ANNiiX 
 
 11B 
 076 
 
 THE NUMBERING OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 THE CONGREGATION'S PARAMOUNT DUTY 
 
 Sermon preached in the Spanish and 
 Portuguese Synagogue Shearith Israel, 
 Central Park West and Seventieth St., 
 New York City, on Sabbath Ki Tissa, 
 20 Adar, 5672, 9 March, 1912. 
 
 BY 
 
 The REV. DR. D. DE SOLA POOL 
 
 Acting Minister of the 
 
 Congregation
 
 The Numbering of the People 
 
 THE CONGREGATION'S PARAMOUNT DUTY 
 
 "Everyone who passes among those numbered from twenty years old 
 and upward shall give his tribute to the Lord." Exodus, XXX, 14. 
 
 The opening verses of this week's Parasha, from which our 
 text is taken, give directions in what spirit the census of the people 
 should be taken. We read 1 that when king David numbered the 
 people, his sturdy general, Joab, protested against the action which 
 he knew to be a sin, ''and David's heart smote him after that he had 
 numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord I have 
 sinned greatly in that I have done." For, say the Rabbis, 2 
 king David did wrong in that he did not ask from the people the 
 tribute for the Lord demanded by our text. He counted his people 
 in pride of heart to know how many were able to offer tribute and 
 service to him, the earthly king, without the thought of counting 
 those able to offer tribute and service to the Lord, the King of 
 kings. 
 
 Ever and anon a synagogue finds it needful to take a census 
 of its members; this morning, let us of this congregation number 
 the men of twenty years old and upward who, following the teach- 
 ings of the text, give tribute and service to the Lord. 
 
 One by one the older members who stood in the front rank 
 of those willing to offer service to the Lord are being taken from 
 us. Are their survivors stepping forward to fill the gaps in the 
 ranks? As year by year we lose those whose training in Hebrew 
 and whose knowledge of Judaism fitted them to offer Jewish serv- 
 ice to the Lord, it becomes ever more manifest that too often their 
 place is not being filled and cannot be filled by the younger gen- 
 eration. In common with every other synagogue in this country, 
 we find that the men of to-day of twenty years and upwards are 
 neither equipped with knowledge nor disciplined by youthful 
 training to offer the same Jewish service to the Ix)rd as did those 
 who are passing from us. We cast our eyes over the synagogue 
 benches and ask where are the young men of twenty years old 
 and upwards? It is true that their names figure on the congre- 
 
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 gational membership list ; but on the Sabbath, the weekly day of 
 muster for the Jewish people, should not everyone on that list be 
 here in his appointed place to attest his loyalty to his people and 
 his God? No one claiming for himself the title of Jew may be 
 exempted from this weekly offering of service to the Lord ; and 
 if in singular obliquity we are content to number the people by 
 the list without demanding from them the prescribed tribute of 
 service for God, shall there not fall upon us the stroke of the 
 Lord that smote king David and his people when mere numbers 
 were paraded without the offering of service to the Lord? 
 
 But we do not despair of our future. Time and time again 
 we have taken comfort and hope from the name of the Synagogue 
 b K 1 B ' n 1 K B> "the remnant of Israel." All history tells 
 us that the masses of Israel have always been lost ten tribes out 
 of twelve were lost in one gigantic upheaval ; but all history tells 
 us that the remnant of Israel must always live. The paralysis of 
 indifference, the treachery of intermarriage, the suicide of assimila- 
 tion may wreak their havoc upon some of our members ; but God 
 works with the faithful remnant that refuses to be swept by the 
 whirling stream of religious assimilation into the irresistible vortex 
 of absorption. We put not our trust in numbers, we look for salva- 
 tion from the faithful few, the b K "I B> ' n " n K e> the remnant 
 of Israel over which the prophet rejoiced. 3 Therefore we face the 
 future serenely, knowing that with God's blessing there will always 
 be a faithful remnant of those who have gone before, to carry on 
 our treasured tradition. Does it seem sad that the future is pledged 
 to a remnant, and only a remnant? Such is God's universal way 
 of working throughout all nature. Of the many seeds sown but 
 few come to fruition ; and no synagogue may hope to gather fruit 
 /from all the seeds it plants. 
 
 A reading of the history of this or of any other historic con- 
 gregation evinces the same law of the survival of only a chosen 
 remnant, and reveals to us a continuous infiltration of new forces 
 to maintain the congregation. The personnel of every congregation 
 inevitably changes with time's relentless flow. As we number the 
 congregation to-day, how many can we count bearing the honored 
 name of Judah, Gomez, Hart, Hays or Seixas families once so 
 numerous in this synagogue ? Families become scattered ; time's 
 irresistible democracy brings low those who sit in high places and 
 raises the lowly, and nature inexorably decrees that human stock 
 must die out unless it be rejuvenated by an infusion of new blood.
 
 Therefore, as we number the congregation and lament that the 
 young do not always take the place of the old trusted warriors who 
 are taken from us, shall we not aver that no congregation can live 
 wholly on its inherited forces? Every historic community needs 
 accretions from without if it is to endure in vigor. Throughout the 
 two hundred and fifty years of our existence as a congregation, the 
 requisite rejuvenation has been infused into us in every generation 
 by the coming of a new member here, a fresh family there, and from 
 time to time even of a small immigrating band of families. But at 
 this moment there is presented to the congregation a more wonder- 
 ful opportunity of gathering into its ranks new warriors to serve in 
 God's cause than it has known ever before. For there have come 
 thronging to our doors ten thousand of our nearest kin, able and 
 willing to offer the same service to the Lord as the founders of this 
 congregation gave. We dare no longer rest supine on the decaying 
 merit of past achievement. We shall be culpably false to our duty 
 if we sit inertly dreaming of our past or passing warriors, if we num- 
 ber our people by the nominal membership list, while ten thousand 
 of these, our own closest brethren, have come to our doors awaiting 
 a word of welcome . It is true that we welcome anyone and every- 
 one who comes to us prepared to serve God with our ancient tradi- 
 tional forms of service. But before all we should welcome those 
 of our brethren, be they poor as Hillel or of as lowly birth as the 
 prophet Amos, whose ritual is our own, whose Hebrew accent is our 
 own, whose traditions are our own, and whose ancestry and his- 
 tory are our own. 
 
 It is the most urgent and imperative duty of our congregation 
 to-day not to stand passively aloof awaiting their coming to us, but 
 to go out to them offering a friendly, helping hand of welcome. For 
 our own future as a congregation and for their future as faithful 
 servitors of God in this land of unknown trials, we are obligated 
 with the sacred force of moral and religious compulsion to go out 
 to them and bring them to us to unite together in the service of God. 
 Some of the active members of our congregation are awakening to 
 this unique opportunity of swelling the ranks of those who may be 
 counted as offering our Sephardic tribute of service to the Lord ; but 
 to the shame of our men be it said that the realization of this new 
 responsibility has been left largely to the women of the Sisterhood. 
 
 The religious organization of our Oriental kith and kin is a 
 labor that calls immediately for the most willing and energetic
 
 service of the whole congregation, men, women and children. It 
 is a work that demands the tact born of sympathy, the self-sacrifice 
 born of human love, and the truest feeling of brotherhood born of 
 love of God. If this God-given opportunity of numbering living 
 Jewish men and women able to give service to God, and of no longer 
 counting by a meaningless list of names, be neglected by the mem- 
 bers of the synagogue, then woe for the congregation upon which 
 will fall the stroke of God, as it fell upon king David and his people 
 when they were numbered in pride without giving to God the 
 tribute of service. 
 
 But if we as a congregation undertake this work of the religious 
 organization of these Oriental Jews, then shall the blessing of God 
 fall upon us as we number no longer the inert members on the list, 
 but the living active men of twenty years old and upwards who are 
 able to give their tribute of service unto the Lord. Then shall our 
 community blossom forth into a new life that shall be brilliant and 
 glorious ; and, when we number the people, there will be fulfilled in 
 us the ancient blessing : 4 "May the Lord, God of your fathers, add 
 to you the like of you a thousand times, and bless you as he has 
 promised to you." 
 
 (') II. Sam. XXIV, I. Chron. XXI. 
 
 ( ! ) Midrash Tanhuma, Ki Tissa, 9; Lekach Tob to Exod. XXX, 12; 
 Josephus, Antiq. VII, 13, I. 
 
 (') Jeremiah XXXI, 6. 
 
 ( 4 ) Deuteronomy I, u.
 
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