dence which the latter had placed in Isaac Abrabanel. Wishing to get rid of his nobles, whose independence was a thorn in his eyes, he caused the Duke de Braganza to be arrested, to be tried for high treason, and to be decap- DON ISAAC ABUABANEL AND HIS TIME lt'>l itated. Abrabanel, who had been on the most intimate terms with the deceased, was also suspected ; he was in- vited to attend the court, but, being warned in time, lie escaped the snare by immediate flight. He removed to Toledo, in Spain, and, though he had lost the bulk of his fortune, he was received with great honors by the Jews of the place, and admitted into partnership by Abraham Senjor. During a few years Abrabanel enjoyed the happiness of a peaceful life, writing commentaries to tlie books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, but in 1484 he was called to the court of Fernando, the King of Spain, who intrusted him with the management of his finances, which then were in chaotic disorder. He succeeded so well, during the eight years in which he held office, that the king could successfully finish his campaign against the Moors, but it seems he must have been unable to curb the influence of Torquemada, and that he was kept in the dark until the last moment in regard to the edict which banished the Jews from Spain. Even after the decree was issued Abrabanel had access to the royal pair. Until the very last day of his departure, it was expected that he would turn Christian, as did his friend Abraham Senjor. Abra- banel must have disappointed the king by preferring the exile ; still, the royal pair did not place obstacles in the way of their former favorite. He went to Naples and ar- lived there unmolested, long before the first exiles reached that place. He was kindly received by the king, and im- mediately appointed manager of his finances. Through his intervention and through the favor which he found with the king, some of his compatriots were allowed to settle down in that city. It is not known why he left hospitable Naples, but it is a fact that he died in Venice, Ifi2 DISSOLVING VIEWS «> in 1509, leaving to posterity many valuable documents in regard to the events of his adventuresome life. My next lecture shall not treat of any remarkable Jew- ish person ; quite on the contrarj^, its heroes shall be Reuchlin, a Christian scholar of great European renown, and Pfefferkorn, a Jewish apostate. The scene will be shifted from the borders of the river Ebro to those of the river Rhine, and it will contain a part of the history which preceded the great religious revolution called the Reformation, which split Christianity into two sects, the Catholics and Protestants. XIII. REUCHLIN AND PFEFFERKOEN In the course of my lectures, I have had, so far, little occasion to speak of the condition of the Jews in countries which were exclusively Christian. We have concerned ourselves mostly with the development of Jewish thought as it took place in the east, and later on in western coun- tries under Mohammedan influence. The reason is obvi- ous. Culture had been confined to these countries alone ; and although Christianity had paved the way, its progress towards the north had been rather slow\ The Jew, fol- lowing the light of culture, arrived, therefore, in northern countries much later, and began there to develop at a time when his coreligionists iu southern or south-eastern countries had reached tiie philosophical zenith. The Jews had arrived in Germany rather late : some say that Jewish colonists had settled on the borders of the river Rhine immediately after the Roman conquest of these territories, but that assertion cannot be proven ; it has its origin in the desire of the German Jews to exoner- ate themselves from their participation in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. They opposed the silly accusation brought against them by the Christians, that they had murdered their Saviour, by the equally silly claim that, no matter what the Jews in Jerusaleiu might have done, their own ancestors had been innocent of it, because they had been at that time already residents of Germany and 168 164 DISSOLVING VIEWS had taken no part in the proceedings. In fact, we do not find Jews in Germany before tlie ninth century, and even tlien tliey were few in number. Tlie main reason for tlieir absence from tliis region was that the Germans, though partly Christianized, were not yet debarbarized. The condition of tlie Jews in Germany from the moment we meet with them there was a peculiar one. The Ger- man emperors, claiming to be the rightful successors of the Roman Ctesars and calling themselves Roman empe- rors, considered the Jews as their private property. Ves- pasian, so they argued, had conquered Judea and had made the Jews captives ; to them as his sole heirs did, therefore, their descendants belong, as the child of a slave would belong as rightful property to his master. Ignorant in financial matters, they used the Jews as a medium through which to collect an income for private or public purposes. A part of this power was, of course, delegated to the host of dukes, barons, and counts who then formed the substance of the German government ; but the Jews of Germany stood, in all cases, under the protection and regulation of the emperor. Under such a degrading servitude, no originality could be expected of them ; they lived spiritually hy the scraps which fell from the table of their southern brethren, and their inclina- tions verged rather towards the acceptation of the super- stitious than towards rationalism. The Cabalah found most fertile ground among German Jews. Barbarous and ignorant as were the inhabitants of Germany, so was also their newly acquired Christianity; no superstition was too crude for the German believer. But all this was to be changed ; the superstitious and barbarous Germans were destined to become the most rational and most cult- ured nation of the European continent ; several occur- KEUCHLIN AND PFEFFEKKORN 165 rences which happened about this time brought this con- dition about. The ignorant and fanatical Germans had been the most zealous champions of the Crusades ; they had plunged heart and soul into that campaign, and the German princes were the last to withdraw from the unsuccessful enter- prise. Though defeated by the Moliammedans, though almost depopulated by the conscription of able-bodied men, which had drained the country for more than two hundred years, they still gained in the end. If they had not conquered Jerusalem the golden, they had brought home at least something that was of no less value, — they had brought home culture. They had learned that there was a world beyond the limits of their country', much more beautiful, more highly cultivated than theirs, and that there were things worth knowing besides their cate- chism, of which they knew miglity little ; their eyes had been opened, they first began to dream and then to think. What they needed, and could not yet produce, were teachers who should show them the nature of all the tilings they had seen in foreign lands, and tliis supply came to them, so to say, over night. The Turks, conquer- ing Constantinople in tlie middle of tlie fifteenth century, had made an end to tlie last remnants of Rome's former glory, but at the same time they scattered into all direc- tions the inhabitants of the Greek empire. These took with them the stores of culture and knowledge whicli had lain buried in the provinces of the Graico-Koman em- pire. The exiled Greeks became the teachers of western and north-western Europe. Tliey brouglit with tliem the knowledge of the classics, and a new world was opened to the Cliristian inhabitants of France, Germany, and England, through the literature of that grand past. Speared to him in the garb of a mother, not once, but on all important occasions ; that she would speak to him, and 198 DISSOLVING VIEWS predict coming events. Many of her prophecies were fulfilled, but many others never came to pass. She told him that he would become a great man, that he would marry three wives in succession, and would grow rich by the dowry that they would bring him, that he would become a martyr and a saint, that he would end his life on the pyre, as did his friend Molcho, and that miracles would be worked at his grave. Of these only his three marriages and the renown in which he was to be held by later generations came true. A rabbi, Jacob Berab, had found out, through Cabalistic calculations, that the Messianic time could not be established, nor God com- pelled to dismiss the Messiah from his present abode, in one of the "Sephiroth," unless all Jews would unite in one form of ritual, and unless all rabbles would teach exactly the same lesson, and agree with one another in all points. To make all of one mind, a source must be discovered from which all authoritj' could flow ; this source should be found in a Sanhedrin, to be established as it had been in olden times, and endowed witli infallible wisdom and irresistible force. But who should ordain the rabbles composing this supreme religious tribunal ? Where should the authority be found from which tlie authority of the Sanhedrin could be derived? The ingenious Berab un- tied the knot in an Alexander-like fashion. He had him- self ordained by a conclave of Palestinian rabbles, as a first authority, and then proceeded to ordain in exchange those who had ordained him, with a number of new mem- bers. Among those thought worthy of ordination was Joseph Karo, who, when he found that the authority of the Sanhedrin was not recognized by the Jewish commu- nity at large, began to prepare a book, by t he rules of which all the Jews should be guided in all matters per- JOSEPH KARO 199 taiiiing to religion. In absence of a supreme authority, a hook like Karo's Sliulelian Aruch had become a popular want, and its value was enhanced because a man was its author who had. been found worthy of revelations and visions from on high. You will now understand why such a work was hailed with joy, and found, not only a large circulation, but very strict obedience ; never was the Mosaic law so strictly obeyed, as was the Shulchan Aruch. From the strict performance of the rites pre- scribed therein depended not only the future welfare of the individual, but that of all Israel at large. It was jelieved that if all would uniformly perform the same rites, God would be compelled to dismiss the Messiah, and to send him to the earth, and the arrival of this divine messenger would at once change their misery into gladness, their weeping into dancing. The Shulchan Aruch is a collection of all the practices and usages which had been observed among the Jews during the many centuries of their existence, and con- tains the wisest prescriptions by the side of the most absurd superstitions. The author never questions why and when any practice liad been introduced. Whenever he finds tliat some ancient author has expressed himself favorably in regard to a certain custom, he admits it at once, cind holds every Jew responsible for its strict fulfil- ment. Criticism or skepticism had no place in his nature, and he never doubted tlie words of a writer of the -past. His book spread a gloom over all Judaism. It banished the smile from every face and made the Jew old before his time. It was Karo who gave to the Puritans, in liis Shulchan Aruch, the prototype of their blue-laws. He prohibited every enjoyment on the Sabbath day. He made of the day of atonement, which was originally a pleasure- 200 DISSOLVING VIEWS day, a day of gloom and sadness. He infused the virus of the Cabalah into every holidays prayer, and ceremony. How could it be otherwise ? A man who was convinced that he could compel God to send the Messiah before the proper time; who was persuaded tliat by the performance of some kinds of mystic rites man could obtain power over all the other nine spheres which separated him from God, inclusive of their whole population ; a man who would blindly believe and never reason : a man who did not care a straw for the individual opinion of his brother, and who, with genuine Spanish intolerance, would have compelled all to abide by his decision, — what would such a man care for a little comfort or discomfort more or less? What would he care about wholesome religious and moral development? Lacking all knowledge of history, there was for him but one past, and this was that of the Davidian reign ; nor was there any other future before him than that which his Messiah would bring. He knew nothing of the desires of the human heart : nothing of tlie pleasures, recreations, and aspirations of tlie j'oung. He lived in a world of visions, of phantoms and spirits, and was a stranger upon earth, and lie galled and soured the life of the Israelite by surrounding him with legions of sins, all created by him. Sins and temptations to sins beleaguered the soul of the Israelite from morning till night, and even in his sleep he could not escape their power. He could sin even in a dream. The Shulchan Aruch was the morose product of a morose spirit. At the time of Maimonides, it would have been rejected with scorn. Two hundred years after Karo it was rejected, or, at least, circumvented, but at his time it satisfied a public demand and was greeted by all with joy. Thus we behold Judaism changed again, but, alas !' not JOSEPH KARO 201 improved. The skeptic had turned a mystic, starved himself with fasts, and considered the earth a vale of tears and misery. In munk-like fashion, he as})ired to rule God, while he allowed the reins wherewith to govern the earth to slip from his hands. We ma}' look upon that historical period with pity or with disgust. I leave that to your choice, my friends. But whenever the question, "What is Judaism?" is to be answered, shall we then point, as do our orthodox brethren, at Karo's Shulchau Aruch, and say, " This is Judaism " ? Surely not. That was Judaism ; but, thank God, it is Judaism no longer, nor had it ever been Judaism before its time. We can say that at best it was an aberration of the Jewish mind, which, caused by the occurrence of certain peculiar cir- cumstances, had darkened our religious horizon for a short period. We yet meet frequently with the consequences of the Cabalistic aberration, for they have been eliminated only with great difficulty from the body of Judaism. We shall, however, now turn to a person who, though not celebrated as a great scholar, has been one of those practi- cal men who had their eyes in their forehead. Looking ahead, he beheld the needs of future days and endeavored to supply these wants. We have followed our ancestors through all lands, but we have not yet set our foot on the shores of England, a land \\ itli wliose history we are all familiar. I shall, therefore, devote a lecture to the fort- unes of the Jews in England, and to the man who secured their readmission to the British Isles from Oliver Cromwell. XVI. MANASSE BEN ISRAEL AND HIS TIME It is not of unfrequent occurrence that men who have the disposition of large fortunes draw from their wealth but a slight dividend, while men who are dependent upon the good-will of others, whose liabilities are sometimes larger than their assets, and who have to pay a large interest on the capital which they handle, manage to draw such a competency from their transactions that the world, judging from appearances, considers them rich and grants to them such social positions which, as a rule, go with the possession of actual wealth. The one of the two classes of business-men turns over the same dollar only once a year ; the other, ten times, if not oftener. It is, therefore, not the bullion buried in his safe that repre- sents the real wealth of a man ; it is his genius, the way he handles capital that provides him with a large share of the good things of this earth. In the world of letters the same laws prevail as in the mercantile world. There are men who possess mines of knowledge, who have at their disposal stores of facts, who have at their fingers' ends all the events that have occurred from the first day of creation to their time, the roots of all the words that ever were spoken, or the rules of law by which judges have ever been governed ; in a word, men who, like King Solomon, know the properties of all things, from the palm- tree to the hyssop. These men, however, little know how 202 MANASSE BEN ISRAEL AND HIS TIME 203 to make use of all their wisdom and knowledge. They may live happily in the possession of their intellectual wealth ; but the dividend, the revenue, which they derive from it is rather small. Others, on the other hand, who have less profundity of knowledge, know better how to make proper use of their resources. Instead of locking them miserly awa}^ they expose whatever little they have learned, the}' loan it out on good interest and make it thus the common property of all ; they turn over the one dollar of their wisdom a hundred times in a year, for a hundred different purposes and in a hundred different transactions, Avhile the first-named class allow their men- tal capital to rest unused. It is no question but that humanity has been much more benefited by the work of the latter class than by that of the former, and a grate- ful posterity has oftener showered fame and renown upon those than upon the men whom we might not improperly call the bloated intellectual bond-holders. These intel- lectual capitalists may look down contemptuously from their elevated position upon the humble workers who borrow from them, often at high interest ; but the intel- lectual trade is in the hands of the latter, and so are the greater profits. I shall speak to you to night of a man who belonged to this second class; of a man who, though he was by no means a profound scholar, has well deserved the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries, because he well understood how to make excellent use of what little he knew. I shall speak of a man from whom Judaism has profited more than by a dozen of his more scholarly contemporaries ; of a man who, by his word, Avork, and private life,, has made Judaism respected, or, at least, has paved the way for the respect wliich it now enjoys. 204 DISSOLVING VIEWS Manasse Ben Israel was born in 1604, in Lisbon ; but he emigrated early with his father, a fugitive Marano, to Amsterdam, which tlien was the place of refuge for all persecuted Israelites. Such were his abilities that, besides his studies of the Bible, Talmud, and Cabalah, he mas- tered several languages, and that at the age of eighteen years he was elected to the high position of Chacham, or Rabbi, of the cons^reffation of Amsterdam. The freedom which Holland had granted to the Jews had been followed by the same consequences which had ever resulted when- ever the sun of liberty was allowed to shine upon Jews. They gave up their chmnishness, entered upon terms of sociality with their fellow-citizens, studied all branches of science, and began to take a lively interest in communal affairs. In Amsterdam they did not remain behind their neighbors in outward pomp. They built an elegant syna- gogue, established a Hebrew academy, in which, by a sys- tematic course, a scholar could rise from class to class, from the a, b, c to the mastery of the Talmud. They introduced even something which was then a novelty among Jews, viz., sermons. The Catholic church was built upon the sacraments, and sermons were a luxur3^ not identical with the church service itself; the Protes- tant church, discarding the pompousness of the Catholic- church, was built upon the sermon, upon the preaching of the Gospel, and would collapse without it. In Protestant Holland the Jews, as usual, accommodated themselves t(. the customs of the land, and demanded of their three rab- bles that they should preach sermons alternately. Aboab, one of Manasse's colleagues, was renowned for the pro- fundity of his remarks, while Manasse was noted for his eloquence. A distinguished visitor, who had. heard them both preach, expressed himself regarding them in the fol- MANASSE P.KN ISRAEL AND HIS TIME 205 lowing way: "Aboab," said he, "knows what he says, and Manasse says what he knows." Manasse would perhaps have remained as unknown as his more scholarly colleagues had he not caught up with the spirit of his time, had he not understood what even to-day many clergjunen seem not to understand. He recognized and appreciated the power of the jjress ; he found the time had passed when people could be reached only by the ear, and that a new day had come, in which people could be reached and ought to be reached through the eye. Manasse published his sermons, his essays ; in fact, all with which he wanted people to be impressed. He opened a printing-office himself. Financially his enter- prise was no success; he did not grow rich by the royalty he received from the sale of his pamphlets and books, but he succeeded better intellectually. His name became advertised, and his fame spread. Christian scholars, men who had never heard of his contemporaries and had never deemed it worth while to become acquainted with them, heard of him and sought his friendship. The word of Manasse Ben Israel, deficient as it was in a great many cases, still had a sound. It caught the attention of the masses ; people were willing to stand still and to listen to what Rabbi Manasse Ben Israel had to say. Among the many books which he published I shall mention his "Con- ciliador," written in the Portuguese language, in which he attempted to straighten out the contradictions, con- tained in the Bible, and another book, on "The Resurrec- tion," in which he defends the most nonsensical Cabalis- tic beliefs in the migration of souls. The hope in the near advent of the Messiah was very strong in him. How could it be otherwise? The Christian world, too, was sure that the fifth empire, or era prophesied by Daniel and 206 DISSOLVING VIEWS the New Testament writings, was near at hand. The main question was whether Jesus of Nazareth would appear again, or some other personality ; but that the Jews must by necessity be a factor of great importance in the Messianic drama was beyond question, and con- ceded by all. Two points embarrassed greatly the Mes- sianic enthusiasts of that time. According to biblical predictions, the Messiah was to reinstate the twelve tribes of Israel, but how could this be done as long as ten tribes were lost ? the coming of the Messiah appeared to many, therefore, as utterly useless unless the ten tribes could be found. Manasse Ben Israel was happy to solve this im- portant question, and to set the anxieties of his corelig- ionists, as well as those of his Christian friends, at rest. A Jewish traveller had made a great discovery. He had seen some members of the lost tribes, and he had con- firmed it with an oath to Manasse himself. Antonio de Montezinos, a Marano, had gone to America, which was then the land of wonders. From an Indian he had heard that in the interior there lived a tribe which performed ceremonies similar to those which he had seen him (Anto- nio) perform. After much urging, he was taken to the place, which he reached after an adventuresome journey of several daj^s, and was introduced to three people, two men and a woman, who greeted him with the Hebrew words, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one." They assured him that they were descendants of the ten tribes, who had reached America after many adventures, and had settled in tlie interior of the continent, preserving their religious customs. Montezinos, Avho visited Am- sterdam in the year 1644, gave to Manasse the details of his discovery, and he, of course, had no doubt but that all was literally true. He published a pamphlet entitled, MANASSE BEN ISRAEL AND HIS TIME 207 " The Hope of Israel," in wliich he made known to the world this surprising piece of news, making it the funda- mental point of his argument that the Messianic time was fast approaching. This one question having been settled to satisfaction, another rose into still greater prominence. It was gener ally believed that the Messiah would not come until the Jews had been thoroughly dispersed and spread all over the surface of the inhabited earth. Scripture had pro- claimed in unmistakable terms that the Messiah should collect the Jews from the four corners of the earth ; and although they were b)^ that time fairly well scattered about, although the}^ were to be found in Asia, Africa, the European continent, and even in America, there was just one small corner which they had not 3'et reached, and this corner was England. It was absolutely necessary that Jews should reside in England if the Messiah was to ever have a chance of coming. Now, here was an obstacle which could be overcome by human efforts ; and, whereas the times were propitious to the project, ]\Ianasse, in his eagerness to accelerate the advent of the Messiah, set him- self to work to bring about an immigration of Jews into the British Isles. Whenever I read of the efforts which our ancestors made to hasten the arrival of the Messiah, my heart is stirred with pity and commiseration. We in our time are hardly able to understand how it ever was possible for rational beings to indulge in such delusive visions. We can hardly comprehend how people could ever believe that one man appealing among them could bring about what their united efforts could not perform; and still less can we to-day realize how people otherwise sane could imagine that God could l)e compelled to send that man. 208 DISSOLVING VIEWS that by fasts, prayers, and ceremonies the advent of the Messiah could be accelerated. It is, however, a fact that, as late as the middle of the seventeenth century, not one Israelite but all, not the ignorant multitude but even the learned few, not Jews alone but Christians and Mohammedans too, believed firmly that the Messiah would appear and the Jews would be restored to national activity and order of some kind. We must, therefore, not look upon Manasse Ben Israel as upon a person whose enthusiasm was bordering on insanity, when we find him working with all the might which religious devotion, coupled with patriotism, can lend, for the sole aim of obtaining permission for the Jews to return to England ; his purpose was not to secure for them more hospitable homes on British soil, but for the avowed end that, a dispersion of Israel thus being per- fected, the Messiah could be compelled to appear. The times were indeed propitious for Manasse's hobby. It is not known when Jews settled for the first time in Eng- land. A great many legendary accounts are afloat, which place their arrival in the British Isles as far back as the time of the Phoenicians. Historical evidences, however, of the presence of Jews in England are not found before the middle of the eighth century. From that time to the time of their expulsion, which occurred at the close of the thirteenth century, their fate in England was the same as was that in other countries. At one time they were favored and protected by a well-meaning king, and they grew rich in wealth and knowledge ; at another tliey were persecuted, plundered, and murdered. They were both loved and hated, petted and persecuted, without cause. After the final expulsion under Edward I., individual Jews only occasionally set their foot upon British soil. It MANASSE BEN ISRAEL AND HIS TIME 209 is said that Queen Elizabeth confided the care of lier health to a physician, Rodrigo Lopez, a Jew ; and that in 1650 a Jew named Jacobs introduced the use of coffee into England by opening a coffee-house at Oxford, but for two hundred years the English population never beheld the face of a Jewish resident. Shakespeare had never seen a Jew, nor was he ever acquainted with their customs and ways of thinking ; and his Shylock is as far from be- ing a true representation of a Jew as is the picture of a sea-serpent, such as appears on the sign-board of a trav- elling showman, from the original, which neither the painter nor anybody else has ever seen. The Reforma- tion, which had not confined itself to religious matters, but liad extended its fermenting influence even into poli- tics, had brought about great changes in the religious and political views of the English. The Bible, through its authorized translation and through the press, had become a household library ; it had permeated the masses, and began now to exert its influence. Assuming that every word in it was the word of God, not few even imagining that God had made use of their English idiom when ad- dressing the people of Israel, they took the biblical char- acters for their prototypes. The martial and stal\\'Tirt Britishers felt attracted more by the spirit of the Old than by that of the New Testament. The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were their favorite study, and quotations from them were always at the tip of their tongues. The war songs of David appealed to their sym- pathy, and struck a chord in their valiant hearts. They began to love the people of God, and, as they themselves were eager to establish a kingdom of God after the biWi- cal pattern, the}^ could not but admit that Jehova would not cast out forever his favorites, but would turn to them 210 DISSOLVING VIEWS again in mercy and pity. Believing in miracles, they could not but allow that God might lead back his people into Palestine with an outstretched arm and a powerful hand. This love and sympathy, however, were rather of an ideal and Platonic nature. The English could afford such a luxury, because there was not a Jew upon English soil with whom they might come in conflict. How strong their pretended sentiment in favor of the Jews was, be- came now evident when it was put to the test. When Oliver Cromwell made himself master of the sit- uation, Manasse thought that the time had arrived for the realization of his hopes. He sent to him a petition writ- ten in the Latin language, and humbly asked of him to lay it before the parliament. In this memorial, he ex- plained that the time of the ad vent of the Messiah was near at hand, that at last the ten tribes had been found, and that the only obstacle in the way of the speedy com- ing of the Messiah was that no Jews were living in Eng- land. He begged, therefore, that the law through which the Jews had been expelled should be repealed by act of parliament. He promised that the English people should not be harmed by the Hebrews, as their stay would be only of a transitory nature. After the dispersion of the Jewish people became perfected by their return to Eng- land, the Messiah would appear and recall them from thence. His petition reached, indeed, the parliament, and met with a somewhat favorable reception. Lord Middle- sex addressed a letter in behalf of the government to his "beloved brother, the Hebrew philosopher, Manasse Ben Israel," enclosing a passport and an invitation to visit England. But there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. A war broke out between England and Holland ; domestic troubles laid claim upon the full attention of MANASSE BEN ISRAEL AND HIS TIME 211 Cromwell, and Manasse came near deserting liis position, leaving the pulpit and becoming a merchant. The clouds, however, soon passed by, and when the new parliament, composed mostly of Cromwell's friends, met on the 5th of July, in the year 1653, another petition of Manasse's was laid before the house and handed over to a committee. Again he received an invitation from the committee to represent his cause in person, but, before he had time to settle his affairs in Holland, the parliament was dissolved on December 12 of the same 3^ear, and Cromwell assumed the title of Protector. In the following year, Manasse repeated his petition, and Cromwell sent it again to the parliament, then in session, recommending it for speedy action. For the third time Manasse was invited to plead his cause in person. This time he went. In October, 1655, he arrived in London, and was received with the choicest courtesies by the powerful Protector. When he was received by Cromwell in audience, he delivered to him a carefully prepared address, in which he emphasized that God had ever punished those who had been hostile against his chosen people, while he had blessed the friends of Israel. In a country which so highly cherished free- dom of thought and speech, and which had changed" its form of government from the monarchical into the repub- lican, he hoped that also the Jew would find a domicile and be allowed to enjoy the same freedom as others. At the same time, Manasse published what he called a ." Dec- laration," in which he gave his reasons why the Jews should be admitted. This memorial rested upon two points. The one was his hobby that the stay of the Jews in England should last only for a short period ; that, all nec- essary preliminaries having then become fulfilled, the Messiah would, nay, 7nust, come. The other was that Eng- 212 DISSOLVING VIEWS land would profit from the mercantile spirit and enter- prise of the Jews. Cromwell was decidedly in favor of admitting the Jews, though what his reasons maj' have been we do not know. He laid the affair before a com- mittee composed of the Lord Chief Justice Glynn, the Lord Chief Baron Steele, the Lord Mayor and Ex-Lord Mayor of London, the two sheriffs, seven aldermen, and fourteen high dignitaries of the church. The committee met on December 4, 1655, in Whitehall, to discuss whether the act of Edward I. was yet in force, as it had not been sanctioned by any i^arliament, and whether and under what conditions and restrictions England should be opened to Jewish immigration. It now became evident that the great love for the Jews, of which the English Protestants had made so great a display, was only skin-deep. All London became excited ; the populace objected to admitting the Jews, and all the old and threadbare prejudices were again forced into service. It was said that they would ruin the land by usur}^ that they would kill the children of Christians, that they would clip the coins, and so forth. The hall was crowded with excited spectators. After three sessions the committee had arrived at no decision. Crom- well himself presided in a fourth one, on December 18, 1655. He introduced Manasse, who addressed the meet- ing, and Cromwell himself spoke with great fervor for him and his cause, reproaching the clergy, who could not be, stirred an inch. His argument to them was the fol- lowing : " Christianity," said he, " 6ught to be preached to the Jews, that they might become converted ; but how can this be done if we do not receive them in our midst ? " All was in vain. Rumors spread that the Jews were ready to buy St. Paul's Church, and to convert it MANASSE BEN ISRAEL AND HIS TIME 218 into a synagogue, that they were transacting for the pur- chase of Oxford University, tliat a committee had ar- rived to ascertain wliether Cromwell himself was not the Messiah. Manasse, who had now been staying in Eng- land for half a year, began to feel dismayed at the ill- success of his mission ; still, he continued to publish iiidefatigably pamphlet after pamphlet, in which he re- futed all the current accusations against the Jews. The best of all is, no doubt, an essay which appeared in print in London in 1656, entitled " Vindicice Judpeorum," or " a letter in answer to certain questions propounded by noble and learned gentlemen, touching the reproaching.s cast on the nation of the Jews." This last pamphlet was the most successful of all his writings ; it turned the tide of the popular sentiment. Cromwell dismissed Manasse honorably, on February 20, 1657, granting him an annuity of one hundred pounds ; and, although the Jews were not admitted by act of parliament, Cromwell permitted a great maiiy Spanish Jews to settle down in London, granting them a piece of land for a burial-place. Returning home, Manasse died on his way, in ]\Iiddle- borough, in March, 1657. His corpse was brought to Amsterdam and buried with great honors. A short time after his demise, a Jewish colony was flourishing in London, which elected one of his best friends, Jacob Sasportas, as rabbi. Manasse Ben Israel, though he may not have been crammed with as much Talmudical knowledge as w§re his colleagues in Amsterdam, or rabbies in other places, has, nevertheless, done more for Jews and for Judaism than all of them taken together. His establishment of a Jewish colony in Rngland \Vas only one of his minor suc- cesses, though he may have considered it the highest 214 DISSOLVING VIEWS result of his life's work. He reintroduced (and this is much more) the Jew into the world. He defended him, he refuted all accusations which were current against him, and which his learned brethren had neither the courage nor the force to hurl back at the accuser. He established a reputation for him. What does it matter if his learning was defective here and there, or if his views were shallow now and then? He understood his time, he knew how to utilize given facts ; he was the first rabbi to preach to the masses which stood outside the gates of his synagogue, by means of the press. He was an ardent and 'zealous laborer for the Jewish cause. Even in his imperfections, even in his prejudices, he is admirable and lovable. May his name live forever, may the lustre of his fame never fade ! XVII. BAETJCH SPINOZA AND HIS TIME When you listen for the first time to a musical compo- sition, 3'ou may become so favorably impressed with its charms that you will be ready to concede to the com- [)oser the laurels of mastership. Some melodies may cleave so firml}- to jour memory that you will hear them even after hours and days ; but to understand and to appre- ciate the beauty of a musical work, it is necessary that you hear it often, that it be rendered by different artists and interpreted by different directors. The oftener you listen, the more familiar you grow with its passages, the less attention you. will need to bestow upon the leading thoughts of the composer, the more will you be enabled to enjoy the details of the work, and your ear will catch •here and there a chord which before had escaped your attention, in which, however, the genius of the musician has sought and found expression. The eye enjoys in this respect no privileges. When you look at a picture for the first time, you may immediately decide whether the painting is good or not. Some figures, some appoint- ments, some shades may immediately fascinate you ; but not until you have looked at the picture repeatedly will yon be able to fully appreciate the genius of the painter, wliicli not seldom will show itself rather in the minute details of the design than in the conception of the sub- ject itself. As good uiut;ic will never tire you, so can you 215 216 DISSOLVING VIE^YS look repeatedly at a good picture with undiminished interest, because the oftener you stand before it the more of its charms you will discover. Standing before our dissolving pictures, cleansing them of the' dust of ages, the student of history cannot fail to observe the many beautiful details which, of necessity must be lost to the eye of the average spectator. The middle and latter part of the seventeenth century offers one of the most interesting pictures to the student of history. It is a picture in the style of the contempo- rary master, Rembrandt ; not too bright to do away with all individual imagination, and not too dark to destroy real- ism, it looks like a landscape from which the mist of the early morning is lifting ; you see the houses, the trees, the fields and mountains, the shining rivulet, the flocks seek- ing the pasture, as through a veil ; but this overhanging haze idealizes every object and lends it an additional charm. -In my last lecture, one of the representatives of that age, Manasse Ben Israel, absorbed our attention ; but he is by no means the only object which the frame of that historical period encompasses. Light was then struggling with darkness, and the two antagonistic forces wrestling for existence were mirrored in the extremes which then stood side by side, touching each other. More than ever before are we startled by the gross superstition which then prevailed, on the one hand, and the undisguised atheism which manifested itself, on the other. Credulity here and eager research there. In one corner of our picture we behold still the blazing pyres with hundreds of Maranos upon them, sacrificing their lives for their conviction, and our whole heart goes out to the poor in- nocent men and women who died as martyrs for the prin- ciple of liberty of conscience. But lo and behold ! the BARUCH SPINOZA AND HIS TIME 217 same Maranos who were tleniandiiig liberty of con- science for themselves are persecuting one another with similar fury on the opposite corner of our picture. They seem to have foi-gotten their own agonies, and endeavor to compel their own countrymen, Da Costa and Spinoza, to subscribe to their superstition, by tortures as cruel as were those of which the Inquisition had made use. The in- quisitor had destroyed life with one blow, but he allowed to the sufferer at least the glorious crown of martyrdom in exchange for his sufferings ; the Jewish authorities in Amsterdam killed their victims by the slower jjrocess of isolation. Througli their bulls of excommunication they severed all the bonds by which a human being is tied to society. They robbed him of a father's care, a nutther's love, a wife's affection, a brother's or sister's friendship. The column thus deprived of its pedestal was bound to fall ; the plant thus robbed of its roots must wither : the heretic who was struck by the flash of the ban had to die ingloriously, ignominiously. Uriel Da Costa was driven into suicide ; Spinoza, too, died prematurely. On one side of our picture we behold Maranos escaping from Spain in order to join Judaism, on the other we behold men leaving their inherited religion in disgust. On one side we find our ancestors expecting a Messiah, straining eveiy nerve to accelerate his coming, and, in fact, hailing with joy any impostor who assumed that r61e ; on the other we find one of their most talented members striking at the very foundations, at the very corner-stone, upon which their religion rested. Can the discord of opinions wlilch then prevailed, the combat between light and darkness which then was in- its height, be better represented than by the two mark-stones, Sabbathai Zwi, the last would- be Messiah, and Baruch Spinoza, the great philosopher? 218 DISSOLVING VIEWS How could the same nation in the same century produce two men of such divergent characters as were these two persons? The riddle can be solved only by taking into account the state of mental fermentation through which the European nations were then passing. The night had not yet vanished, but was fading away before the light which had not yet appeared, but was coming. Baruch S^ainoza, the great philosoplier, who still governs the realm of thought like a king, has been made the hero of a romance by one of our most notable poets, and to the many he is better known tln-ough Berthold Auerbach than through his own philosophical works. We may feel indebted to the poet wlio placed upon the neglected tomb of Spinoza a monument through which that spot was marked forever, and since then attracted the attention of the crowds who pass by. We may be thankful to Auer- bach for the love which he placed as a reflector behind the light which he shed upon the life and character of the great philosopher ; but in a purely hisk)rical researcli we must guard ourselves against fiction, no n:iatter from what source it comes, and take the man as he is, not as we would like to have him nor as some poet has made him to appear. Auerbach has never clainied authenticity for his biography of Spinoza ; he meant to write a novel to amuse his readers, and he made Spinoza the hero of it, weaving truth and fiction into a canvas of rare beaut}'. It is not my object to unravel his web, I can only warn you not to take for truth what was intended for poetic embellishment. The love-affair with Van der Enden's pretty and intelligent daughter and his rivalry with Ker- kering belong entirely .to the department of fiction. The marriage record, which is still extant, shows that Clara Maria was twenty-seven years old when she mar- BARUCH SPINOZA AND HIS TIME 219 ried Kerkeriiig, in 1671. Spinoza left Amsterdam in 1656, at the age of twenty-four years, and it is hardly credible that a young man of Spinoza's character should have en- tertained a real love-affair with a girl of not more than twelve years of age. Those, therefore, who sympathize with Spinoza merely on account of the unsurmountable barriers which separated him from the girl he loved so sincerely, and who admire his self-sacrifice, must not be 'dngry with me when I rob them of their illusion. Baruch Spinoza was born in 1632. It is not yet suffi- ciently cleared up whether he was born in Spain or in Amsterdam. Some remarks in one of his letters may be interpreted in such a way that it is made to appear as if he had witnessed an aiito-da-fe as late as 1644, i. e ., at the age of twelve }^ars. His parents had been Maranos who had managed to escape to Amsterdam. They were plain people, without any of those traits which foreboded the destiny of their descendant ; they had no higher aspira- tions than to support themselves decent!}', and all their thoughts turned about the petty trade by which they earned a livelihood. Baruch, like other Jewish children, frequented the school which had then been recently estab- lished by the flourishing Jewish settlement of Amsterdam, and the three rabbles, Aboab, Morteira, and Manasse Ben Israel, were his teachers. Manasse seems to have been his favorite and to have returned the affection of his pupil. In this rabbinical school nothing was taught that could injure the orthodox faith of the pupil. Aboab and Mor- teira were fanatic adherents of that narrow Judaism which had been established through the Cabalah, and had been fortified by Joseph Karo's Shulchan Aruch, and Man- asse, the most liberal of the triumvirate, was a stanch supporter of Bible, Talmud, and Cabalah, and a sanguine 220 DISSOLVING VIEWS believer in the near advent of the Messiah. Whence did Spinoza come, therefore, to his ultra-liberal views? It has always been a mystery to me how new and liberal ideas are conceived. If our early training and surround- ings should account for our views, there would be hardly any progress. The most liberal thinkers, with few ex- ceptions, have come from the most orthodox homes. They had seen nothing that could stir up doubts in them, and yet not one, but almost all, who have left a description of the radical change that had taken place in their thoughts, have affirmed that in their early youth they already began to doubt, to think for themselves, to leave the customary grooves, and finally to disagree with all those whom they had been accustomed to respect and revere. The strug- gles which their souls underwent in their vain endeavor to remain within the fold, while a still stronger force lifted them beyond the pale, is told in vivid language by them and is found to have been the same with all. If there is such a thing as revelation, it may be discerned in the rise of liberal and progressive ideas in the brain of the child in spite of its conservative surroundings. The fount from which Spinoza drank was not deep enough to slake his thirst of knowledge. He began to read whatever books he could reach. Ebn Ezra and Maimonides attracted him, and even the Cabalah, into which i\boab introduced him, had temporarily some charms for him. He began to doubt, to question, and to argue. It is said that in his fifteenth year he frequently embarrassed his teachers by questions which they could not answer, , and by aiguments which they could not shake. Failing to obtain a satisfactory answer to his questions in these quarters, he sought for it elsewhere. He studied Latin and penetrated into the most secret BARUCH SPINOZA AND HIS TIME 221 recesses which that grand literature contains. In order to perfect himself in this study, he took lessons from a renowned Christian physician, Franz Von Enden. In his house he became acquainted with other young men of Christian birth, all of whom had been already infected with the skeptical spirit of their time. Physiology, math- ematics, and philosophy, then revived by Descartes, widened his mental horizon. Never were the reasoning powers more strongly developed in a person than they were in Spinoza. Whatever could not stand the test of reason, Avhatever could not prcjve its title to existence before this tribunal, was branded by him as superstition. It became only a question of time when he should break loose from the Judaism which he had inherited. He began by denouncing the Cabalah as a humbug, pro- ceeded to denude the Talmud of its authority, and ended by placing the Bible on a level with other books written by men, denying its divine origin. How hard his strug- gle may have been before he gave up all those rites and ceremonies to which an early training had accustomed him can better be imagined than described. Many are able to act in disharmony with their thoughts ; Spinoza could not, his inner and outer life had to conform. The Judaism of his time could no longer satisfy him, neither could Christianity. He left the one without joining the other, satisfied to live by himself and to enjoy his liberty of conscience. Truth, however, like fire, needs nouHsh- ment. If it exists, it must spread and inflame all things within its touch. No man can keep convictions to him- self at which he lias arrived after many struggles. He is bound to demonstrate what he thinks is truth. The most radical thinker, therefore, who demands liberty of conscience, is far from granting the same liboity to 222 DISSOLVING VIEWS others. True, he may not force his views upon others with the edge of the sword ; true, he may not build pyres and burn those with whom he disagrees, but he will neverthe- less attack them with his arguments. It is in the nature of truth to fight fallacy, as it is in the nature of a cat to wage war on mice. Sj^inoza could not keep quiet, he began to teach with the intent to spread his ideas. Young men began to flock around him, and they drank in eagerly the heresies which he taught. The Jewish author- ities of Amsterdam were then peculiarly situated. Hun- dreds of Maranos were then suffering martyrdom for the sake of Judaism. They left prosperous situations, happy homes, pleasant family connections, and came to Amster- dam for the sake of turning Jews again. The arrivjil of the Messiah, too, was daily expected, and the united efforts of all Israelites were demanded to accelerate his coming. Now a young man rises, defies their religion and ridicules their hopes. If Judaism was not the true and only religion, if God had not manifested his will in the way they had been taught, if there had been no reve- lation, no prophetism, if the Messiah was a myth, why should the Maranos sacrifice their lives, why should they leave their prosperous homes for an uncertain future, why should they burden themselves with all the difficult duties which then were required of the Jews? And still more was at stake : the Messiah, who might behold the discredit in which he was held by these young men, might turn his back upon them and delay his coming for a few more centuries ; should they all suffer for the sake of the few ? Should they allow ideas to spread which would endanger their whole future ? Skepticism and heresy were to be suppressed at any cost. Most of the Jews of Holland had come from S^Dain ; they had passed there through BARUCH SPINOZA AND HIS TIME 223 a good school, they had had excellent instructors in the inquisitors. They established a Jewish inquisition. They had once tried the force of the Cherem, the ban against an infidel, against Uriel Da Costa, and it liad crushed him. They tried it again. The minor degree of the' ban was hurled against Spin6za ; that is, he was ex- cluded from all communion with Jews for thirty days. He cared little. Attempts were now made to bribe him into silence ; and an annual pension of one thousand guilders w'as offered him if he would cease his attacks upon Judaism, and would occasionally visit the syna- gogue. He rejected the offer with scorn. A fanatic attempted to murder him ; but by a lucky motion he avoided the point of the dagger, and only his coat was pierced. Fearing for his life, he withdrew to a vilUige in the neighborhood ; but his love for Judaism and for his coreligionists was surely not strengthened by these events. On July 27, 1656, the great Cherem was pronounced against him, with all the sanctimoniousness which only the descendants of Maranos could invent and indulge. Saul Morteira and Aboab presided, Manasse being then absent in England. The lightning of the ban had, how- ever, no force on him : it passed by him as had before the dagger of the assassin ; it scorched his garment, but failed to hit him. Spinoza was not present in Amsterdam when the ceremony took place ; he cared little for intercourse with coreligionists, but preferred solitude. He remained in the village to which he had withdrawn for several years, supporting himself b}' grinding optical lenses, and devoted his whole life to study, to the preparation and publication of his works, which contained a system of philosophy which so far has never been shaken. He never married, and it is doubtful whether he ever 224 DISSOLVING VIEWS intended to give up the freedom of his scholarly life for the blessings of matrimony. He refused aid even from friends, and died like a true philosopher, quietly and peacefully, on February 21, 1677. To discnss his philosophy would require years, not hours. One of his arguments rests firmly upon the other ; there is no break in his chain of conclusions. Its only vulner- able place is the very first stone of the building. If his axioms, his premises, are correct, then, of course, his building is impregnable ; if they are untrue, the struct- ure must fall. God and the universe are to him a unity ; he can as little think of a God without a universe as of a universe without a God. They both are inseparably one. His God, thus devoid of individual qualities, has neither will nor volition ; he cannot change the tiniest thing at his option ; and his God-saturated universe exists and moves on under the same laws from eternity to eter- nity. In his philosophy there is room neither for reward nor for punishment, save that every act is followed by consequences which are good or bad in correspondence with the act itself. He makes " might " the basis of his ethics, and holds that might alone can prescribe and define what is right. The state or the commonwealth which rep- resents the sum total of the "might " of its members has, therefore, " the right " to declare by its laws what is good or bad, right or wrong. Laws must be implicitly obeyed even at the inconvenience of the individuals. Spinoza does not see that if these sequences are followed up he ought to have conformed with the demands of the Jewish authorities. Although he denounced Christianity as he did Judaism, he apparently made some concessions to it, which partly originated in his hostile feelings toward his former brethren, and partly in his lack of historical knowl- BAEUCH SPINOZA AND HIS TIME 225 edge. As far as mathematics and stern logic can reach, so far are his arguments and conclusions impregnable; but whenever or wherever he ventures to tread upon the do- main of history, his power wanes — in fact, he knew noth- ing of history. That study was then in its infancy and almost unknown. It being a fact, therefore, that he was not familiar with the most elementary historical facts, his conclusions, based upon erroneous premises, were many times misleading. He knew nothing of historical evolu- tion, of historical development ; he failed to understand Judaism, because he had no knowledge of its history. Judaism had for him no other history than that which he had found in the Bible ; after the Jews had lost their national life, after " miglit " had been taken from them, they had no further claim to right, or therefore to exist- ence. If his contemporaries had understood his writings and his philosophy, Judaism would have received a shock which might have destroyed it utterly ; but he was not understood, and the masses could not follow his argu- ments and mathematical deductions. It is a remarkable fact that the Jews are so tied to- gether by bonds of reciprocity that they are not only held responsible for one another but voluntarily claim rela- tionship in the most doubtful cases. A man who may hold far different religious views from ours will neverthe- less claim relationship with us ; and if an Israelite any- where in the land should commit a crime, we all would feel the stigma. A man who may never associate witli us, who may never have worshipped with us, will, never- theless, be claimed as one of us if he has simply been born of a Jewish mother, and has accomplished any- thing of which he oi: we can be proud. Spinoza had been excommunicated In- his contemporaries, and he 226 DISSOLVING VIEWS has proven by his own writings that he was as far from Judaism as heaven is from earth ; still, there is not a Jew who does not point with pride to Baruch Spinoza, the greatest philosopher of modern times, the man whose bust is placed by the side of that of Kant, Fichte, or Spencer, claiming him as a brother. Now, upon what ground do we rest with regard to all those who either stand below or above us ? If we were a nation, we would have a right to qualify a person by say- ing that he belongs politically to our state or country, as a German, for example, may claim another German as his fellow-citizen, no matter how widely they may differ in their political views. But we are no nation, like the Germans, the English, or the French. We are a religious community, we are a sect that holds certain views in regard to the relation of man to God and the surround- ing world. Is it not, therefore, a co7iditio sine qua non that a man must hold the same views as we do before we may have a rightful claim on him, or he on us, as coreligionists ? The cause of this apparent anomaly is that Judaism is the religion of humanity ; that it is so elastic that it can encompass the whole earth ; that its principles are so gen- eral that a thousand subdivisions may find room in them. Spinoza, with all his enmity to Judaism, was a Jew in the full sense of the word. What he fought against, what he opposed, and what he disowned as Judaism, was not Juda- ism in general ; it was merely the Judaism of his time, the narrow Judaism of Amsterdam, as he knew it. He himself helped to develop Judaism. He never accepted a multitude of gods, not even a trinity, nor did dualism satisfy him. His " Echod " circumscribed God and the whole universe ; his God surely was one, one with the BARUCH SPINOZA AND HIS TIME 227 world, one with tlie smallest of its forms. His apparent pantheism is puritied Judaism. To him humanity was one large brotherhood, and love, the great principle of Judaism, found in him the ablest and noblest advocate. His only misfortune was that he lived in the seventeenth and not in the nineteenth century. He was ahead of his time, and, with the exception of the few passages in which he blundered for want of historical knowledge, I think that modern Judaism could subscribe to most of his teachings, and, therefore, we can call him by riglit one of us. How far Spinoza was ahead of his time, and how little he was understood, even long after his death, by the Jews, can be seen in the fact that, after the ignominious death of Sabbathai Zwi, many still remained faithful to the old super*jtition, and believ^ed him to have been the Messiah. The days of the Cabalah, however, were numbered, and its death-rattle can be heard in the remarkable contro- versy which took place between Rabbi Jonathan Eibe- schuetz, of Altona, and his colleagues. I shall make it the topic of my next lecture. XVIII. JONATHAN EIBESCHUETZ AND HIS TIME Whenever a sickness befalls us, our whole system is thrown into a state of confusion. Its different organs refuse to act for want of that nourishment which is brought to them in a healthy state and under regular conditions. Tlie chemical forces tending to dissolve and disorganize the body are pitted against the life-preserving powers, and they wrestle with each other until a crisis is reached in which the one or the other proves its superi- ority. Either death occurs and the disintegrating forces are set free to continue their destructive work, or the vital forces defeat their antagonists, and reinstate order in the functions of every organ which the disease has interrupted. While during this struggle the patient sometimes shows a strength far superior even to that which he possesses in health, he falls into a gtate of pros- tration and utter feebleness after the crisis is passed. The work of the intelligent physician is then to aid nature in her attempt to mend and to regain strength after the elements of disorder have been removed and order estab- lished. During that time of weakness and helplessness our sympathy with the patient reaches the highest point, and we bestow then, as a rule, more love and care upon him than we did during the time when life and death were trembling in the balance. Judaism had for a long time been ailing. We bave 228 JONATHAN EIBKS('HUhTZ AND HIS TIME 229 observed liow generation after genenitiou lias diffused the germs of a disease in its organization. We have observed how, in the attempt to prove the inherited liter- ar}^ treasure to be of superhuman origin, it liad wandered from the road of reason and had U)st ilself in the marslies of mysticism ; we have observed that, to make up for the miseries whicli our ancestors suffered from persecution, they intoxicated themselves with the opium of the Cab- alah, and how this study had disintegrated the whole religious system ; we have observed how Judaism, strong, rational, and world-embracing before, was by degrees re- duced to the narrow, superstitious, formality-loving Juda- ism of the seventeenth century. A crisis was reached when the last would-be Messiah, Sabbathai Zwi, was proved an impostor, and when, for the last time, the hope of a national resurrection was disappointed. The vital forces of Judaism showed then their superiority. Sabbathai was denounced by the great majority of the Jews, and his teachings, as well as his followers, were put under the ban. Nay, more ; here and there, now and then, a man would dare to express himself in opposition to the Cabalah itself, branding the science as an imposi- tion. The danger that Jewish rationality was to be lost in mysticism, that its monistic tendenc}- should give way to the doctrine of a trinity or a dualism in the Godhead, was averted ; but, bruised and lacerated as was the Jewish body from the ill-treatment which it had received for so many centuries from its enemies, and exhausted from the struggle of antagonistic forces which had taken place within, and which had been ended by the crisis which I have just mentioned, Judaism was left in the most miserable condition it ever experienced. Weak and feeble externally and internally, the life of Judaism 230 DISSOLVING VIEWS during the eighteenth century excites our deepest com- miseration and stirs up our most sincere sympathy. Would we blame a person who has just passed through a severe crisis and is left in a helpless condition, because he does not bestir himself and assume his daily duties after his S3''stem is actually again in regular order ? Would you even deem it necessary to offer an excuse for his apparent indolence? Indeed not! and thus ought we neither to censure nor excuse that century from which we have inherited many of our ideas, for its weakness and unreadiness to assume work. Whatever prejudices still prevail against us, they are not due to a difference of opinion which may have oc- curred eighteen hundred years ago. They all came from the unfortunate conditit)n of the Judaism of the last cen- tury. That sj'stem of religion was indeed no religion, and we can hardly blame Heinrich Heine, who seems to have known only that sort of Judaism, when he utters the remarkable and since then often repeated sentence : " Judaism is no religion, it is a misfortune." Never at any period of Jewish history do we find our ancestors more bigoted, more superstitious, more narrow-minded, than during the eighteenth century. But their bigotism, their superstition, their narrow-mindedness, came from a state of exhaustion, came merely from their weakness. Almost all that has reached us as ortliodox Judaism is the product of that one century, and, thanks to God, the nineteenth centuiy has made amends for the eighteenth. After the recovery of health and strength we have imme- diately set to work and have paid the doctor bills, with all the other debts incurred. A Jewish proverb, which sounds much better in its Hebrew alliteration than in any of its translations, says, JONATHAN ElBESCIIUETZ AND HIS TIME 231 " We may get an insiglit into tlie true character of a man by observing three tilings: how he spends his money, how he acts wlien under the inlluence of the wine-cup, and how lie behaves when his anger is aroused." Indeed, small men will quarrel about small matters, and we may, therefore, easil}^ j^tlge the condition of an age after we have examined the objects over which people were then wrangling. To illustrate my assertion, let me direct your attention to the difference in the objects over which Jew- ish theologians were quarrelling twenty-five years ago and are disputing to-day. Twenty-five years ago a rabbi would win laurels when he either attacked or defended the custom of having the head covered in the sj-nagogue, whether or not this or that passage in the prayer-book should be recited, or whether or not men and women should occupy seats in the same pew. To-day all such controversies are ignored ; we look at them with a smile, as insignificant, while we examine and discuss the very philosophy of our religion and lay our fingers upon sub- jects which, even ten years ago, no one would have dared to touch. The theological quarrels which set on fire and almost divided the Jews of the eighteenth century into two camps will, therefore, be indicative of tlie compass by which their mental activity was limited ; and although we shall derive little satisfaction, and our pride will be rather humiliated than aroused by such a research, we may -learn from the controversy between the renowned Rabbi Jona- than Eibeschuetz and his colleagues what the general status of the religious affairs then was among the Jews of Europe. Jonathan Eibeschuetz was born in 1690, somewhere in Poland. His father, Nathan Nata, a man of great Tal- 232 DISSOLVING VIEWS mudical knowledge, had been chosen rabbi in Eibeschuetz, • a small town in Moravia. The Jews had then no other names than those which occurred in the Bible or in Tal- mudical writings, and made, therefore, frequent use of the name of the place from which they came, as a mark of identification. When young Jonathan came, in 1711, to Prague, the capital of Bohemia, partly to continue his studies and partly to teach, he was generally known as Jonathan Eibeschuetz. His early training was tliat cus- tomary among all Jews of that period, Bible, Talmud, and Cabalah. He never studied any other language, nor was he familiar with any other branch of learning. He was rather a conceited man, and, with his limited knowledge, he pretended to have a monopoly of all branches of science. To study the German language, yea, even to speak it correctly, was then considered by the inhabitants of the Ghetto as an irreligious act, as an innovation which would tend to destroy their religion. At that time they formed a world within the world, a small, disconnected community within every commu- nity. Every congregation was sovereign, and, although it depended greatly upon the advice of the rabbi, the word of any learned man had the same force with it as that of their leader, and not seldom did such a man rather watch the actions of the rabbi than allow his to be watched by him. The influence of the rabbi began at that period to decline, in the same proportion as the circle of his usefulness began to contract. The new day had already begun, and the usefulness of a rabbi had, to a great extent, been diminished by the right of tlie defendant to appeal from his decision to the court of the land. The old Talmudical laws, intended for practical use a tliousand years ago, would, furthermore, not fit the JONATHAN ElBESCHUETZ AND HIS TIME 233 new conditions, and it required no small degree of rab- binical ingenuity to make them lit. The ban, too, had lost most of its force ; it was feared no longer, and, whereas every Jewish Talmudist assumed the right to hurl it against any one with whom he disagi-eed, the whole Jewish community was not seldom excommuni- cated, one half imposing the ban upon the other. Thus used, it could not fail to become ridiculous and obsolete. The functions of a rabbi were then to decide in regard to the great and all-absorbing question, what was lawfully permitted to be eaten, and what not ; to preside over an occasional Talmudical debate, and, furthermore, to teach the young. Young men would wander from city to city, from teacher to teacher, to enrich their Talmudical knowledge. They were supported by the resident Israel- ites ; and, in larger cities, not one, but many places were fitted up, furnished with libraries, and kept open night and day, for students who would discuss Talmudical ques- tions under the direction of either local rabbles or of a private instructor. Eibeschuetz, after having married into a rich family, took up his domicile in Prague, as a private instructor, and he is said to have had as many as twenty thousand pupils during the thirty years he lived in that city. His nature being less morose than that of his older col- leagues, he was well liked by the itinerant students, who would spread his name, his fame, and his wisdom as far as they would travel. In course of time his authority rose above that of the chief rabbi, and it was anticipated that he would certainly replace him at some future day. The followers of the pseudo-Messiah, Sabbathai Zwi, had, at that time, not yet died out, nor could they. Sabbathai was so utterly the product and consequence of 23-i DISSOLVING VIEWS the Cabalali that not before the cause was removed could the effect be overcome. Every Cabalist was more or less a secret believer in Sabbathai. They had arrived at a philosophy which would have been singular had it not had a prototype in Christianity. God, they said, must be divided into two distinct parts, which again form a mysterious unity. God himself, they asserted, stands in no relation with the world ; but his emanation, or second person, whom they called the God of Israel, had created the universe, chosen Israel, and performed all the miracles. This God of Israel would sometimes assume human form, make himself visible to the human eye, and thus became incarnate in the person of Sabbathai Zwi. They held, furthermore, that the Bible was composed to a great extent of names of spirits, and that the one who could pronounce them in their right order had power over all the forces of nature ; that especially any word which contained numerically, or implied tlie letters of Sab- bathai's name could be used as a charm against all evil influence. Almost every rabbi was then believed to be a " Bal Shem," that is, a man who is familiar with all the names of spirits contained in the Bible, and who has thus power for good or evil. After the colhipse of the Mes- sianic swindle, and after manj^ of Sabbathai's followers had turned Christians or Mohammedans, some kind of a reaction followed, and every rabbi had to prove publicl}^ his orthodoxy by denouncing Sabbathai's teachings. While the masses would crowd around a rabbi who was known to be a Cabalist, to ask for his blessing, it was expected of him that he should not be an adherent of that accursed sect. Jonathan, thei-efore, who was re- nowned for his Cabalistic learning, and worshipped almost as a miracle-worker, found himself compelled to JONATHAN EIBESCHUETZ AND HIS TIME 235 pronounce the ban against the sect of the Sabbathaians, although his own sympathies were with them. Jonathan was as narrow-minded and as bigoted as were liis contem- poraries, and believed in the power of a blessing given by him, and in his own ability to exorcise evil spirits. Why should he not have believed that one formula was stronger and more effective than the otlier ? In 1740 he received a call to become rabbi of the city of Metz, which was then one of the most influential congregations in western Eu- rope. He accepted the position, but it seems that he did not satisfy the expectations of his parishioners. He made many enemies, by whom he was accused of injustice, of secret heresy, and of a great many other acts unbecoming a gentleman and a rabbi. He tried in the meantime to get a call from Furth, but was unsuccessful. W])en, therefore, the three united congregations of Altona, Ham- burg, and Wandsbeck offered him the rabbinical chair, he accepted without hesitation, and removed to Altona, in 1750. In Altona then lived a great Talmudical scholar, who prided himself upon having sprung from a long line of scholarly ancestors. Jacob Emden Askenasi was born in 1696. He received his early training in Amsterdam, and finall}' settled down in Altona. The king of Denmark liad granted him the privilege of ojjeniug a Hebrew print- ing-office in that city. He made more than a competency by the publication of prayer-books and all such staple literary works as were then used in every Jewish house- hold. He was scrupulously pious, that is, he observed carefully all the multifarious religious rites which then were demanded of every Jew. So pious was he that the pubyc worship did not satisfy him, and he opened a syna- gogue in his own house, in which he himself officiated. 2o6 DISSOLVING VIEWS The office of rabbi had been offered him by the heads of the united congregations. He had declined the honor, but was still dissatisfied when somebody else was elected, and especially a man whose great Talmudical wisdom could put his in the shade. Both men felt at their first meeting that they were enemies, and could never be brought in sympathy with each other. Jonathan made some efforts to win Emden's friendship, and Emden bestowed some courtesy upon the new rabbi ; but their hearts were not in these advances. Hardly had a year elapsed when the storm broke loose ; a tempest which would seem to us as diminutive and insignificant as that which heat stirs up in a tea-pot ; but it was a storm, nevertheless, and it stirred up the Jew- ish communities all over Europe. In case of sickness, but especially whenever a woman expected to become a mother, it was then customary to send to the rabbi and to receive from him one or several amulets, which were supposed to be a safeguard against all dangers. These amulets were either open tablets of pasteboard, which were hung up like pictures upon the walls of the sick-room, or sealed letters, which were placed upon the body of the sufferer. They contained a hexa- gram called Magen David, formed of passages from the Bible, and an incantation in which God was asked to cure the sick. The less the credulous were able to read the amulet, the more did they believe in the effectiveness of the charm ; and Cabalists wrote, therefore, amulets after a system of cyphers in which, for instance, the first letter of the alphabet was replaced by the last, the second by the last but one, etc. This system was called At-Bash. A short time before Eibeschuetz's arrival in Altona, sev- eral females had died during and after delivery. The JONATHAN EIBESGHUETZ AND HIS TIMK 237 new rabbi was therefore asked for an effective amulet for a young woman, a favor which he could not refuse, as the prayer appealed to his pride. The woman recovered, and Jonathan was considered a miracle-worker by all but Em- den, who managed to get hold of such an amulet, opened it and found — horrible to even mention it — that Jonathan had written upon it, in the customary cyphers, an incan- tation which read as follows: "O God of Israel, through the merit of thy servant, Sabbathai Zwi, send recovery to this woman, that thy name and that of the Messiah, Sab- bathai Zwi, may be sanctified on earth." He published immediately this fact, and accused him of heresy. Jona- than's defence was rather weak ; he did not deny to have written the amulets, but claimed that by a mistake the passage had turned out to read as it did ; and still weaker grew his defence, after twenty-six of such amulets writ- ten by him and distributed by him in Metz were col- lected, opened, and found to contain similar incantations. Immediately two parties formed in liis congregation, and, in course of time, in every Jewish congregation in Eu- rope ; one party siding with Eibeschuetz, the other with Emden. A liberal use was made by both parties of the ban, and bombs of excommunication were hurled from camp to camp, as if they were snowballs. Nor was this all. The peace in the synagogues was so many times dis- turbed that the police had to be called in to restore or- der. Jacob Emden was compelled to leave Altona, and to remove to Amsterdam, from whence he continued his warfare against the heretic. The parties appealed finally to King Frederick of Denmark, and he laid the whole matter before a committee of Hebrew professors, among whom the most notable was Carl Anton, a con- verted Jew. Eibeschuetz, the chief rabbi of the three 238 DISSOLVING VIEWS richest aud most prominent Jewish congregations of Eu- roj^e, was asked to state his side of the question, but was unable to write his defence in readable German, and had to employ a secretary to do the work for him. The committee, not understanding this Jewish quarrel, or the significance of the whole affair, and even believing that Jonathan might be converted to Christianity, brought in a verdict of not guilty for him, and his adherents celebrated this event by a grand ball. For fourteen years, until Jonathan died, in 176-i, and even longer, did this controversy last; so singular on ac- count of the ferociousness with which it was conducted, and on account of the insignificance of the points around which it turned. This controversy was the only remark- able event of that century ; it tears away the veil from that period, and shows us the utter exhaustion and degra- dation of Judaism, which, unable to produce greater things, found pleasure and satisfaction in the thoughtless performance of meaningless rites; and, unfit to argue more important questions, shot at game which was not worth the powder. It has been asserted many times, on the one hand, that Judaism died long ago and exists no more, and, on the other hand, this assertion has been con- tradicted by the fact that we are still here and alive. If Judaism is a corpse, as is said, it is a rather lively one. I think that both views are right and wrong according to the stand-point we take. The Judaism of Eibeschuetz is dead, and we may thank God that he has removed it. Jewish rabbles no longer write amulets, either in the name of Sabbathai Zwi, or of anybody else ; nor does any- body believe in the effectiveness of such charms. A new and far better, far healthier, and far stronger Judaism has replaced it. I cannot but again use as a metaphor the JONATHAN EIBESCHUETZ AND HIS TIME 280 myth of the fabulous bird who, when he feels his strength declining, fires his own nest, and rises from the ashes rejuvenated and more beautiful than before. The Judaism of every historical period has died witli its exponents, and so will ours die with us ; but it has always been replaced by a new one. The cremation of the old and the appearance of the young bird cannot be traced more distinctly than in the period of which I drew the picture to-night. The Judaism of Jonathan Eibe- schuetz and Jacob Emden disappears, while at the very same moment the Judaism of Moses Mendelssohn rises from the ashes. Eibescliuetz and Mendelssohn were con- temporaries, tliey were even personally acquainted with each other ; but what a difference between these two men ! The one nails up the coffin of mediaeval Judaism, the other rocks the cradle of modern Judaism. " The king is dead, long live the king ! " XIX. MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND HIS TIME Judaism is the only democratic religion which the world has ever seen ; the rest are more or less monarch- ically inclined. Christianity was democratic, but only for a short time, in its infancy, while it was still nursed by its democratic mother. After that its tendencies became not only monarchical but despotic. When, during the Reformation, its Jewish recollections were revived, the spirit of democracy was naturally rejuvenated with them. But it failed to establish itself upon a lasting basis, and died away, leaving behind that form of constitutional government by which the Protestant churches are now ruled. In a truly democratic organization the government is never left in the hands of privileged individuals or classes. The places of honor are open to competition by all, and only the most worthy are allowed to occupy them for the time being. The stages of development in the history of Judaism are, therefore, marked by men from all classes of society, and not by men of a certain caste. While the history of the Mohammedan religion is that of certain families, while the history of Christianity is that of its priesthood, while in both of these religions either the one born into the ruling family or the one educated for the Church could aspire to tlie honor of leadership, we find that in Judaism any man, no matter what his occupation or his antecedents were, could rise to the MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND HIS TIME 2il much coveted position. Nor was such a man ever installed into his office "with pompous ceremonials. As long as he could sway the hearts of his contemporaries, as long as he could serve them with the very best thoughts, so long and no longer was he followed by them, so long and no longer was his word of command obeyed. The throne which he had conquered was his as long as he lived, or as long as he had the power of defending it, but he could not bequeath it to his children or leave it to some friend. After his resignation or demise it remained vacant until a new conqueror could establish his title to it. J\len would rise — now in Spain, now in Egypt, Holland, France, England, or elsewhere ; they would attract the attention of their coreligionists by their more profound wisdom or by their more practical instincts; they would impress their thoughts upon their time, or, to term it more correctly, express the thoughts of their time, and thus be- come the acknowledged interpreters of Jewish thought. These men were seldom, yea never, offsprings of the same families, nor were they members of a certain profession ; they were neither priests nor theologians, they were men of the people — artisans, physicians, traders. While ply- ing their trade they devoted their leisure hours to the solution of the burning questions of the day. The answers which they found happened to be the best at their time ; they attracted the attention of the contemporary world, and established at once the authority of the investigators. The work of their leisure hours was thus pushed into the foreground, and became the work of their lives. Democracy, both in politics and in religion, may have its drawbacks ; but it cannot be denied that it prevents stagnation, and turns occupants out of office when they ])eeonie indolent or lose the sharpness of their eyesight. 242 DISSOLVING VIEWS A party in power does not always see the needs of the time, and many times it does not care to see them. It is in accord with the laws of nature that in our declining years we grow conservative, dislike to plunge into the struggles of life, and become desirous of making peace with the world. New needs demand new labors, new exertions, new struggles ; and fearing these, a party, after having been established in power for a considerable length of time, tries to avoid new issues, and does not care to be bothered with new questions. If the reconstruction of Judaism had been left to the priests of old, to the com- pilers of the Mishna, to the gaons, to the Talmudists, or to the Cabalists of a later age, there would have been few changes. The democratic spirit pervading Judaism brought forth the right men at tlie right moment, men who were less indolent than were the authorities of their time, who had less to lose and more to win, who under- stood and sympathized with the needs and wants of the rising generation. If the development of Judaism in the eighteenth century should have been left at the mercy of Eibeschuetz, Emden, and their colleagues, it would never liave come to pass. The new leader grew up, as usual, unknown, and in a place and sphere where it was least expected. The feudal system, which had held the so-called Roman- German empire together during the Middle Ages, had become obsolete. Tlie princes had revolted against the emperor whenever his policy was not favorable to their own ambition. The whole German history is a record of wars waged by the princes against their " Kaiser." Dur- ing the Reformation the ties which had held the empire together were still more loosened, and the Protestant North began to crystallize around the house of Hohenzol- MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND HIS TIME 243 lern, while the Catholic South gravitated towards the house of Hapsburg. From a small beginning the mem- bers of the house of Hohenzollern had grown into counts of Brandenburg ; then they had obtained the electorate ; finally, under favorable circumstances, they had enlarged their territory and assumed the title of kings of Prussia. The policy of the house of Hohenzollern had been so suc- cessful that Frederick II., surnamed the Great, dared to defy not alone the Empress Theresa of Austria, but the whole German confederacy, with France and Russia in the bargain. At the end of three campaigns, which together lasted about twelve years, he had succeeded in wresting one of the finest provinces from Austria, and in obtaining a voice for Prussia in the European concert. Berlin, then a small town on the river Spree, a mere mar- ket-place for provincial trade, rose now into prominence as the capital of victorious Prussia. Not sooner did Ber- lin begin to offer commercial advantages than it attracted Jews in great numbers. The liberal, almost atheistic tendencies of the " Solomon of the North," as Frederick II. was called by his admirers, inspired the Jews with confidence in him ; and although he did not treat them much better than did other princes, although he exacted high personal taxes from them, they still had reason to believe that they were safer under his rule than under any other government. The attitude of Frederick the Great towards the Jews has frequently been made a target -for reproach. The philosopher on the throne, who had ex- pressed himself repeatedly that under his government everybody should be permitted to work out his salvation after his own fashion, was taken to task for having forced laws upon the Jews which were unjust and unnecessarily degrading. Every Jew, for instance, wlio wished to get 244 DISSOLVING VIEWS married was compelled to buy about three hundred dol- lars' worth of china ware manufactured in the newly established royal factories. He was not allowed to pick out what he wanted ; he was given what the manager saw fit to give him, with prices fixed by the whim of the same man. These articles he could sell in other coun- tries, but not at home. Was such treatment in conform- ity with the liberal views expressed by the admirer of Rousseau and Voltaire ? On the other hand, however, we ought not to forget what a sort of people the Jews with whom Frederick dealt were. As a class they were ignorant, bigoted, and superstitious, no matter what the causes were of their narrow-mindedness. Frederick, who ridiculed and chastised the superstition of the Christian world, could not help feeling disgusted with the supersti- tion of a class of people against whom even race prejudice prevailed. How could Frederick sympathize with people who spoke no intelligible language, but a combination of man}' languages, who seemed to have no higher aspira- tion than to make money, who were as intolerant against their own as others were against them? Abraham Pos- ner, a Jewish resident of Berlin, had the audacity to cut off his beard, and the Jewish community rose up against him in fury. The}^ petitioned the king to punish the malefactor by special act of legislation, since the common law of Prussia did not contain any proviso against such a crime, and the culprit did not seem to care, much about their bulls of excommunication. Now picture to yourself Frederick II. writing out a royal mandate that said Posner be ordered to let his beard grow again, and then wonder why he had not more sympathy with the Jews. Frederick's liberalism, however, had a certain effect upon the Jews. Rousseau, Voltaire, and others had already MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND HIS TIME 245 thrown their firebrands into the old house, and the morn- ing breeze of the new day drove the columns of smoke and flame through its rafters. Even in Jewish circles liberal ideas were spreading. Now and then, here and there, an ambitious youth would dare to learn how to read German ; some even would go so far as to buy books printed in German letters, although the grand- father of the Bleicliroeder family was exiled from Berlin on the charge of having owned such a book. This prying into new worlds was connected with great dangers. Whoever tasted of the forbidden fruit was excluded from the old paradise, while the world outside of it did not offer him a safe retreat. Whenever a Jew succeeded in obtaining knowledge which lay beyond the sphere of the Talmud, he saw no way to save himself other than to turn Christian, and there were not a few who were thus driven into a religion which they disliked as much as they hated the religion from which they had escaped. It seemed then almost impossible for an intelligent man to remain a Jew. The man, however, was already born who should demonstrate the possibility of such a coincidence. In Dessau, the capital of a small principality, then allied with the Prussian house, there lived a Jew called Mendel (which was the corrupt pronunciation of Emanuel). He eked out a scanty living by copying Hebrew manuscripts, scrolls of the Pentateuch, Mesusoth, and Tephilin. By the light of a flickering oil lamp he could be seen study- ing the Talmud and its commentaries, till late into the night, with his boy Moses, a sickly, deformed lad of about ten 3'ears. If a prophet had then arisen who would have foretold that this sickly boy was destined by fate to break the spell which held Judaism in its bonds, nobody would 246 Dis80Lvrx(j view.s have believed it. But Muses, tlie sttu of Mendel, or Men- delssohn, as he was afterwards called, was destined to perform the great task. His biography is so well known that it seems superfluous to dwell upon it; still, it always bears repetition. Moses was born September 17, 1729, in Dessau. He learned from his father and the rabbi of that place as much as both were able to teach him. It was customary at that time among the Jews to turn their sons out of their houses as soon as they were thirteen years of age. Either they were sent out peddling, or hired out as servants ; or if they showed talent as scholars, they were sent away to other cities, to hear the great rabbles. These boys would travel from place to place supported by their coreligionists, stopping at some city for a time and then going further, until after many years they returned to their homes or found a new settle- ment somewhere else. Without a penny in his pocket, Moses, a sickly boy of small size, arrived in the city of Berlin, in the year 1742. His former teacher, the rabbi of Dessau, had previously accepted a call to Berlin. He became now his protector. He instructed him and em- ployed him as a copyist. Berlin was at that time the most literary and most liberal city in Germany, and Mendelssohn, too, became infected with liberal ideas. He learned, secretly, how to read and write German, and afterwards studied even Latin, French, and English. He had read the works of the philosopher Maimonides before, and he now read them again by the light of the new age, and assimilated his thoughts with those modern ones with which the very air around him was pregnant. His material circumstances, too, had improved during the last few years. He had found a place as private teacher in the family of a rich Jewish silk-manufacturer. By and MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND HIS TIME 247 by he rose to the position of book-kee[)er and was finally made a partner. At a game of chess he made the acquaint- ance of Lessing, and it was solely through him that he became the renowned Moses Mendelssohn. Lessingf dis- covered in him all the essfutials of a philosopher. Botli men were born for each other, and they felt it. Their works can be understood only when we take notice of their connection with each other. The bold Lessing urged the timid Mendelssohn to speak out his thoughts ; to show to the world that a Jew is not what he appears to be, that Judaism cleansed from superstition stands nearer to the religion of humanity than any other. But Mendelssohn hesitated. Against his will and without his knowledge, Lessing published a few of the essay's which Mendelssohn had written for his own pleasure, and at once the eyes of the intelligent world were attracted towards him. This unexpected success gave him the courage to publish his " Phsedon," a work in which he made Socrates and his disciples discuss immortality. This work established his reputation and made him immortal. Visitors came from all parts of Europe to see and to converse with the new Socrates, who seemed to have reappeared in the person of Moses Mendelssohn. His coreligionists basked for a while in the sunshine of his glory, but the light soon became troublesome to them. Such philosophical conceptions of the divinity and of immortality as expressed in his work could not be 'rec- onciled with traditional Judaism, and, although Moses rigorously observed all Jewish ceremonies, they began to distrust him. The Christian world, too, was astonished to hear such words from the lips of a Jew. Whenever Judaism has entered upon a new phase and was about t(j root up old practices, the Christian world 248 DISSOLVING VIEWS always hailed the change as an advance towards Christi- anity, but it has always been mistaken. The liberal Jew is far from beino- a Christian. It was orthodox Judaism that was in dangler of becoming Christianized. The more liberal a Jew is, the farther off is he from the Christian road. The over-zealous Lavater, sharing the same error, thought that a philosopher who could copy a Socrates as well as Mendelssohn had done, in his " Phsedon," must also see the light of Christianity, and he exhorted him publicly to embrace it, or to give his reasons why he would not, if he had any to give. Mendelssohn, who would never have thought of attacking Christianity, was now compelled to do so in self-defence. In his answer to Lavater, he laid bare the errors of Christianity and showed Judaism in an entirely new light, in nearly the same light as we see it to-day. He showed it as a progressive relig- ion, as a religion of reason and not of belief. While Lavater was thus silenced, the Jews protested against Mendelssohn's interpretation of Judaism ; it was, indeed, not theirs. The}' did not know that their Judaism was dying, while a new kind of Judaism was about to be born. A few years later, impelled by a similar attack, he wrote his "Jerusalem," in which he defined Judaism still more clearly. In it he denied to every religious com- munity the right of compelling an adherent to submit to the decrees of a church tribunal; and thus demanded the utmost liberty of conscience. His boldest step, however, was his translation of the Pentateuch into the German language. The study of Talmud and Cabalah had so overtowered the study of the Bible that it was hardly understood by the masses, though it was read week after week. The Hebrew language once removed, which was, so to say, the Bible's cloak of divinity, since' God was MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND HIS TIME 240 supposed to have spoken and written in this language, it became plain that the work, sublime as it is as the product of human genius, could not have been the direct word of God. The German translation of the Bible, furthermore, gave the German Jew a taste for correct and pure German, and thus stimulated him to think and study. All our progress in religion is to a great extent due to his German translation of the Bible. Mendels- sohn, as usual, had not the courage to disturb the peace of the world. He was one of those men who are always afraid that it is not yet time to instruct the masses, and who fear that they may be misunderstot)d. He had written a translation of the Bible for the use of his own children, and his friends urged him to publish it. After a long resistance he yielded, and the shock which it gave to orthodox Judaism was felt immediately. His transla- tion of the Bible was attacked from all sides ; but the more it was denounced, the greater was the interest with which it was read. Another book, " The Morning Hours," \vhich he published a short time before his death, may also be counted among the best literary pro- ductions of his time. His private life stood as high as did his public activity. He lived the life of a true phil()SO})her. Every one of his words was dignified. While he lived, the blessing of peace rested upon his home circle, and his bitterest ene- mies could not point to the smallest stain upon his reco-rd. The purity of his motives was apparent in all his actions and in all his writings. He was self-composed, patient, restive rather than impulsive, and his very timidity was lovable. He died at the early age of fifty-seven years, on January 4, 1786, a few years later than his life-long friend, Lessing, who had erected fni- him a monument which will 250 DISSOLVING VIEWS outlast orraiiite or bronze. "Nathan the Wise" is ac- knowleged to be the photograph of Mendelssohn, and as long as the German language shall be understood, as long as humanity shall appreciate nobility of character and admire deeds rather than words, so long will "Nathan the. Wise " be a creation die fished by the good and noble of all ages and nations. Mendelssohn's greatness neither begins nor ends with these publications. It must be sought in the fact that he, an intelligent man, dared to remain a Jew despite all his intelligence, that he dared to say that Judaism is something else than what Jew and Christian thought it was, that he dared to build up a more timely Judaism without the aid of Cabalah and Talmud, that he dared to proclaim Judaism the true religion of humanity. The o-reatness of Moses Mendelssohn must, furthermore, be sought in the fact that he compelled the Christian world to acknowledge that the Jew has as much right to his religious views as a Christian has to his ; that there is as. much logic, if not more, in his doctrines as in those of any other creed, and that, as a man, he can place himself on a level with any of his fellow-citizens. Mendelssohn, so to say, took the Jew by the hand and led him from the darkness of tlie Glietto into the dazzling sunlight. He introduced him afresh into the world ; he convinced him that knowledge and science are not hostile to Judaism, and that there is no need to fear that the Jew must be- come a Christian simply because he leaves the Ghetto,, dresses like other human beings, .speaks intelligibly, and behaves decently. Although not every Christian was a Lessing and not every Jew a Mendelssohn, although the masses on both sides were very far from the stand-point of these ideal per- MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND HIS TIME 251 sons, times had changed for the better. Both Jews and Christians had grown ripe for new deveU)pnients. Relig- ion was no longer to be measured by its forms, but by the standard of its ethics. The fable of the three rings had made its tour of the world. The bold word had been spoken, the secret had been let out ; one religion was as good and as bad as the other. The genuine ring was })er- haps lost, and all three sons might have been imposed upon. Slowly and by degrees the new Judaism began to emerge from the former chaos. It was to be a religion and nothing else, it was to enter on equal terms into com- petition with other religions, and the Jew, its bearer, was to enter into competition with his fellow-citizens in the market of life. The future was to show which religion was able to produce the best men. The impulse once given, the example once set, a new era began for the Jew. Unhampered by prejutlices, he now devoted himself zeal- ously^ to esoteric studies, intending to make up what he had neglected so long. His inborn rationalism and his native talent helped him marvellousl^s and within a short period we find the Jews entirely transformed. It canii'ot be denied that the revolution in America and in France, the following Napoleonic era and the changes which it wrought in European conditions, helped greatlv to make the Jew of the nineteenth century ; but there was still a great danger to be overcome. Sudden changes are never wholesome ; it is the tree that grows slowly that produces the hardest wood. The change from the Juda- ism of the eighteenth century to that of the nineteenth, from the dark night to the bright noon, could not but be followed with many dangers, could not but produce un- healthy conditions. The Jew, having lifted himself tVom his former humble position into equality, and sometimes 252 DISSOLVING VIEWS superiority to liis fellow-citizens, wished an early acknowl- edgment of this .marvellous feat. Customs and preju- dices, however, are not uprooted within a few years, it takes generations to destroy them. The Jew was still debarred from entrance into conventional and social life. Many, therefore, thought that they must entiiely disen- tangle themselves from their former connections. Having been brought up in a sort of hypocrisy, accepting new ideas while not discarding the old ones, the new gener- ation failed to see the grandeur of Judaism. To better their social circumstances, they left their religion entire!}', and turned Christians in crowds. This was the age which followed that of Mendelssohn, and it lasted through the first decades of the present century. XX. BOERNE AND HEINE AND THEIR TIME For seventeen long centuries the Jews had wearily fixed their gaze towards the East, expecting to see the man come from there who, by the power of his word, would make an end to their humiliation. The Messiah who was to break the fetters of their subjection was expected to be the child of an eastern clime. They were, however, mistaken. Their deliverer came, but not from the East ; not riding upon the fancied mule, nor did he bring them that sort of elevation of which they had dreamt. He did not collect them from the corners of the earth ; he did not place them at the head of other nations, as they thought he would ; he did not press their religious views upon others, as they would have liked him to do ; he brought them simply "e(iuality." It is true that the drift of the time had prepared the way for the idea that all human beings should have equal rights before the law, but it was necessary that one man or some bod}' of men should condense these floating vapors into tlie liquid es- sence of a formula, that one man or a body of men should have the courage of their opinion, and should sa}^ in so many words what all were thinking, but all were too timid to express in plain language. The bold word was not spoken in the ancient East, it was spoken in the new world, in the West ; it was not spoken in Asia or Eu- rope, it was spoken in America, and the man wlio, in behalf of others, gave utterance to the magic loniiula, 253 254 DISSOLVING VIEWS Thomas Jefferson, was in fact the Messiah, was in fact the man who brought to the Jews what they needed most : " equality." Between the fancy of our dreams and the cold facts of reality there is always a wide gap. For long centuries men have wished for quick transportation ; they have fancied that some magic mantle or some magic rod could transport them with the velocity of lightning from one corner of the earth to the other. The wish was realized : but what a difference there is between our railroads and steamships and the mantle of Faust or the wooden horse of the Arabian Nights. The Messianic hopes of Israel were indeed realized, though not in the shape our an- cestors had seen them in their dreams. When the Mes- siah came, when the magic word was spoken that gave them liberty and equality, they hardly knew it ; they hardly became aware of it, because they missed the sound of the trumpet and the triumphal processions which they thought were indispensable to the appear- ance of the Messiah. Thomas Jefferson had penned the words : " All men have equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- piness," and these words revolutionized the world. France soon followed the example of the United States, and when Napoleon's victorious armies crossed the Rhine they broke open the Ghettos of the German cities, and declared that the Jew was a citizen and had the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as had his fellow- men. The awakening from their hypnotic sleep had been so sudden that the Jews of Germany, who were at that time the actual representatives of Judaism, did not know where in tiie world they were. It is said that somnambu- lists may climb, in their sleep, to the roofs of houses, but BOERNE AND HEINE AND THEIR TIME 255 that they will fall from the height as soon as they are called by their names. A similar phenomenon occurred when the Napoleonic drum-corps suddenly awakened the Jews from their somnambulistic trance. They could not hold themselves on their feet and fell down the precipice. The first rays which illumine the nineteenth century show us Judaism in a sad plight. The doors of the cage had been opened, but the birds had lost the use of their wings through so long an imprisonment. Some would timidly flutter within the grating of their prisons, missing the door at every attempt ; and those who were lucky enough to find the opening would fall into the clutches of their enemies. In other words, the masses did not know how to accommodate themselves to the new conditions. They objected to every reform movement. They felt sorry to leave their cells, because, through long association, they had become attached to them. They would not mix with their neighbors now that an opportunit}^ was given to them, and they thought that Judaism would be lost with the old mansion. To save it, they clung tenaciously to the old customs, which had become obsolete. The few who had passed the door began to look with disgust upon their former surroundings ; they wished to obliterate their whole past, to wipe out all remembrances of their former degradation, and they imagined they would find the long sought-for happiness in the bosom of the Christian church. The German governments, and especially that of Prussia, met them half-way. The bureaucratic circles were opened only to the convert, while they remained closed to the Jew. Whoever wished to obtain a government position as a lawyer, physician, or officer of the army had to sub- mit, formally, at least, to baptism. The form merely was insisted upon, and nobody cared whether the convert 256 DISSOLVING VIEWS indeed believed in the doctrines of Cliristianity. Con- versions were therefore the rule of the day. In Berlin, two-thirds of the Jewish residents, numbering nearly two thousand persons, were baptized within a few years, not to speak of the number of converts in other places. The descendants of Moses Mendelssohn set a pernicious ex- ample. Most of them turned Christians. The orthodox pointed, therefore, with scorn, to the children of the great philosopher ; they maintained that their acts were a neces- sary consequence of their father's reformatory ideas, and they warned all'not to walk so dangerous a path, which would lead their children inevitably to the baptismal font. The more enlightened classes thought that what the chil- dren of Mendelssohn dared to do could not be a dis- grace to themselves, and they followed in their wake. That both wings were wrong can be easily seen now, after a lapse of time. The one party had closed its eyes to the light because, accustomed to darkness, it was dazzled ; the other had stared at the shining ball, and had turned blind. The small faction of true reformers, who stood between both extremes, shared the fate of the bat in the fable, who, in the quarrels between four-footed animals and birds, was denounced as a bird on account of its wings, by the quadrupeds, and persecuted by the birds on account of its mammalian qualities. The superstitious masses opposed every needed reform, and the renegades sneered at it. The Bible tells of a disturbance in the Egyptian camp which was caused by a^combination of light and darkness ; a similar distur])ance can be verified among the Jewi\ at the beginning of our century. Times had changed suddenly, all social conditions had been abruptly upset, and people could not adjust themselves quickly enough to the new state of affairs. They had been BOERNE AND HEINE AND THEIR TIME 25 ( brought up at home in accordance with the old customs ; the youthful remembrances were still alive in them ^ the recollections of the pleasant Friday evenings, of the fes- tivals, and of many other delightful ceremonials were still cherished by many ; but what was good for tlie Ghetto had ceased to be of use in the present time, and both extremes could not be reconciled. A man could not serve both. He could not do justice to a position in the world and remain at the same time within a circle of obsolete ceremonials. The attempt to make possible the impossible brought about a state of hypocrisy such as was never seen before, and we to-day are still suffering from it. The most peculiar ideas were in vogue. One man would make a distinction between his home life and his public life. At home he would keep up strictly all the old ceremonials — he would live, as he called it, the life of a pious Jew ; but outside of his house he would excuse himself from all religious obligations. Another would insist that his children should be brought up strictly orthodox, while he himself would no longer bind himself to religious prescriptions. As a consequence, such chil- dren became disgusted with and alienated from their religion. The observation of the Sabbath became then a prominent and burning question. Under no consid- eration would they give up the historical Sabbath ; noth- ing could tempt them to accept the Sunday in place of it. Still, they could not rest on two days, and so they would timidly open the back door on Saturdays to admit customers ; then, when they found that the sky did not fall upon them, they would pick up their courage and keep their business places open ; but they would never- theless tell God in their Sabbath prayers how delighted they were with their day of rest, and how thankful they 258 DISSOLVING VIEWS were to him who has given them such a dsij. Could hypocrisy take a step beyond this ? And this they called keeping up their religion ; this they called defending the last bulwark of Judaism. A Jewish clergy with power to stem the tide or to lead it into proper channels did not exist at that time. The new rabbies had either not yet been born, or they were still at school preparing for their future mission. The rabbies in office were as blind as the moles. They bent over their Talmudical books, and discussed what the rab- bies had said a thousand years ago ; they learned and learned, but knew nothing, nor did they accomplish any- thing. As a class they had become practically useless, but still they did not know it nor did they see it. They had lost all authority, and, having made themselves, through their absurdities, the laughing-stock of the rising genera- tion, they were unable to influence them, nor could they shape their religious opinions. Some men of good intentions formed at Berlin a society for the preservation of Judaism. The members had to pledge themselves that under no consideration would they leave Judaism and turn Christians. . The result was that after a short existence the very president of that organization embraced Christianity. It is, indeed, a mira- cle that Judaism has passed unharmed through this ordeal. If its constitution had not been so vigorous, if its ration- alism had not ever revolted against Christian superstition, it would not have been able to stand the pressure which then was brought u|)on it. A man is able to resist force ; he will glory in the martyrdom of the pyre and the scaffold, because it is only a short moment that he suffers the bodily pains, and his imagination helps him to leap the gulf by picturing to him either the joys of heaven or the BOERNK AND HEINE AND THEin TIME 259 admiration of the workl : l)ut a mau cannot so easily resist the songs of the sirens. Like a rat, he is not likely to be trapped by vinegar, but he will be attracted by the smell of the sweet bait of blandishment. A man does not care to suffer all his life from the mosquito-stings of dis- guised prejudices, because not even the glory of martyr- dom is given to him as compensation for his agonies. In this light we must look upon and judge the two men who, if they do not represent their time, reflect it at least, as if in a highly polished mirror. Ludwig Boerne and Heinrich Heine are no Jews, if the sprinkling of a few drops of water and the certificate of the Protestant pastors of Offenbacli and Heiligcenstadt could have made them Christians ; they are no Jews, if we measure them by their observation of Jewish rites and ceremonies ; they are no Jews, if the sarcasm is taken in account with which they chastised both their former coreligionists and their former religion. But we know they are Jews in the full sense of the word, when we observe the truly Jewish spirit which, in spite of themselves, pervaded all their writings, when we behold the sensitiveness with which they felt the sting of prejudice whenever it was directed against any one of their race, or when we behold the fearlessness with which they stood up manfully to defend their former brethren against such attacks, though they themselves did not hesitate to assail them. A family jar once occurred between a husband and his wife. They came to blows, and the women of the neigh- borhood rushed in to succor their sister. They were about to fall upon the man with their broomsticks, when the wife, whom they intended to aid, turned against them. " What business have you to hit my husband? " she cried ; "strike your own husbands, and don't you dare to mix 260 DISSOLVING VIEWS in my affairs." With some unmistakable signs of dis- pleasure, the valiant couple admonished the compassionate ladies to retire. In a similar way would both Boerne and Heine reserve for themselves the privilege of assailing their brethren, but woe to him who raised his hand to do the same; for they would turn immediately against liim, and their quick and unerring arrows generally laid out their man. If both of these men had been born half a century later, tliej^ might have become the stronghold and the glovy of Judaism ; unfortunately, they were not, and the advan- tages which Judaism nuiy have derived from them were merely of a negative nature. Both men had different ideas; both followed a diiferent career; both were some- times friends, at other times bitter enemies, and still, as I said before, they were the products of their time, which manifested itself in both of them with the same results. Loeb Baruch was born in the Ghetto of Frankfort-on- the-Main in 1786. His father, Jacob Baruch, a banker and money-broker, who, being kept in constant connec- tion with the Austrian court and its courtiers, was one of those men who made a distinction between their home life and their public life. He no longer believed in the old religion; and still, to please some members of his family, or because he thought it could do his children no harm, he insisted that they should be brouglit up in the old and strictly orthodox style. To accomplish this im- possible feat, he made the still greater mistake of select- ing for their tutor as liberal a man as he was himself. The children could not help feeling the difference between their teacher's words and his inwaid convictions, and they grew up hypocrites. Loeb, who developed a strong love for truth, began to feel disgusted with a religion which BOERN'E AND UlilNE AND THEIR TIME 2t)l offered him nothing but hypocrisy, and no sooner wus he sent for his I'urtlier education to Giessen, into the house of a Christian professor, than he threw aside all the tedi- ous encumbrances of his religion. A few years later, he moved to Berlin to finish his studies ; but how could he have become inspired there with love for Judaism, when he beheld the example of Mendelssohn's own children ? His early degradation made him love liberty the more, the more it had been denied to him. Its waters tasted the more delicious to him because he was thirsty. In order to become free, in order to become the better en- abled to break the political chains which then held down the German people, in order to secure himself against the missiles which, as a rule, were hurled at the Jew, Loeb Barucli formally left the Jewish religion on June 5, 1818, and rose from the baptismal font of Offenbach, as he im- agined, a new man, to be known henceforth as Karl Ludwig Boerne. Having passed through the distasteful ceremony of baptism, he cared little more for Christianity than he cared for Judaism, and lie frequently stated that his conversion was not worth the small fee which he had paid to the pastor. An opportunity to become aware of the iiselessness of this step was frequently given to him. Despite his assumed name, despite his legally certified Christianity, he was, nevertheless, called "a Jew" by his enemies. He had wished to be acknowledged first as a man, next as a German, and onl}' then as the adherent of some religion. The world, however, was not yet I'eady to accept such a view; and though lie fought all his life- time for the liberty of Germany, though not unlike tlio prophets of old he rose in indignation and chastised the slavish subordination of the German people to their princes, he was not even acknowledged as a German by 262 DISSOLVING VIEWS friends and foes. Boerne was not a liberal in the true sense of the word ; the liberty which inspired him was merely political liberty, liberty from the thraldom of monarchical rule. This liberty he would have purchased at any price, and for some time he gave himself up to the delusive hope that Catholicism could establish a great republic after his own heart, and he was then satisfied to yield, even to Rome. Through his marvellous force of expression and through his success as a journalist, he became better known to the world than perhaps thou- sands of other Jewish young men of his age ; but he was only one out of many, and a description of the discord of his soul is a description of the religious status which then unfortunately prevailed among all the Jews. Boerne died an exile, in Paris, in 1837. Heinrich Heine, or Harry Heine, was born December 12, 1799, in Duesseldorf. It is not true that he was born in the new year's night 1800, and his remark that he was one of the first men of the nineteenth century is merely a pun wliich suggested itself to him by the nearness of his natal day to our centur}-. The conflict among literary men concerning the true character and the real greatness of Heine is not yet settled. He is still as much loved and admired by his friends as he is hated and depreciated by his enemies. To speak of Ids works, to describe the power he wielded over the hearts of the German youth for so many years, to picture the enthusiasm which even to-day his songs arouse in those who understand the Ger- man language, would require more than one lecture. I shall give to you to-night merel}^ a few dry facts concern- ing his life. It is my present intention merely to emplia- size that, in spite of his conversion, in spite of his satires against Jews and Judaism, in spite of his apparent athe- BOERNE AND HEINE AND THEIK TIME 263 ism, he was still a Jew. Scarcel}" had the Jews in Germany time to familiarize themselves with the German tongue, wliicli Moses Mendelssohn had, so to say, forced upon them, when they brought forth a poet from their midst, whose enenues even were compelled to place at the side of their own greatest master, Goethe. Heine's life reflects the same discord as does that of Boerne. Unable to love the Judaism in which he had been brought up, finding nothing else ready to replace it, nor anybody who would dare to assume the duties of a I'eformer, loathing the prevailing hypocrisy, what could we expect a man of his genius to become ? Fortune did not smile upon him. Had he not been poor and dependent upon narrow-minded money-bags for his sup- port, had better opportunities been offered to him, his life nught have taken a far different course. His poetic nature was not understood by his relatives. Proud Pega- sus was to be tamed to drag the plough. Heine had no taste for commercial pursui-ts, and he was a failure as a lawyer. In order to become free, to be no longer depend- ent upon his uncle's support, and for no other reason in the world, he turned a Christian, as did hundreds of Jew- ish young men at this time. He desired a government position, and therefore he submitted to baptism, on Juiu' 28, 1825, and accepted the names, Christian Johann Heinrich Heine. Even then he was unsuccessful. He did not get the position which he desired so much, and which he thought would make him independent. He never made a secret of the hypocrisy of his step and of the poor opinion which he had of his newly acquired religion. "None in my family," said he, "opposes that step more than I do myself." At anotiier place, speaking of himself, he says : — 2(J4 DISSOLVING VIEWS " Und du bist zum Kreutz gekrochen, Zu dem Kreutz das du verachtest, Das du noch vor wenig Wochen In den Slaub zu treten dachtest." Heine, like his friend Boerne, while satirizing the Jews, stood up manfully for them whenever an enemy dared to attack them. He, too, was a champion of the liberty of the German nation, and he, too, died an exile in France, in 1856, having suffered for nine years of a painful spine-disease. Such was the Judaism at the beginning of our century. Its best and most genial men turned from it, not because they had become convinced of the truth of Christianity. Far from it. They turned from it simply because it did not offer to them the right nourishment; because the honor of the martyrdom was not worth the price demanded for it; because they loathed the hypocrisy which paraded openly in its avenues. This unfortunate period was, thank God, not of a long duration. It passed by. A new school of men grew up. They began to investigate, to examine, to search for truth, and to remove the obstacles which former ages had placed in the wa}^ of progress. Their researches went to the very core and heart of Juda- ism, and they found that this core and heart were sound. A new clergy arose, which took upon itself duties of which its predecessors had known little, if anything. Though their work was not as successful as they would have wished it to be, though many an impediment obstructed their way, they still gained their points. To name all the men who have helped to build up the Judaism of our day, and to offer to all of them the well deserved tribute of gratitude, would be a task that could not be accomplished in one evening. Men of all shades, BOERNE AMD HEINE AND THEIK TIME 2Go like Manheinier, Kley, Solomon, Sachs, Fuerst, Iloldheiiu, Phillipson, Jost, Frankel, and others, are all deserving of our gratitude and acknowledgment. I shall, therefore, select only onfe of their number, Abraham Geiger, as a representative of this period of reconstruction, and shall describe in my next lecture the new phase into which Judaism entered at that time. XXI. ABKAHAM GEIGER AND HIS TIME It is a queer world in which we are living. This uni- verse has been kept in running order since times immemo- rial, since times which the most imaginative brain cannot grasp, and, like a well regulated and well oiled clock- work, it has neither gained nor lost the fraction of a second ; still, as far back as history informs us of the existence of what we call civilization, the human race lias ever been dissatisfied with the working of that macliine, and has unceasingly endeavored to improve upon it. It is amusing to read how persistently men have complained of the evils of life ; how assiduously they have endeav- ored to find a panacea for them, and how regularly all their attempts have been defeated. No sooner had they hemmed in an overflow on the one side than the water slopped over on the other ; no sooner had they suppressed a fire here than it burst out on the opposite corner. From Moses to Henry George, men have experimented with social questions of all kinds, and have attempted to abolish poverty, and to distribute more equally the good things of life, but all in vain. What they gained in force they lost in time ; what they won on the one hand they lost on the other. There has never been a social reformer who has not wished that the motion of the universe could be stopped 266 ABEAHA31 GElGEli AND HIS TIME 267 just for that short space of time which he would need to set matters aright, or who has not wished for a secluded spot on earth where he could build up his Utopia, unhampered and undisturbed by the busy world. All social reformers may be divided, like maniacs, into two classes : one that would destroy everything, in order to build-up a new society upon the ruins of the old one ; and one that would withdraw from the contact with the evil world, forgetful of the fact that their passions, the motive of all their actions, are following them into their solitude. It is a remarkable observation that, while com- fort and progress are the children of cooperation, — and the more densely populated a country is, the more easily obtainable they are, — people, nevertheless, withdraw from contact with the many, and prefer to live by them- selves if such a thing were possible. Parents will keep their children away from wdiat they call the corrupting influence of others as much as they can, and would, if they could, isolate them from all and every contact with other children, keep private teachers for them, and have a private playing-ground, all for the sake of guarding them against the ills of society. And still those who have been tossed about in the world, who have learned to push their way through the crowd with their own elbows, have always grown up to be the best men. There is not a religion which does not protect its adherents against the contaminating influence of - the surrounding world. The " pious " ones are kept in the " fold," under the constant care and supervision of the "pastor," and the new-comer must first knock at the door — mark me, door — before he can be admitted into the seclusion. The fear is always exj)ressed that the innocent lambs might be led away by the vicious goats, in spite of 2(38 DISSOLVING VIEWS the amount of religious food with which they are stuffed. What an absurd contradiction this is ! Each religious sect prides itself on possessing all the truth, and still it is distrustful that its truth might not be strong enough to fight its own way. Every religious sect invites others to seek shelter under the protecting roof of its doctrines, and still it is afraid that these doctrines might get hurt when they come in contact with others. This has, how- ever, always been the way of the world, and these things will probably run along in their accustomed grooves for some time to come. When Judaism became conscious of itself, when it found that it contained principles of a somewhat higher order than were those held by its neighbors, it settled upon the usual policy of seclusion. An excusable pride whispered into the ears of the Israelite that a nation endowed by God himself with such excellent laws, and kept under his special protection, must, therefore, be more highly beloved by him than other classes of his children. Loathing, on the one hand, the abominations of the pagan world, they were afraid that the limpid waters of their monotheism might be discolored by too close a contact with the stagnant pools of decaying poly- theism. We find, impressed unmistakabl}^ upon every page of Jewish literature, that the Jews considered them- selves a nation of priests, that is, a privileged class, which must keep itself uncontaminated by contact with other nations. Seclusion surely preserves ; and if every human being could be closed up in a cell by himself, a most virtuous state of affairs might be possibly established. Just think of it ! we would need no police force, aiid there would be no envy, and, consequently, no defaulters, thieves, and murderers. All would be exemplarily pure ; ABRAHA:\r cF.iGrn and his time 269 there would be no war, and peace would govern univer- sally. It is really too bad that the world cannot be transformed into a large penitentiary. We have to pay for everything, and if we exclude ourselves from society, society will seclude itself from us. If we look down upon others as being not our equals, others will look upon us the same way. And so it actually happened : the Jews sought happiness in their seclusion ; they would preserve what they called their revealed truth against contamination, by surrounding it with strong walls, and the world learned to look at them as upon strangers. For more than two thousand years we behold the gap between Judaism and the world, if not widening, at least not contracting a particle, and Christianity and Moham- medanism treating the descendants of Israel as strangers, and the Jews building up walls upon walls between them- selves and their neighbors. Even to-day religion means, to a great many, merely the signs of distinction between one sect and the other, and the fear is always expressed that if these distinguishing marks are swept out of exist- ence, all religion, and especially Judaism, will follow. People generally do not take into account the fact that if a religious truth is not strong enough to protect itself, and needs an artificial safeguard, it is not worthy of protection When at the dawn of the present century all social conditions underwent so radical a change; when, impelled by the inventive genius of our age, these changes followed more rapidly than ever before in the history of humanity, men arose in Israel who thought that Judaism was strong enough to hold its own on the battle-field of life, and no longer needed a protecting seclusiveness. They began to batter down the walls which previous generations had 270 DISSOLVING VIEWS built up around it, trusting in the force of truth to pro- tect itself. They called themselves " reformers," and the principal merits of their \V(jrk were that they destroyed the walls which had been built up in the past, that they uprooted the old landmarks, and that they endeavored to wipe out the signs by which the Jew distinguished him- self from his fellow-citizens. These reformers have been and are still accused of having destroyed without build- ing up, of having taken away without giving in return, and they, on their part, have generally protested against such a charge. Let us be frank ; the reform movement has so far only destroyed and not built up, and, instead of avoiding the issue, it ought to face it manfully. Religion is a growth and not a building ; we may remove impedi- ments to the growth of a plant, tear off the withering leaves from it, that new ones may the sooner sprout, but we cannot make them grow ; we can take away, but we cannot give in religion. We can remove errors and help others to rise to a better understanding of their relation to both the creator and the creation. But this is all we can do. It was sufficient that men grew up who had the courage to tear down all those barriers by which the Jew had deprived himself of the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness, and to leave the growth of the new plant to the care of Him who governs the universe, who causes new worlds to form as well as the blade of grass to grow. The reform movement began in Germany, and its nature was threefold: it was social, it touched the ritual, and it extended even to doctrines which so far had been' considered fundamental. I shall now merely describe the direction which the reform movement has taken until it has reached us, but I can neither describe in detail the struggles after which every innovation was established, ABRAHAM GEIGER AND HIS TIME 271 nor give the biographies of all who were instrumental in bringing them about. I must also warn you against another mistaken idea, viz.^ that all tlie renowned re- formers of our century had started with a certain settled policy upon t])eir work. They did not ; they were led from one step to another, one concession was followed by the next, and it happened not seldom that within twenty- five years a man so utterly changed his views that the words of the old man flatly contradicted those of the youth. There is not such a thing as consistency in re- ligion. It is ignorance only which cleaves stubbornly to a word once spoken. The truth-seeker is justified in abandoning to-day what he proclaimed yesterday as truth, if he finds that he has been mistaken, and to give up to-morrow his stand-point of to-day if new developments should warrant such a surrender. The initiatory steps of the early reformers were of a social nature. The Jew was told to shear off his long beard and hair, to dress like other people, to speak an intelligible language, to change his taste in accordance with the demands of the time, and to modernize his oriental ideas in regard to the relation of the two sexes. A great deal has been said in praise of the Jewish family life ; with pride we have pointed to the purity of morals, to the conjugal and filial love which have been the blessing of the Jewish home, and to tlie respected posi- tion which the Jewish woman, be it as motlier, daughter, or sister, has been apportioned therein. I shall not take an iota from the general truth of these assertions, but, in order to be just, we must also allow that these fortunate conditions were not an effect of the freedom and equality granted to the Jewish women by Jewish legislation or customs. The feminine sex, as a rule, was considered 272 DISSOLVING VIEWS inferior to the masculine gender. The male Israelite thanked God every morning that he had not created him a woman. Women had no right to decide for themselves on the more important affairs of life ; they were given in marriage by their parents, sometimes to men whom they had never seen before. On their wedding-day their hair was clipped, like that of slaves, and they were not allowed to let it grow again. Girls received no religious in- struction, save that which their mothers gave them in relation to the preparation of food allowed to be eaten. While boys were initiated into the religion of their fathers at their thirteenth birthday, girls were not. Women had to occupy a separate gallery in the syna- gogue ; and, while a boy of thirteen years was counted as one of the ten persons who formed a quorum for public worship:), his grandmother, mother, and older sisters were excluded. In a word, a semblance of the oriental harem was still preserved by the Jews of the Occident, and this piece of orientalism now had to go. The reformers placed women on an equal footing with men ; they en- couraged them to wear their own hair after marriage ; they offered them religious instruction, and one of the first innovations was that girls should be " confirmed " the same as were boys at the age of thirteen or fourteen years. The separate gallery for women in the synagogues was done away with, and the husband and father was permitted to take his wife and daughter into the same pew with him. If this social reform should be lasting and bring forth the desired fruit, it was necessarj^ that the Jew should worship his God in a manner which should make him less conspicuous and which would be more in accord with the taste of the time. We have seen that after the destruc- ABRAHAM GEIGER AND HIS TIME 273 tion of the temple sacrifices were substituted by prayers ; ill course of time a ritual grew up, in which readings from the Bible formed the central point, while the prayers be- fore and after tlie reading were still considered a substi- tute for the former sacrifices. The recitation of prayers was made as obligatory on every individual Israelite as had sacrifices been before. It mattered little what the prayer contained, whether it appealed to the heart or how it was spoken, if it only was read at the appointed hour. As times went on, the prayer-book grew in thickness, be- cause every generation added prayers, but considered it a sacrilege to omit any. They were, of course, spoken in Hebrew, no matter whether a man understood that lan- guage or not. A peculiar musical taste had developed, and, while some melodies were original and not without some musical merit, most of them were taken from the street, corrupted by the " cantor," and fitted to any prayer, no matter how much the idea of the music was in discord with its sentiment. It was of no rare occurrence that a w'altz or a march was fitted to a most solemn prayer or to a most sublime adoration of God. Instru- mental music, though occasional!}^ permitted, never be- came the rule, and the organ was abhorred for no other reason than because Christians made use of such an in- strument in their churches. The reform movement intro- duced an organ and a choir of boys ; it curtailed the prayer-book, and substituted hymns and prayers in -the vernacular for Hebrew ones. The prayer-book question has remained to this very day a burning question. One rabbi excluded one prayer, another the other ; but, as a rule, they were all too timid to throw aside the whole prayer-book and institute simul- taneous prayers. They could not yet tear themselves 274 DISSOLVING VIEWS away from the idea that a man was obliged to rehearse a certain amount of prayer, nor had they the courage to do entirely away with a language which nobody, save scholars, had time and inclination to study. After many years, and after many struggles, another piece of orientalism was abolished, viz.^ the custom of praying with covered heads. When the reformers began to remodel the order of re- ligious services, they could not help falling into a snare. They endeavored to build up, but, while they fancied they were creating something original, they merely copied the services of their Christian neighbors ; and, whereas the reform movement took its firmest root in the Protestant North of Germany, the Jewish reform worship imitated that of the Protestant church. In the Protestant church, the preaching of the gospel, the sermon, was the principal thing. The reform introduced, therefore, the sermon as the central point of every service, and transformed the rabbi into a preacher, who soon learned to co])y his pro- totype. No harm would have come of this innovation had reformed Judaism developed, as it did afterwards here in America, free from the grasp of government rule. In Germany, however, the government took a hand in every affair. The rabbi, though elected by the congrega- tion, had to be ratified by the government, and, once installed into office, could not be discharged by the con- gi'egation. In every town or city only one congregation was subsidized, and dissenters had to uphold their tem- ples at their own expense, paying at the same time for the support of the synagogue acknowledged by the gov- ernment. Thus it came to pass that the preachers ceased to be teachers plain and simple, and began to assume the r81e of priest, of a class of men who pretended to hold the ABRAHAM GEIGEH AND HIS TIME 275 key to heaven in their pockets. The pulpit is no Jewisli institution, it is copied from the Christian chuich, and after a short life it has changed and is changing into the genuine Jewish article, the "platform." The reform movement could not remain at a stand-still for any length of time, nor could it confine itself to a re- modelling of the service ; it naturally permeated the whole system, and reached finally the interior department. If the Jew was to be a cosmopolitan, if he was to love the country in which he lived, if he was to take an active part in all its enterprises, he could no longer dream of a Messiah nor of a country of his own. The belief in a Messiah and in a restoration fell flatly to the ground, and was for some time artificially replaced by the hope of a Messianic Era, i. e., of a time when all nations would reach the ultimate goal of happiness and would be united in the bonds of brotherly love under the universal govern- ment of Israel's God. Under these conditions, it became the mission of Israel to work with all his might for the realization of this hope. The study of history and its modern critical examina- tion made the Jew appear in a new and most brilliant light. He could point with pride to the numerous bene- factors of humanity, to the numerous philosophers and poets which his nation had produced, and of whom former times had known little or nothing, and he could take a pride in saying, " I am one of them ; T am also a Jew." He could show the lack of authentic material in the history of Christianity, and could face his Christian neighbors with proofs of the cruelty and the lack of love with which their ancestors had treated his race. In fact, for more than half a century Jewish pulpit orators would speak of nothing else than the wrongs which the Jews had suffered 276 DISSOLVING VIEWS during the Middle Ages, and this self-commiseration served excellently as a defence of Judaism, and furnished for the time being a plausible reason why we to-day should ac- cept as true what Jewish martyrs had considered to be true. These are the chief changes which the reform move- ment has produced. It may seem, at first sight, as if all concessions made by us to our neighbors had remained without a concession on their part to us. This is, how- ever, not so. For every distinguishing mark which we have removed, we have received an equivalent acknowl- edgment ; and, although the last word is not yet spoken, and a great many of our hopes have not yet been realized, still, the blind can see that a more cordial feeling than ever before has been established. It would be folly on our part to expect that what eighteen centuries have spoiled could be made good in a single one. The prog- ress which we have made towards a more harmonious feeling is out of proportion with the shortness of time in which it has been accomplished ; and, whenever we think we have cause to complain of prejudice, we ought not to forget that we, too, have not entirely extinguished the last sparks of prejudice against those who differ with us. One of the foremost re[)resentatives of the reform movement was Abraham Geiger. Ha was born in Frank- fort-on-the-Main, May 24, 1810, and died in Berlin, in October, 1874. He received a thorough Talmudical edu- cation, but also a more modern one, so that he was ad- mitted to the Universities of Heidelberg and Bonn. His favorite studies were oriental languages, and already in 1831 he gained a prize for an essay on the Jewish sources of the Koran. In 1833 he was installed as rabbi in Wiesbaden, and in 1835 he published, jointly with other ABRAHAM GEIGER AND HIS TIME 277 scholarly men, a periodical called " Zeitschrift fuer Jue- dische Literatur." In 1838 he was called to Breslau, and in that city he began his reformatory career. The large Jewish congregation split ; one part (the larger one) re- mained, with the chief rabbi, Abraham Ticktin, the repre- sentative of orthodoxy ; the other part, smaller but more intelligent, followed the leadership of Geiger. They opened a synagogue, called " tem})le," for him, in which he established a more orderly service, with organ and choir. This was then considered a radical innovation. Besides defending in his weekly sermons the movement of which he was the acknowledged champion, he wrote and published numerous and valuable historical researches and was instrumental in bringing about several rabbinical conventions for the purpose of settling the burning ques- tions of the day. At the second convention lie was vice- president, and at the third he served as president. In 1863 he removed to Frankfort-on-the-Main, and from 1870 to his death, which occurred in 1874, he was rabbi of the reformed congregation of Berlin. He was a man of medium size, and wore his hair after the fashion of the German Protestant ministers, in lonar locks around his shoulders. Whether it was voluntary or involuntary, I will not decide, but he copied the solemn ways of his models admirably. His delivery was very pathetic — salbungsvoU, as the German idiom more fitly expresses it. His profound scholarship has made him an authority in many questions of historical importance, and the Jews could point with just pride to him as one of their most intelligent leaders, who was able to defend their religion with weapons taken from the armory of reason. The reform movement was succored not only by the in- telligence of the time, but also by a sentiment which 278 DISSOLVIXG VIEWS stands still higher than intelligence, viz.^ by charity. No sooner had the Jews at the beginning of our century passed through the ordeal which I described in my last lecture, no sooner had they learned that they could find in purified Judaism all the liberty of action and all the happiness which they desired, no sooner had they found themselves officered by men like Abraham Geiger, than conversions to Christianity ceased entirely and they be- gan to be proud of being Jews. They felt at the same time that charity and loving deeds stood above all relig- ious theory, and their rich men began to rival each other in charitable undertakings. Again, the number of such men avIio have reflected honor upon both Judaism and the Jews by deeds of charity is so large that I hesitate to select one of them as a sample, for fear of being unjust to the rest. However, the best known and most renowned philanthropist of our century is Moses Montefiore, and therefore I have selected him as the central figure of my next lecture. XXII. MOSES MONTEFIORE AND HIS TIME The most profitable and best remunerative of all vir- tues seems to be charity. A Hebrew proverb says that it " saves from death," and according to the popular adage it covers at least "a multitude of sins." To part with one's own possessions in favor of another person without the hope or desire of reciprocation seems to be so diffi- cult, so much in conflict with the general nature of man, and to require so great an exertion of our moral qualities, that we cannot bestow enough praise upon the man who (overcomes the difficulty, conquers his own nature, and brings that moral pressure upon his pocket-book which is required to open it, and to allow some of its contents to run into the channels of charity. So highly esteemed is that virtue that we encourage it bj^ the highest awards. Of all virtuous persons, he who gives never fails to be ap- preciated, no matter why he gives, what he gives, how he gives, or to whom he gives. In our gratefulness, we are willing to overlook his foibles, not seldom his vices. We allow his errors to pass without comment, and hesitate to contradict any of his opinions, because he is so liberal a man, who, if he does not always act right, at least meaiis so well. The appreciation, verging almost to adoration, which follows charity, is a signal proof both of the rarity of the genuine article and the still imperfect state of human society. When humanity will have reached the goal of perfection, charity will become useless, cease to be 2T9 280 DISSOLVlJifG VIEWS a virtue, and consequently to be appreciated as such. The helpless will then receive the needed support as a "right" which is due to them, and the relatively poor will be too proud to accept any kind of comfort from his more fortunate brother for which he will not be able to offer an equivalent. Asylums, hospitals, and schools where the needy are sheltered, cured, and instructed, ought not to be called charitable institutions, nor ouglit they to be sup- ported by what is called private charity ; they ought to be state institutions, and their benefactions ought to be granted as a debt which society owes to the individual. Every citizen ought to be taxed for the support of such institutions, as he is for the support of a police force or a fire department, but he ought to receive in exchange the right to be admitted into any of them if sickness, in- firmity, or old age should compel him to seek refuge therein, without tlie stigma of being a burden to the com- munity or of being a recipient of state charities. Dona- tions given to those who cannot be classed among the helpless, which are intended rather to provide greater comfort than to relieve actual need, and which generally pass by the name of charities, never prove a blessing to the recipient ; they are degrading, and destro}^ what little manhood there is left in him. But, as I said before, we have not yet arrived at that height of perfection ; we are still glad to receive without giving any other equivalent than a " thank 3''ou," or " God bless you." Philanthropists are still in demand, and their charity is still highly appre- ciated and widely advertised for the purpose of inducing others to emulate their example. Indeed, charity still proves an excellent cover for a multitude of sins, and woe to the man who dares to depreciate the donor or his dona- tion . MOSES MONTEFIOKE AND HIS TIME 281 If charity, as I maintain, is an attempt to compromise between the rights of the individual and the imperfect state of society, if it is a kind of pendulum to regulate the relation between the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the unfortunate, it becomes self-evident that it will and must adapt itself to the demands of the time, and that, therefore, not only the views on charity, but its practice, are subject to constant changes. Hospitality, tliat is, the reception of strangers in the home-circles, was in times passed by one of the foremost charities, and especially among Jews was this branch of charity most highly cultivated. The Jew, being a business man, was a great traveller. The roads were bad and insecure ; hotels not frequent, and, after all, useless to him, partly on account of the prejudice with which he was treated, partly on account of the prejudice which he harbored against the mode of living in. which his neighbors indulged. It became, therefore, a matter of necessity that one Is- raelite should show hospitality to the other. Into what- ever Jewish house he came he was at home ; the poorest of the poor would share his last morsel with a stranger who would happen to knock at his door. All charity was then of a private nature, and attempts to organize it were made only in such cases when, as in a general calamity, individual charity became insufficient. Not sooner, how- ever, had the new era created new conditions than the sharp eye of the Jew observed that the system of 'his charities, if it was to keep up with the demands of the time, must assume a different form and grow to larger dimensions. Public charitable institutions, in which the poor were taken care of, sprang up like mushrooms. There was hardly a large city in Europe where rich Israel- ites did nut found and endow hospitals, orphan asyhims, 282 DISSOLVING VIEWS homes for the aged and infirm, schools where the children of the poor were to be instructed; in short, both the orthodox and the reform party vied with each otlier which of them could boast of the most charitable men. When- ever an Israelite, in spite of bis indifference to what was called religion, interested himself in a charitable under- taking, the reform jjarty would glory in it as if he was a fruit of its work ; whenever an orthodox excelled in that laudable virtue, his wing would prove by it, not that their members, too, were capable of acts of charity, but that their maxims must be right because men of such signal charitability performed promptly and conscientiously the very ceremonies which the reformers rejected as obsolete. The real fact, however, was that no sooner had social circles opened themselves for the Jew, no sooner had he stepped out of his former seclusion, than he became pub- lic-spirited, and felt called upon to improve social condi- tions as far as he was able to, and to compromise by deeds of charity between the real world as it is, and the ideal world as it ought to be. While the pessimists of the early part of this century, not unlike those of torday, predicted the dissolution of both Judaism and tlie Jewish race, merely because they were changing their outward appearance, new life began to circulate, new forces began to concentrate, and the Jews showed to the world by lib- eral deeds, by facts that spoke louder for them than the most glorious orations, that they were not a foreign ele- ment, that they were not clannish and seclusive, that they were not lacking in neighborly love, that they were not mere money -grabbers, but that they were as public-spirited, as liberal, and as charitable as their fellow-citizens. The world could not help acknowledging such evident facts, and before half the century had passed, the Jew had won for himself the esteem of the intelligent world. MOSES MONTEFIORE AND HIS TIME 288 A sad ev^ut occurred then, which afforded a brilliant demonstration, not only that Judaism had not died out, but that it enjoyed greater strength and better health than ever before; that orthodoxy and reform, though differing in" matters of minor im[)ortance, would stand together in all questions of general importance, and that by force of their newly acquired intelligence the}' could make them- selves heard in the world. They needed no longer to suffer undeservedly an ill-treatment, but the intelligent among them could now stand up manfully for their rights, assured of the moral support of their fellow-citizens. It happened in Damascus, in the year 1840, that two Christians, a friar. Father Thomas, and his servant, sud- denly disappeared. The rumor .spread that they must have been murdered, and the monks appealed to the French consul, Count Ratti Menton, to investigate the matter, and to bring the culprit to justice. The monk, who had never enjoyed a very good reputation, had been seen a day previous to his disappearance, quarrelling with a Turkish mule-driver ; still, this clew was entirely disre- garded, and suspicion was fastened upon the Jews, of whom about five thousand were then living in that city. The old mediseval fable that the Jews needed human blood during the passover festival, seemed not to have died out, or was revived for the occasion, and it was said that they had murdered the monk and his servant for the sake of obtaining their blood. The political situation of the Orient was then a peculiar one, and what we call now the oriental question was then developing as a germ. Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, had not only made himself independent of the Sultan of Turkey, but, after some military victories over his former master, he had annexed Syria and Palestine to his 284 DISSOLVING VIEWS dominions. France, for reasons best knuwii to herself, assisted the usurper, and her consuls were therefore all- powerful in Egypt. The governor of Damascus, lioping to make money out of such an affair, was more than will- ing to accommodate the French consul. Several Jews were now arrested and tortured ; they were asked to con- fess a crime of which they had not the least knowledge. The most cruel treatment of the prisoners failed to pro- duce any proof, nor did soldiers who demolished the houses of several Jewish residents find a trace of the missing man. A Jewish young man, who came to testify that he had seen the monk entering the store of a Turkish merchant a short time previous to his disappearance, was not given credence, but was beaten so unmercifully that he died of the injuries received in the same night. The Turkish servant of David Arari, one of the seven incrim- inated Jews, finally confessed, under torture, that his master had ordered hiin to kill the friar, and even showed the place where he had thrown the bones into the water. The place was dragged, but only the bone of some ani- mal and a piece of rag were found. The prisoners were now subjected to still greater tortures ; they must pro- duce the bottle filled with blood which they were said to liave drawn from their victims ; but all was in vain. New arrests were made, until finally the Austrian consul pro- tested against the cruelties perpetrated on these innocent persons, and protected an Austrian citizen, Picciotto, who was to be arrested. To strengthen the suspicion against the Jews, a similar case occurred about the same time upon the island of Rhodes. A Turkish lad had com- mitted suicide, and the rumor spread that the Jews had killed him in order to obtain his blood. Also in Juelich, a town near the Rhine, it was reported that a travelling MOSES MONTEFIORE AND HIS TIME 285 Jew had made an attempt to kill a Christian child, and, improbable as it will appear to future historians, all these tales were believed by Christians, in the very mid'dle of the nineteenth century, in spite of their absurdity. The time, however, when such accusations could have a last- ing effect had passed. In Juelich, a prompt investigation made by the Prussian authorities showed that the whole affair had been a scheme concocted by some Jew-haters, and the innocence of the incriminated persons was proven within a few weeks. In Rhodes, though the persecution lasted a longer time, the true facts were finally estab- lished, and the innocent sufferers indemnified; but the Damascus affair was not so easily settled. The French government wished to shield the consul, the Egyptian government could not afford to expose its true nature, and the Jews were therefore compelled to bring the utmost pressure to bear upon both governments, in order to free themselves of an accusation which was as untrue as it was absurd ; and they rose to the emergency. They forgot their quarrels about reform, and tlie best men of both camps stood up to refute indignantly such a shame- less calumny. Creraieux, in France, and Moses Monte- fiore, in England, placed themselves at the head of the movement. The intelligent Israelites of the Occident espoused at once the cause of their less intelligent breth- ren of the Orient. The same press which had given a wide circulation to the slanderous falsehood gave now as Avide a circulation to the refutation of the charge. The intelligent of all denominations joined with the Jews against their accusers, and, inasmuch as the representa- tives of the Jews demanded nothing more than that justice should be meted out, their voices were heard. For the first time in the history of the world it happened that 286 DISSOLVING VIEWS Jews dared to approach the throne of a despot, not to beg as Jews for their coreligionists, but to demand as citizens of England and France that for the sake of humanity a just and fair trial should be granted to the suspected citizens of Damascus. The success with which the mission of Cremieux and Moses Montefiore was crowned is so well known that I need not dwell upon it: and it serves to prove, if it proves anything, that times had changed, and that the Jews had conquered for them- selves a position from the height of which they were able to defend themselves and to defy all the evil machinations of their enemies. Of the two men who at that time had risen upon the crest of the popular wave, and for the time being had served as acknowledged representatives of the Jews, one, Adolph Cremieux, seems to have been selected on account of his successful career as a lawyer. His great juridical knowledge, his power as an orator, seemed to be of the greatest utility in a trial in which not only the innocence of a few individuals was to be established, but in which one of the most infamous accusations, brought forth againsj; the whole Jewish community, was to be refuted. Had the incriminated parties been charged merely with homicide for the purpose of gain or revenge, it would have mattered little, for the Jews themselves would have helped to bring the culprit to justice ; but such was not the case. The prisoners had been accused of having murdered persons for the sake of obtaining their blood for religious purposes. If such an accusation was sub- stantiated, every Israelite, no matter where he lived, was implicated more or less as an accomplice ; but if not, such malicious slander should now receive its deserved punishment and the slanderous tongue be silenced forever. MOSES MONTEFIORE AND HIS TIME 287 It is, therefore, not at all surprising that the eye of the Jewish community fell upon a lawyer and orator such as was Cremieux ; but what was it that made the Israelites look with such great expectancy upon Moses Montefiore ? What made them concede to him even the first place in the embassy? Here I shall reach the main point of my subject. Since the fiasco and exposure of the would-be Messiali, Sabbathai Zwi, the hope of the restoration of the Jewish nationality upon the sacred soil of Palestine had become a mere theor}^ as which it still lingered, while practically no efforts were made to realize it. Only a few passages in the prayer-book reminded of it, and beggars pretending to come from Jerusalem, the holy city, who travelled through all countries, would still absorb the lion's share of all Jewish charities ; but this was all. (The residents of Jerusalem lived, in fact, on nothing but the charities which they levied, through their travelling agents, upon their western coreligionists.) When the Jews began to feel that they must abandon such hopes, even in theory, before they could be recognized as citi- zens with equal rights in the countries in which they were living, the leaders of the reform movement decreed the erasure of all such passages froin tlie prayer-book which alluded to the Messiah or to the restoration of a Jewish nationality. The masses, however, were not j^et read}" to turn into the new road, because they felt that with the surrender of the old Messianic hopes, which, as theories, had been as harmless as they had been ineffective, the whole structure of Judaism would have to be subjected to a modification. They felt that the whole mission of Juda- ism would have to be changed, and its aims and ends would have to be sought for in a different direction than they had been accustomed to look for them. Tliey felt 288 DISSOLVING VIEWS instinctively that the sun'ender of the Messianic theories meant setting fire to the old house, and they hesitated to resort to that measure. While in Germany, where the struggle for reform was waging most fiercely, the reformers were in the ascend- ency and were supjDorted by the intelligence of their time, in other countries, and especially in England, the condi- tions were totally reversed. The Jews of England enjoyed greater freedom than their coreligionists in Germany. They needed not to struggle for it, the}' had what they wanted. England was politically a free country, and the number of Jewish residents was so very small that their seclusiveness, and the difference of their customs was hardly noticed by the public eye. The public almost ignored the Jew, and thus allowed him to share the free- dom which every Englishman enjoyed. In addition to this, the Jews of England could hardly be called natives of that country, in the same sense in which the word was applicable to the Jews of Germany or Russia. They were mere residents ; they were split into small German, Polish, and Portuguese congregations, and these had to exert themselves to preserve the distinctive marks of their dif- feient colonies. They cared, therefore, little for a move- ment which was to win back for the Jew the confidence of his fellow-citizens and to place him upon an even foot- ing with them ; they cared little for reform, they objected to it, and remained strictly orthodox. In England, fur- thermore, the Jews lacked, like the rest of the English people, a healthy middle class ; they were either enor- mously rich or miserably poor ; either highly educated or v.a-etchedly ignorant. The few wealthy Jews, such as the Rothschilds, Goldsmiths, and Montefiores, were the excep- tion, not the rule ; the public knew them, while men like MOSES MONTEFIORE AND HIS TIME 289 Dickens seemed to have had no knowledge whatsoever of the true life of the average Jew. These few were highly respected on account of their position in the financial world, and ])erhaps also on account of their intelligence ; and whenever they indulged in the exhibition of some orthodox rites, the English would look upon such queer actions on their part as they would upon the freaks of their nobility, and even find something to admire in them. The other Jews, too, would look with astonishment at the privileged position of these few of their brethren, and hail as good and infallibly right whatever any mem- ber of these families might feel inclined to adopt as a re- ligious practice for himself. These envied «ieu were, on tlieir part, too much occupied with their extended com- mercial enterprises to meddle with religious matters. They were satisfied to leave well enough alone ; they bought off their oblig^ations to Judaism with the enormous sums of money which they annually expended in charities, and thus they became rather champions of orthodoxy than leaders of the reform movement. It could not fail that some of them should have their hobbies, which they would groom in truly English fashion, and whenever these hob- bies were of a religious nature their coreligionists did not fail to cheer them whenever they paraded upon them. Such a hobby was the chimera of a national restoration of the Jews upon sacred ground, and its rider was Sir Moses Montefiore. Born in 1784, in London, of a wealthy Jewisli family of bankers, he had married, in 1810, into the Rothschild family. His marriage having remained without children, and being independently rich, he was exactly the man who might cherish some hobby of his own, and he might have chosen a worse one. He had been brought up amid 290 DISSOLVING VIEWS the customs and usages of the past century, and still he had inhaled the morning breeze of the new day. While he would take a hand in all modern enterprises, or make a proper use of the attainments of the present age, the memories of the past would still haunt him. He held strictly to the minutest prescriptions of the table laws, even while travelling ; he would adhere punctually to all those rites and forms by which the Jew had been forced into his seclusiveness, and he never thought that what a rich man like Moses Montefiore could do was not always the rigfht things to be established as a norm for the masses. After all, he clung to the belief that a restoration of the Jewish nationality was both desirable and possible. Pal- estine was to him more than a classical country; he revered it as sacred ground. In 1829 he visited Pales- tine, most assuredly with the same expectations as did Jehuda Halevi some centuries before him, and most prob- ably with the view of finding through personal inspection the road which might lead to a realization of his chimeri- cal hopes. In how far the sight of the Holy Land may have sobered down his enthusiasm cannot be stated ; his ideals, however, dissolved into a mist. Experience had taught him a great lesson. He had seen with his own eyes the degraded position of the oriental Jews, and that if the Holy Land were ever to become a central station for the Jews of the world, it was absolutely necessary that those who lived nearest to it should be elevated to a higher plane. To this task he devoted almost his whole life and all his energies, though, according to my estima- tion, he never adopted the right measures. The only means to assure success in that direction would have been to break the bonds of a superannuated ritual, which in those countries passed among the Jews for religion ; to MOSES MONTEFIORE AND HIS TIME 291 remove — as did the reformers — all the old walls, hedges, and mark-stones which separated tlie Jew from his fellow- citizens. But for such a task Montefiore had neither the understanding nor the inclination. Still, he did what he could, and as he best understood it. He spent money with full hands, caring little whether it reached the deserving poor or the professional beggar. He instituted schools, and appealed to the rulers of the land to recall all such laws as placed the Jew at a disadvantage. Thoroughly familiar with the conditions of the Eastern Jews, he was exactly the man who could do more than anybody else for them, and it was for that reason that he was delegated. The success of his mission may be as- cribed to a great extent not alone to his personal knowl- edge of oriental customs, which he had acquired in 1829, but to the information which he had gained since his visit to Jerusalem through the cultivation of his hobby. From that time his fame was assured, and he felt himself called upon to be an advocate for the oppressed Jews of all countries. He travelled to Russia and interceded with the Czar for the Jews living in his dominions; he took active though ineffective steps in the Mortara affair, and became thus the world-renowned champion and represen- tative of the Jews. The old age which he reached added to the lustre of his fame, and when, two years ago, he died, a centenarian, the whole world mourned for him as one of the noblest philanthropists who has ever lived upon this earth. His charity, however, was the cover for a multitude, not of sins — because his morals and the motives for all his actions were above suspicion, and as pure as the falling snow — but of mistakes and errors. The world, as usual, cheered the giver, merely because he gave, and cared 292 DISSOLVING VIEWS little whether actual good was accomplished b}^ his outlay or not. Without depreciating in the least the motives of the giver, we may sa_y that a hirge part, if not the largest part of the money which he spent in charities was \\'asted. Sir Moses gave without discrimination. Any person who would touch Ins heart by the recital of misery would receive a donation of him. He rarely investigated, and we know that sums of his money have reached Boston for purposes which cannot be classified under the name of charity. He furthermore lavished his money in the ser- vice of a cause which was doomed. His money was spent in furtherance of the cause of dying orthodoxy : his eyes were still directed towards the East : his money and per- sonal influence upheld artificially the vain hope of the restoration of the Jewish nationality, and, though it could not suppress it, it impeded at least the growth and the de- velopment of modern Judaism. A man has the right to spend his money as he pleases, especiall}^ if he means well and gives it away without hope or desire of getting, returns from the outlay for himself, and yet there is a vast difference between the man who gives intelligently, who bestows his money where it does the most good, and the one who gives indiscriminately for the gratification of a whim or fur tlie cultivation of a hobby. The first one is the true benefactor of humanity ; the second one aids mankind only indirectly. There were plenty of noble men, such as, for example, the late FraSnkel of Breslau, who have done much more for their coreligionists, both in quan-. tity and quality, than has Sir Moses, though their fame has not reached beyond the circles of tlieir philanthropic activity. If we are to profit by the study of history, we must learn to be strictly just, we must learn to measure men not by what their friends thought and said of them MOSES MONTEFIOEE AND HIS TIME 298 but by what they actually did ; we must not allow our- selves to be bribed by the munificent gifts which they expended apparently for the welfare of their fellow-beings. Moses Montefiore, with all his noble qualities, with all his magnanimity, with all his liberality, has rather re- tarded than advanced the progress of Judaism. Though bodily he lived in the midst of the nineteenth century, in spirit he was a relic of a previous age ; he was utterly unable to grasp the modern idea of Judaism ; he was unable to think of the Jew as merely a member of a re- ligious sect, but looked upon him as upon a member of a race whose duty it was to preserve carefully all those distinctive marks which would separate him from the rest of the world. He still dreamed of the realization of Mes- sianic hopes in some shape or manner, and it was only with him that these vain hopes, which had caused so much harm to Judaism, finally died away. Both the orthodox and the reformers have eulogized Sir Moses. I can understand why the orthodox wing- bewails his loss; but if reformers offer an acknowledg- ment to his memory, it ought to be done with some reser- vation. They may praise the purity of his morals, the unselfishness of his motives, they may laud his liberality and extol his magnanimity, they may admire his zeal and enthusiasm for the cause which he had espoused, but they should not forget that his sympathies were never with them nor with progressive Judaism. Good and noble a man as he was, he was rather an obstacle in the way of reform ; he rather impeded than assisted its work. While reform Judaism was still strugfo-linof for existence in Europe, a new country, situated upon a new continent, began to make its influence felt in the world. The United States of America liad declared and won their 294 DISSOLVING VIEWS independence. They were nu longer a colonial appen- dage of England. They bad formed a republic upon tbe broadest basis of liberty, and had invited the oppressed of all nations to take shelter under the wings of the Ameri- can eagle. Extending over a vast area of land, the United States could grant opportunities to the settler such as no other country in the world could, and they began to rise into prominence. It could not fail that also Jews should immigrate into this new country, especially after the invention of steam-vessels had made transatlantic travel less dangerous and expensive. The Constitution of the United States had cut in twain the bonds by which religion was fastened to the State, or, rather, the State to religion, and had left it to the option of every citizen to join with whomsoever he pleased for the purpose of work- ing out the salvation of his soul. It refused to interfere in all matters of religion. Such favorable conditions offered Judaism all the opportunities for development ; never in all its histor}^ had it enjoyed better ones, and it hastened to avail itself of them. The history of Ameri- can Judaism is yet a very brief one, owing to its recent origin ; but it is as eventful as it is important to us. The struggle between the old and new ideas, between ortho- doxy and reform, were settled here more quickly and more decisively than in the old country. The battle- ground being equally divided between the two contes- tants, the younger and stronger of them gained an easy victory. In the land of religious liberty it could hot fail that the reformers should leave their European friends far behind them. Short as it may be, Jewish reform in America has a history of its own, and, though we are yet standing right in the midst of the smoke and din of the battle, and although shot and shell are yet flying around MOSES MONTEFIOKE AND HIS TIME 295 US, we may catch a glimpse of a past which has scarcely ceased to be present, and of a future which looms up to replace it. A man still living among us, still in full activity and well known to you, both personally and by the numerous products of his indefatigable pen, shall fill the central part of my next sketch. I refer to Rabbi Isaac M. Wise. XXIII. RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIME Solon, the famous law-giver of the ancient Athenian republic, was visiting the court of Croesus, the King of Lydia. The latter was as renowned at his time for the wealth which he had amassed as the former was cele- brated b}'' his contemporaries for the profundity of his wisdom. Greek poets tell complacently of a conversa- tion which ensued between these two extraordinary men, and, if the account which they give of it is not exactly historically true, the moral intended by it reflects, at least, great credit upon the inventors. The king, they say, while exhibiting before his guest the vastness and inexhaustibility of his resources, gave way to a feeling of vanity, and asked the philosopher to name to him the happiest man with whom he had ever come in contact. If Solon had been as courteous as he was wise, he would have found some polite rejoinder from which the vain king might have concluded that his guest admired him as the happiest of mortals ; but Solon would not, nor could he withhold the truth, even if he was sure to displease the king by his answer. He named a common Athenian, citizen, who, after having lived to a good old age, and after having seen his sons winners of prizes at Olympian games, had died for his country on the battle-field. Pressed a second time by the king to name the man to whom he would accord the second place, the incorrigible 290 RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIMB 297 Solon thought that two )'oung men should share that honor, because they had died in the performance of an act of filial devotion to their aged mother. Cornered, finally, by the king's direct question whether he (Croesus) was not to be considered a happy man, Solon explained that, not knowing what the next day might bring, no man could be called happy before death had removed him for- ever from the stage, and thus suppressed for good all arising emergencies. The king, according to the report of the Greek scribe, could not be convinced that Solon's maxim was a good one, until his own fortune was sud- denly changed, and he was hurled from the height of his imagined happiness into the most pitiable state of misery. It seems to me that for similar reasons we hesitate to pass judgment upon any person who is yet living among us. We fear that some unforeseen and unexpected action on his part might give the lie to our asseveration. To-day we may find a man worthy of our praise, and may set him up as an example for emulation, but, for all we know, the very next day he might compromise himself and us by some hasty and injudicious, if not criminal action ; or, we may feel justified to condemn a man's actions to-day, and to-morrow affairs may take such a turn that the very action which we have assailed yesterday is glorified to-day by the public, on account of the success which has unexpectedly followed it. In either case, our judgment of men and things will be exposed as unreliable, and we are likely to experience an unpleasant and severe set-back. History is, therefore, rarely written by the generation which witnesses the events. As a rule, we await the demise of a man before we feel safe to pass judgment upon him. And still, "if not now, at what other time?" says the \vise Hillel. If we, who see with 298 DISSOLVING VIEWS our own eyes and hear witli our own ears, shall not be competent judges of what is going on around us, who will be better qualified ? If a man's labors for the welfare of the community are not to be appreciated during his life-time, when will he be entitled to the fruits of his work? There is not a man living who would not gladlj- exchange some centuries of future glory for an hour of present appreciation. We cling to the hope that our labors will receive their due acknowledgment after our demise, merely because we receive so little encourage- ment while we are living ; and if only those of our deeds which are deserving of credit would receive what is due to them, I think none would feel offended when opinions of his are criticised because they differ with those held by others. We have arrived in our researches at a stage in the development of Judaism which to us must be not only of greater interest but of higher importance than any of the previous ones. The history of American Judaism, short as it is, is full of momentous events, and if we are to ac- count for the difference of the religious views which we hold to-day from those held by past generations, or if we are to be held responsible for the modifications and alter- ations to which we have subjected, and perhaps yet shall subject both the forms and principles of our religion, we ought to become as familiar with it as with the events of which the oldest of our religious text-books — the Bible — tells us. It is evidently impossible to speak of occurrences with- out speaking of the persons who either were instru- mental in bringing them about or who were affected by them ; and whereas some of the men are yet living who have identified themselves with American Judaism, no RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIME 299 choice is left to us but to speak of them as if they did not exist at all, to discuss tiieir deeds and the mo- tives of their deeds as if they were long dead and buried, and to approve of what we deem worthy of our approval, as if they were not more susceptible to flattery than are the corpses of men whom we eulogize, or to criticise their works as if they were not able to retort. . We must, how- ever, never allow our personal preferences, tastes, preju- dices, or dislikes to bias our judgment, and when, for example, we shall discourse upon the influence of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati, upon the formation of what we call American Judaism, we must not see in him the orator who a few 3^ears ago stood in this very pulpit to dedicate this temple, and whose sermon may or may not have pleased one or the other of us ; or the editor of a Jewish newspaper whose editorials may not suit some- body's taste ; and, least of all, the literary opponent of some rabbi who had the good-fortune to hail from the same province of the father-land from which we came, while he (Wise) had the ill-luck to have been born in some other province of the German empire ; we must judge him by what he has actually accomplished, as well as by the ideals after which he has been striving. How soon, after the discovery of this continent, Jews settled upon American soil is now a matter of conject- ure. It is more than probable that occasionall}'' an ad- venturous Israelite may have been blown to these shores. The earliest Jewish settlers were naturally of Spanish, Hollandish, and afterwards of English descent. But whether these early immigrants renounced their religion in the new countiy, or whether they adhered to it in spite of the conditions which made it difficult, if not impossible, to live up to the prescribed ceremonies, cannot be ascer- 300 DISSOLVING VIEWS tained. The fact remains that no traces whatsoever of a former congregational life are to be found. The haze be- gins to lift at the beginning of this century, after the United States had won their independence and had offered this country as an asylum to the oppressed of all nations. At that time we may discern the first germs of a congre- gational life springing up among the Jews of America. Whenever ten Israelites would find themselves in one place, they would form a congregation for the purpose, first, of securing a burial-place ; second, of emplojdng a man who would kill their cattle and fowl after the pre- scribed rules, and circumcise their boys ; and third, of celebrating Sabbath and holidays in common. These settlers represented by no means the intelligent classes of the European brotherhood, but what they may have lacked in scholarship they amply made up bj^ enter- prise and daring. They troubled themselves little about religion as such ; in fact, their love of religion must have been rather questionable at home, or they never would, have ventured themselves upon the sea and into lands where the probabilities were that they would not be able to conform to any of the requisite religious practices. Their flocking together was caused more by fancy than by actual religious cravings, and it occurred only after they had gained material prosperity, and found themselves in such comfortable circumstances that they could afford to enjoy the luxury of congregational intercourse. In hours of leisure, the remembrances of their younger days, were stirred, and it was not more than natural that they wished to celebrate festivals and to 2:)erform religious ceremonies exactly in the same style as they had seen them observed in days gone by, at home, by their parents. Those who came from the same part of the old RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIME 301 country, following the laws of affinity, would, thereftn-e, establish congregations in the new country after the pat- tern of those which they had left on the other side of the Atlantic. These English, S|;)anish, Hollandish, and after- wards German, Polish, and Russian colonies became in course of time the magnetic centres for further immigra- tion. Either a relative was sent for and was received on his arrival by his friends, or the new-comer, after having made himself known as a Jew, was directed by any of his coreligionists to his countrymen. Thus the various con- gregations were formed merely for the sake of convenience and not under the pressure of a strong religious senti- ment. The members would therefore not give up any of the religious practices to which they had been accustomed, and, instead of joining the next congregation and forming with it one sizable body, they instead remained iso- lated, without force for good or evil. Leaders there were none. Only in large i)laces, where the same national ma- terial could be collected into larger congregations, could a rabbi find a scanty living, and unless he conformed strictly to the wishes of his constituency his position was not assured. This state of aftairs was somewhat improved when an infusion of new blood took place, when German Israelites began to flock to this country in order to seek and find in America that liberty which they lacked at home. A younger and more intelligent element en- tered now upon the stage, yearning to adapt their religion to the demands of the day. At home, the government and other social conditions had impeded their way, but who would hinder them from doing as they pleased in the land of the free ? Timidly they began to bring order into tlie chaos, and to introduce what then was called re- form. So timid were their first steps that they were 302 DISSOLVING VIEWS almost scared at their very sound, and frightened on ac- count of their own audacity. They thought the sky would fall upon them if one of the regular prayers should be omitted or substituted by a prayer in the vernacular. But the heavens did not change their position, and not even the government interfered when, in Charleston, S. C, an English hymn was chanted for the first time in a Jewish sj'nagogue. Some grumblers would, of course, secede; but what of it, as long as the remaining members were enthusiastic enough to contribute the more liberally for the support of their congregation? This happened in or about the year 1830, and, no earthquake having oc- curred on account of the innovation, congregations in Baltimore and New York mustered up all their courage and followed suit. As I said before, it was the German contingent that was pushing forward, and. the leaders of the reform movement were mostly of German descent. A few men arrived in America about that time who had received a rabbinical training in the old country, but, be- ing too far advanced in their views to desire a'position in German congregations, they sought a field of activity in a country in which the government had no voice in mat- ters pertaining to religion. Among them were Drs. David Einhorn and Isaac M. Wise. Both men have done yeoman service in the cause of reform, though they have never worked in harmony with each other. A certain animosity seems to have existed between them, and it is to be regretted that even to-day, so many years after the . demise of Dr. Einhorn, the flame of the same dissension is still fanned as if it were a sacred family duty to keep it alive. Botli men cannot serve as measures for each other ; Dr. Einhorn may have been the greater scholar, he may have been the greater orator, he may have RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AXD HTS TIME 803 possessed a greater force of persuasion, his arguments may have been profounder and more convincing ; hut he lacked the universality of his colaborer, Dr. Wise. If fate had made them business men instead of leaders in religious thought, the one would have been successful as the manager of a retail establishment, the other would have been valuable in the wholesale department. Ein- horn has served exclusively only the congregations which happened to employ him, or, if we shall allow him a larger sphere, he has devoted his entire energy to the elevation of the American Israelites of German extraction. Isaac M. Wise has served American Judaism in its totality, and lias identified himself with what we may call " young America," that is, with that portion of the Jewish popu- lation which, born upon American soil and trained in American sclxools, has learned to value the greatness of American institutions far better than their foreign-bred parents. Einhorn spoke the language of the father and expressed his sentiments ; Wise stirred the heart of the son, Avhose •language he had learned to speak fluently, and this was perhaps the reason both men could not agree. Excepting a few articles which appeared in a Jewish weekly, either under or over his signature, a prayer-book, which (for want of a better one) our congregation has adopted for our worship, a text-book for Sabbath-schools, and a selection of sermons, all of which were written in the German idiom, no literary work of importance will betray to the historian of the future that David Einhorn ever existed, or helped to press American Judaism into new moulds. In 1846, Isaac jNI. Wise landecf in America. He found American Judaism, as I described it, a chaos. He found congregations without leaders, formed after the most irra- 304 DISSOLVING VIEWS tional and pernicious principle of nationality ; but he saw also the land, and he saw that it was a Land " flowing with milk and honey." He studied its laws and found that they were the most liberal under which Israelites had ever lived. He adopted America at once as his country, and bestowed upon it all the love which a man can bestow upon the land of his nativity. He saw in it the promised land of which Israel had dreamed for so many centuries. If Canaan was to be found anywhere, it was to be found here ; if Judaism had ever been destined to live, to grow, and to win for itself a respected position among the nations of the earth, here was the place where these hopes could be realized. The difficulties which he encountered while serving a congregation of the old style in Albany are now pleasant recollections to him and to those survivors who witnessed the rupture ; but they are too inconsequential to be entered into the book of general history. If we wish to understand his work, we must examine his ideals ; then only shall we be able to judge whether he adopted the right means, whether he accomplished what he desired, and whether and wherein he failed. Three ideals must have risen before his vision a very short time after his arrival, because the unprejudiced eye sees him constantly reaching after them, no matter how often ill-success would push him back. His first ideal seems to have been that all national dis- tinctions among the Jews of America should be abolished. If healthier conditions should be established, they must cease to be German, Polish, Russian, or English Jews ; they must cease to be split into as many congregations, they must become "American Israelites;" they must be- come citizens of this republic in the widest sense of the RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIME 305 word. One common ritual would then suffice for all of them, a ritual which should correspond with the demands of the time. Second : this uniform religious body should be governed not by a pope, not by one or several rabbles, and surely not by the rabbinical authorities of Europe ; it should be ruled by a synod, in which every congregation should be as well represented as the suiallest State in the Union was in Congress. This synod should decide in all matters of religion, and, being the expression of the popular will, it should have binding force. Third: the leaders of American Judaism should be Americans and not foreigners, who, with all due respect to their superior scholarship, proved to be utterly unable in many cases to grasp the spirit of American institutions. Their importation from Europe should be discontinued, and means should be adopted to train young men for such offices upon American soil. Far in the rear a fourth vision even might have risen befoi-e him. He would see the fertile plains of the West dotted with Jewish farms and villages. He would discern whole States springing up under the tillage of Jewish hands. Tliey would be controlled by Jewish legislation, represented by Jewish congressmen in the national gov- ernment, and they would show to the world tliat the Jew could adapt himself to any kind of work and would cease to be the invariable trader, if an opportunity were given him. Let us now examine these ideals and see how far they have materialized. Can there be anything more absurd than a subdivision of a religious community into national groups? What in the world has the part of the country where a man is boin to do with his religious 306 DISSOLVING VIEWS opinions ? One can easily understand that congregations might form on the basis of a difference of opinion in re- gard to religious tenets, that those who hold the same religious views should flock together in order to accom" plish more by a union ; but why should animosity and prejudice split the camps of both the orthodox and the reformers into innumerable small congregations on the ground of a provincial extraction, which, in the new coun- try and under a new order of things, had no meaning whatsoever. Dr. Wise worked with all his might, and during his whole life, to break down this absurd race- prejudice, to refute what hardly needed refutation. He insisted that the English language, being the language of the land, should be the language of the synagogue, that the Israelites should learn to look upon themselves as members of a large body of as large a country as America. He would have liked to unite them under one ritual and to give into the hands of the devout worshipper a prayer- book which he would find serviceable in the smallest Jewish congregation of Maine as well as in the largest of California. The prayers contained therein should express gratitude to God for the large, prosperous, and free coun- try which he has given to us, and should cease to whine for a restoration of Israel upon Asiatic ground ; a wish which, in fact, nobody harbored and nobody would help to realize, but, notwithstanding which, still fills the pages of the different Polish, German, and Sefardish prayer- books. It cannot be denied, and his most inveterate enemies must concede, that he has been instrumental, if not in removing entirely, at least in softening and weakening these provincial prejudices. Young America, in whom he placed his trust, has already done away with that RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIME 307 prejudice, and if the daily influx of new-comers had not constantly reenforced the old guards and kept the old flame ablaze, his success might have been a signal one. The prayer-book which he wished to establish as the prayer-book of the American Israelites Mas as much a failure as were the attempts of others to produce suitable guides to devotion. He was under obligation to com- promise. He and his colaboreis had to allow this passage and that to remain. The old material impeded their way ; and no matter whom and how nnuiy they tried to please, there always remained a multitude whom they naturally must offend. His " Minhag America '" has not 3-et become the acknowledged prayer-book of American Israelites ; but I doubt whether to-day he himself would wish that it be established as such, in the form in which it was edited so manj'' years ago. But this much can be said, and ought to be said for it, that, no matter what fault his 02)ponents have found with it, no one has yet produced a better one or one that would give greater satisfaction. With the abandonment of the Messianic expectations, with the substitution of these antiquated hopes by the modern idea that it was the mission of Judaism to help, in union with other creeds, to raise man to a still higher plane of civilization, and with the full reintroduction of the Israelite into society, it became absolutely necessary to remove all those laws and prescriptions which, had made him a stranger in the world. It was not sufficient that public worship should be conducted more orderly and respectably, and more in conformit}' with the general tastes of the time, than it was heretofore ; a number of other laws had to be abolished. The table laws had be- come utterly untenable ; they had fallen practically into disuse, and it was high time that the religion of a man 308 ^ DISSOLVING VIEWS should not be measured by what he ate or refused to eat, but by his attitude as a man and as a citizen. It was high time that the seat of religion should be removed from the stomach to the heart. It was comparatively easy to sliove aside the authority of the Talmud. The modern rabbi could claim to have the same right to decree new laws or to abolish superannuated ones as had his predecessors, but there were laws*\vhich had become impracticable, al- though the}^ were prescribed by the highest religious authority — tlie Bible. Modern researches and modern criticism had at the same time undermined the infalli- bility of the Bible. The wrangle was no longer whether God himself had, directly or by inspiration, produced that work ; the divine authorship was denied in toto. The question was now who might have been the author or the authors of the different books ; whether they were in possession of the original documents, or whether revisers had modified and changed the original text to suit their times, and whether, finally, the knowledge of the biblical authors was superior to ours. Miracles were discredited, and the truth-seeker had begun to ask himself how truth could be sifted from fiction, even in a book which com- manded so liigh a veneration. Under such conditions, it was rather a difficult task to find and establish an author- ity to whom so large a body as was American Judaism should reverently bow. It was, and still is, the unsolved question of the day, by what authority is one law abol- ished while another is upheld, or by what authority any religious obligation can be imposed upon a member of the community. Modern Jewish theology had been driven back in search for that authority to the Sinaitic revela- tion ; but this chapter of the Bible needed, in a time of skepticism and disbelief, as much the support of indispu- RABBI ISAAC M. \yiSE AND HIS TIME 809 table evidence as did the most insignificant of the ordi- nances contained in the Bible. Isaac M. Wise, seeking for that authorit}', thought that he might find it in the voice of the people. " Vox populi vox Dei " — " the people's voice was to be the voice of God." A synod composed either of theologians, laymen, or a mixture of both, should supply that want. He be- came, therefore, the zealous advoca^ of such an institu- tion. Every attempt, however, to realize the measure failed. Only a few rabbles could be brought together at a time. They as little agreed among themselves as. they represented the true sentiment of their congregations. When, after protracted debates, they compromised upon a certain platform, their decisions remained ineffective, and were ridiculed and discarded not only by the rest of their colleagues, but by the members of their own congrega- tions. All these synods and conferences, composed by theologians, have thus far been utter failures. Their value was merel}^ negative ; their platforms merely gauged the general sentiment of the time, but they lacked that very authority which they were seeking, and of which they were so badly in need. Having met with frequent rebuffs, Dr. Wise, almost single-handed, formed a union of American congregations, and deluded himself with the hopes that in course of time the con- ventions held by their representatives would rise to the emergency and would establish an authority. His hopes again fell short of realization. The union of American congregations is held together by the strong grip of its founder ; perhaps also by the institution which it is now in honor bound to uphold. Not all congregations Tiave yet joined in the work. Some stayed away from it on ae- count of their antagonism to Dr. Wise ; others on account 310 DISSOLVING VIEWS of indifference and stolidity. Those who do form the union keep timidly away from the discussion of religious topics and are satisfied to audit and foot the bills incurred by the Hebrew Union College. Whether, after all, an authority is actually needed to guide our religious life, and whether it ought not to be sought for in other quar- ters, are still questions awaiting solution. As long as such an authority is not found, each congregation must work out its own salvation, and must claim as inalienable the right to legislate for itself. Although Dr. Wise did not meet with so signal a success in these two directions as he has wished, and as his indefatigable efforts would have merited, his third ideal, at least, materialized. The Hebrew Union College stands firmly established like a rock, and is becoming more and more the glory of American Judaism. About a dozen young American-bred Israelites have received their training therein, and in their few years of official activity they, have given proof that Dr. Wise was right, and that the men who are to reconstruct American Juda- ism must be natives of this country. Let the adversaries of Dr. Wise bring forth their severest denunciaticjns against his prophecy, against his ideals, and against the mode in which he endeavored to realize his hopes ; tliey all burst like soap-bubbles on the rock of the one fact, that the Union College exists, notwithstanding their enmit\^ or in- difference, that it has produced leaders who indeed lead, and who are cherished and well paid by their congre- gations. His fourth and rather indistinct vision, the colonization of Jews in the West, has been a fata morgana^ a mere play of his fancy, which is excusable in a man whose soul was always aglow with the fire of enthusiasm for Israel's RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIME 311 prosperity. I do not wish to be understood as having said that all the changes which American Judaism has undergone in the last twenty-live years are due solely to Dr, Wise, that he is to be credited with all and every- thing good that was done, or that he is to be held respon- sible for every mistake. Far from it. 1 do not under- value the work done by the many rabbles who, coming from the old country, met and overcame more obstacles than their young American-bred colleagues will have to surmount, and who, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, have accomplished a good deal, and have contributed, vol- untarily or involuntarily, to the success which Dr. Wise's friends claim for him ; but I do say that in the midst of strife his voice was heard the loudest, that his trumpet rang out in clearer tones the key-note, and that he was to be found where the fight raged the hottest. That he established a weekly paper, The American Israelite, which, whatever its shortcomings may be, is considered by all as the organ of American Judaism ; that he has published mnumerable works, of greater or minor merit ; that his voice has been heard in almost every city of importance throughout the United States, — is so well known that I need not mention it. There is one more change which he has brought about, and which we ought not to overlook. In one of my former lectures I stated that when the reform movement began in Germany, one of the first innovations was the introduction of the sermon as the most important part of a religious service. The first reformers, being led by a desire to place their constituents upon the same level with their fellow-citizens, imitated their Christian colleagues and began to sermonize. A text from the Bible was chosen, interpreted after improved methods, and the ■312 DISSOLVING VIEWS speaker presumed that while occupying the pulpit he stood nearer to the Godhead and knew better what the divine author intended to say in an ambiguous passage than any of his listeners. They even adopted the solemn ways of their prototy^jes, they dressed like them in long, flowing robes, they had their hair trimmed after their fash- ion, they would turn their eyes heavenwards, and would drawl their words exactly as they did. All this was utterly un-Jewish. The Jewish rabbi has never been the steward of God on earth ; his office was simply that of a teacher. The platform, and not the pulpit, belonged to the outfit of a Jewish synagogue ; and the lecture, and not the sermon, is essential to Judaism. It could not fail that the same abuse should creep into the reform move- ment which was carried on upon American soil. Dr. Wise little by little abolished the sermon, and, as far as I know, he was the first to reintroduce the lecture and courses of lectures into the temple. The sermon, in which the preacher felt at liberty to shower upon his hearers an effusion of undeserved vituperations, has now fallen into desuetude; and the lecture, in which the rabbi, as a teacher, attempts to enlighten his hearers on all subjects which he thinks will make them wiser and better, has risen in favor. This change is a result of Dr. Wise's good judgment and discrimination. Dr. Wise has now passed that period of life in which a man is able to create new things. He has now turned, as is quite natural, a conservative. His endeavors are now directed to preserve and conserve the results of his labors. He intends, however, his pupils to take up the work where it has slipped from his hands ; and if ever a man may have reason to prophesy that new and still greater developments are in store for Judaism, he is the RABBI ISAAC M. WISE AND HIS TIME 310 man, for he has paved the wa}-, and knows whither it will lead. The changes which liave been wrought in Judaism, the points in which American Judaism deviates from tlic Judaism of the past and even from the present European Judaism, can best be discerned in the platform agreed upon by a convention of some American rabbles, which was held about two years ago in Pittsburg, Pa. I dis- cussed at that time the meaning and the importance of the platform, and have nothing to add to or to take away from what I said then.^ 1 See page 170, Messianic Expectations and Modern Judaism (S. E. Cassino & Co., 41 Arch St., Boston, Mass., 1886). XXIV. THE PRESENT HOUR EaiPEROR Nero is reported to have expressed himself as follows : " I wish that the Roman people, taken as a whole, had but one head and one neck ; I would then snatch a sword and strike it off with one blow." What benefit the crazy Caesar would have derived from the feat is rather difficult to imagine. One would think that the only survivor would have felt rather lonesome in the vast realms of the Roman empire after the death of all his subjects. While, however, the use which he intended to make of the individualization of his people is both cruel and nonsensical, the wish itself appeals rather strongly to our imagination. There is not a person who, were it possible, would not like to see a whole nation acting as with one head, and all differences of opinion, so frequent among the many, removed forever. How pleasant it would be for an orator to address a community with but one head. This cranium would then either ao^ree or disagree with him, and if he should be able to impress it with the justice of his cause, or with the correctness of liis arguments, his work would be finished; while under prevailing conditions he meets no't only one objector to his views, but as many as he has hearers. He is obliged to begin the conversion of the second one before he has scarcely finislied with, tlie first, and his life ebbs away before he has done with a small number. It would be a 3U THE PRESENT HOUR 315 good thing, also, in many other respects, could a whole community, or a whole class of people, be individualized — that is, pressed together in a mould to one individual form ; and I, for one, should like to see, if it were only for a moment, the Avhole Jewish community of to-day possessed of but one head. I would then, perhaps, be able to extract by proper questioning from this head what its religious views are in reality, or how it defines the word Judaism. Under conditions as they are, it is an absolute impossibility to establish a definition of that term which would suit the many heads and man}- brains which compose what we call the Jewish community. What would please the one would dis})lease the other, and it is a daily experience that no sooner does a man venture to define what he thinks Judaism is than he is contra- dicted by a hundred who differ with him, who tell him that what he calls Judaism is not the genuine article, and that they alone held a monopoly of it. I wish to describe* the Judaism of the present hour ; but is such a description within the reach of possibility ? It is supposed that, scattered among all nations, between ten and fifteen millions of Jews are at present iidiabiting the earth. Are these fifteen millions of individuals all of one mind in matters of religion? Is their conce[)tion of God the same ? Are the}^ actuated by the same motives ? Are they united upon the same platform of religious principles? Who will say they are ? From the Jew of Turkey, Galicia, or Russia, who still superstitiously be- lieves in the miraculous power of a Bal-Shem ; who, being brought up in ignorance, has not the least knowledge of the universe, to the refined Hebrew of Gerraan3% or the cultured Israelite of free America, what a number of rounds, what a number of various shades of opinion, what 313 DISSOLVING VIEWS a divergence of views. And has only the representative of one of these shades the right to say, " My views alone are the correct ones ; my definition of Judaism is the only true one " ? Does not the next one possess the same right? Is not he also justified in exclaiming, "You are wrong; your definition of Judaism is an imposition"? Well, then, if I am to speak to you, as I intend, of the Judaism of the jDresent hour, can I include in it all these varying and contradictory definitions? Surely not. I can only speak of that stage in the development of Juda- ism which I perceive, which I see through my eyes, as it comes under my observation. I must be satisfied to allow others to differ with me ; I must be satisfied when they shall say to me, " Hold on, friend ! what you define as Judaism is anything but that." I may claim tlie same right, I may differ as much with them as the}^ do witli me, and I may hold that their definitions are as erroneous as they think mine are. But I must trace my picture re- gardless of consequences, and thos^ who may find that it is a true photograph, that I do reflect their ideas, may then acknowledge that I have expounded their views at least, and with this meagre result I must rest con- tent. It may be unfortunate, or at least unpleasant, for us that we spring from a different branch of the human tree than the rest of our fellow-citizens. It would be, perhaps, both more pleasant and advantageous to us were tlie religious opinions in which we differ from ou*r neighbors of a mere doctrinal nature and not tinged with racial prejudices. But there is no use butting against facts which we have not tlie power of changing. Conditions over wliich we have no control make us what we are ; as little as we can be held responsible for the orientalism of • THE IMtKSKXT HOUR 317 our features, so little can we be held responsible for the })eculiarity of our modes of thinking and reasoning. Here we are as we are ; and no matter whether it may be advantageous and pleasant to us or not, we are Jews by force of our birth, and cannot help remaining such to the h(Uir of our death. Through natural selection, traits have been evolved in our character wliich we believe to be highly commendable and to be of immeasurable usefulness to human society. Our neighbors, on account of their so-called Aryan extraction, do not seem to see things in the same light as we do, and it is for this reason that they differ with us. We claim that, taken on the average, we are in a high degree energetic, ambitious, and sympa- thetic ; that the logical department of our reason is more strongly developed than the emotional part of it, and that, therefore our observation has a keener edge. Where others are satisfied to acquiesce in the assurance of faith, an inborn skepticism stimulates us to renewed inquiries. How many of these claims may be just I shall leave at present an open question, although it does remain a fact that by force of the accident of our birth our religious views have ever taken, and could not help taking, a rationalistic turn. The typical Jew was never a believer. He either thought he knew (and with the real or imagined knowledge of a thing belief ends), or he knew not, and then he said so, and became (what we to-day are wont to stigmatize) an agnostic. Tliis inborn characteristic trait we must not overlook, esi^eciall}' when it has been allowed full swing in a country like ours, where the state does not interfere in matters of religion. If, therefore, we wish to describe the highest plane to which Judaism has risen, and where it stands to-day, we must not seek for it in a country where a despotic govern- 318 DISSOLVING VIEWS • ment is suppressing intelligence and liberty in all its branches ; we must turn to that only country in the world where the church is totally separated from the state, and freedom of conscience is respected as the in- alienable right of every citizen. When we look about in our country with open eyes, and with an unbiassed mind, when we sum up the religious opinions of intelligent co- religionists in all spheres of life, as we hear them expressed in daily conversation, in the pulpit, upon the platform, or find them permeating the literature of the day, when then we cut horizontally through the bulk of these conflicting but intelligent and intelligible ideas, I think we shall find the plane which we are seeking. Religion is the knowledge of God, of the universe, and of the relation in which man places himself to both. The question arises, therefore, what does the intelligent Ameri- can Israelite, as an average, think of God, of the universe, and what does he consider his relation to both? The Jew has never denied a God, nor will he ever do so. From its very origin, Judaism has endeavored to purify the con- ception which man holds of a supreme being. It opposed the representation of God in any form whatsoever, and in course of time it rose to the conception tliat God was one, the sole source of all existence, the only cre- ator of the universe, the only father of all mankind. Even Spinoza did not deny the existence of a God. On the contrary, the Jewish conception of the oneness of God reached in him its highest cultivation. He attacked polytheism in its last refuge — dualism. In his philoso- phy, God and the universe are inseparably one. Call the modern American Israelite by what opprobrious name you please, call him pantheist or agnostic, he is anything but an atheist. He accepts a God ; he cannot think of a THE PRESENT HOUR -^l-^ creation without a creator; and the more he learns about the wonders of the universe, the more he becomes con- scious of its vastness, the more does he grasp God's attri- butes, — his oneness, liis eternity, his power, and his love, — the more intense does he feel his dependence upon him, and the deeper does he bow before him in reverential worship. What is, therefore, the reason that he is so frequently- called an atheist, or that fears are expressed that if his progress continues in the same ratio he will in a very short time land in atheism? The reason is obvious. He refuses to accept the low and degrading conceptions of God which have come to him from the past, from genera- tions of people to whom the earth was the only creation of importance, to whom the myriads of suns and stars were so many lamps distributed nightly in the heavens for the amusement of man. He refuses to accept God as a sort of invisible man,- dwelling beyond the sky, whose busi- ness it is to wind up daily the grand mechanism of the universe. His conception of the Supreme Being rises so high that it does not allow him to think of God as being useful. He does not believe that God would disturb the grand order of things for his (man's) special benefit, and that at his mere suggestion he would grant him a few more daj's to live or a few more of the good things of this earth, in contradiction to the general laws of the universe. He objects to degrading God to the office of a watchman, whose presence is intended to intimidate the refractoiy members of society ; nor is he able to think of him as an Eastern despot, who must be approached with genuflexion, in a most slavish manner, and who must be addressed in terms of flattery which would be disgusting to a man of common-sense were they directed to him. The conception 320 DISSOLVING VIEWS of God has risen in our days among Jews, on account of their more strongly developed ralioiiulisui, if not to the highest purity, at least as near to it as it has ever come, and he discards, therefore, the conception of the useful God, the God whom his prayer and his solicitation can actuate, and it is on that account that he is reproached with atheistical tendencies. In consequence of this exalted conception of God, no ceremonial whatsoever seems to give him satisfaction. If he is to express his feelings of admiration and adoration in words of praj^er, he demands, at least, that the effusion of his devotion should be a simultaneous one, that it should be brought forth upon the spur of the moment, and should be ex- pressive of what he really thinks and feels, and not of what others wish him to think or to feel. He rejects as hypocritical the senseless rehearsal of praj'^ers which were formulated in ages that have long passed by, and under impressions far different from his own. The intelligent Israelite of to-day is not the pessimist which many wish to make him out ; he is an optimist. The universe does not appear to him (as to the pessimist) the worst of all imaginable creations, or as an unsuccessful attempt of a creator limited in power ; nor does he con- sider it as having been cursed by its Maker in a fit of anger. His God is all-wise and all-powerful ; he could not make mistakes nor had he ever -failed in his en- deavors. The universe is to him a mechanism too won derful to be grasped by the human brain. He holds that it has been and still is developing and transforming, after well defined laws, which are as eternal as it is itself. Not a discord mars its harmony, and misery has no place in it. Its pulsation is composed of the double beat of emanation and absorption. What we call pain or misery are merely THE PRESENT HOUR 321 the indications that the existence of some individual form is nearing its end, is about to be absorbed, is about to melt over in forms of which it lacks conception. All forms serve one purpose, all are the manifestation of one inexhaustible source of life. The rational thinker lifts himself far beyond that former selfish conception that the wliole universe was made for the sake of his little self, and that it is a failure in as much as it has not placed him outside of its immutable laws, but has subjected him to them, like other beings. From this grand conception of the universe rise all his hopes. He conquers death, the transition from life to life, comforted by the hope that life cannot be destroyed. If his hopes are not stretched so far as to include rewards, which, after all, are noth- ing else but conditions favorable to life, his fears are not aroused by the expectation of a bodily punishment, which, if we define it, is nothing but a condition unfavorable to existence. Reward and punishment are the consequence of causes, they follow our every action in accordance with immuta- ble laws that have linked cause and effect together. These laws hold good, as far as we know, in the world of forms in which we reside at present, but, without a denial of immortalit}^ we may doubt whether a cause effective in this realm could be welded to an effect in a life to come. " One world at a time " has become in our days the motto of the reasoning Israelite. Only as long as God was supposed to step occasionally forth in man-like fashion from behind the wings, and to set matters aright upon the stage of this world, which otherwise would have gone wrong, so long could the idea prevail that God has helped man, by means of revela- tion, to jump in one leap over obstacles which otlierwise B22 DISSOLVING VIEWS he could not have sunnounted in ages ; that he has sent to them, or dictated to them, books containing the mes- sage of an absent father to his far-away children. Refus- ing to admit any longer the absence of the father, a written message becomes unnecessary. The Bible, bring- ing to us the greetings of our ancestors, is to the modern Israelite the work of man, the work of human genius. We call it true so far as it depicts truly the ideas of the ])ast writers, the conceptions which they had of God and of the world, and the relation in which they placed them- selves to both. We call the Bible the book of books so far as it gives us notice of many historical events which otherwise would have been , lost to us, and we call its records true in so far as its authors did not write with any intention of deceiving us, but under the impression that whatever they noted down had occurred, and was the truth and nothing but the truth. It has ceased, however, to be to us the word of God, so far as this means that God has either directly or indirectly been its author and that therefore he may be held responsible for all his utterances. Geographical and historical statements in discord with fact and the narratives of miracles contained in the biblical books have ceased, therefore, to be credited by us. We no longer think that we are placed between the horns of the dilemma, and we must accept these things, no matter how our reason and our better knowl- edge revolts against them, or forfeit the name of Israel- ites. On the contrary, the Bible becomes to us the more sublime the more its very errors prove its antiquity, and we become the more proud of our ancestors the more we find that they endeavored to reach the highest possible conception of a supreme being even in those ancient times and with the limited knowledge of things at their disposal. THE PRESENT HOUR 323 Our relation to God is like that of a confidino: cliild to a loving father, and our relation to the universe that of the part to the whole. Stone, plant, and animal are forms that have sprung from the same creative power; how much more must that being be our brother in which the fire of leason burns with the same brightness as it does in our- selves. All men are brethren ; tliere is but one father and one common brotherhood. Before the God of our conception there is no distinction, there exists no birth- right. The idea of class and race distinction, of a first born or second born of God, is a relic of a barbarous past. God loves all with the same love, and acknowledges no difference between man an<^ man. For this reason, the intelligent Israelite of to-day endeavors to remove all those barriers which former ages arose to separate man from man. While it has often been conceded that the forms of a religion may change, and that they have changed, it has ever been denied that its i)rinciples may be altered without suicidal consequences, and yet here we behold that, thongh many principles of onr religion have undergone great changes, Judaism still lives, and even lias been im- proved. Forms cannot change unless the i)rinci[ile ujjou wliich they have been built changes, and we slionld, tliere- fore, not wonder why many of our ceremonial forms fail to-day to satisfy our religious craving, why religion ap- parently seems to retrograde. Forms decay as do our corpses wlien the eidivening principle, tlie soul, has passed away. In vain are all our pleas for the preservation or restitution of ceremonies and festivals which formerly were held in high lionor. At tlieir time they were the expression of an enlivening principle. We may mourn their demise, but we can never bring them back to life BM DISSOLVING VIEWS unless we are able to restore to them the soul wliich has escaped. The jDreseut unsatisfactory condition of our re- ligious life finds its cause in the change of principles which has taken place unobservedly. The wider and newer conception of God, of the universe, and of our relation to both is 3'et in its infancy. It has come upon us almost over niglit with our better knowledge of the universe, and it has not yet been able to branch out into new forms on account of tlie old ones barring their way. But there is no doubt in my mind that these new prin- ciples will find expression in outward forms as well as did the religious theories which were the outcome of any of the former stages of development. The growtii of new forms is a mere question of time, and he who shall live will see. Do I need to dwell upo^i the fact that the duties wliich we owe our fellow-beings find their plainest but strongest delineation in the maxim of a common brotherhood of all men, and that therefore the true American Israelite con- siders it his foremost duty to fulfil them — to be just, true, and charitable ? He takes the liveliest interest in the progress of mankind, as such, and lends a helping hand toward8 tlie solution of all questions which concern the Common welfare of all. He is first a man, then an Israel- ite. He asks first what will humanity profit by this or that measure, and then what profit will come to the religious body to wliich he belongs? I fail to see wherein the principles of which I have spoken are not an evolution of Judaism or the manifesta- tion of the same Jewish spirit which I have traced in my previous lectures. I fail to see wiierein they are atheistic or agnostic. The modern Israelite knows, and not merely believes, that God is. was, and ever shall ])o. The uni- THE PRESENT HOUR 325 verse shows to him such a beautiful order and harmony, such an infinite power and wisdom, that it appears to liim the perfect manifestation of a perfect God. These premises lead him to the consoling hope of immortality, as well as to a clear understanding of the duties Avhich he owes to his fellow-beings while passing through the phases of existence allowed to him in the present world of forms. Neither are these conceptions of God, of the universe, and of our relation to both. Christian in their origin. On the contrar}^ instead of leading towards it, the}^ lead away from Christianity, and I dare say that the modern Israel- ite has wiped away the last traces of those Christian ideas which in former ages have crept into Judaism. Chris- tianity is pessimistic in its conception ; it stands and falls with the depravity of the material world. To the Chris- tian the world is a vale of misery, and man the most sin- ful and most miserable creature upon it. Unless redeemed through the vicarious atonement of the son of God, he is doomed to eternal perdition. The life to come, and not the present life, is alone worthy of his consideration. Good actions and a noble life are valued as the means, not as the end. They are to be practised not because it be- hooves man to lead a viituous life and to fulfil his duties towards his fellow-beings, but because either a reward is connected with their fulfilment or a severe punishment follows the neglect. It is to be greatly regretted that religions are held to be so many different bundles of forms, and that whenever the future of a religion is discussed, its forms and not its spirit are most considered. People think they could im- mortalize their religion if they could but preserve its forms ; it is, however, the si)irit which creates a suitable dwelling-place for itself, and not the form which invites 826 DISSOLVING VIEWS the visit of the spirit. To describe the present condition of Judaism by describing the difTereut modes of worship, whicli lit present are indifferently performed in a hundred modifications, would be exactly the same as if I should describe the garment which a man wears when intending to describe his character. You cannot judge a man's religion by the prayer-book which he carries under his arm, nor by the place of worship to which you see him wending his way. You can judge it alone from the con- ception which he holds of God and the universe, and from the relation in ■which he places himself to both. These views I have attempted to collect, and these views I have endeavored to present to you. They are the lead- ing religious thoughts of the thinking and intelligent Is- raelite of the present hour. XXV. CONCLUSION It appears to be one of the immutable laws by which the world of thoughts and ideas is governed that, as our years increase, we grow more and more conservative. While the young man is ever desirous of revolutionizing existing conditions, while he eagerly welcomes every- thing that looks like a departure from the accustomed road, the man of riper years endeavors anxiously to preserve the ideas which he has formed, and abhors all innovations. The reason for the change from what we call radicalism to conservatism, which occurs in every man and is a mere question of time with every one of us, is not so deeply hidden that it cannot be found. In our younger years we feel that we have ample time be- fore us to test a new thing. We must, in fact, test every- tliing that comes for the first time within the reach of our observation, be it old or new, and it matters, therefore, little to us which of the two we give a trial. If a theory does not satisfy our craving, or fails to convince us, we discard it, and try anotlier, until, in course of time, we have collected a number of maxims, all of which have been well tested, and all of which we have found both expedient and reliable. These we call our experiences. We allow ourselves not only to be guided by them, with- out any further test, but in our declining years they become more and more dominant in us. Feeling that oui 327 828 DISSOLVING VIEWS days are numbered, and that sufficient time will not be left us to test new ideas, we cling to the maxims from which we have derived satisfaction, and fail to see how a novel idea could improve the present satisfactory con- dition of things. We furthermore feel, when our strength begins to fail us, that we could no longer stand the brunt of a controversy, as we could when we were young. We lack, therefore, the courage to risk the certain for the uncertain, and we persuade ourselves that " to leave well enough alone " is the best policy for us. Thus humanity is, and has ever been, split into two large factions, the progressive and the conservative. One is composed of the young element, the other, of the old; one is represented by the son, the other, by the father. They seldom understand each other, nor is it to be expected that they can. The father forgets that he too was once a son, that he too was once young, that years ago he too helped to push the wheel of time forward ; and the son never dreams that at some future time he will become like his father, that with advancing years he will grow conservative, that with the decline of his vital forces he will look with the same disfavor upon innova- tions as does his father now. Notwithstanding their pronounced hostility, both of these factions are needed, and could not be well spared in the clock-work of human society. The one may be compared to its spring, the other to its pendulum. The one forces the wheels into rotation, the other regulates their movement. Break the spring of a clock and its motion will cease. Unhitch the pendulum, and the wheels, after turning for a short while with great rapidity, will come to a sudden stop. The pendulum ought not, therefore, to undervalue the driving force of the spring, nor ought the spring to complain of CONCLUSION 329 the restricting tardiness of the pendulum. The machine would also become useless in case both forces were of equal strength, and balanced each otlier. To prevent such an occurrence, the one is given exactly as much more force than the other as is needed to set and keep the work in motion. The son is endov.-ed by nature with exactly as much more vitality than his father as is required to set human society agoing, and to keep it progressing. The whole history of tlie human race is, therefore, one grand demonstration of the fact tliat the wheel of time can never be stayed in its forward motion ; that the new idea has ever defeated the old one ; that the son has ever risen above the father, and the pupil above the teacher. My metaphor com[niring human societ}' to a clock-work which is set in motion by the spring called youth and regulated by the pendulum called old age serves its pur- pose only as far as it reaches, but, lilje all other similes, it does not cover the entire ground. If humanity were but such a machine, it would probabh" be able to turn the hand around the dial, but it Avould be compelled to move it always in the same circle. The propelling force in humanity, however, increases in the same ratio as the latter progresses. One discovery leads to a dozen of others, one invention paves the way to a multitude of others. The more tools a man makes, the more .and better ones can he construct. Slow in the beginning, we find the human kind accelerating its pace with every new generation : and, when we look back upon the strides which humanity has made in the last century, we become assured that the golden age, the age of wonders and miracles, is not behind us, but before us. Our imagina- tion almost deserts us, and folds despairingly its wings, 330 DISSOLVING VIEWS when we begin to think of the rapidity with which humanity is sure to progress during the next hundred years, aided by the discoveries and inventions of tlie pres- ent century. What may we not expect of a future that is built upon such a present ? What discoveries and inventions may we not expect of the generation which inherits our labor-saving machines, our railroads, tele- graphs, and telejihones ; of a generation that from its early youth has become accustomed to being informed at least twice in twenty-four hours of what has happened during that time in every part of the eartli ; of a gener- ation that has built a royal road to learning and wisdom such as has never existed before? The marvellous inventions and discoveries of the last century are, however, by no means the only attainments of the human race. On the contrary, they are merely the preparatory steps to further and still more beneficial con- ditions. In the same proportion that mankind has be- come wiser it has also grown better. True, we are not yet perfect ; true that there is yet a great deal of misery to be removed, that there are many vices to be suppressed and many rough edges to be filed off, but, on the average, humanity has grown better. I have mentioned that fact so often that I hesitate to repeat it, for fear of becoming monotonous; but read the records of by-gone ages, and compare the standard of morality reached by former gen- erations with that reached by our time, and you will gladly concede that mankind has grown less superstitious, less fanatical, less barbarous, less cruel, less intemperate, than it has ever been before. And now, I ask you, shall we go back to those past ages when people were naturally much below our level, both in wisdom and in goodness, to seek there for that highest charm which shall keep us CONCLUSION 331 upon the path of virtue, which shall stimulate us in hap- piness and to further progress, and console and comfort us in misfortune, or to seek there for our religion ? Religion must not be sought for nor can it be found in the past, for it is the very product, the very result of our present attainments, both in the intellectual and moral aspect. As a matter of fact, every age has I'urmed its own religious views. Religion has forever been changing in the same proportion as the intellect luil and moral progress of the people; it has ever accommodated its forms to the spirit that was moving the generation at the time. This fact, however, is not so widely known as it ought to be. . We have been made to believe, for various reasons, that relig- ion has come to us from an age of which we have hardly any recollection. We were told that in the most ancient times people were better and wiser than we are to-day, and were, therefore, better fitted to receive the grace of God than we are. We were assured that, God luiving once revealed his will and his laws, it became the duty of mankind to preserve them intact to this day, and that we ouffht to transmit the same inheritance to our children as we have received from our fathers. But in reality nothing of the kind has taken place. Each generation was gov- erned by a religion of its own invention, and what was defended as the religion of the father was nothing other than the religion of the son. My course of lectures was intended to prove that fact, so far as Judaism is concerned. My historical pictures must have shown you that Ezra's views of religion were far different from those that were current at the age of Moses, and that what he expounded as the law of Moses was nothing other than the law of Ezra. They must have shown to you that Ben Saooai, Anan Ben David, Mainionidcs, and the other expounders 332 DISSOLVING VIEWS of Judaism have ever interpreted their own views and ever marked the changes which had taken place as well as the height to which civilization had risen. If I have been successful in convincing you of the correctness of this one proposition, I shall consider my labors well re- warded ; but there is also a second lesson which I desire you to draw from the historical material which I have brought before you during this winter. The forms of religion have never been changed until the principle from which they sprang had outlived its usefulness. In this proposition I run much more counter to public opinion than I did in my first proposition, viz., that religion has been forever changing. As a rule, it is conceded that the forms of religion have changed in course of time, but it is emphatically denied that the spirit or the principles of religion have ever altered. But if you turn the pages of history you will find that my asser- tion is not unfounded. Sacrifices, for example, were not changed into praj'ers because the latter had become more' fashionable. We would offer sacrifices to-day could we but believe or make up our mind to believe that God needs them or is pleased with them. As long as people were convinced that God demanded sacrifices, that the smoke from the altar brought their gifts to Him that dwelleth on high, and as long as it was a principle of religion with them that unless a sacrifice was made after the prescribed fashion the wrath of God would be aroused, that he would visit them with plagues, or at least with-' hold his favors, so long did people conscientiously bring these offerings. In course of time, however, loftier ideas of God began to circulate among the people. They began to doubt, to reason, and finally to disbelieve in the efficacy of a sacrifice, and from that moment the doom of that CONCLUSION 333 form of divine worship was sealed. True tliat while the advanced thinkers of the age denounced the custom in their speeches, they still u[)held it in practice, but the death-blow was given, nevertheless, and it became merely a question of time when it was to be abolished. Take another illustration : the Jews had learned to believe that a Messiah would come, who, gifted with supernatural power, would lead them back to Palestine, and reestablish them iu the land of their fathers ; they had learned to believe that at that time the great trumpet would be sounded and the dead would rise from their graves to participate in the general rejoicing. During many ages this belief was a principle of their religion, and forms branched out which were in the strictest harmony with it. If the same belief should prevail to-day, if the same principle sliould still hold good with us, I am sure that we would gladly and willingly uphold all the forms connected with it. We would study the Talmud as here- tofore because it would be necessary for us to make our- selves familiar with the laws by which the new common- wealth would have to be governed ; we would carefully observe all the old funeral ceremonies, that we might be recognized as belonging to the great army when, at the sound of the trumpet, tlie dead would rise. We would by no means invest in real estate, or in such valuables as could not easily be carried away. But why do we not observe all these forms? why have these customs become obsolete? Simply because we do no longer believe in the principles from whence they sprang. The divine origin of the Bible was surely a principle of religion for many centuries: it was conscientiously be- lieved that the scrolls of the law contained the very words of God. They were therefore highly venerated. 334 DISSOLVING VIEWS and all those ceremonies which were responsive to and expressive of that belief were willingly and clieerfully performed by our ancestors. But why does not the same ceremonial inspire its to-day with the same enthusiasm ? Why does it leave us cold, why has it fallen more and more into desuetude? Simply because the underlying principle has undergone a change. The Bible has ceased to be to us a work of divine authorship ; we appreciate it merely as a work of human genius, and thus all those ceremonies which represented the Bible as being the direct word of God have become utterly meaningless. I could continue to offer proof upon proof in support of my proposition that only when the principles of a religion change, the forms suffer modification, or that new principles will always create new forms, which not only will give satisfaction but will be conscientiously per- formed by us as long as the vital force of the principle will endure. The third and last lesson which my lectures were in- tended to convey is that we have the same right to change our religious practices as had our ancestors. We have not only the right, but it becomes our duty to bring our re- ligious customs into conformity with the demands of the day, that is, with the principles which we accept as valid for us. We are injuring ourselves, and, what is worse, our children, when we continue to travel the road of in- difference and hypocrisy on which we are at present walk- ing. We rob ourselves of the consolation which true religion offers to its followers, and. we harm our children by withholding from them the staff upon Avhich they should lean. It becomes our duty to bring all our ceremonies, all the outward manifestations of our religious life, into conformity with the views which we hold of God, of the CONCLUSION 336 universe, and of the relation in which we phice ourselves to both. No compromise will give satisfaction : the grim aut — auf, either — o?-, is staring into our faces. Every religious act, every religious ceremony must express ex- actly what we believe, or it must be abandoned. We must, for example, either keep the Sabbath, if we really believe that the day ordained by the Bible, and not the principle of otie day's rest out of seven, is of importance, or we must change it. All our haggling and compiomis- ing remain fruitless, and bring our religion into disre- spect. The consequences of our unwillingness to conform with the leading spirit of the time become more visible with every year and every day. We have practically driven the younger generation out of our temples, and we withhold from them the moral instruction which should be their guide througli life, and of which they are so much iu need. The rising generation, in spite of the estrangement from religion which has been brought about by our unwillingness to yield to necessit}*, is craving re- ligious instruction, is yearning to be lifted, by appropriate services, out of the prevailing materialism into a higher spiritual sphere. What use that we build magnificent temples and institute elaborate services, if we fail to open them at a time when the hungry can come and partake of the food. Tlie time has come when we must strike a new road and open new avenues. New measures are frequently institnted under the plea that they are not new, but that they have given satisfac- tion long befoie. and iliat they are covered by the author- ity of previous ages. This is mostly done to check, in a measure, the natural distrust with which ever}^ new and untested idea meets; I may, therefore, s;iy as well, that no matter what changes are to be made in order to liar- 836 DISSOLVING VIEWS monize the helpful and needful outward forms of religion with current principles, they are neither unparalleled nor unprecedented, but that every age has done as we do, that it has always asserted the very same right, and has worked out its own salvation. I have no more to add, except the wish or the prayer that my words may have fallen upon fertile soil, that the historical pictures which I have unrolled before you may have inspired you with admiration and love for our relig- ion, which, as I claim, is the religion of the future, the ever changing but ever living religion of humanity. T N D E X. Aboab, 204, 205, 223 Abrabauel, Don Isaac, 148, 149-1(32; biography of, 1(>0-Iii2 Abugufar, Almansor, calipli, 89 Acco, 48, 130 Acron, 30 Adler, Felix, I'n.f., 122, 124, 12tJ ^schj'lus, 40 /Esop, 115 Alba, 183 Albany, 304 Albo, Joseph, 135, 136-148; biography of, 145 ; belief of, 145, 146 Alexandria, 44, 120, 130 Alexander The Great, 40, 41, 44, 45, 87 Ali, Mehemet, 283 Altona, 227, 2:36 Amenmes, 17 America, 2(J(j, 251 Amsterdam, 204, 20(i-213, 217, 219, 222- 235 Antiochus, 46 Anton, Carl, 237 Arabia. 84, 85 Arari, David, 284 Aristotle, 40, 128, 131 Askenasi, Jacob Emden, 235, 236, 237, 239, 242 Asia Minor, 41, 56 At-Bash, 236 Athens, 40, 58 Auerbach, Bertliohl, 218 Aiigenspiegel, Der, 172, 173, 175 Austria, 243 Babylonia, 87 Bagdad, 88 Baltimore, 302 Batiach, Ben, 54 Beneviste, Don Vidal Ben, 141 Benedict XIII., I'ope, 140, 143 Berab, Jacob, 198 Berlin, 243, 244, 246, 256, 276 Bible, 72, 75, 81, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 98, 101, 103, 112, 118, 131, 133, 141, 168, 177, 189, 194, 209, 219, 221, 232, 234, 236, 256, 322, 333 Boerne, Karl Ludwig, 253-265; biog- raphy of, 2(j0-262 Books, Multiplication of, 167-168 Bonn, 276 Braganza, Fernando de, 160 Breslau, 277 Buddhism, 4 Bulaq, Museum of, 16 Cabalah, 164, 188, 193, 194, 197, 200, 219, 227, 229, 232, 234, 236, 242, 248, 250; defined, 195 Cajsar, 5(), 83, 164 Csesarea, 55 Cairo, 120 Calvin, 177 Cambyses, 28 Cantor, 273 Carthage, 40, 46, 153 Chananja, 89 Charities, Public and Private, 279- 282 Cherem, 223 Christianity, 4, 32, 52, 76, 82, 84, 85, 90, 103, 118, 124, 126, 132, 135, 140, 152, 153, l(i3, Vyi, 177, 181, 185, 204, 2:34. 240, 248, 250, 251, 269, 275-278 Cicero, KJO Cologne, 168, 1(59 Columbus, Christo])her, 151, 157 Confiscation of Jewish Book, 172 Constance, Council of, 143 Constantino]>]e, lf)5, 185 Constantine, 112 Cordova, 127 Corintli, r)H Costa, Uriel da, 217, 223 337 338 INDEX. Creinieux, Adolph, 285 Croesus, 290 Cromwell, Oliver, 201, 210, 211, 212, 213 Cyprus, 185 Cyrus, 28 Damascus, 283, 286 Darius, 40 David, 59, KiO, 200 David, Anan Ben, 78, 103, 331 Demosthenes, 40 Descartes, 221 Dessau, 246 Deutsch, Emanuel, 68 Dickens, Charles, 289 Disraeli, Benjamin, 185 Domitian, 64 Duesseldorf, 262 Egypt, 66 Einhorn, David, Dr., 302, 303 Eibeschvietz, Jonathan,liabbi, 227,242 Eleazar, 48 England, 112, 165, 241 Epliraim, Tribe of, 20 Esseues, 57 Euripides, 40 Evolution, 6, 7 Ezra, 25-39, 72, 108, 194, 331 Ezra, Ebn, 220 Faust, 254 Ferdinand, King of Siiain, 151. 152, 155, 156, 1.57, 159 Florus, Gessius, 60 France, 112, 165, 241, 243, 284 Frankel, 265 Fraenkel, 29^ Frankfort-on-the-Main, 27t) Frederick the Great, 243 Fuerst, 265 Gaul, 40, 56 Geiger, Abraham, Dr., 2ii5-278; biog- - raphy of, 276 Gemarah, 75, 78 George, Henry, 266 Germany, 112, 163, 164, 1(55, 226, 245, 270 Ghetto, 232, 250, 254, 257 Goldsmith, 288 Goths, 153 Graetz, Prof.. (iS Grenada, 154 Gratius, Ortuiu, 169, 176 Greece, 40, 41, 57, 58, 73, 112, 165 Halevi, Jehuda, 108-124; philosophy of, 115, 116 Handspiegel, Der, 172 Hapsburg, 243 Hasmoneans, 82 Hebrew Union College, 310 Heidelberg, 276 Heine, Heinrich, 109, 13!t, 230, 253- 265 ; biography of, 262. 26;> Hellenists, 46, 47, 50, 52 Hellespont, 41 Herodotus, 40, 166 Hillel, 72, 73; savings of, 297 Hohenzollern, 242, 24;i Holdheim, 265 Holland, 222, 241 Hoogstraten, 174, 176 Honorius IV., Pope, 69 Homer, 85, 166 Hyksos, 17 Hyrcanos, Eliezer Ben, 55, 129 Idumean, 53 IngersoU, R. G., 126, 138 Inquisition, 151, 152, 153, 182, 188. 217 Intermarriage, Restraint of, 34, .35 Isabella. 151, 152 Islam, 107, 126 Israelite, American, 311 Israel, Manasseh Ben, 202-214. 219, 223 Israel, tribe of, 80 Italy, 40 Jacob, 113 Jamnia, 60, 61 Jefferson, Thomas, 254 Jeremiah, 160 Jerusalem, 44, 47, 50, 53, 56, 60, 89, 95, 109, 112, 113, 114, 120, 121, 130, 163, 165, 179 ; siege of, 60 Jesus of Nazareth, 140, 141, 163. 169, 206 Jews, Condition of, after Fall of .Je- rusalem, 61 Condition of. Time of Muses, 18- 21 History of, in England, 208-2i)9 Efforts to Colonize, 181 Expulsion of, in Spain, 1.55-159 Objection to Admission of. in England, 212 Prejudice Again.st, 43, 44 Requirements of. at Time of Ezra. 37, 38 Josephus, Flavins, 14, 17, 28, 47, 55 Jost, 265 Judah, 48 Judea, 44, 47, 58, 59, 164 Julian, 87 INDEX. 389 Juelicl),284 Justin vf Tiberias, 55 Justinian, Emperor, (i9 Kabaism, 98, 110, 118; origin of, 78; doctrine of, 182-1<)0 Karo, Joseph, 189-201; biograpliy of, 197 Kiev. 2C)o Koran, 84, a5, 86, 87, 90, 276 Kusari, 110, 114, 115, 124 Lavatek, 248 Leonidas, 40 Leo X., Pope, lUti, 174 Lessing, Ephraiui, 247, 250 Levi, Don Astruc. 142 Lisbon, 100, 204 Literatuv, Juedisclie, "277 Livy, Kid Loriiui, Josliurt, 140 Lncian, 100 Luther, Martin, 70, 177 Maccabees, 41, 47, >")9 Macedonian, 50 Maimonides, Moses, 92, 122-i;30, 145, 188, 194, 220, 24(), 331 ^lanheimer, 205 Manetho, 14, 17 ]Maranos, 156, 182, 210, 217, 222, 223 Martel, Charles, 153 Mathatias, 47 Maximilian, 109 Mayence, Arclibishop of, lti9, 170 Meir, Rabbi. 129 ^lelanchthon, 177 Meneptlia, 17 Mendelssohn, Moses, 132, 239, 240- 252, 250, 2()3 Mendoza, Beatrice, 183 Menton, Ratti. 283 Messiah, 59, o:'., 105, 129, 139, 140, 197, 198, 199, 2(X), 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211, 217, 220, 222, 227, 229, 2:57, 254, 275 ]Mesusoth, 245 Metz, 235 Middlesex, Lord, 210 Midian, 13 Mikva, 89 Miltiades, 40 Minerva, 4 Minhag America. 'W Mishna, 75, 7S, 128, 130, 197, 242; sjrnopsis of. 74, 75 Miques, Joan, 183 Modin, 47 Mohammedanism, 4, 32, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 110, 118, 128, 129, 132, 163, 163, 105, 177, 208, 2M, 240, 209 Monteliore, Sir Moses, 278-295 Montezinos, Antonio de, 206 Moors. 153, 154, 158 Moravia, 108, 232 " Morning Hours," The, 249 Morteira, Saul. 223 Moses, 12-24, 108, 113, 131, 133, 156, 194, 195, 200 Mt. Sinai, 72 Miillcr, :Max, 106 Murat IIL, 187 Naples, 161 Nebuchadnezzar, 29 Nero, Emperor, 314 Newton, Sir Isaac, 5, New York, 302 Nissi, Don Joseph, 178,182, 183; bi- ography of, 183-187 Omar, Caliph, 112 Palestine, 29, 41, 45, 73, 87, 89, 112, 120, 197, 283-285, 333; colonization of Jews in, 186 Paris, 00, 202; University of, 175 Peniscola, 143 Pentateuch, 89, 245, 248 Persia, 41, 44, 5(), 84 Pfetferkorn, Johann, 1(;2, 10.3-178 Pharisees, 80 Phillipson, Dr. Ludwig, 205 Pha>nicians, 153 Picciotto, 284 Pisa, Council of, 139 « Pittsburg, Convention, 145, 313 Platiea, 41 Plato, 40 Pompey, .")(i Posner, Abraham, 244 Ptolemv, 14 Pumbedita, University of, 88, 95, 96, 111, 1K8 Puritans, 89, 199 Pyrrhus, 98 Rabbinites, 81, 90, 92, 98 Rameses III., 17 Reformation, The, 70, 94, 102, 177, 240 Religion, Progress of, 5 Reuchliii, 102; biography of, 170; trial of. 17:'., 177; defence of Talmud, 171, 172 Rhine, 254 Rhodes, Island of, 284 340 INDEX. Rome, 46, 47, 52, 57, 59, 94, 112, 153, 1(54, 175, 176, 262 Rothschild, 288 Rousseau, 244 Russia, 80, 243 Saadia, 93-108, 188 ; biography of, !)8, yy; philosophy of, y7-]03 Sabbath, Institution of, 33 Saccai, Jochanan Ben, 53-65, 108, 135, 331 Sachs, Dr., 265 Sadducees, 57, 80 Saladiii, 130 Salaniis, 41 Samaritans, 29, 32 Sasportas, 213 Sefer Ikkarini, 144 Selim, 184, 185 Senjor, Abraham, 161 Septal! , 17 Setnekht, 17 Shamai, 72, 73 Shulchan Aruch, 18y, lyy, 200, 201, 2iy; defined, lyy Simon, 39, 108 Simon, Eleazar Ben, 53 Socrates, 247 Soleiman, Sultan, 183, 184 Solomon, 19, 88, 2(>5 Solon, 2y6 Spain, 40, 56, 120, 151, 153, KiO, 161, 182, 222 Spinoza, Baruch, 215-227; philosophy of, 224, 225; excommunication of, 223 Sura, University of, 88, 95, 96, 97, 99, 111, 165, 188 SYnhedrion« 53, 54, 58, 60, 61, (J4 Syria, 48, 50, 55, 59, 283 Tacitus, 166 Talmud, 55, 66-78, 81, 82, 98, 116, 118, 129, 130, 1.31, 134, 141, 142, 160, 174, 175, 177, 189, 197, 204, 219, 232, 233, 242, 245, 248, 250, 3.33 ; origin of, 70- 72; description and history of, 66-70 Taric, 153 Tarsus, 82 Themistocles. 40 Temple, Destruction of, 61 Temple, 111, 114, 157 Tephiliii, 245 Testament. New, 85, 166,209 Trstauu'Ut, Old, 86, 166, 209 Thermii|>yl;e, 41 Thomas, Father, 283 Tortosa. 140 Torqufmada, 152, 157 Toms, IJattle of, 153 Tryi)li()n. 48 Turk.s, 112, 165, 177 United States, 254, 293, 21>4 Venice, 70 Vespasian, 55, 60 Voltaire, 244 Vom Buslie, Herman, 174 Von Hutten, Ulrich, 174 Waxdsbeck, 235 Wiesbaden, 276 Wise, Dr. Isaac M., 296-313 Xekxes, 40, 41 Yahweh, 21, 22, 29, 36; qualities of, 21, 22 Zoroastkk, 87 Zwi, Sabbathai, 217, 227, 229, 233,234, 237, 287 I EE AND:— ^ nOPULAR Q P oHEPARD's ' ^. Handbooks Price, each, In cloth, 60 cents, except when other price is giuen. Exercises for the Improvement of the Senses. For Young chil- dren. By IIouale Ghant, author of '• Aiilhiuelic for Youug Clilldren." i^Jllcd by WiLLAUD fcJMALL. Hints on Language '■> connection with Sight-Keading uud Writing In Primary and Iiiteriufdiate Schools. By 8. Arthur Bent, A.M., Super- intendent of Public Schools, Cliutou, Miiss. The Hunter's Handbook. 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