The Library University of California, Los Angeles ASPECTS OF JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT ASPECTS OF JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT (THE LETTERS OF BENAMMI) T. FISHER UNWIN LTD LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE First published in 1922 A II rights reserved FOREWORD IN the experience of the writer of the following pages, while many people are greatly interested in the Jews, comparatively few are possessed of a true knowledge of Jewish ideals, the Jewish faith, or Jewish life. The present volume, it is hoped, will throw light on important aspects of these subjects, and will show that Judaism inculcates the purest principles of humanity, that it regards social service as the highest charity, and that to-day as of old it commands " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." At a time when earnest men and women are striving to fashion the conditions of modern life so that they may accord with the best thought, it is useful to direct attention to the part the Jew can play in the process, and to point out, to Jews and Gentiles alike, that, in this no less than in earlier ages, the Jews may contribute much that is valuable for the reconstruction of the world. When all is said, it is not so much in the sphere of material well-being that a change is required; what in the long run is likely to bring about a better world is a moral regeneration of mankind. Here is where the Jew can help; it has always been his metier to keep alive in men's consciences one of the fundamental 1733645 is built, to wit, I by My Spirit." I vi FOREWORD truths upon which every Great Society " Not by Power and not by Might, but It only remains to add that the following papers formed part of a series of weekly articles contributed during the last two years to thcjtwisb Chronicle under the heading, " The Letters of Benammi." January, 1922. CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD V THE QUINTESSENCE OF JUDAISM - 9 WHAT IS A JEW ? 13 THE RELIGION OF LOVE - 19 JEWS AND GENTILES - 23 A JEWISH VIEW OF JESUS 3 WHAT IS THE TALMUD ? - ~ 3^ WHAT IS THE " SHULCHAN ARUCH " ? - 4 1 THE DAUGHTERS OF ISRAEL - 47 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE - S 2 JEWISH CHARITY - 5^ THE JEWISH CONCEPTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH 60 JEWS AS CITIZENS - 65 ANTI-SEMITISM - ~ 7 1 ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION - 8 1 JEWISH SEPARATENESS - - 86 AS OTHERS SEE US - 89 THE GOLDEN AGE - 97 SAYING KADDISH - IO2 THE SABBATH - 1 07 "JUSTICE, JUSTICE SHALT THOU PURSUE" - 112 ALMIGHTY GOD - - Il8 " HALLOWED BE THY NAME " - 123 vii viii CONTENTS PAGE ETIQUETTE - 1 27 IN PRAISE OF WORK - 132 PEACE - - 137 " THE HAPPY WARRIOR " (jEWISH VERSION) 143 PROSELYTES AND PROSELYTISING - 148 MONEY-LENDING 154 A MATTER OF SLAUGHTERING l6l THE GOSPEL OF HILLEL - 165 RABBI AKIBA, MARTYR - 170 RABBI MEIR: A LIGHT IN DARKNESS 178 A THIRD-CENTURY JEWISH REFORMER 1 86 A PRINCE IN ISRAEL - 192 THE GREATEST JEWISH HUMANIST 198 JEWISH WORLDLY WISDOM 205 A JEWISH VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY 211 AN ANALYSIS OF ANGLO-JEWRY - 2l6 ASPECTS OF JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT THE QUINTESSENCE OF JUDAISM WHAT would be a working formula for Judaism, a statement that would express its quint- essence ? Of course, the mind at once reverts to the Thirteen Articles of Maimonides. Here at least we have an attempt to set forth the main principles of the Jewish religion. But we can hardly speak of a formula in this connection. Besides, several important authorities are agreed that the articles are too numer- ous. Joseph Albo suggested that three would suffice to express the main principles of Judaism viz., belief in God, belief that God created the world, and that He guides the destinies of all living beings. Other authorities, again, held that thirteen articles are too few; one suggested no less than thirty-five. But the larger numbers were the exception; in the main, leaders of thought preferred a brief statement of faith. Saadya enumerated ten principles, Chananel ben Chushiel contented himself with four, while Abraham ben David (of Toledo) suggested five. These were mediaeval authorities, and the mediaeval writers were influenced by the tendencies in the general philo- sophic trend of thought around them; their proposi- tions were, therefore, of the nature of set formulae. But in the Talmud we find a warmer, simpler state- 9 io JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT ment. I cannot help recalling Rabbi Akiba's dictum that to love your neighbour as yourself is a fundamental principle of Jewish teaching. The discussions of Akiba's contemporaries only show how universally accepted this Jewish doctrine was. Ben Azzai de- clared that he for his part always regarded as of vital importance for Jewish thought the first verse of the fifth chapter of Genesis: "This is the book of the generations of Man." A truly remarkable saying ! That the string of names which composes that fifth chapter should contain any principle ! There seems nothing of significance in the genealogy. Yet Ben Azzai was a wise man ! " This is the book of the generations of Man " what does the introduction and the list that follows teach but the relationship of the great human family, the essential one-ness of humanity ? Hath not one God created us ? is another way of putting the question. Ben Azzai intended to convey the fact that, above all, Judaism teaches the love of man; his version but completes Hillel's famous saying: " Do not unto another what you would not have another do to you. This is the whole Torah: the rest is commentary." Jewish literature is full of this noble sentiment. Akiba gave it its classical expression. " Beloved is man," he said, " for he was created in the image of God." Indeed in one sense Judaism might be termed the Religion of Humanity, not that it defines, but that it loves, Humanity. The Ethics of the Fathers abound in instances illustrating the point. " He in whom the spirit of his fellow-creatures takes delight, in him the Spirit of God takes delight," is a dictum of R. Chanina, the son of Dosa. R. Ishmael always preached, " Receive all men with cheerfulness." THE QUINTESSENCE OF JUDAISM n " Who is wise ?" was Ben Zoma's conundrum, and his answer is worth noting: "He who learns from all men." Ben Zoma also asked a second question " Who is honoured ?" The reply was parallel with the last: " He who honours others." Judaism teaches and Jews practise the love of man- kind. The story of Abou ben Adhem might well be the story of the Jew; and Ben Azzai expressed deep wisdom when he specially singled out the first verse of the fifth chapter of Genesis. R. Simlai, a Jewish teacher of the third century, also attempted to express the quintessence of Judaism. There are, he said, 613 ordinances. David reduced them to eleven, Isaiah to six, Micah to three, and Habakkuk to one. What says David ? He depicts the perfect man as one who walketh uprightly, worketh righteousness, speaketh truth in his heart, hath no slander upon his tongue, doeth no evil to his fellow, despiseth a vile person, honoureth them that fear the Lord, sweareth to his own hurt, changeth not, putteth not out his money to usury, and doth not take a bribe against the innocent. These are the virtues lauded in the fifteenth Psalm. Isaiah has almost the same picture. The perfect man walketh righteously, speaketh uprightly, despiseth the gain of oppression, will not take bribes, stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from looking upon evil. Perhaps Micah approaches nearest to the expression of an ideal understandable in these days. " What doth the Lord require of thee," he asks, " but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God ?" But we must conclude Rabbi Simlai's list by quoting Habakkuk: " The righteous shall live by his faith." The Shema is as good an expression of the quint- 12 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT essence of Judaism as any. What is its inwardness ? First, the unity of God. Second, love of God. But how can you love the invisible ? The Rabbis were ready with an answer to this question. You can best love God, they said in so many words, by imitating Him. God is holy; be you holy. God helps the poor and the fatherless ; do you do likewise. God is truthful ; be you truthful too. And, thirdly, teach your children. Throughout the whole of Jewish literature stress is laid on knowledge. Judaism is not merely a matter of faith; Judaism demands knowledge. " Know there- fore this day and lay it to thine heart that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath." Judaism stands for the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. Over and over again the Talmud shows the worth of mankind as a whole. One pretty piece of exegesis is connected with Psalm cxviii., verse 20: " This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter into it." The Rabbis point out the uni- versality of the phrase. Not priests, not Levites, not Israel shall enter into it; but the righteous. In one place the Talmud goes so far as to say that anyone who eschews idolatry may be called a Jew. Can large- heartedness go further ? I cannot help recalling what Chasdai Crescas wrote, early in the fifteenth century: " Salvation is attained not by subscription to meta- physical dogmas, but solely by love of God that fulfils itself in action. This is a cardinal truth in Judaism." I submit that this is only another way of saying that the quintessence of Judaism may be expressed by the formula: Judaism teaches the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. WHAT IS A JEW ? THE other day I heard of an interesting incident that occurred in one of the Vienna synagogues. It appears that a number of Jewish boys had matriculated and were anxious to take part in a special service to celebrate the event. One of the boys in particular, keenly Jewish in sympathies and a strong nationalist, specially asked that he might be called up to read the Haphtarah, as it happened to be the anniversary of his Barmitzvab. Shortly after this request was made it was discovered that this par- ticular boy was the son of a non-Jewish mother, and that, moreover, he had not been initiated into the Covenant of Abraham. The matter was brought to the notice of the Rabbi, who, after giving the whole question very serious consideration, decided to have the boy " called up," and in due course the boy read the Hapbtarab. Thereupon a storm broke loose on the Rabbi's head. Many people of orthodox views com- plained that by " calling up " this boy, who technically was not a Jew, he had brought disgrace on the Torah and the congregation. In reply the Rabbi stated that while he was fully prepared to admit that, according to Jewish ecclesiastical law the boy was not a Jew, nevertheless, reviewing the whole situation the boy's keen interest in all things Jewish, the fact that he had received Jewish religious instruction and had been brought up to believe himself a Jew, the charitable 13 H JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT activities of the boy's father, who was foremost in all good works, and was indeed recognised to be a model in his public conduct of what a Jew ought to be the Rabbi decided to act contrary to the strict letter of the Din. This problem raises the old and difficult question, What is a Jew ? In this instance, since the boy was the child of a non-Jewish mother, he was, according to the strict letter of ecclesiastical law, not a Jew, and his position as a non-Jew was still more accentuated by his not having been circumcised. Yet who shall say that, if the account of the boy's Jewish sympathies, knowledge, and interest is true, he is to be excluded from the Community of Israel ? A man born in the Jewish community who may be as unobservant as he chooses, who may even be a Freethinker or an Atheist, is nevertheless still regarded as being one of the brotherhood and may without question take part in religious ceremonial service. Yet the Law would exclude the boy of my story from doing so. Mani- festly there is some difficulty here, and we see once more how hard it is to decide who is, and who is not, a Jew. Some people hold that the test is religious. These appeal to ancient authorities such as Saadya, who declared that Israel is a nation by reason only of his religion, by his possession of the Torah. But there are two difficulties here. In the first place, if we apply the test of religion, what precisely do we mean by religion ? An orthodox Jew would, we must presume, pass the test. Would a member of a Reform con- gregation likewise be included ? Moreover, would the shade of a man's religion be taken from the Congrega- tion of which he is a member, or would the conduct WHAT IS A JEW? 15 and practice of his life be the criterion ? Is it not a fact that many people who are members of the United Synagogue are in their private lives as little or as much Jewish as members of the more advanced wing of the community ? Indeed, there are some cases where the latter are much more Jewish in their life and practice than the former. The religious test, therefore, does not seem to be satisfactory. In the second place, the quotation from Saadya characterises not the individual Jew but the Community of Israel, and does not in the least help us to answer the question, What is a Jew ? Others, therefore, are driven to adopt the nationalist definition, and say that if a man identifies himself with the national aspirations of the Jewish people he thereby becomes a Jew. This opens the question of what you mean by a nation. I turn to one of the best exponents of nationality in modern times, Professor Zimmern. He defines a nation as " a body of people united by a corporate sentiment of peculiar intensity, intimacy, and dignity, related to a definite home country." The backbone of this definition, it appears, is in the last phrase, and Professor Zimmern goes on to say that when an individual Jew ceases to feel affection for or to take interest in Palestine, he thereby ceases to be a Jew. This, likewise, does not seem a satisfactory solution, for, as it appears to me, it is saying too much that a man is not a Jew who has no interest in Palestine. I know a man who was brought up in an orthodox home in Russia, and whose knowledge of Bible and Talmud is profound sufficient, indeed, to qualify him for the Rabbinate, a profession adorned by many generations of his ancestors. But he is now an agnostic in matters of religious belief, the problems of which he argues with learning and ability. He has no special 16 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT interest in Palestine, he has never been a Zionist, and he loves English Literature as intensely as he is devoted to the literature of the Bible. I do not think he objects to intermarriage; on the other hand, his heart cries out as he hears of the sufferings of Jews in the Ukraine, in Poland, or in Hungary. Are we to call him a Jew or not ? In this case, both the religious and the national tests fail. Yet the man loves humanity, has a heart of gold where charity and kindness are concerned, and injustice is an abomination in his eyes. These three qualities are essentially Jewish traits, and for my own part I have no hesitation in regarding my friend as a Jew. The truth is that it is easier to determine who is not a Jew; and I should say that a man who definitely leaves the Jewish fold and cuts himself off from his fellow-Jews by some specific public action such as baptism may be regarded as ceasing to be a Jew. In this sense Lord Beaconsfield was not a Jew. Racially he was a Jew, but quite clearly it would be impossible to answer the question, What is a Jew ? by saying, Those who belong to the Jewish race. Race, after all, is accidental; it is like the leopard's skin, you are born with it. Mere passivity of this kind hardly suffices to make a man a Jew; nevertheless, so long as he takes no public action to give the world notice that of his own free will he wishes to sever himself from the Jewish Brotherhood, so long must it be assumed that he is desirous to be associated with Jews. And this leads me to express a thought which may be of help in answering the question. I should say that man is a Jew who cares to be a Jew, who is interested in the affairs of Jews, whether you call them a people, a race, or a religious community, whose heart thrills WHAT IS A JEW? 17 as he reads the story of the Jews through the centuries, who is proud of the achievements of the Jews, who glories in the moral strength of the Jew in having resisted the corroding influence of time. " Show me a miracle," Frederick the Great once cried to his chaplain, and the answer came, " Sire, it is the Jews !" This reply appeals to the Jew, and because of his intense admiration for the Jewish contribution to the world's stock of what William Watson calls " the things that are more excellent," because of his belief in the grandeur of the Jewish Weltanschauung, he models his conduct on Jewish ethics, or in a more or less passive fashion he wants it to be understood that he supports the principles which the Jewish religion teaches and which Jews accept. That, it seems to me, in a general sort of way for it is difficult to be specific in this matter represents the definite act of volition which marks the Jew. A Jew is one who shows that he cares for things Jewish. In one man's case it may be to live according to the strict letter of the Rabbinic Codes; in another man's case it may be that though he discards religious practices altogether he is yet keenly interested in the aspirations of those Jews who call themselves Jewish nationalists. I am aware, of course, that the strict letter of the Law does not take this wide view of the question; but then Law has a tendency to become hardened and static, while life is unquestionably dynamic, and there are a hundred illustrations to show that very often the demands of life outstrip the pre- scriptions of Law. Have we not here a case in point ? Would it not be the height of folly and short-sighted- ness to answer according to the strict letter of the Law the question, What is a Jew ? We must take a broader view, and I submit that the action of the Rabbi in the 1 8 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT Vienna synagogue was right. I suggest that if a plebiscite were taken on the subject, the overwhelming majority of Jews would support his action. The question of citizenship does not enter into the problem. To-day, nationality or race is not identical with citizenship. British citizenship is enjoyed by men and women of many nations and many races. The Scotch, the Welsh, and the Irish are regarded by others and regard themselves as separate nations; they each contribute their quota to the general spiritual and intellectual stock of the British Commonwealth. British citizenship is also claimed by the West Indian negro, the South African Hottentot, the Maoris of New Zealand, and hundreds of races in India. Citizenship is a legal relationship; and often enough he is a far nobler citizen who freely chooses a particular citizenship than he who is born into it. Whatever answer be given to the question, What is a Jew ? the problem of his citizenship is not affected. Whatever his citizenship, the Jew possesses a number of valuable ethnical and moral traits which make him an excellent citizen. He is energetic, intense, sober, kindly of heart, devoted to justice, considerate of his neighbour's feelings and interests, a good father, a model husband. As such, he is qualified in an eminent degree to help build up the Great Society, that goal of politicians, statesmen, social workers, and all who love their fellow-men. THE RELIGION OF LOVE EOKING closely at the Jewish Liturgy, one is greatly struck by the insistence throughout the Jewish Prayer Book on Love. It meets the observer in the JfiBE^: " And thou shalt love the Lord thy God." Love is the motif of the preceding para- graph: " With abounding love hast Thou loved us," it commences, and its conclusion is: " Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast chosen Thy people Israel in love." In the Pl^HD? too, stress is laid on love. " From His place may He turn in his mercy and be gracious to a people who, evening and morning, twice every day, declare the y&BP in love." The reference to love is found again in the evening service; it is the note on which the first paragraph of the PlTDS? ends; it comes up once more in PEPl. Wherever in the Prayer Book the Jew expresses gratitude to God for a Sabbath or a Feast, the injunction is recorded as having been made in love. " In love hast Thou given us the Day of Atonement," or " In love hast Thou given us the Feast of Taber- nacles." Indeed, in the liturgy of the Kippur Day there is a special reference to the theme. " And be- cause of the love, O Lord our God, wherewith Thou hast loved Thy people . . . Thou hast given unto us this Day of Atonement." In a similar strain the priests thank God Almighty for having in love put upon them the duty of blessing His people. If a people's liturgy reflects its inmost soul, the 19 20 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT constant reference to love in the Jewish Liturgy is surely significant. Was it not a Jewish writer who wrote of love, " Many waters cannot quench love, niether can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, he would utterly be condemned." A Jew must have been responsible for the command to love our neighbours as ourselves; another Jew described the injunction as the corner- stone of Judaism. The claim is often made for Christianity by Christian theologians that it is the religion of love $ar excellence. There can be no objection to this. The teachers of all religions have a right to put forward this claim. But is it not wrong to attempt to write down Judaism as a religion where Law and not Love predominates ? How account for the references to love in the Jewish liturgy ? The evidence is too strong. A fair-minded man must admit that Judaism stresses love love of God and love of man. Nor does this teaching remain a theory. Jewish life is a true expression of love, from which even enemies are not excluded. Say not, " I will do to him as he hath done to me," a writer in Proverbs advises, while the Talmud answers the question, " Who is strong?" by declaring: "He who turns an enemy into a friend." If the true object of life is self-realisation, a religion which so constantly preaches love, love of God and love of man, must lead its votaries to a very high plane of conduct, to complete self-realisation. For what does love imply ? It means living a clean life, living a self-less life (so far as it is possible to lose oneself), living a life in the service of one's fellow-men; and all this not out of a certain striving, but naturally, easily, having acquired the art by centuries of experience. THE RELIGION OF LOVE 21 Such a life the Jew lives. One aspect of living the life of love is the sense of belonging to a community, of 1 being a vital part of it, of sharing in its activities. Since Judaism is the religion of love, since the Jew ' possesses what has been called the social instinct, it is only to be expected that Jews should make good citizens. Their most hostile opponents do not deny them that virtue, to which great statesmen have testified in modern and in ancient times. Jews are sober and thrifty, model parents, and sympathetic neighbours. If these things are true, what are we to say of the accusation now levelled against the Jews that they are revolutionaries ? To me it appears as a species of madness, produced by an unbalanced mind, and fed by fears that spring from the lowest instincts. The whole accusation is a black lie, and those who make it know in their hearts that it is the child of devilish hate. I cannot believe that they are honest. I cannot be- lieve that they do not know. I cannot help feeling that the business is premeditated. In these days of loose thinking it is easy to make people's flesh creep. During the war, if there was a strike or a hint of a strike in this country, some organs of opinion which batten on appealing to the lowest instincts, at once cried that enemy gold was behind the industrial move- ment. To-day those same journals suggest that Jewish gold is oiling the wheels of revolution. The suggestion would be ludicrous were it not so tragic. Revolutions come because oppression becomes too great, because greed becomes too proud. Read A Tale of Two Cities, in which Dickens has depicted something of pre-revolutionary France, and you will understand why the masses rose in revolt. There was 22 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT no need there to stir up revolution. The social crimes of the times cried to Heaven, and men turned in wrath on their oppressors because the iron had entered into their souls. Was Wycliff e a Jew ? Was Wat Tyler ? Was Shelley ? They preached revolu- tion because they felt the dominion of evil growing too strong. And so with Russia of to-day. If you had enquired into the trend of events in that unhappy country during the last ten years, you might almost have seen the Revolution coming. Russia was a land where Injustice sat in the seat of Right, where bribery and corruption and immorality stalked about naked and unashamed, where true liberty was repressed, where darkness and superstition and ignorance held men's souls in bondage. Wickedness was supreme; but wickedness must always in the end be overthrown. That is one of the abiding lessons of religion. But was the world told of the wickedness with all its ghastly horror ? If all the stories of oppression and blood that come to us from Russia to-day be true, I can well understand the disgust they generate. But in all fairness, I should also like to know from one who is acquainted with the facts, whether under the Tsarist rule crimes as abominable as these were not committed. To speak of " Jewish anarchy " is a contradiction in terms. If you talk of anarchy, it is impossible, if there is an atom of truthfulness in you, to add Jewish. If you mention Jewish, Love is the right adjunct; for Judaism preaches Love kindness, pity, consideration, mercy; and Jews practise these things. JEWS AND GENTILES JEWS must be the most tolerant people in the world. I have come to this conclusion after recalling Jewish teaching which regulates the attitude of Jews to Gentiles and their intercourse. It must have been an ancient tradition among Jews that every human creature is a child of God, and that as such, whatever be his creed, race, or colour, the funda- mental principle of all Jewish ethics applied to him, namely: " Love thy neighbour as thyself." Rabbi Meir was famous for that well-known piece of exegesis where this teaching is incorporated. According to Rabbi Meir, a Gentile whose life is based on the Torah deserves as much respect as a High Priest, which means that he deserves a great deal. And his reason ? It is written of the Commandments that man should live by them. Observe, says the Rabbi, the reference is not to Priest or to Levite or to Israelite, but to Man. I can scarcely conceive a nobler piece of reasoning than this; and as Rabbi Meir may be taken to be a typical great Jew, it follows that he enunciated an accepted Jewish doctrine. Remember, in the age in which it was written, heathendom was predominant. Such Christians as there were were not numerous and probably little heard of, living their lives in quiet corners. Yet in a heathen world Rabbi Meir was able to make the statement he did. It is perhaps a little difficult for us moderns to appreciate fully the immorality, the cruelty, and the idol-worship which 23 24 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT characterised the Roman world in the first three centuries of the Empire. Take up any book which deals with the social life of these days (say, Gibbon), or refer to the actual literature of the time, and you will obtain a glimpse of a world whose ideals and practices were in total contradiction to those of Jews- Yet Rabbi Meir could rise sufficiently above externals to lay down his declaration. Nor was he alone. The Jew is expressly told that the command to rise before the hoary head undoubtedly applied to heathens. Old age was old age in whatever garb it appeared, and the respect due to it could not be affected by religion or race. I regard this, too, as a beautiful doctrine, which fits in so well with the whole Jewish outlook; it is capped by the injunction in Caro's code, which declares, " He who sees a Christian Sage must utter the benediction, ' Blessed art Thou, O Lord, King of the World, who hast bestowed of Thy wisdom on man.' ' The Rabbis were greatly concerned to be first in their greeting when they met a non-Jew. One of them, a disciple of Rabbi Meir, was fond of saying that if a Jew was taught wisdom by a heathen it was the Jew's duty to call the other by the title of Rabbi, that is " my master." The Talmud went very far along this road of tolerance and consideration. It is ordained therein in regard to heathens that Jews must feed their poor with the Jewish poor, visit their sick in the same manner as sick Jews were visited, and bury their dead with the same respect as was meted out to the Jewish dead. And to think that such toleration was proclaimed in the early centuries of the common era ! Why, the world has not yet learned anything like such large-hearted tolerance even to-day. JEWS AND GENTILES 25 It is related of Rabbi Judah that he even went so far as to send presents to his heathen friends on their festivals. When we bear in mind how the old Rabbis were intent on hedging round the Jew so that he should not be corrupted by the practices of heathen- dom, this conduct of Rabbi Judah is symptomatic, and perhaps it is natural enough. It was not the heathen to whom the Jews objected, it was the vices of heathen religions. As Beruria, the wife of Rabbi Meir, was fond of saying, it is not the destruction of the wicked that is desirable, but the destruction of wickedness. So, too, Rabbi Joshua, who lived towards the end of the first century, who taught that all good men have a share in the world to come. Whatever " the world to come " meant in his generation, certain it is that it was a great good to which the Jew looked, and in which he hoped to share; and yet here was a Jewish teacher who included others as well as the Jew. "Good men," he said; and what is a good man? The answer is in no uncertain terms. A good man, if he is a Gentile, is one who is classed among the so-called " Children of Noah," for whom seven regula- tions were laid down to wit, that they should be good citizens, that they should not be guilty of blasphemy, idol worship, immorality, murder, robbery, and eating the flesh of live animals. I think it would be true to say that this minimum code would meet with the acceptance of all right-thinking people at the present time. It is a code within reach of everybody, and, therefore, the idea of the " good man " associated with Rabbi Joshua's dictum is comprehensive in all con- science. Maimonides gives classical expression to this Jewish doctrine when he says that those who keep the seven ordinances laid down for the " Children of Noah " z6 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT are regarded as the righteous among nations, and have a share in the world to come. Jews may have inter- course with them, may co-operate with them in charity, and it is the duty of Jews to maintain them in case of need. The Book of the Pious only confirms this view, and Rabbi Judah Hachassid impresses on his readers their duty not to deceive anyone, whether Jew or Gentile, and not to quarrel with anyone, no matter what his religion may be. In intercourse with non-Jews, he continues, be as straight and honest as with Jews; and if in business a non-Jew has made a mistake to his disadvantage, it is your bounden duty to point this out to him. This attitude to Gentiles accords admirably with the best prophetic teaching. " My house shall be called an house of prayer for all peoples," is part of the message of the Second Isaiah. The builder of the Temple himself prayed that the stranger " when he shall come and pray towards this house " might receive a favourable hearing. Doctrines such as these stand in striking contrast to those preached and practised by Christians for many a century. In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church taught that it was an act pleasing in the sight of God to take advantage of Jews, to rob them of their property, and to tease and maltreat them, to say nothing of subjecting them to slaughter and rapine. It is a contrast which does credit to the Jew and which shows how nonsensical is the statement that the modern anti-Semites of the latest brand are publishing, that some Jews are Jews first and Englishmen second. Was Rabbi Meir a Jew first and a Roman second ? Was Maimonides a Jew first and an Egyptian second ? Was Rabbi Judah Hachassid a Jew first and a German JEWS AND GENTILES 27 second ? All three, surely, were above the narrow nationalism which is implied in the modern anti- Semitic doctrine. Would a Scotchman, I wonder, be taunted with being a Scotchman first and an English- man second ? The very phraseology bears witness to lack of thought. If the accusation is to have the least appearance of sense, it should be not that some Jews are Jews first and Englishmen second, but that they are Jews first and British second. That would imply, I take it, that being by blood Jewish, which after all is neither fault nor merit of theirs, they are British by citizenship. This, surely, applies to all the races within the British Empire who own allegiance to King George V. In that case the term Jew means broadly one who is of Jewish blood and who values the Jewish outlook on life, which he strives to make a reality in his own; one who accepts the doctrine of Rabbi Meir, regarding all good men with respect, and practises toleration both of views and of peoples. Such a man must be able to contribute a great deal that is very valuable to the general stock of the British Commonwealth, and therefore to say that a man is a Jew first and British second is to pay him a fine com- pliment. Until the world learns to adopt and to practise the high standard of tolerance which the Jew has set long ago, there is obviously still room for him in the world. The anti-Semites of these times appear, however, to have lost all sense of proportion. Their pride is intolerable and their narrowness sickening. Their attitude to Jews brings to mind Heine's verses addressed to Edom Ein Jahrtausend schon und langer Dulden wir uns briiderlich, Du, du duldest dass ich acme, Dass du rasest dulde ich. 28 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT In view of the definite statement of Rabbi Meir and of the Talmudic injunction in regard to the poor and the sick of heathen peoples, it appears to me that there is no reason whatever why Jews should not enjoy inter- course with Gentiles. Indeed, the facts of modern life make this a necessity. Jews meet Gentiles in business, in politics, in education in short, at work and at play; and so far as the Jew is concerned his religion teaches him not to look at the race or creed of his neighbour, but only at his conduct. It ought to be made clear that if the Jews claim to be the Chosen People, they regard that claim not as a cause for being puffed up, but rather as a reason for maintaining a higher standard of personal conduct than non-Jews. But they do not exclude non-Jews from following their example; Rabbi Joshua's dictum makes that quite clear, and Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, in a dictum of his, taught much the same lesson. Just as the sin-offering, he said, makes atone- ment for Israel, so works of kindness and of love make atonement for the Gentiles. Moreover, in the past, when tolerance was meted out to him, the Jew was quite ready to associate with non-Jews. It is recorded that in the fifteenth century Rabbis invited Christians to their homes, and returned their visits. During the Golden Age in Spain it was by no means rare for Jews and Gentiles to be exceedingly friendly. In Italy there are many cases on record of this friendliness; that of Dante and Immanuel, of Rome, is perhaps the best known. In Holland in the seventeenth century, where, likewise, the Jew was tolerated, there were many cases of friendship between Jews and non-Jews. Quite generally it may be said that where friendly intercourse does not exist, the fault does not lie with the Jew. As early as the reign of Constantine, Christians were urged JEWS AND GENTILES 29 to have no communication with Jews, and the Church continued to teach this doctrine for wellnigh a thousand years. Hate begets hate, and if the Jew was not well disposed to the Gentile, surely the fault was the Gentile's. It may be argued, with good reason, that naturally Jews have the social instincts strongly marked, and if in any country it is observed that the Jew keeps to himself, it may be taken as tolerably certain that his neighbours have given him the cold shoulder. A JEWISH VIEW OF JESUS EPSTEIN'S Christ set my mind thinking on a problem that has had a wonderful fascination for me ever since my youth. I was first greatly stirred about it many years ago, on reading Mrs. Humphry Ward's Robert Elsmere. Before that, my childish mind was interested in those Jewish Midrasbim which the world calls the Gospels, and I think it was their Jewishness that appealed to me. The characters in the drama and the setting of the piece were alike Jewish, and we must face the fact that the story of Jesus is a chapter in the history of the Jewish people. But it is tragic that in the general opinion saga and legend and myth should in this particular chapter take the place of history. We Jews have paid dearly for this ignorance on the part of the world. It was only in comparatively recent times that attempts more or less successful were made to discover what actually happened in those years of ' unrest in Palestine. In my experience Robert Elsmere was the first expression of that attempt, and The Brook Keritb, by Mr. George Moore, the most recent. To my mind the salient facts of the story are plain enough. A young Jew, Joshua by name, hailing from the village of Nazareth, came to Jerusalem to learn the traditions of his people from the mouth of the teachers of those days. In due course he returned to his native Galilee, the population of which was perhaps the most 30 A JEWISH VIEW OF JESUS 31 ignorant in the land. The knowledge of the young man impressed the crowd. He became a wandering teacher, like so many others. Like so many others, he probably dreamed dreams and saw visions. General Smuts, on returning from Palestine, declared that the scenery was so beautiful and possessed such a character of its own that he was not surprised Palestine produced so many seers. Even after the official list of Prophets had been closed, the line of Prophets continued. Were not many of the Talmudic teachers prophetic in their doctrine and in their conduct ? Jesus but retailed to the masses what he had learned in Jerusalem. The facts that need insistence are that he was a Jew, and that his teaching was Jewish. Even in the Gospel versions Jesus is made to lay stress on the Jewishness of what he had to say. " Think not," he declares in one place, " that I have come to destroy the Law and the Prophets." And what of the Jewishness of the Sermon on the Mount ? The behest to love your enemies is no exception. When you see the ox or the ass of your enemy straying, so the Israelite of old was enjoined, it is your duty to return it to him. Or again, if the Israelite saw the animal of his enemy fall beneath its burden, it was his duty to help it along. Or, to take a third instance, the duty not to despise an Egyptian has been characterised by many non-Jewish scholars as a very high moral , precept. If that does not teach love of enemies, what it does teach is something very near to it. As a matter of fact, the duty to love enemies is recorded in a Jewish document which was written a century before the time of Jesus in the " Letter of Aristeas." There 1 we find Jewish teachers laying down the principle that ( love should be shown not only to those who love, but 32 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT also to those who hate us. It seems certain that this doctrine was Jewish. The very fact that Jesus preached it strengthens the probability. Quite generally, there is nothing in all the parables and sermons in the Gospels but you may find a parallel to it somewhere in Rabbinic literature. All this may find general acceptance. The difficulty will be the death of Jesus. The vast majority of Christians are convinced that the Jews are responsible for his death, and many Jews prefer not to mention the subject, because they, too, have not been taught the truth. There seems no intelligible reason why the Pharisees should have desired the death of Jesus. His life was Jewish, his teaching was Jewish. According to Jesus, the first commandment is to love God, and the second to love your neighbour. His sarcastic remarks about hypocrites are not new; there are passages in the Talmud that condemn hypocrisy in equally un- measured terms. Why, then, should the Jews have wanted his death ? The answer is that the Jews never did. It was not a Jewish court that condemned him; his manner of death was foreign to the Jews. Cruci- fixion was not a Jewish practice. Criminals condemned to death by Jewish courts were never crucified. But more than that. Though the law provided for the extreme penalty, it is recorded in the Talmud that hardly ever was a criminal condemned to death by the judges. Jews valued human life far too highly. Jews still value human life highly. But how are we to account for the death of Jesus ? The answer is simple. When he first appeared in Galilee, preaching doctrines which were as balm to the hearts and minds of the oppressed populace but A JEWISH VIEW OF JESUS 33 doctrines, mark you, which were thoroughly Jewish, with which the more educated Jews in Palestine were acquainted a following quickly surrounded him. It was no uncommon thing in Palestine then. Many teachers and preachers brought " glad tidings " to the people, and the people flocked about them in crowds. Now as long as these teachers were merely, as we should say to-day, religious revivalists, the Roman authorities looked on with good-natured contempt. But if any sign of treason appeared, the Roman authorities would naturally come down upon any such movement with all the force at their disposal. I can picture to myself what would happen in India to-day. A purely re- ligious movement would be tolerated, probably with no little good-natured amusement. But should there be the least indication of a political movement, no matter how slight, the authorities would take steps to make the ringleaders harmless and to scatter the crowd. It is only statecraft warranted by the occasion. The Romans found such an occasion in the case of Jesus. His movement appeared to them, rightly or wrongly, to be a political movement. There was talk of a King of the Jews. Men in Palestine may have dreamed of independence. That was a dangerous atmosphere. So far as can be gathered, Palestine was in a seething political condition when Pontius Pilate was the representative of Rome. He was not the type of man to temporise. Any sign of an anti-Roman move- / ment made him alert. Jesus was arrested, and was condemned to a Roman death for treason. How did the Roman soldiers mock him ? " King of the Jews " they hailed him in their coarse sarcasm. Whether \he really led a political, anti-Roman movement, or whether he was mistakenly arrested for treason, is at 3 34 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT this distance of time difficult to say. For and this is a point worth noting there are no extant historic records on this chapter of Jewish history, though we have pretty full accounts of the period as a whole. The Gospels I have termed Midrashim. Anyone acquainted with the Jewish literature of the time will realise this at once. But Midrashim are not useful historical records. Midrashim are good for the pulpit, good for teaching morality and religion. As guides for events they are useless. Who might be expected to be guides ? There are two excellent historians of those days, one a Jew, the other a Roman Josephus and Tacitus. In the extant editions of Josephus there is a brief and rather emaciated account of Jesus, vague as to details and Christian in colouring. The least trained layman can see that Josephus never wrote it. It is different in language and sentiment from what we should expect from Josephus. As a matter of fact, Christian scholars are now agreed that this particular passage is a forgery, added probably a good deal later, and therefore of no value as historical evidence. One consideration naturally occurs to the mind here. If the part played by Jesus was so important, if the people were so moved by his personality and teaching, may it not be expected that Josephus would have given an adequate account of it ? The suggestion has been made that in all probability Josephus did, but that the early Church Fathers, finding it not suited to their book, deleted the original story, which they replaced by another. But the brevity of this, the existing passage, is rather striking. The life story of Jesus must surely have taken up more space than a short and some- what vague statement. A JEWISH VIEW OF JESUS 35 The same applies to Tacitus. The great Roman gave an admirable conspectus of the world of his day, and yet he says never a word about Jesus and his move- ment. Would he not quite naturally have written the Roman version of the incident ? Either the incident was regarded as of small significance, or (as is most probable) Tacitus actually did deal fully with it, but, as has been alleged, the monks destroyed the version of the Roman historian. These may be probabilities. On the other hand, there may be something in them. At any rate, so much is clear that the death of Jesus was at the hands of the Romans, that his life and teaching were Jewish, and that when he died a mass of legend and myth grew up around his name, which, aided by the disrupting tendencies of another Jew, Saul of Tarsus, eventually took the form of an organised religion. WHAT IS THE TALMUD ? THE life of the Jews after the Babylonian Exile was broad-built on the Torah. In very ancient times there were probably many Torahs, and these in the course of the ages were crystallised in the Torah of Moses. Later, the term Torah came to include what is now the whole of the Bible, its meta- physics and ethics, its law and morality, its Temple ritual, its stories and its legends. The whole became an object of study and cogitation for Jews; there was no other. Study led to interchange of views and to the submission of new ideas, especially as the Bible is not free from obscurities and repetitions which in many cases contradict each other. Manifestly, therefore, it was necessary to explain the Bible, and the explanations would vary from age to age and from place to place. In this way a mass of tradition accumulated which was passed from one generation to another by word of mouth, and gradually there grew up the idea of an oral Torah side by side with the written Torah. Both were equally holy, both were equally binding, both were regarded as " the words of the living God." It was the Jew's way of expressing the value he attached to his ancient tradition. To-day Western Europe is moved at the tenacity with which the Montenegrins or the Serbs cling to their traditions; Jewish tradition is a great deal older than either of these. Like these, however, it includes folklore and fairy tale, the ex- pression of the Jew's fancy, his attitude to man, his 36 WHAT IS THE TALMUD ? 37 conception of God. And is not the world the richer by their possession ? It is quite clear that an oral tradition which was not written down could not but grow, snowball-like, and thoughtful men appreciated the need of bringing order into the disorganised whole. This was the work of the Tanaim, among whom Hillel the Gentle was famous. To him is due the first attempt at bringing system into the mass of tradition, and his Rules proved to be of great use when, after the destruction of the Jewish State, the people devoted all the energies of their mind and heart to the one possession left to them the Torah. Hillel's Rules were followed by those of other teachers, notably Akiba, and these Rules slowly pro- duced order in the entangled web. About the year 200, more than seventeen centuries ago, Rabbi Juda \ sanctioned an official version of the tradition, divided into six sections, dealing respectively with agriculture, Sabbaths and festivals, the institution of marriage, civil law, the Temple ritual, and lastly, Levitical impurities. This collection, which is called the Mishna, is the first great Hebrew work after the Bible. The Mishna contains simple statements of enactments without showing how they are connected with the Bible. Once in existence, the Mishna became the subject- matter of close study and varied discussion. Both in Palestine and Babylon the Jews devoted their intel- lectual energies to the Mishna, and, as before, a vast collection of tradition accumulated round the simple text. This is called Talmud (or, since the sixteenth century, Gemara), and there are two versions extant, the one hailing from Palestine, the other from Baby- lon. The latter was collected and given its final form in the year 500. While the Mishna is written in 38 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT Hebrew, the Talmud is for the most part in Aramaic, the language spoken by the people in the latter cen- turies; while the Mishna enunciates laws or enact- ments, the Talmud contains laws, legends, traditions, stones, aphorisms, serious studies of the sciences then ', known, and the Jewish attitude to life. The Talmud J is not the work of one man or of a group of men working I in co-operation; it is the expression of the Jewish 1 Weltanschauung extending over a period of one thousand years. Its contents are as many-sided as life itself; there is nothing in heaven and earth about which men thought in those days but is touched upon in its pages. No abstract treatise is here, but the record of the thoughts and words of living men, varying in character and temper, who consider the pros and cons of a question, narrate their experiences, tell stories, support their opinion, often passionately, with argument and counter-argument. In a word, the Talmud quivers with life. The study of this encyclopaedia has been a splendid training for the Jew. It gave him knowledge; it sharpened his thinking powers; it ministered to his spirit. For his intellect it did what a course of mathematics or logic effects; for his heart it provided the balm which good literature yields. Heart and mind were thus fortified; and is it any wonder that the Jews were among the most cultured of peoples ? Is it not intelligible also that cunning enemies of the ! Tews should have realised the value of the Talmud, . which accordingly shared the hatred meted out to its i votaries ? In olden days it was burned; book-burning [ was both a sport and a policy in the dark ages that lie between the fifth and the fifteenth century. In modern days it has been slandered. Its words were WHAT IS THE TALMUD ? 39 mistranslated, its dross published to the world. Dross there undoubtedly is in the Talmud. But there is fine gold, too, very precious and exceedingly rare. Is it remarkable that a mirror of life and humanity, re- flecting the moods, incidents, and vicissitudes of a thousand years, should contain other things besides pearls oi priceless value ? In its pages may be found the loftiest conceptions of God, as well as crass super- stition; thoughts that are deep and clear, no less than the most foolish popular ideas; exhortations to love and brotherhood, and passionate outbursts of hate; the purest poetry, beside inept inanities. Every expression of opinion in the Talmud must be considered in the light of its age, of the man who was responsible for it, of the circumstances out of which it arose. If that be done, it will appear that Jews are like other people they are essentially human. But they possess the rare gift of high thought about God and conduct. The Bible does not stand alone as a repository of sublime religious teaching. The Talmud compares very favourably with it. And no wonder ! Both are the expression of that something which is called a nation's spirit, and the nation in this case are the Jews. But while the Bible has been fortunate in being ac- cessible in all languages, the Talmud has remained a closed book. But if only teachers of all religions knew ! They would drink deep of its waters, for these contain religious nourishment of the highest quality. Since it is admitted that Jewish tradition is the best source of religious inspiration, every expression of that tradi- tion should be cherished and studied for its vigour, its value, its truth, and its excellence. One other weak- ness the Talmud has: it lacks a flowing style. Its language is rugged; it has no well-balanced periods; 40 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT it needs elegance. But as the Talmud is an encyclo- paedia, how can it be otherwise ? Nevertheless, it is a pity that the work should not possess this appeal of the beautiful, which in these days is not without effect. One charm of the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament lies in their winning style. But one might write fifty Gospels from materials in the Talmud, each with a sublime morality illustrated from the type of a real hero. We might have a gospel of Hiliel, one of Meir, another of Akiba; and if only the stoiy were told in language as musical, as rhythmic, and as polished as that in which the New Testament Gospels find ex- pression, the world might be enriched by " good news " indeed. Mankind cannot have too many Gospels if it is to rise to that perfection which all good and true men would desire to see established in the world. Ben Bag Bag was thus wise in his generation, for his counsel was: " Turn the Torah about and about, for everything is in it; contemplate it; wax grey and old over it; stir not from it; there is no better rule than this." WHAT IS THE " SHULCHAN ARUCH " ? IN the past there has always been a tendency among Jewish religious leaders to codify enact- ments and definite opinions expressed in the Talmud. I can well conceive how fascinating such work must be to certain types of mind which love order and find pleasure in having things arranged with pre- cision. Such a mind must have been Rabbi Jacob ben Asher's, who died in the year 1 340. This great teacher in Israel published a monumental work under the style of DmtO PW:nK (" Four Rows," from Exodus xxviii. 17), divided into four bulky volumes. The first, which he called D"H miK (" The Path of Life," from Pro- verbs xv. 24), dealt with laws and doctrines concerning prayers, divine service, Sabbaths, and Festivals; the second, which he called PISH mi* (" Teaching Know- ledge," from Isaiah xxv. 9), dealt with the duties of the Jew in his daily life; the third, which he called ptf TOPI (" The Stone of Help," from I Samuel vii. 12), dealt with marriage laws; and the fourth, which he called bG?fc jfcjnn ("The Breastplate of Judgment," from Exodus xxviii. 29), dealt with Jewish civil law in so far as it is administered by a Beth Din (i.e., a Jewish ecclesiastical court). Another such mind must have been Joseph ben Ephraim Caro's, who was born in Spain in the year 1488, and whose parents, victims of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, carried him to Nicopolis and Adrianople, where the boy was brought up. At an 41 42 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT early age he became famous as a child prodigy; he knew the text of the Mishna by heart even as a boy; and before long he won the reputation of being an extra- ordinarily clever teacher of the Talmud. His mind ap- peared to be that of a practical man. It was the sort of mind which in modern days would have fitted him in a special degree to be the editor of an encyclopaedia, the Encyclopedia Britannic a for choice; a mind well furnished with knowledge (in this case Talmudic knowledge), and capable of expressing itself clearly and concisely, and yet fully. Joseph Caro had always been attracted by the n!J!l*)J< DHlb of Rabbi Jacob ben Asher, and, at the age of thirty-four, he determined to set about preparing an edition of this monumental work, examining its sources, commenting upon it, and, where necessary, revising it and bringing it up to date. The work occupied him for twenty years, and in 1542 it was published in Safed, in Northern Palestine, where Caro was at that time Rabbi of the Jewish community. Twelve years later he published a further revision of the great work, which he called SpV JV3 (" The House of Joseph," from Genesis xliii. 18). The book was merely a book of reference, but what a book of reference ! It contained everything that a Jew might require to know about his religion, its doctrines, and its practices. Like most makers of encyclopaedias, Joseph Caro when he had completed his great work set about pro- ducing an abstract of it, which would serve the needs not of the scholar or the rabbi but of the ordinary layman who needed to have his information in brief form and set out in such a way as would enable him to put his finger on what he required with the utmost despatch. This popular edition of the greater WHAT IS THE " SHULCHAN ARUCH " ? 43 work is the Sbulcban Aruch "pltt jrf?1&5> (" A Table Prepared," from Ezekiel xxiii. 41), which was first published in the year 1565, and of which edition followed edition in quick succession, furnishing elo- quent testimony to its popularity. This practical handbook was bound to be a success, and for generations Jews have referred to it because of its usefulness, forgetting entirely to whom they owe this great gift. It is remarkable that though Caro belonged to the group of mystics of his age, in this reference book he is business-like and matter-of-fact. There is little mysticism in the Shulchan Aruch. The work is composed of four volumes, on the model of Rabbi Jacob ben Asher's masterpiece, whose very titles Caro has adopted. The volumes are split up into sections and paragraphs, all arranged in a most orderly fashion. The first volume, in view of its contents, is, of course, that which is most popular, and which is no doubt found in every Jewish household that may claim to understand Hebrew; the three remaining volumes are probably more used by Rabbis and Dayanim. In order to give an illustration or two of the nature of the work, turn to Section I. There we read, " Laws of rising in the morning (containing nine paragraphs) " ; or again, Section 261 " The time of kindling the Sabbath lights (containing four paragraphs)." This orderliness is striking; even when a section contains one paragraph, that also is indicated. As regards authoritativeness, it must be remembered that Caro was a Sephardi (indeed, it is too frequently forgotten that the Jews owe this extraordinarily useful reference book to a member of the Sephardi community), and therefore he was inclined to bow to the judgment of the three great Spanish Jews who stood out head 44 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT and shoulders above their contemporaries Alfassi, Maimonides, and Rabenu Asher. In all doubtful cases Caro gives the view of these three teachers in Israel, or at least of two of them. It need only be noted in regard to Caro that he died in Safed in 1576 in his eighty-seventh year. His work was the subject of many commentaries, and that which is found in the text in small print and which made the book a work of reference for the Jews of the West was the commentary of Rabbi Moses Isserlis (1522-1572), who was Rabbi in Cracow. It has been alleged that many foolish things are recorded in the Shulchan Aruch. This must be ad- mitted, but they become intelligible when it is remem- bered that the work is a product of the sixteenth century. Moreover, though composed some three hundred and fifty-six years ago, the Shulchan Aruch contains some very wonderful things, to which reference will presently be made. Finally, it must be borne in mind that no one has ever declared the Shulchan Aruch to be binding on Jews. It was essentially a work of reference and was acted upon because it was found con- venient and handy; and if it has come to be looked upon as an authority, its authority has been voluntarily accepted. People with common sense and without prejudice will thus regard the Shulchan Aruch as what it is a very useful reference book, which may be compared to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Is it not conceivable that there may be errors in such a monumental work as this great encyclopaedia ? And if we find an error in it, do we on that account condemn the whole work as worthless ? Surely this, too, should be our attitude towards the Shulchan Aruch. Certain statements in it should not blind us to the usefulness WHAT IS THE " SHULCHAN ARUCH " ? 45 of this work as a whole, nor to the grandeur of the noble sentiments it contains. Judged as a code of ethics, the Shulcban Aruch must on the whole be accorded a high place. An illustration or two from the actual text may appear foolish to some people, though really they bear testimony to a strong sense of the fitness of things, not- withstanding that that sense is expressed somewhat naively. Turn to Section 2 of the First Volume " Laws of putting on clothes (containing six para- graphs)." Paragraph 4 reads as follows: " A man should put on his right shoe first, but not do up the laces; then he should put on the left shoe, doing up the laces; and then finally he should return to the right shoe and do up the laces there." Once more, there is paragraph 5 : " In taking off your shoes take off the left first." Then turn to Section 529 " Laws of rejoicing on Holy Days (containing four paragraphs)." Paragraph 2 of this section reads as follows: " It is a man's duty to be joyful and glad at heart on the festivals, he and his wife and his children and those dependent upon him. Make the children happy by giving them sweets and nuts ; and the womenfolk by buying them frocks and jewellery according to your means. It is also a duty to give food to the hungry, to the fatherless, and to the widow as well as to other poor people." Beat that if you can. Show me a code of laws with an admonition equal to this. It is a gem of this character that makes the Shulchan Aruch a great work, despite some of its childish views. This law of 46 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT enjoying unselfish happiness on the Festivals is some- thing to be proud of, something to carry out. The last two paragraphs of this very section call on the Jew to take care not to allow the holy joy of the festival, the end of which is to serve God, to degenerate into bacchanalian frenzy. The whole section ends with this caution: " All should be holy." The Shulchan Aruck has in the process of time been summarised, and many of these abbreviated compendia are extant in which the contents of the four stout volumes have been boiled down to one thin one. These may be of great service for teaching children. A question often asked is whether the Shulcban Aruck forbids Jews to go about with uncovered heads. Section 2 (to which reference has already been made), paragraph 6, states that a Jew should not walk four paces with uncovered head. There was no definite prohibition here, but only a recommendation. In a later age it was considered to be a sign of special piety, or perhaps of politeness, to have the head covered. A word of comment is necessary on the curious titles of the divisions of this encyclopaedic work. In Jewish literature many authors had this in common with Ruskin that they gave fanciful names to their works. " A Table Prepared " may thus be paralleled by " Sesame and Lilies." THE DAUGHTERS OF ISRAEL THERE is undoubtedly a specifically Jewish attitude on the position of women, and Jewish literature reflects it. The very earliest traditions of Jews regard woman as man's helpmate, and their language tends to show that both were looked upon as equals. A man is called Ish, a woman Isba. Rabbinic literature teems with illustrations of this fact. Let one suffice. In Bereshit Rabba it is declared: " Not the man without the woman, and not the woman without the man, and not both without the Glory of God." This is as good an expression of the Jewish ideal as any. Here I am reminded of that stone of stumbling in the Prayer Book: " Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast not made me a woman." Some people are apt to seize upon this as evidence of the Jew's superciliousness towards his womenfolk. Schechter on many occasions was in the habit of saying aptly, " Lord, forgive them, for they know nothing." This dictum is applicable to those who are troubled by this " Blessing " in the introductory section of the morning service. When it is recalled that the famous Rabbi Meir, that prince among men, is reputed as the author of the somewhat remarkable " blessing," and when it is remembered furthermore that he was married to Beruria, that splendid woman who deservedly won renown in her day, it is clear that 47 48 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT the apparent disharmony of the blessing must be explicable. Of course it is. Rabbi Meir gave thanks to his Maker, because as a man many more religious duties were placed upon him than upon a woman. The stress is laid on the positive side that he has man's religious burden to bear; the negative side is secondary. All the commentators are agreed that this is the mean- ing, and the text of the Gemara wherein the passage occurs leaves no doubt about it. And if in Jewish practice the woman has not so many Mitzvot (religious duties) to perform as the man, that perhaps arises from the attitude of Jews to woman. She was to be mainly wife and mother; in that capacity she renders to her faith and race the very greatest possible service. There is a fine story told of Rabbi Chia, who, though unhappily married, was most attentive to his wife, and when his friends expressed surprise he explained his conduct by saying that it was a great thing that women gave the world the gift of children. The Talmud declares that the exodus from Egypt, the starting-point of the history of the Jews, was brought about by reason of the goodness of the Jewish women. Could greater honour be accorded women ? Indeed, I am convinced that if a collection of the sayings about women that appear in Jewish literature were published, it would form a most valuable treasure for our own age. If I recollect aright, it was the late William T. Stead who, with that mighty capacity of his to see into the heart of things, declared that you could gauge a people's true civilisation or culture by its attitude towards women. Is there not much truth in his suggestion ? And what would be the result of this acid test if applied to the present generation, or to the whole THE DAUGHTERS OF ISRAEL 49 of Western civilisation through the centuries ? I am reminded of Ellen Key's appeal to the men and women of Europe to adopt the Jewish attitude towards women if the highest human types are to be produced. Is it not remarkable that this clear-sighted Swedish lady should preach Jewish doctrines to the world ? It certainly ought to encourage Jews, and particularly Jewesses. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the endurance of the Jews throughout the dark centuries of their wanderings, their ability to outlive mighty empires, and their toughness of moral fibre may all be traced to their strong family life and to their peculiar attitude to marriage. " Whoso has no wife suffers a lack of all things and lives a life sans joy, sans blessing, and sans happiness," says the Talmud. Or again: " In choosing a friend, go up a step, but in choosing a wife, if need be, go down a step." Once having chosen a wife, the Jew is admonished to treat her with the utmost consideration " since only on her account does blessing rest upon the home." Above all, the Jewish husband is urged never to make his wife cry, for the " Gates of Tears " are always open. " Love your wife as much as you love yourself; honour her even more than yourself." These are not paper ordinances; Jewish life is full of their observation and application. Among Jews the woman was never man's mere plaything. The art and the ideals of the Troubadour are something alien to the Jew. Yet he knows what true love is; a Jewish poet penned those great words: " Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it "; and another wrote of Jacob, that though he served seven years for Rachel " they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her." Is it not worthy 4 50 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT of note that among the great characters of the Bible only one had not wife and child Jeremiah; and that among the two thousand odd " Fathers " of the Talmud, we hear of only one who walked through life alone Ben Asai ? Right up to the beginning of the nineteenth century all the great names in Jewish history with few exceptions were those of men who were husbands and fa thers. Mediaeval celibacy was out of all accord with the Jewish spirit. The institution of marriage and the cultivation of the family are two great Jewish ideals, and in the policy of reconstruction after which all the world is groping at present the Jew may surely point to the right road. In all countries the old social system appears to be crumbling. The Divorce Courts everywhere are heavily laden; the declining birth-rate is a source of anxiety to those who love their country. Meanwhile decadence stalks abroad. Serious people are beginning to bethink themselves of the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire. The pessimists see black more than ever. In this chaos, cannot Jewish family life stand out as a beacon ? Those who know it at its best will concede that it is characterised by sweetness, gentleness, consideration, and love. It rests on the high esteem in which woman is held. Measured by the standard suggested by the late Mr. Stead, Jewish life must be accounted healthy. Among Jews the devotion to each other of husband and wife and of parents and children is proverbial. We may recall that beautiful passage in Pendennis, which moves the reader as it must have moved the writer: " I saw a Jewish lady only yesterday, with a child at her knee, and from whose face towards the child there shone a sweetness so angelical, that it seemed to form a sort THE DAUGHTERS OF ISRAEL 51 of glory round both." Thackeray was a master in sounding the depths of human nature; that he was moved by a Jewish mother is symptomatic and a true touch. Are there not many Jewish mothers still who can charm and move in the same way ? This precious gift is invaluable for the tired, restless, troubled world in which we are living. The best thought of our age approaches more and more to Jewish thought. Let Jewish practice give a lead to the practical needs of our time, so that these likewise may tend to approach nearer each other. It would be the Jews' contribution to the reconstruction of Europe to hold aloft the ideal of the family, the honour of woman, and the institution of marriage. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE THE old Jewish ideal of family life set a fine standard in the relations of men and women. The very first page of the Bible illustrates the Jewish view of marriage. God is represented, in the second chapter of Genesis, as saying that as it is not good for man to be alone, he is to have a helpmate. That is the Jewish attitude: the wife is the husband's mate, complementing his nature, fulfilling her duties towards him, as he towards her. A relationship of this kind provided the conditions for happiness. In the Jewish idea marriage is not a sacrament, it is a contract defined by conditions. The man undertakes to feed and clothe his wife and to treat her honourably. But how the legal prescription is adorned ! Yes, he must clothe her, but not anyhow: it is his duty to consider the standard to which she has been accustomed in her father's house, to consider her age and the season of the year. It is his duty to provide her with jewellery; a woman's beauty is valued at its true worth among Jews. The Talmud also lays it down that a woman has the right to expect an increased allowance with the increase in her husband's income. All these regulations are rooted in respect. The Jew undoubtedly respects his wife. " Love your wife truly and faithfully," the Talmud advises, " and take care that she has no hard work to do." On the other hand, idleness was con- demned. " Even if your wife has a hundred servants she ought to lend a hand herself, seeing tha- mischief 5* MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 53 and laziness are near akin." " Love your wife as much as yourself," we read in another place, " honour her by little attentions more than yourself." Or again, " It is your duty to honour your wife's parents as your own." Or yet again, " Consider the welfare of your wife and live at peace with her, for in the home where peace dwells, God dwells too." There is sound social and hygienic advice in the Talmud in regard to marriage. In the first place, marriage is advocated; it is regarded as a practical ideal. " Whoso has no wife, lacks all things," says a famous passage in the Talmud. On the other hand, Jewish opinion condemned hasty marriages. " Buy land without any great consideration; but marry a wife only after carefully communing with your heart." And when you are choosing aim at the daughter of one who has some public service to his credit, or strive to enter the family of a learned man, since the fruit will probably be like the tree, so the Talmud advises. And do not neglect beauty. Pay attention to looks, and remember that lovely eyes adorn a woman. But do not let beauty cover defects of character. Character is most desirable, and not money. He who marries for money may expect to have un- desirable children. These ideals but reflect realities. On the whole married life among Jews is a lovely thing. Jewish practice cultivates family life, and furnishes poetry for the child's soul. I am thinking, for instance, of the Hebrews' Friday night. The father blesses the children and sings the praises of their mother. There is a sweet savour about it all. Understanding is in the air. Trust and confidence are at home. I certainly can recall unhappy Jewish wives. But I am quite clear 54 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT in my mind that they were the exception. The Jewish attitude to marriage makes for happiness. The happi- ness is due to the man's attitude to woman. I re- member a dear old Jewish lady who lived with her son, a medical man who had practically cut himself adrift from Jews, advising her granddaughter to marry a Jew. "A Jewish husband will not abuse you; a Jewish husband will be considerate," was the old lady's philosophy. Nor can the practice of divorce be adduced as an argument against happy Jewish marriages. Jewish law certainly recognises divorce. The Jew is practical. If a mistake has been made (so he may be supposed to argue), let the error be rectified. Yet the Rabbis were not advocates of divorce as such. " I hate putting away," they quoted from Malachi, and added, " God hates the man who divorces his wife." Yet the ancient Rabbis provided for the machinery of divorce. The courts might grant divorce in certain eventualities, such as adultery, or where the marriage had continued childless after ten years. The last-named cause, how- ever, did not often lead to actual separation. There were certain circumstances which warranted the husband, there were others which warranted the wife, in demanding a divorce. The wife could sue for a divorce if her husband illtreated her, or was afflicted with a loathsome disease, or changed his religion, or fled the country after having committed a crime. Divorce is deplorable, but if the needs of life call for it, it must be carried out. In the Jewish view life should be hallowed. " Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy." How can there be hallowing when a grievous error enters into human relationships ? MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 55 If there be such an error, let it be mended. I often wish this argument were heard more frequently in the present-day discussions of this question. There are very many people who hold that the existing 'English divorce laws are out of all accord with the spirit of the age. There are others again who, regarding marriage as a sacrament, cannot get themselves to agree to its dissolution. But in either case, I have never come across the consideration of the hallowing of life. The one set of people talk of personal freedom, the other of religious bonds. Both arguments are valid, but one does miss the appeal of the still higher argument of the sanctification of life. JEWISH CHARITY JEWISH charity is bred in the bone. It is as old as the race itself. Charity and kindliness are the pillars of the Mosaic code; and the Hebrew Prophets held up these ideals of social life to their contemporaries and to the world beyond. " As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration." So wrote Matthew Arnold, and who can gainsay him ? What the Prophets taught the Rabbis only elaborated, and if a competent authority were to compile from Rabbinic literature a compendium on the ideals and methods of charity, the world would be the richer by a document of great social value. The Greeks dis- covered and glorified the beauty of the human body; the Jews glorified the goodness of the human heart. There is no need to recall the Biblical ordinances relating to charity. Everybody is familiar enough with the rules that among the ancient Hebrews regu- lated the provision for the needs of the poor, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. But what may not perhaps be quite so well known is that post-Biblical Jewish literature is no less insistent than the Bible on the importance of charity. " The world rests on three things on the Torah, on the Service of God, and on acts of kindliness." This is one of the earliest dicta of the Jewish Fathers, and it was a reality. From times immemorial there existed in the Temple at Jerusalem the " Chamber of the Silent." The kindhearted left JEWISH CHARITY 57 their gifts there privily, and the needy took what they wanted equally privily. Anonymous charity is one of the ideals of the Talmud. " Let not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth." A story is told of the Exilarch Mar Ukba, whose practice it was to leave a sum of money daily at the house of a poor person. For a long time the recipient did not discover the identity of his benefactor, until one day he determined to lie in wait for him. It was towards dusk that Mar Ukba approached the poor man's house. As soon as the watcher heard the footsteps he came out, and in order not to be recognised Mar Ukba fled. His only means of avoiding recognition was to slip into a bakery and there take refuge by the hot oven. This he did, and when he was later blamed for risking so precious a life he declared that it was better to be burnt to death than to shame your neighbour. As at the Temple in Jerusalem, so in each provincial community there was a " Chamber of the Silent " serving the same purpose. Nor did this stand alone. To each synagogue was attached a communal caravan- serai for poor travellers; each community had a fund for making weekly allowances to its poor, and also a stock of food out of which daily rations were granted to the poor who came from elsewhere. I have always admired the old Jewish regulations about charity. But what has moved me most is that passage in the Mishna (in Peak), which has found a place in the Prayer Book. You will see it on page 5 in Singer; it reads quite simply: " These are the things which have ( no limit," and included in the catalogue is DHDfi nV?*fiJ. It is not easy adequately to render these words into English. They mean kindheartedness-, sympathy, personal service, doing a good deed for its 58 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT own sake; they sum up in essence the highest form of social service. Nor is this passage unique. Can there, for instance, be a nobler standard for charity and social work than that inculcated in the dictum of Rabbi Jose ben Elchanan, of Jerusalem, who taught " Let thy house be open wide and let the poor be the members of thy household " ? If St. Francis of Assisi has deserved fame for his teaching, so assuredly has Rabbi Jose. And is it not a fine parallel to say that " Charity and kind deeds are themselves of equal weight with all the other Mitzvot of the Torah " ? Best of all perhaps is the exhortation of helping the poor to help them- selves. The Jew desires not to demoralise the needy man. The Jew is directed to provide the poor with all that he requires, or even with all that he has been accustomed to. If he lacks bread, let him be given bread; if money, let him be given money; and if he has been accustomed to a horse and a runner, then these too should be provided for him. Hillel the Meek is said to have furnished daily a horse and a runner to a man who had come down in the world. One day the great teacher could not obtain a runner, and he ran himself before his protege. Modern scientific relief of distress may look askance on such a policy, but who will deny that at the root of this teaching there is a fine spirit ? Another point is also worth noting. In relieving distress Jews have never made any difference between Jews and non-Jews. The latter, like the Jewish poor, were allowed to glean after the reapers. The case of Ruth will come to mind as an illustration. The Talmud is quite specific on this point: " Support the non-Jewish poor, visit the non-Jewish sick, and bury the non-Jewish dead." JEWISH CHARITY 59 This is Jewish doctrine, and Jewish practice has never swerved far from it. Through their long mediaeval distress the Jews did not forget the poor. " We have never known or heard of a Jewish com- munity," wrote Maimonides, " which did not possess a fund for the poor." Owing to the constant ex- pulsions, homeless Jews were always numerous, and provision was made for them. In every Jewish com- munity there was the " Holy Society " which had for its objects helping the poor, visiting the sick, and burying the dead. Nor is that Chevrah Kadisbah spirit extinct. Yet there are foolish and wicked people, the one bleating and the other raging, who, in face of all this, attempt to connect Jews and the Bolshevik horrors. Anyone who knows the spirit of Jewish caritas, and who has actually seen Jews helping their poor, who has studied the types of the poor in Jewish literature, cannot possibly conceive of Jews, no matter how de- Judaised, lending themselves to atrocities of the kind brought to our notice almost daily. The Jew is natur- ally, constitutionally kind-hearted. There is no need to question whether appeals to Jews for charity will remain unanswered. Jews are good givers. Jews are conscious of their social duties. Were they not the first to teach the duty of loving your neighbour as yourself ? THE JEWISH CONCEPTION OF THE COM- MONWEALTH TO-DAY more than ever men are groping about for better means of ordering social relations aright. The war has shown that there is some- thing radically wrong in the conception and organisa- tion of the State. People are looking for light and guidance; they turn to the old Ideal Commonwealths; they refresh their recollection of Plato's Republic or of Sir Thomas More's Utopia. All this is healthy. But I have often wondered why the Mosaic Common- wealth does not receive more attention. As I reflect upon its ideals and prescriptions I cannot help feeling that they have much to offer to us in our present discontent. What is wrong with the modern social organism is that politics is divorced from religion. Religion is held to be something for the individual. The individual is bidden to love his neighbour, not to kill, not to steal. Yet we have wars between States; we have what is termed the class struggle; and sects are untrue to the ideals of their faith by being intolerant of each other. In the Mosaic legislation, religion and politics were united. Not only the individual, but also the State, had to be sanctified, and specific regulations were laid down for the purpose. As it appears to me, the system set forth in the Pentateuch is one of true democracy. There is one law for all. The system knows nothing of castes, or 60 JEWS AND THE COMMONWEALTH 61 helots, or patricians and plebeians, or " estates of the realm." When judges are to be chosen the injunction states clearly: " Thou shalt provide out of the people able men." The Torah was given to the people as a whole, men, women, and children. There was no difference between one citizen and another; between the native-born (mTX) and the naturalised citizen (*0) ; or between the citizen and what we should term to-day the alien (ife^lfi). Touching indeed is the command to love the *13; how strongly contrasted is it with the practice prevalent to-day in our own country ! The naturalized citizen is often made to feel that he is a citizen of a subsidiary order. In ancient Israel he was in all things exactly in the same position as the native-born citizen: " One law shall be to him that is home-born and unto the ^J, the stranger that so- journeth among you." But even the foreigner was accorded rights by the Mosaic code which seem large- hearted in themselves, and are truly remarkable when compared with twentieth-century practice. In the old Hebraic commonwealth, the alien may have been excluded from participating in religious ceremonies, as, for instance, the celebration of Passover; but he had the same political rights as the citizen. Thus, the cities of refuge were for the children of Israel, for the stranger (1J), and also for the sojourners among them, that is the l>1fi. The sojourner might even buy a Hebrew to be his slave could liberality go further ? All the evidence proves that the Mosaic Common- wealth was a pure democracy. The judges were men of the people ; Saul was fetched from behind the plough, David from minding sheep, to be king over Israel. No one was exempt from taxation. Even the Levite, who himself depended for his livelihood on the gifts of 6z JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT others, had to pay his dues like the rest. And when it was necessary to contribute an offering for the Sanctuary, " the rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel." But perhaps the enactments regulating economic activities were the most remarkable of all. Throughout antiquity one great source of misery to large masses of people was the burden of interest. A man bor- rowed money, and finding he was unable to pay interest on the loan, gave his land, his goods, his wife, his children, and finally himself to his creditor. This was a social disease of the worst kind. It was found in Egypt; it was deplored in Greece. In ancient Israel it was unknown. For interest was forbidden. " Thou shalt not lend upon usury [the Biblical phrase is equivalent in modern nomenclature to interest] to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent on usury." The whole question of interest, which is disturbing many good people to-day, was thus non-existent in the ancient Jewish commonwealth. Only of the foreigner might interest be taken i.e., in foreign trade. But in the country itself the law allowed no interest, and it is not difficult to see how beneficial such a measure must have been socially. No man could live on the labour of others. And the wonderful institution of the Year of Release was the coping-stone of this legislation. " At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a Release. And this is the manner of the Release: Every creditor shall release that which he hath lent unto his neighbour; he shall not exact it of his neighbour and his brother; because the Lord's Release hath been pro- claimed." Interest was prohibited, but in the Year of Release the principal, too, had to be remitted. Ob- JEWS AND THE COMMONWEALTH 63 serve that this is not Socialism; it is merely Social Justice, and the two are not necessarily correlative. We might well have Social Justice under the Capitalist System if some of the Mosaic laws were adopted. Of the same nature, and for the same end as the Year of Release, was the institution of the Jubilee. " And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." Landed estate went back to its original owner, and the slave was freed from his master. The economic process started anew; every factor in the process obtained another chance. The Jubilee was the hope of the oppressed and the unfortunate. It was an enactment of social justice than which there has been none nobler in the records of mankind. A system such as this could not but reduce poverty to a minimum. Some helpless folk, however, there would always be, and for them those who were more fortunate had as a duty to make provision. Assist- ance had to be rendered as a right to the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger; all their wants had to be satisfied. Such is the conception of Judaism of the Ideal Commonwealth. It may be questioned whether throughout Biblical history the ideal was always reached; it would seem from the complaints of the prophets that selfishness got the better of men in those days as in these. But at least the ideal was there, and the prophetic admonitions only show that it had some reality. In any event the idea of the commonwealth as propounded in the Mosaic code ought not to be without helpfulness in these latter days. The world 64 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT is in turmoil; the great masses of the people we call them Labour in the abstract are discontented. The cost of living is going up. The rich appear to be getting richer, and the poor poorer. The contrast between Lazarus and Dives becomes more marked. What is to be done ? Men are casting about for a remedy. Let the Mosaic legislation furnish one: if not the code in detail, then at least its spirit of social justice. Its conception of the Commonwealth is that of a group working together in the interests of the group as a whole, in the interests of the common weal. Selfish- ness there will always be apparently, as long as men exist. But selfishness should be circumscribed by law. Let our legislators learn the spirit of the Mosaic code, let them be guided by its ideals, which looks to the welfare of all its members, which allows liberty to the individual in so far as it does not clash with the interests of the community, which has consideration and kind- ness for the 1J and the 22? 1H, as well as for the native- born, and which provides for the poor and the weak let our legislators be guided by this spirit, and many of the world's ills will vanish away like smoke. It is the fashion in some quarters to declare that the Old Testament is played out, that it is below the level of present-day standards, that its pages are marred by cruelty and vengeance. Those who hold this opinion surely lose sight of the great fact that the Bible is rather a fount of religious teaching than a record of historic events. If it contained nothing else but the Jewish conception of the Commonwealth it would have justified its universal respect and admiration. JEWS AS CITIZENS THE view of Jewish citizenship expressed in the Spectator of January 8, 1921, deserves utter con- demnation. No one need quarrel with that paper for its opinion that Lord Reading will make an unsuitable Viceroy of India. The Spectator has a perfect right to form what opinions it chooses. But the reason for its dislike is objectionable. The Spectator condemns the appointment of Lord Reading because he is a Jew. " By this we mean," the paper writes, " not merely a man of Jewish blood, but a man of the Jewish religion, and therefore necessarily a man with a double allegi- ance." But the nature of this double allegiance is not stated. Double allegiance to what or to whom ? I suppose the writer means one allegiance to the com- monwealth and the other to some mysterious authority which exists only in his brain. If so, why is he not candid enough to say what it is ? Why put it in the form of an insinuation, leaving his reader to imagine all manner of horrors ? It is clear that the writer must have an uneasy conscience, seeing that he doth protest too much. He keeps on assuring us that he is not an anti-Semite. Yet all his words belie his profession. It is a thousand pities to see a paper with so fine a record as the Spectator descending to the methods and the watchwords of the German anti-Semites, whose game it is playing. It is a thousand pities to have to class this erstwhile sane and respectable British journal with the Deutsche Tageszeitung, and papers of that 65 S 66 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT stamp. The statement about a double allegiance might have some meaning if applied to Catholics. Applied to Jews, it is sheer nonsense. Catholics, I take it, owe one allegiance to the State, and another to an outside power the Pope, who has a Court, to which the Governments of Europe send accredited representatives. Is it not conceivable that a Catholic may be torn between two duties ? A Jew never can be in this pre- dicament. A Jew has only one allegiance to the commonwealth of which he is a member. There is no other outside power that rules his conscience, and if he professes Judaism that only makes him a better member of the commonwealth. The time has come to protest vigorously against a view of citizenship which is mediaeval. Down to the days of the French Revolution it was held, first in practice and later only in theory, that the citizens of any State should belong to the same race, or at least profess the same creed. Antiochus Epiphanes thought so too. In his case it was, perhaps, intelligible. But that the Spectator in the year 1921 should hold the view of Antiochus is a tragedy. It marks that journal as being behind the times, and all the pretence of dealing with modern problems from a modern view-point is mere self-deception. A vehicle of public opinion that preaches ancient conceptions of citizenship rules itself out of court as a guide to thinking people. The Jew to-day claims to be a full and complete citizen of his country. Citizenship to-day is surely a matter of conduct. A Jew can be as good a citizen as a non-Jew; and if any Jew falls from the high standard demanded by Judaism, it is deplorable. Let such a man be dealt with as any non-Jew who fails in like case. The Jew claims to be eligible for any office which is JEWS AS CITIZENS 67 open to every other citizen. The only test he recog- nises, as all other citizens must, is that of capacity. It is the duty of every citizen to serve the State. The Jew claims that duty with all other citizens, no more and no less. The Spectator says the Jew " has separate or distracting interests." That is not true. The Spectator says that while the Jew may hold certain offices in the State, " this does not mean that he can wisely be placed in every appointment within the Empire." That, too, is not true. It is a view of Jewish citizenship propagated by the International anti-Semites, who, as right-thinking men agree, have thrown to the winds all sense of justice, and feed only on hate. A thousand pities that the Spectator should lend itself to their anti-social and anti-Christian propaganda. I said the Jew claims to be a full and complete citizen. Take my own case. I live my life striving to attain the highest standard of citizenship, and in this I am greatly helped by the tenets of Judaism. I am bidden to love my neighbour, to seek peace and pursue it, to help the poor, to abstain from oppressing the needy. I glory in seeing the triumph of goodness and justice and truth in the commonwealth, and I do my utmost to advance these three virtues. There are thousands of Jews who do the same. They observe their duty to the State. They pay scot and lot, and when in time of crisis the State calls on them to make the supreme sacrifice, they obey readily, just as do non-Jews. That they are of different race or blood and of different faith is surely of no consequence. The British Empire is proud of the fact that it combines men of many races and many creeds into a single political allegiance for the purpose of establishing a Great Society. That is the aim of 68 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT all States. " Righteousness exalteth a nation " : so taught a Jewish thinker. The world applauds his dictum, and history has but proved its truth. Now all citizens can and should help to build up that Great Society. It is folly to exclude any single member of the body politic who has anything to contribute to the general stock which helps to this end. In the twentieth century there can be only one test of a man's citizenship whether or no his life and conduct advance righteous- ness. Only this matters, and not race, colour, creed, or anything else. Race and creed are forces which produce character, and in the case of the Jew he has nothing to fear in comparison with others. Only the other day the Committee of the Rights of Religious Minorities, in New York, including such names as William Bryan, Principal Eliot, Cardinal Gibbons, Herbert Hoover, Robert Lansing, and William Taft, testified " that Jews are among the most intelligent, patriotic, and philanthropic citizens " of the United States. It is the same in other countries. The Jews can rightly claim to be among the aristocrats of peoples ; they possess the power of endurance, and their con- tribution of great values to the world's life and thought is indeed creditable. It is said that the Jew is clever, as though cleverness were a crime. If the Jew is clever, does not the com- monwealth gain by it ? Do we not require the maximum of brain power if the world is to recuperate ? It is said that the Jew is showy. Is he more showy than the non-Jew ? And are the fineries and gaudy things exhibited in the shop windows of the capitals of Europe bought only by Jews ? Are there no non- Jews who are over-dressed ? And are there no Jews who are quiet in their demeanour ? Many a Jew and JEWS AS CITIZENS 69 Jewess have I known whose meekness and modesty have made them worthy followers of Moses. But suppose we admit that the Jew has a more strongly marked sense of colour. Is not that an advantage in the all too drab picture of the modern town ? A love of colour is surely a virtue, not a vice. It is time to protest against this nonsense of races. We hear of long heads and short heads, of black hair and fair. We are shown slides to illustrate the various types, very pretty indeed and interesting enough to while away a pleasant hour. But the theories built up on the speculations are hardly science. They will not convince practical people. That there was a Teutonic stock is pretty certain. But who can say wherein the branches of that stock differ ? What differentiates the English, the Germans, the Swedes, and the Danes ? On the one hand we hear of the Anglo-Saxons, on the other of Germanen. Think for a moment and you will find that rank chauvinism underlies these alleged dis- tinctions. They are all false. They are all behind the times. In the Middle Ages the town was the unit, whether for trade or politics. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was each country. To-day it is the world, whether you consider commerce, finance, learning, labour, or politics. Is not that the funda- mental idea of the League of Nations ? And is it not one of the glories of the British commonwealth that it was the forerunner of the League in being an associa- tion of political entities bent on the establishment of justice, fairness, and right ? Jews claim the fullest citizenship to-day. They desire to shoulder all the burdens and to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship. If any of them can serve the State in high offices, that service will be given 70 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT wholeheartedly in the interests of the State. If the majority cannot rise higher than the average of citizen- ship, they will strive to make the quality of that average high. In either case their religion will make them all the better citizens, and therein they see, and all fair- minded men and women must see with them, its principal glory. ANTI-SEMITISM I MET my old friend the Vicar at the Club the other evening, and before long we were joined in our talk by two other men. One was Pym, a clever business man in the City, and his opinion on most things is always worth listening to. The other was Jack Davids, who is very keen on all matters affecting Jews. The conversation drifted on to anti- Jewish feeling; indeed, it was Davids who raised the point by asking Pym and the Vicar what they thought of the anti-Jewish campaign in this country. Pym replied that he knew nothing of it; that, indeed, in his opinion the Jews of this country were never held in such high esteem as at present; that right-thinking people were specially pleased that Palestine was to become the national home of the Jews; and that Christians desired to see Palestine a flourishing country, and were watching keenly to observe what Jews would make of it. The Vicar confessed that for his part he was aware of the anti-Jewish agitation, which was being worked up by a handful of people whose conduct was anything but Christian. He mentioned a certain morning paper in London which had made a speciality of preaching hateful anti-Jewish sentiments, but he did not attach much importance to it. Here Pym interposed, and said that if Davids were referring to this particular London morning paper, all he could say was the less notice Jews took of it the 7* 72 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT better. As a business man, he was convinced that the paper in question was just working a stunt with the sole object of increasing its circulation and becoming notorious. For this purpose any cry is good enough, and if it appeals to prejudice and hate it is likely to have a chance of success. He would advise Jews not to reply to this paper, to take no notice of it whatever. Manifestly, its policy was anti-Christian, anti-social, and foolish into the bargain. " After all," said Pym, " a newspaper may become a bore, just as a man may become a bore if he harps everlastingly on one particular theme." Davids was full of wrath at the mention of this paper; his opinion was that it must do harm, arguing that if only you sling mud long enough some of it is bound to stick. " We must remember," he said, " that the great mass of people do not think, and if you give them a watchword, a formula, or a battle- cry, they repeat it parrot-like without realising what it means. This particular paper has raised the cry that Jews are revolutionaries. The very phrase is a contradiction in terms. Yet the readers of the paper will probably be influenced by it, and come to believe what the writers themselves must know to be a lie." Here the Vicar chimed in. " Of course it is a lie," he said. " How can it be possible that the people which has produced the best Book, the best characters, the best civilisation, the best moral code, and the best ideas in the world should be guilty of attempting to upset society ? The accusation is not fair," continued the Vicar. " The Jews have a magnificent history; they belong to an ancient race; they existed thousands of years before the nations of Europe awoke from slumbering barbarism, and the Jews are some- ANTI-SEMITISM 73 how indestructible. They have been persecuted and prosecuted, beaten and bruised, hunted and hounded, and driven from one corner of the earth to another. They have been the victims of Christian scorn and Gentile hate. Christianity owes the Jews an apology for centuries of cruel and unreasonable persecution. Just think of the physical courage of the Jews ! They suffered martyrdom ten thousand times, and yet one word would have saved them from death. But that word was never uttered. I feel ashamed as I con- template this anti-Jewish agitation, which is un- British and un-Christian." I had listened with a good deal of interest to the discussion as it proceeded, and I ventured to ask whether it is possible to account for this prejudice to-day. It is not difficult to explain its rise in the ancient world. Then its cause was sheer jealousy of Judaism. In the first and second centuries before the Common Era many thoughtful heathens became disgusted with the trickery and immorality of heathen- dom, and were attracted by Judaism. There are many indications in the classical writers, in Ovid and Juvenal for instance, that such must have been the case. All sections of society were apparently influenced by Jewish teaching, and it is on record that Poppaea, the wife of Nero, wished to be buried as a Jewess. Whole communities went over to Judaism ; synagogues grew up everywhere in Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Damascus. The heathen world was moved to jealousy by the success of Judaism, and began to slander the Jews and their religion. It was spread abroad that Jews were lepers, and that in their temple they worshipped a god with an ass's head. Accusa- tions such as these might make them objects of 74 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT scorn, but that was insufficient; they were to be made objects of hate. And so a writer called Lysimaichos, about the year 30 B.C., went a step further and declared that Moses had taught Jews to be hostile to non-Jews. This was taken up and repeated, and was finally elaborated on a large scale in Alexandria by Apion, the Grammarian. Both Josephus and Philo replied to Apion. The curious thing is, I continued, that the anti- Semitic campaign, from the earliest days down to our own, has been based on lies, palpable lies, and has been actuated by hatred and prejudice. Before the late war, however, there was a marked tendency for anti-Semitism to be local, and it was showing signs of decay; since the Armistice it has again become widespread and strong. This is intelligible. One of the results of the war has been to set the nerves of Europeans on edge. War always calls up from the depths the very worst feelings; hatred stalks abroad, passions are aroused, and men lose their restraint. How else, for instance, can one account for Delitzsch's onslaught on the Bible ? He calls it " a great fraud." He minimises its morality. He submits that there is no good in it whatever. But he shows the cloven hoof when he declares that the Israelites' attack on the Canaanites, their brethren, for the sake of gain, was paralleled by the British attack on their German cousins for the same reason. What is one to make of arguments of this character ? The man is supposed to be a scholar. What must be his mentality, and that of the people for whom he provides such fare ? Tired of attacking the Jews, to whom he ascribes all manner of evils, he goes on to attack the Bible, which, in the opinion of all great thinkers, is one of the pillars ANTI-SEMITISM 75 of modern civilisation at its best. He even goes so far as to say that Christianity should be eschewed by Germans, whom he advises to turn to the religion of their ancestors, professed in their shady forests thousands of years ago. " Can any of you gentlemen suggest," I next asked, " who may be behind the anti-Semitic movement in this country?" Davids was the first to reply. " I have a shrewd suspicion," he said, " that a number of Russian aristo- crats who are at present taking refuge in England probably hold an honest, if unfounded, belief that all Jews are Bolsheviks, and as they hate the Bolsheviks for having deprived them of their fortunes, they support, out of sheer revenge, an anti-Jewish policy which would not even stop at pogroms. They are said to be sup- ported in this country by a wealthy English peer, who hates the Jews for some reason best known to himself. These bulwarks of English and Russian aristocracy utilise the morning paper referred to as a vehicle for their poison, and it is all the more welcome in that quarter because the paper is able to persuade a number of foolish old gentlemen that the British Empire is in danger. It is so easy to play on people's credulity and fear," added Davids. " I remember during the war," he went on, "the cry raised in some quarters that the Germans in London were digging into the earth to get to the tubes in order to blow them up; and I was greatly astonished to discover how many good citizens, principally old women, of the capital of the world really gave credence to such a myth. Had they thought it out they would have seen its absurdity; but the misfortune was that they did not think it out. So it is with the gentry who are fearful lest the British 76 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT Empire should come to pieces. Anyone who thinks out this statement must see how ridiculous it is. To imagine that a body of people in Russia have sufficient power for evil to upset the British Empire is to regard these same people either as demi-gods or as devils. But they are neither; they are just human beings like all others, and the British Empire is much too solid a structure to be undermined by the Bolsheviks or any- one else. The tragedy of it is that the Bolsheviks are all regarded as Jews. It is of little use proving over and over again that the percentage of Jews among the Bolsheviks is infinitesimally small." Perhaps anti-Semitism may be accounted for in two ways. In the first place, Jews are admittedly a clever people. Clever people get on in the world because they possess brains, enterprise, and energy. The success of the Jew makes him an object of envy and hatred to small souls. I am reminded of what Mark Twain once said about the Jews. " If statistics are right," he declared, " the Jews constitute but one per cent, of the human race. This suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the milky way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, and has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extraordinarily out of propor- tion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the list of the world's great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also far away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in this world throughout all the ages, and has done so with his hands tied behind him." That, I suggest, is one explanation: the success of the Jew generates hatred ANTI-SEMITISM 77 of the Jew. The other is the disgust engendered by Jews who fall away from the high moral standard which Judaism demands. I have in mind particularly the disagreeable type of Jewish money-lender. I am fully aware that a case may be made out for money-lending in the present state of the world, but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that there is one branch of this business which is cruel and heartless, which battens on people's misfortunes, and which is the direct negative of the supreme Jewish command: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." I fear that this type of Jew may be found, and we are all ashamed of him. It is he who is responsible for the caricature of the Jew which many people have in their minds. They meet this type, and if there is no corrective, they naturally enough suppose that it represents all Jews. They do not know that the best Jews abhor the money- lender, and regret with all their heart that he exists. I was not surprised to hear the dear old Vicar inter- ject the remark that perhaps I was too hard on this type of man. Were there not also a good many Christians in the undesirable branch of money-lending ? Were they not often far harsher and much more cruel than their Jewish colleagues ? Perhaps, therefore, I was making the Jewish money-lenders accountable for more than was fair. Of course, it is like the Vicar to say this; his kindness of heart is so large and all- comprehensive that he is ready to forgive where most other people see only cause for condemnation. " What should be done to counteract the anti- Jewish campaign ?" asked Davids. " Would it be wise and effective to reply to every charge manufactured by the anti-Semitic London daily and other journals 78 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT of that kidney ? If they accuse Jews of being revolu- tionaries, ought we to show that Jews are nothing of the kind ? If they suggest that Jews should be treated as a sort of second-class citizens, ought we to come out and fight over again the battle for toleration and equality ? For myself, I should be inclined to do so." " No," interrupted Pym. " I think you are utterly wrong. I think it would be absurd to answer the fools according to their folly. If there were any truth in their statements, it might be advisable to answer them, but as their accusations are lies throughout, let them go on preaching and overreaching themselves. After all, remember that truth is great and will prevail." I was inclined to agree with Pym, and I said so. But while I objected to what I might term Jewish apologetics while I thought it beneath our dignity to reply to the accusations of gutter-rags that Jews possess this vice or that, when some of the editors of these very journals are themselves degenerates I did feel that positive work in providing information about Jews would be very much in place. I told my friends that when I was an undergraduate, a very dear chum of mine, a Christian, once asked me in a hushed whisper whether all Jews spoke Hebrew at home. He had evidently got his impression of Jews from the Old Testament. I daresay there are many similar curious notions current about Jews, and therefore I think it would be wise and profitable to publish exact information about Jews their religious ideals, their religious practices, their outlook on life, their contributions to the world's stock of great thoughts and great deeds. That, in my opinion, would be the best answer to the anti-Semitic poison that is being disseminated by those who ought to ANTI-SEMITISM 79 be ashamed of calling themselves Christians. They preach lies; let us present the truth. They preach hate; let us show that Judaism is eminently a religion of love. The Vicar was inclined to agree with me, but he added that one other course should be adopted to check anti-Semitism. The voice of Christendom should be lifted up to condemn what he considered to be a Godless and anti-Christian conspiracy. I was rather struck by the reason he gave for this last suggestion. Anti-Semitism, he said, is a disgrace to Christianity. It is evidence that the soul of Chris- tianity is besmirched. Pure Christianity is incom- patible with teachings of hate, and prejudice, and lies. " Christianity teaches us to love our fellow-men, and I fear," went on the Vicar, " that if the anti-Semites had their way, the bodies of Jews would be hurt, but the souls of Christians would be doomed." Davids, as might have been expected, was sure to have the last word. I must admit, however, that in this instance his point was worth considering. He drew attention to the fact that the activities of the anti-Semites in England were being watched with delight by the anti-Semites in Germany. These for the most part are reactionaries and Royalists anxious to restore the monarchy and the old system in Germany. They greet every new expression of anti-Semitism in England with glee, and hold out the hand of friendship and brotherhood to their allies in these islands. Is not this an unenviable position for a certain daily and a certain weekly publication in London to be in ? There was silence for some minutes. Then Pym spoke. He thought the Jews were perhaps a little too sensitive. " Let Jews lead decent lives," he 8o JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT said. " Let them carry out their duties as citizens in the splendid way they have done up to now, and I, for ray part, have no fear that the anti-Semitic agitation will be able to achieve anything. It will merely stamp its devotees as being what they are a rather undesirable lot who, like empty vessels, are making much noise." I need hardly tell you that the Vicar shared the view. He, too, believed in the ultimate triumph of goodness and truth. ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION IN reflecting upon the vicissitudes of the Jewish people, I have often asked myself whether our claim to have been the most persecuted of men may not perhaps be a little exaggerated. If it should be, we ought ourselves to be the first to say so and put our claim in proper perspective. When you have a good case there is no need to overstate it. In fairness to ourselves and others, I have therefore reviewed in my mind the numerous instances of suffering, of cruelty bravely borne, of persecution and hatred as reflected in the pages of history. I remem- bered that the early Christians suffered for conscience' sake. But that suffering was only for a time, for soon Christianity became the State religion, and Christians turned into mighty persecutors themselves. I recalled the age of the Reformation, with its religious wars and intolerances. I shuddered as I brought to mind how the Catholics burned the Protestants and were burned in turn by them. My heart was chilled as I contem- plated the recorded cruelties of Bloody Mary in England, and the calculated vengeance of the party of those who were her victims on the adherents of her faith. It was all gruesome. But if these horrors lasted a century, even if they lasted two centuries, they came to an end ultimately. Catholics and Protestants settled down side by side in England, and even if in later years the former were subjected to political disabilities, in the first place, the disabilities were re- Si 6 82 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT moved, and in the second, English Catholics could comfort themselves that there were countries in Europe where Catholics were at peace and un- molested. I recalled the lot of the inhabitants of the Low Countries in their grim struggle with Philip of Spain. The record of their sufferings, persecutions, and suffered cruelties is sad reading. But then they were only temporary, and throughout the contest the Nether- landers were buoyed up by the hope of victory. I called to mind other cases the Albigenses, the Unitarians, for instance where men were persecuted for their faith. But the worst illustration cannot compare with the lot of the Jew. The Jew was perse- cuted in all lands and all ages. He is persecuted still. Western Europe was aghast at the sufferings of the Belgians during the German occupation. How mild a thing was that when compared with the sufferings of the Jews in the Ukraine ! With all the desire in the world to be fair to other victims of persecution and injustice, the unprejudiced must conclude that the Jews head the list both for intensity and continuance of suffering. The sufferings of the Jews are reflected in anti- Jewish legislation, which is unique in human annals. There has been legislation against other groups, but it was limited either in time or in place. Not so with legislation against Jews. That has always and every- where been in vogue. Nor is the world free from it yet, despite the clauses in the various treaties of peace safeguarding the rights of minorities. Anti-Jewish legislation has been characterised by non-Jewish thinkers as a disgrace to the history of Europe and as a brand of Cain on Christendom. Will ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION 83 anyone say that these thinkers are not right ? It is only necessary to glance at the anti-Jewish legislation of the Middle Ages to realise its enormity. Jews in those days were under a double disability. They pro- fessed a different religion and they formed a separate ethnical group. They were therefore " heretics " and " strangers." Either disability in the Middle Ages was a heavy burden; the Jews were afflicted with both. As " strangers," Jews were outside the law; their lives and property were at the mercy of all and sundry. Their only hope lay in obtaining by favour or by purchase special charters of protection from the Crown. But the value of such protection is obvious, depending as it did on the whim of a man often brutal, ignorant, and greedy. No wonder the Jews became the actual chattels of their overlords, no better than their horses or their oxen, whom they could sell or pledge. Even so, some comfort might be extracted from such a condition. At least there was the possibility some time or other of being protected from molestation. But if this worldly aspect of their position had this much light in it, little though it was, the position of Jews in Ecclesiastical Law was wholly dark. Jews might not build synagogues ; at most they were allowed only to mend existing structures which threatened to fall into decay. In their Purim celebrations Jews were bidden to do nothing to offend the susceptibilities of Christians, as, for instance, not to burn a wooden cross. If anyone were converted to Judaism, his goods and chattels were confiscated. Intermarriage between Jews and Christians was, of course, a heinous offence in the sight of the Church. But, for a time at least, Jews might adjust their own internal affairs as they chose. It was in the year 553 that the first encroach- 84 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT ment was made on their religious opinions. The Emperor Justinian interferingly bade Jews no longer to recognise the Talmud, which he described as having no divine sanction whatever. This was a piece of impertinence which was warranted not even by the greatness of Justinian as a codifier of laws. But the Jews had to put up with it as they had to put up with so many other indignities. One of the most galling was the special oath administered to Jews in a court of law. It dates from the year 911, and was one of the " glories " of the Byzantine Empire of those days. The Jewish witness with the Sepher Torah in his arms had to declare: " I swear by the Lord, blessed be He, the God of our Fathers, the Maker of heaven and earth, who led us to the Promised Land through the waters of the Red Sea, that I will speak no lies. If I am guilty of hiding the truth, may God afflict me as he did Gehazi and Naaman, may I be cursed with the curse of Eli, and may the ground open her mouth and swallow me up as it did Dathan and Abiram." But at least in the year 911 Jews were allowed to bear witness in a court of law. In the succeeding century this privilege was denied them. Nor was this all. It was ordained by ecclesiastical legislation that Christians should not live or eat with Jews, should not consult Jewish doctors or purchase medicines from Jews; while Jews were not to have Christian nurses, servants, or employees; they were not to appear in public places in Lent; nor might they sue Christians in a court of law. Jews were excluded from all public honours, public duties, and military service, but they had to bear all the burdens of citizenship. Not only were they taxed by the State, but they were also forced to pay tithes. ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION 85 It is intelligible that those days have been styled Dark Ages. Dark they were in one sense, but, in another, specially dark for the Jew. It would be a mercy to be able to look back on them as things of the past. But their spirit has not entirely disappeared. There are still people in Europe who suggest that Jews should be excluded from the full enjoyment of citizenship. It is bad enough to have to listen to such talk in these days of self-determination and universal suffrage. But it is worse to see evidence of it in practice. Recently, the London County Council advertised vacancies on its establishments, but shut out naturalised British subjects from applying. No doubt Jews were in the majority of those who were penalised by this clause. But that is not my main reason for protesting against this narrow-minded policy. I pro- test against it on the far higher ground of justice. I am a Londoner and am taxed by the County Council. As a citizen of our great city I desire to see its work carried out in the spirit of Righteousness. To exclude naturalised British subjects is not Righteous. I protest as a citizen of London; I protest as a Jew. We Jews should be foremost in pleading for Righteous- ness, and in condemning conduct, especially in public life, which is not Righteous. Make it as difficult as you please to acquire British citizenship by naturalisation, but once having made a man a British citizen, do not deny him any of the rights or privileges of citizenship. The County Council levies dues on all alike, whether British-born or naturalised citizens. In all equity therefore all categories of citizens should be eligible for its offices. JEWISH SEPARATENESS OF all peoples the Jews are characterised by their remarkable patient courage. The Jews deserve to remain separate, to continue to be a Peculiar People, a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation. Their very existence is helpful to the world. But apart from that there is the general question of re- taining as much variety among mankind as possible. In this connection it is interesting to recall Humboldt's opinion of " the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity." The war had, in a sense, been a struggle for mastery between the ideal of uniformity as represented by the German, and especially the Pan-German, outlook and that of variety, as propounded by the leaders of the Allied Democracies. These favoured small nations. They realised that each small group had special gifts of its own to contribute to the general stock of the world's possessions. Of these small groups the Jews were perhaps the most distinguished, for their contribution was among the most precious ever made to the human family Religion. Nature, too, has her varieties, whether in the animal, the vegetable, or the mineral kingdoms. Why, in the whole range of the human species there are no two individuals exactly alike. The variety is good; it makes the world interesting and life richer. Therefore local customs, local fashions, dances, music every- thing distinctive should be retained. For the same 86 JEWISH SEPARATENESS 87 reason the individuality of the Jew, and Jewish separate- ness should also be retained. Diversity there should always be, but diversity in co-operation, not in opposition. Just as in a family one may be able to draw, another to sing, a third to dance, each contributing to the sum-total of the family's entertainment, so the diversity of peoples is to be encouraged for the common good of the whole world. In the case of the Jew, his strength and his greatness arose from what he had suffered and from what he had achieved. Recall that wonderful passage which Zunz wrote in regard to Jewish suffering: " If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the nations; if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are borne ennoble, the Jew can challenge the aristocracy of every land; if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say of a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes ?" If Israel has suffered, Christians have been the cause. Jews must be strong to have endured through the ages, despite cruel persecution. They are the result of a natural selection that has been going on for thousands of years. And is it not generally admitted that the Jews have strongly marked intellectual gifts, that their habits are moral, and that on the whole the standard of physical fitness among them is high ? If it be desirable that the world should cultivate a variety of racial types, then the Jew should continue along the lines of his previous development. His life is clean; he cultivates his intelligence; he cares for his children; whatever he does, he does intensely; he is gifted with talent; he is 88 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT an incorrigible optimist; in eating and drinking he knows the virtue of moderation. These are some of his qualities, and they all make for good citizenship. Why ? Because the Jew has an instinct for social relations. He has a sense of the communal ideal. He is kind-hearted, and ready to help the halt, the lame, and the blind. Having suffered much himself, he can realise the sufferings of others. It would be a world tragedy if the Jew were to disappear. For he stands as a reminder of the prophet's message: " Not by power, and not by might, but by My Spirit." The Jews recall the world to the worth of the Spiritual. AS OTHERS SEE US WITH Robert Burns I have often wished to have the opportunity of seeing ourselves as others see us. It came to me when I read the report of Sir Stuart Samuel on his Mission to Poland. This is a document which every Jew should peruse carefully, since it throws a flood of light not only on the lives of three million Jews, but also on the whole Jewish problem. The document may be divided into three parts, Sir Stuart Samuel's report, the separate report of Captain Peter Wright, who was also a member of the Mission, and Sir Horace Rumbold's covering letter. My impression of Sir Horace Rumbold's letter is that it is unnecessarily pro-Polish. There is little doubt that a great wrong was committed in the new State of Poland and that innocent blood was shed. In face of such a crime it matters not who the victims were the only worthy conduct is surely to bow the head in contrition and confess the wrong. It would have been only human if Poles had made an attempt to excuse the evil. But need His Majesty's representative have done so ? Ought he not rather to have taken up an impartial position, merely transmitting the two documents which had been lodged with him ? The documents speak for themselves. Is not this anxiety to make excuses evidence of a guilty conscience ? Who excuses himself accuses himself. Sir Stuart Samuel's report seemed to me business- like and to the point. He was asked to look into the 89 90 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT charges against the Poles of having ill-treated Jews, and he did so, telling the tale of what he had seen and heard in a plain, blunt fashion. It is a tale of which any self-respecting, civilised Government ought to be ashamed. It is a tale which may fittingly be placed beside that of the Germans in Belgium. Sir Stuart's report calls for no special comment. It only shows to what depths the population in certain parts of Europe had sunk. But it is Captain Wright's document that gives one food for reflection. He holds up the mirror to us, showing how others see us. After reading his report I said to myself that Captain Wright, being a fair-minded, cultured English gentle- man, when he found himself face to face with the Jewish problem in Poland, determined to get to the bottom of it. He must have asked himself: How did it arise ? What were its consequences ? To answer these questions you need to go into the history of the Jews in Poland, their religious beliefs, and their economic position. Captain Wright undoubtedly made an effort to do so, and he has unquestionably obtained a certain acquaintance with these things. A mere outsider who can tell you that Yiddish is by no means a debased form of German but a true mediaeval dialect, must have been at some pains to master his subject. A non-Jew who can give a sly dig at the egg that was laid on the Sabbath shows that he knows what he is talking about. Captain Wright also shows a sense of proportion. " Nothing could be more impressive," he says, " than this strange preservation of the old Semitic culture, which is not only older than European civilisation, but is older than the civilisation, Latin or Byzantine, now long extinguished, from which European civilisation AS OTHERS SEE US 91 is itself derived. The ridicule and contempt affected for it by Poles, and many Jews who are not orthodox, is shallow and ignorant." Having seen Bolshevism at close quarters, he realises that it is either ignorance or malice that calls Bolshevism a Jewish movement. Jewish it certainly is not. I also like his reference to Jewish Rabbis in England who " dress like Anglican clergymen, and with a singular want of humour even cease to be called Rabbis, but call themselves Chaplains." This mixture of truth and error marks many parts of Captain Wright's report. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I fear that while Captain Wright has acquired much information about Jews, he has still much to learn. Take his distinction between East Jews and West Jews, which he has derived from German writers, and which forms one of the basic elements in his report. The distinction is true, but it is too narrow. If Captain Wright will make further re- searches he will find that German authors use this distinction not merely for Jews, but for the inhabitants of Europe generally. For them West Europe and East Europe are culturally separate entities. There is a good deal of truth in the contrast. Pass seventeen degrees east longitude and you enter a new world, a world with its own standards of cleanliness, its own ideas of nationality, and its own manners and customs. When Captain Wright states that the orthodox Jews of Poland are not European, he really means West European. When, as he says, he was struck by the remoteness from European life of the orthodox Jews, he means again West European life. He, being a West European, finds the East European world strange and new. But the strangeness and the newness are not 92 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT limited to Jews. They are connected with Hungarians, Slovenes, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Rumanians, Bulgarians and Albanians. The Polish Jews in so far as they differ from West Europeans (and in point of fact they differ in many ways) do so only as one of many ethnical groups. But they have many characteristics which raise their standard of morals and of conduct above their sur- roundings. Captain Wright, while admitting that the Polish Jews have a high standard of cleanliness in food, complains that their standard of personal cleanliness (" in dress and living " are his words) is low. I cannot help feeling that Captain Wright is here either mistaken or prejudiced. He must not judge these people of East Europe from his English standpoint, wherein a daily tub precedes breakfast as regularly as the sun's rising. If he were to do so, our neighbours the French might also have to be written down as possessing a low standard of personal cleanliness. I will say nothing in this connection of the Germans, the Spaniards, or the Italians, all three peoples of West Europe. But will anyone truthfully say that the standard of clean- liness of the Polish Jew is lower than that of the Polish peasant ? For an East European, the Polish Jew has an exceedingly high standard of cleanliness. He washes his hands before every meal most punctiliously. His custom, sanctified by generations of tradition, is to wash his face and his hands every morning before he says his prayers. On Friday afternoon he takes his bath in preparation for the Sabbath. And what of his marital life ? It is the purest and cleanest in the world. What is the picture on the other side ? The Polish peasant is a hind, in personal habits as dirty as the AS OTHERS SEE US 93 beasts whom he follows with the plough. And the upper classes ? I turn to the latest history of Poland by Mrs. Julia Orvis for a description of the Polish nobility. Their vices were gluttony and drunkenness; some of the poorer sort who became retainers of the richer, lived lives which hardly make for cleanliness. " In many houses," she writes, " no rooms or even beds were provided for the majority of the retainers, who slept in the kitchens, on stairways, or in the stables." It is true that these conditions refer to the eighteenth century, but I venture at the guess that the Polish peasant has not changed much in this respect. Under- stand me aright: I am not holding him up to scorn. I recognise that he lives in East Europe and cannot be otherwise. He is the product of his environment. But it is wholly untrue that, compared with him, the Jew's standard of cleanliness is low. The same applies to Captain Wright's consideration of nationality. In West Europe, States contain one nationality and tend to be homogeneous. But in East Europe this is not so. In what was formerly Austria-Hungary there were many nationalities, the Poles being one; indeed, the attitude and policy of the Poles in the old Dual Monarchy should make them more sympathetic towards the attitude and policy of the Jews in Poland. The one is the same as the other. What the Poles demanded of the Hapsburgs, they in their turn, actuated by the noble motives which breathe through the whole conception of the League of Nations, should grant to the Jews. Captain Wright's diagnosis is incorrect. A closer study of the problem of nationality in East Europe must have adequately explained the position of the Jews in Poland. None of these questions, however, touched one as 94 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT closely as that of the persecution of the Jews. Captain Wright admits that the Jews have suffered. But look at the Irish Catholics or the French Protestants, he says in effect. Did not these pass through, the one the captures of Drogheda or the Irish Penal laws, and the other the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the Repeal of the Edict of Nantes ? A curious contrast ! Suppose we grant all that Captain Wright says: Is there not a great difference between the sufferings of the Irish Catholics or the French Protestants on the one hand, and of the Jews on the other ? The Irish Penal Laws and the St. Bartholomew massacre did cease one day. The suffering of the Jews has never ceased. The Romans decimated them; the Crusaders burnt and drowned and massacred; the Inquisition tortured; and, to come to modern days, what the Poles left undone the Ukrainians completed. Jews have suffered as no other people. But more than that. When other peoples suffered, Europe was moved. When there was a massacre in Piedmont, Milton called on God to avenge His slaughtered saints. When the Netherlands was devastated by fire and sword by the ruthless Alva, the inhabitants were comforted at least by the moral support of the English across the sea. When the Belgians were cruelly dealt with by the ferocious Teutonic hordes, Europe and the world cried out in horror, and when the Allies triumphed the Germans were not only held in abhorrence but were compelled to make good what could be made good. But when Jews are foully massacred in Poland, the British Government does indeed send out a Mission of Enquiry, but the diplomatic representative of the British Government excuses the Poles. The attitude of the world to the Jew is often AS OTHERS SEE US 95 puzzling. Cruel, unjust treatment of human beings ought surely to touch the Christian conscience to the quick. The leaders of the Churches might have been expected to raise their voices in condemnation of cruelty to human beings. ^But Jews are mercilessly massacred in East Europe, and never a word is heard in protest on the part of leaders of Christian thought. It is no excuse to say that only 380 Jews were massacred in Poland. Surely the number is not of moment. It is the cruelty of the thing, its inhumanity, its wicked- ness. Nor is it just to find excuses for the massacres. The Jews are Bolsheviks, say some. They are Inter- national Financiers, say others. Both statements are lies. But they salve the conscience of those who are guilty. Captain Wright brings up against the Polish Jews that they are middlemen. Well, there are many middlemen in Great Britain. Much of modern commerce consists of the work of the middleman. There is surely nothing wrong in it. But suppose it is wrong. Why blame the Jew ? It is like giving a man a black eye, and then jeering at him for possessing one. The Jews could not be aught else but middlemen. But in being middlemen they advanced the economic growth of Poland. One is reminded of the old rhyme : " I do not love thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell." And yet the Jew leads a good life; his religion and his ancient customs, which Captain Wright also admires, make him a good citizen, a good father, a kindly friend. He cultivates his mind; his religious practices furnish nourishment for his soul. Why, then, is he plagued by the world ? It is idle to say that his neighbours hate him. They do not. The Polish peasant does not hate the Jew; only Mons. Dmowski eggs him on to do so. The Russian peasant is too 96 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT good-hearted a child of nature to hate anyone; if he participated in pogroms it was because the Russian secret police was behind him. The Conservative Party in England does not naturally hate the Jew; it once followed a Jew as its honoured leader. If to-day its sentiments are anti-Jewish, that is because it is in- fluenced by the hired hacks of reactionary newspapers. Anti- Jewish feeling is artificially generated, and it is a pity that Captain Wright's report may lend itself to the agitators for their gospel of hate. THE GOLDEN AGE IT seems natural that from time to time man should stop to consider whether or no he is getting on and how much further on the Great Road he stands than his forbears. The process means looking backwards, comparing the present with the past. Some there are who, blinded by the material achievements of the twentieth century, burst with pride about our wonder- ful age. There are others who realise, perhaps with a sad heart, that marvellous progress in the realm of technical science appears to be compatible with hatred and cruelty and injustice. After all, these ask, have we progressed in righteousness ? Is Kant really an advance on Plato or Bentham on Buddha ? A shade of pessimism touches these questions. But pessimism is inevitable when the realism of the present is compared with an idealised past. It is worth noting that the ancients pictured the ideal age as having been long, long ago in the childhood of the race, when men were good and simple. The Golden Age was something man had left behind ; he had fallen from it. Probably the Christian Doctrine of the Fall is not unconnected with this fancy. Paradise was lost, and it needed a Saviour to restore man to the state of grace. The Jews have always looked for the Golden Age to the future. " And it shall be in the latter days " how often does this phrase occur in the Bible ! Were it not for this belief passionately held, the Jews might never have been able to resist the onslaught of Christian 97 7 98 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT peoples throughout the ages. The belief appears to have been old; its best expression we owe to the Hebrew prophets. In its earliest form the belief had two aspects one, the recognition of God by all peoples in the world, the establishment of " the Kingdom of Heaven " ; the other, the restoration of the Jews. No doubt in the process of time the two aspects become commingled. Nor is this surprising, when we recall what Jews had to endure throughout their history scorn and hatred, exile and martyrdom. If there was a national side to their hopes, it was ennobled by the universalistic interpretation. There was no desire for empire or domination in the modern sense; only a confidence that the world would accept from the Jews the knowledge of God. Isaiah was the most perfect exponent of the conception in two passages which have become classical. In both he lays stress on the pre- valence of peace in the world. In the golden age swords would become ploughshares and spears pruning hooks, and the art of war would be forgotten. In the famous eleventh chapter the prophet rises to the highest exposition of the Vision of the Future. What are its main features ? A righteous ruler of the stock of David, a world at peace, and the earth full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. It is to this that the Jew has looked throughout the centuries, this that has been his comfort and his hope, this that has made persecution bearable. This is the real Pax Judaica, and Jews rejoice to see that many men and women in Europe are ready to work for its realisation. Needless to say that as the belief in the Golden Age, or the Days of the Messiah, was so prominent in Jewish thought, it received many embroideries. Here was a THE GOLDEN AGE 99 theme where the mystic might run riot. Here was an opportunity to paint the future in rosy colours the more the present was dark and bitter. And so we find legend and allegory woven round the conception in a profuseness which shows how much the subject was in the minds of Jews, especially in the first five centuries of the common era. It was said that in the days of the Messiah the dead would be aroused by a trumpet call and would march to Palestine. Again it was declared that the actual advent of the Messiah would be preceded by mighty wars, in particular the wars of Gog and Magog. When the Messiah came he would, it was said, bring a new Torah. He would also invite all the good of the earth to the great Feast, where the guests would be given portions of Leviathan to eat. And how beautiful would be those days ! What an abundance of spiritual and material bless- ings ! Some of the Rabbis enunciated ten things that would then abound viz., spiritual insight, so vast that it will be possible to heal the sick through its agency; an abundance of water flowing from Jerusalem; rich fruit harvests, so that the trees will renew their fruit each month; the rebuilding of the ruined cities, including also Sodom and Gomorrah; the rebuilding of Jerusalem; peace and love among the beasts of the field; universal love among nations; no mourning and tears; the abolition of death; and the establishment of joy for all mankind. Some of the descriptions of the productivity of Palestine in those days exceed the bounds of reality. Rabban Gamaliel the Second declared that in the Days of the Messiah the Holy Land would produce food and clothing of the finest quality, and that a woman would be de- livered of a child daily. So wonderful would the ioo JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT conditions of life then be that there would be no need to gather in the harvest. The Almighty would send a marvellous breeze which would scatter the fruit of the corn on the ground as flour ready for use. These exaggerations are comprehensible. The darker the present, the more glorious the future was made to appear. Many authorities set their faces against such extravagant sallies of the fancy; one stated categorically that the only characteristic feature of the Messianic age was the end of the dependence on Rome. Perhaps this was the view at the other extreme. Generally it was agreed that the Messianic age would bring redemption to Israel from all his sorrows and trials. The Midrash drives home the lesson by means of a parable. A traveller set out on his journey at dusk. When darkness overtook him one came and brought him a light. But the light did not endure. The traveller proceeded on his journey in the dark, and presently met a second person, who again supplied him with a light. But this was no more lasting than the first, and the traveller, vexed in spirit, cried out : " No longer will I trust to artificial light; I will await the dawn !" The Jews are like this traveller. They lit a lamp in the Temple in the days of Moses, but it was put out. In the days of Solomon they lit a second lamp, and this, too, was put out. Thenceforth they waited for God's light, which would shine forth in the days of the Messiah. In the process of time the cobwebs that wound themselves round the belief in the Golden Age were blown away by the breath of Reason. Pretty they were, as showing a people's hopes. But the kernel has remained intact, and is perhaps best seen in the prayers uttered by Jews on the most solemn days of the year. THE GOLDEN AGE 101 They pray intensely that all God's works may be inspired by the dread of their maker, " that they may all form a single band to do Thy will with a perfect heart." Then the good shall be glad, the upright shall exult, the pious rejoice, and all wickedness shall be wholly consumed like smoke. This is no isolated sentiment. Again and again stress is laid on the same thought, culminating in the following prayer in which all mankind might well join: " Our God and God of our Fathers, reign Thou in Thy glory over the whole universe, and be exalted above all the earth in Thine honour, and shine forth in the splendour and ex- cellence of Thy might upon all the inhabitants of the world, that whatsoever hath been made may know that Thou hast made it, and whatsoever hath been created may understand that Thou hast created it, and whatsoever hath breath in its nostrils may say, ' The Lord God of Israel is King, and His dominion ruleth over all.' ' That is the golden age to which the Jew looks. Its harbinger is the Messiah whom a mother in Israel should bear. " Consider," Joseph Jacobs wrote, " consider what dignity is given to the function of maternity when every Jewish mother may feel the hope that from her may issue one who would restore moral peace to mankind." Moral peace that is the Pax Judaica which the world surely needs in great measure; the moral peace which is to hover over the golden age and give it that most precious of all pos- sessions the Peace of God, with Righteousness and Justice. SAYING KADDISH IT is a custom among Jews for the sons to recite a special prayer, called Kaddish, during the eleven months following the death of either parent, and thereafter on the anniversary of the day of the death. The Kaddish is no " prayer for the dead"; it is a glorification of God's name. Yet the Kaddish is not specifically mentioned either in the Talmud or by Rabbi Joseph Caro in his Code. The first direct record of the Kaddish dates from the earlier half of the thirteenth century. It occurs in Or Zaruah, a work written by Rabbi Isaac, of Vienna, who states: " It is our practice in Eastern Europe and on the Rhine, after the congregation has said the concluding prayer, for an orphan boy to stand up and say Kaddish. But in France they are not so particular; there any child may say the Kaddish. Our practice of allowing only orphan boys to recite the prayer is, however, preferable, on account of the following story:" Here the Rabbi relates the well-known story, as- sociated with Rabbi Akiba, which is found, not in the Talmud itself, but in post-Talmudic collections of legends, notably in the Midrash Tanchuma. Rabbi Akiba, the story goes, one day met a naked man, coal black in appearance, carrying a heavy burden on his head, and running with the speed of a horse. The Rabbi asked the man to stop, and enquired of him why he had to work so hard. " If you are a slave and your master maltreats you, I will purchase your 102 SAYING KADDISH 103 liberty; if you are poor, I will make you comfortable." To him the other replied : " Do not detain me, for those who have authority over me are able to make it hot for me." Whereupon Rabbi Akiba asked the man to be more precise, and the latter declared that he was a ghost, and that each day he was sent forth to collect fuel in which he was himself burnt. The Rabbi was much surprised, and enquired what his occupation had been on earth. " I was a tax-gatherer; I favoured the rich and oppressed the poor. I was guilty of great sin !" " And can nothing be done to relieve you of your punishment ?" the Rabbi asked. To which the other answered: " Relief there is none, save only this: if I had a son who was able to stand before the con- gregation to summon them to prayer, saying 13*13, and the congregation answered ^nn; or if he were to say TtJJV, and the congregation responded PlJ&fc? NPI% 'pifc &O"), I have heard it said that this would bring immediate relief. But I have no son. It is true that when I died I left my wife with child. But even if she has borne a son, there is no one who would teach him, for I left no friends on earth." Rabbi Akiba was moved, and asked the man his name. " Ukba," was the reply. " What is your wife's name ?" the Rabbi further asked. " Susniba," was the answer. " And what is the name of your town ?" " Ludikia." The ghost then fled. Rabbi Akiba journeyed to Ludikia in order to make enquiries. Wherever he mentioned the name of Ukba, the people exclaimed in anger, " May he find no rest, the Evil-doer !" Of Susniba, they said, " May her memory perish from the earth !" As for the boy, Akiba found that he was uncircumcised and ignorant. The Rabbi had him initiated into the 104 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT Covenant of Abraham and taught him Hebrew, so that in due course he was able to read and understand the Prayer Book, and one day he actually stood up and summoned the congregation to prayer in the formula, 13*13! Then he recited TW. That same hour the father found rest, and appearing in a dream before Akiba, thanked him for his kindness. The moral of the story is obvious. Ludikia was a town famous in antiquity for its wickedness. Any of its ordinary citizens would therefore be presumed to be an evil-doer. But Ukba is depicted as an evil- doer of the blackest dye, and his punishment was pro- portionately terrible. Yet even he was released because his son was able to summon the congregation to prayer. The writer wanted to impress on his readers the extraordinary great importance of giving Jewish children a sound Hebrew education. But what of the Kaddish ? Scholars are agreed that the passages in this story relating to Kaddish are later interpolations, and even Rabbi Moses Isserles in his gloss to the Shulchan Aruch states clearly that " to act as Reader of the prayers for the congregation is more effective than to say Kaddish, which was originally intended only for small boys." Such at least is the earliest extant record of the practice of saying Kaddish, and it dates from the first half of the thirteenth century when it was a custom in the Rhineland and East Germany. Before 1306, when the Jews were expelled from France, the practice had spread to Provence and thence to Spain. In Spain, however, it seems to have been accepted only in the circles of those who inclined to mysticism and whose spokesman was Rabbi Bachya ben Asher, of Saragossa. Other great Spanish Rabbis as, for instance, Rabbi Jacob ben Asher, of SAYING KADDISH 105 Toledo who published accounts of the religious rites and practices of their day do not appear to be ac- quainted with the custom that mourners should recite the Kaddish. The practice did not reach Italy until the fifteenth century, and it was not until later still that it became rooted in Africa and the East. But its progress was not easy. In Palestine, for instance, the Rabbis were long opposed to the practice of saying Kaddish on the Jahrzeit of parents. Nevertheless, the custom prevailed and became universal. Another interesting fact connected with the practice is that Kaddish is said for only eleven months of the first year of mourning. Again we touch a piece of mysticism. The Talmud states that the punishment of evil-doers after their death lasts twelve months. Now it seems that at first Kaddish was said for twelve months, but in the sixteenth century the period was reduced by one month in order not to make it appear that a man's parents were regarded by him as evil- doers. It is curious to see how the practice of saying Kaddish has seized upon the imagination of Jews. To most, it is to be feared, the practice becomes a kind of mystery connected with what happens after death. A vague fear of unknown possibilities actuates the living and makes them anxious to have someone to say Kaddish for them when they are gathered to their fathers. Do not we know the pity entertained for a man without sons ? In such a case, sons-in-law, and even daughters, have been known to say Kaddish in order to assure the peace of the departed. Nay, the strength of the mystery is illustrated in an even more striking way when people leave legacies for the purpose of ensuring that Kaddish should be said for io6 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT them on the anniversary of their death. Such an institution is the " Fiirth Kaddish." There is a Jewish Orphanage in Fiirth, and it enjoys a very good income from legacies left to it for the purpose of having Kaddish said by the orphan boys. I am re- minded in this connection of the Kaddish that is recited in the Jewish cemetery at Breslau on the anniversary of the death of " Reb Pheibiish Lassalle." Here, too, a legacy has been provided. Such are the vagaries of religious customs. A story is told to impress on the people the utmost significance of religious training. Its moral is that the glory of Jewish parents are their children who know the meaning of Judaism and live up to its ideals. As an expression of that knowledge was regarded the capacity of the children to say 12*0 or TUJV in the assembled congregation. And, indeed, is it not a joy to parents to see their children giving evidence of their knowledge of Hebrew ? Is it not to a man's glory to have left behind him children learned in the Torah ? Gold and silver and properties no man can take with him when the Great Adventure comes to an end. But worthy children keep alive a man's name. That was the Jewish ideal, and it was expressed in the practice of the saying of Kaddish. Yet how has that ideal been debased ! To-day, even people who cannot read Hebrew spell out the Kaddish from the English transliteration; to-day, those most ignorant of Torah press in the throng of Kaddish reciters. Of course, there is no harm in this. It is perhaps the last thread that binds some to their people and their religion. THE SABBATH IT is a stock argument with certain anti-Semites that the teachings of Judaism facilitate the develop- ment of Capitalist enterprise. Judaism, they say, lays stress on industry, frugality, and morality, and by inculcating these middle- class virtues contributes to the growth of wealth; and then, they continue, where wealth accumulates Capital raises its head. It is difficult to see why, if this doctrine is true, it should be a source of complaint against the Jew. Admittedly the world owes much to Capitalist enterprise, and far from blaming Judaism, the critics ought surely to mete out praise to a religious system which, on their own showing, is friendly to Capitalism, and is, therefore, a boon to the world. But is Judaism friendly to Capitalism ? This theorem has never been satisfactorily proved. Judaism is just as sympathetic to Capitalism as is Protestantism or Catholicism; no more and no less. If Jews succeed in business, so do Scotchmen, so did the Florentines, so do the Greeks, so do the Armenians, so do the English. I believe it is due to their intelligence. Intelligence counts for much in modern enterprise, and the man who is blessed with an abundance of this precious gift is bound to make headway. Jews are accounted intelligent ; they are therefore (on the whole) successful business men where circumstances render them the opportunity. But Judaism as a religious system has little to do with Capitalism. 107 io8 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT One important Jewish institution is a permanent protest against the Capitalist spirit. I mean the Sab- bath, with its appeal for rest and holiness. Rest finds no place in modern business, which demands constant, never-ending activity. The typical Capitalist enter- priser is always on the go; he has no time for rest or for his family. His business dominates him to the exclusion of all other things. He cannot understand, he does not know, the Sabbath spirit, with its insistence on edification, contemplation, and family reunion. In so far then as the Sabbath is a force in Judaism, its influence is opposed to Capitalism. Is the Sabbath a force in Judaism ? The Sabbath is one of the basic foundations of the Jewish religion. The influence of the Sabbath is thus not ephemeral. The Sabbath may be declared to be contemporary with Judaism itself. And as for its importance, the Talmud is definite enough. " The Sabbath outweighs the whole of the Torah," we are informed. It is a " covenant for ever." The Rabbis go so far as to state categorically that even an idol- worshipper, if he truly observes the Sabbath, will find forgiveness at last. Bearing in mind the importance of the Sabbath in Jewish practice, I have often wondered greatly at the curious notions which non-Jews appear to have formed as to its character. The Jewish Sabbath, they believe, is dour, dismal, burdensome; a sort of Calvinist Sunday in Scotland in the seventeenth century as Buckle describes it. When I compare this distorted view with the actual, I am amazed. I recall the Sabbaths of my youth. The Sabbath spirit manifested itself early on Friday afternoon, when my father intoned The Song of Songs in a melody which THE SABBATH 109 conveyed " the murmur of a thousand years." This Jewish love- song is associated in my mind with the Sabbath peace; on the Sabbath I visualise most clearly the pictures of the valley of Sharon, of the apple-groves, of the hillside of Carmel. Restfulness seemed to exhale from this magnificent poem, and to restfulness was added a sort of cheerful gladness, the keynote of which was given by the first verse of the evening service : " Come, let us sing unto the Lord !" The Sabbath lights were lit, shedding a poetic luminance over the whole household. Heine must have felt the true inwardness of the Sabbath when he related that wonderful story of the Prince changed by a wicked fairy into a dog for six days of the week, but becoming a Prince again on the seventh. The Jew was that Prince. For six days he was a dog, spat upon, derided, persecuted (in the mediaeval world this was perhaps grim reality and not mere fancy); on the Sabbath he became a true Prince. Read his Sabbath prayers and see how princely they are. What joy they reveal, what peacefulness of mind they express. " Were our mouths full of song as the sea, and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves, we should still be unable to thank Thee, and to bless Thy Name, O Lord our God !" In the morning PlTfiy joy is associated with Moses, in that of the afternoon with the patriarchs. And what of Psalm civ., chanted in the winter months, what of the Ethics of the Fathers, recited during the summer ? That iO4th Psalm is always associated in my mind with the dim religious light of the late Sabbath days in the winter. A peaceful calm, a restfulness, is its keynote. Then, what of ^1*Q "11*17, heralding the Sabbath's end, what of the n7"Qn giving the day i io JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT its conge ? Poetry amid the prose of modern life that is what the Sabbath stands for. There is no poetry in Capitalism. Despite the elaborate Talmudic regulations as to what might and what might not be done on the Sabbath day, the Jew still lives on that day eats, is clothed, and is warmed. The minute ordinances about work on the Sabbath never stood in the way of the Temple service, nor of circumcision, nor of feeding animals on the Sabbath. Indeed, the principle which is generally known the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath is a pretty good rendering of a Talmudic dictum. There can be little doubt that the institution of the Day of Rest has been of benefit to mankind, that he who first ordained it deserves to be placed on a level at least with the discoverer of fire, or the inventor of money. Mankind as a whole has profited by these things; the last two, being material, require no recommendation; the first, being spiritual, still needs insistence. Who, then, shall insist on it but the Jew, the creator of the world's spiritual values ? And how best to insist on it than by keeping it ? The rush and hurry of modern life is taking on dimensions which are harmful to the higher interests of civilisation. How can High Thinking be practised when men and women are too busy ? How can plain living be accomplished when there is no time for High Thinking ? The world to-day needs both these virtues. Something of the Sabbath spirit in modern life would engender them. Josephus relates that in his day not a city or township in the ancient world but the people there had adopted the Jewish Sabbath. If only the same might be said to-day ! The world needs peace and THE SABBATH in recuperation of spirit more perhaps than anything else. In the material sphere we will continue to make marvellous progress. But the danger is lest material progress bring with it spiritual sterility. Yet as long as the Jewish Sabbath shines out in a tired world, so long is there no need to be pessimistic. "JUSTICE, JUSTICE SHALT THOU PURSUE" A the opening session (some time in June, 1920) of the Commission of Jurists who were charged with making preparations for setting up the Permanent International Court of Justice under the League of Nations, Mr. Leon Bourgeois gave an address which contained one or two fine things. " Peace is simply the stable existence of right," he declared; and he concluded by saying, " We look to you for laws which will assure the perpetuity of the only empire which can know no decadence, the empire of justice, which is the expression of eternal truth." I believe the Jew first realised that justice is the expression of eternal truth. Right through his literature you may trace like a golden thread the insistence on justice, which is usually associated with righteousness. " Justice, justice shalt thou pursue !" The Jew was enjoined actually to pursue justice, to search it out, to make it his own. And what was his conception of justice ? Not legality, not the deserved punishment of guilt or the reward of merit. The ancient conception of justice as a goddess blindfolded, sitting on a throne, with a sword to punish and a pair of scales to weigh evidence, was hardly Jewish. The Jewish conception of justice may, perhaps, be best expressed as just- ness, the quality of doing right, " the harmonious adjustment of all relations that 112 "JUSTICE SHALT THOU PURSUE" 113 comes of a keen and controlling sense of what is right." It is often called *|G?V, fairness. The Hebrew word for charity is Plp"TC. The good man is the pH. In both cases the root idea is that of righteousness, justice, lovingkindness ; and it is easy to see what the Jew understood by justice. The prophets, those great preachers of justice, always defined religion in terms of justice. " Let justice roll down as waters and righteousness as a perpetual stream." " Establish justice in the gate." Both these exhortations of Amos are paralleled by similar views expressed by other prophets. " To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice." And " in the latter day," in the age of perfection, justice would be paramount. The Great Redeemer would be actuated by justice; he would be known as l^pl^ PlliV, " the Lord is our justice." " The work of justice should be peace; and the effect thereof quietness and confidence for ever." Is there not much akin be- tween the sentiments of Isaiah and the view expressed by Mr. Leon Bourgeois ? The world owes its conception of justice to the Jew. The Jew realised its universality. He saw that justice was eternal. He believed with all the passion of his being that it would triumph in the end. I cannot help quoting the words of Mr. Justice Stafford, a man well known and respected in the United States. Speaking of the Jew, Mr. Justice Stafford said, " All things about him were in flux. Races might come and go, empires might rise and fall, but what was right yesterday is right to-day, and will be right to-morrow. There he took his stand. The earth might shake and tremble and the mountain might skip like young rams, but justice would never fail 8 ii 4 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT him, and underneath him were the everlasting arms. God gave him to see, through the things that are ever changing, the things that never change." At the root of the Jewish conception of justice is love. It is because the Jew loved his neighbour as himself that his conduct was guided by the ideal of justice. And at the root of the Christian treatment of the Jew was hate. There is no other explanation of the latest outburst of anti-Semitism. Intelligible in the Middle Ages, that hate is an anachronism to-day. In Hungary, in Poland, in Germany there are sections of the population that hate the Jew. But that it should have extended to this country is deplorable. The Morning Post must apparently hate somebody ; if it is not the Irish it is the Jews. But the Spectator should surely know better. Its arguments that Jews should be removed from the Administration can only be rationally explained by Jew-hatred. Hate is begotten of narrowness; and to find the Spectator spitefully narrow is a disappointment. " There is something peculiar about national hatred: you will always find it strongest and most violent in the lowest stages of civilisation." Goethe's remark to Ecker- mann will be entirely lost on the Morning Post, but the Spectator will surely appreciate its inwardness. Here let me quote another fine passage from Mr. Stafford. " No people," he says, " were ever oppressed like these people. No people were ever so persecuted, so trampled upon, so prostrate. Yet none has triumphed so magnificently. Israel's ideal of justice has taken permanent possession of the human mind. Torn asunder by faction, driven from his country, scattered to the four winds of heaven, scourged up and down the highways of the " JUSTICE SHALT THOU PURSUE " 115 world, stretched upon the rack, burned at the stake, massacred by the hundred thousand, a wanderer friendless and homeless through the centuries, despised by the world he was liberating from its idols, Israel has stamped his ideal of justice on the human con- sciousness itself, and lives in every upward movement of the race. I do not forget what other races have contributed to the common store Athens and Italy their sense of beauty, Sparta and Rome their love of discipline and order, Gaul and Germany their zeal for liberty, England and America their ever- blessed union of liberty under law. I do not forget what your gifted race has wrought in other ways in war and statecraft, in music, art, poetry, science, history, philosophy but, compared with the meaning and majesty of this achievement, every other work you have accomplished, every other triumph of every other people sinks into insignificance. Give up every other claim to the world's gratitude before you surrender this : The world owes its conception of Justice to the Jew." Not a word of comment is needed. But if the world owes its conception of justice to the Jew, the least the world can do for the Jew is to mete out justice to him. It is often said that Jews are too sensitive about themselves. When, for example, the accused in a police court is described in the press notices as a Jew, we feel aggrieved and hurt. Some of our friends tell us that this feeling is uncalled for. I venture to differ. It is not over- sensitiveness; it is an intense, passionate feeling of justice. We demand justice. All offenders in police courts are not further described either as to their religion or their race. It is, therefore, unjust to single out Jews ii6 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT in this way. Again, it is a monstrous injustice to accuse all Jews of Bolshevism because some Jews are working with Lenin. For the moment, I am not concerned with the true nature of Bolshevism. It may be a good thing or an evil. But surely Jews have as much right as non- Jews to hold opinions and to strive to realise them. One does not write down I the whole of the English people as murderers because ICrippen was a murderer. It would be not merely ludicrous to do so, but unjust. And it is because of the injustice that Jews very properly object to being labelled this or that on account of individual Jews. Jews want only fair treatment. They ask for no favours or privileges; only for justice. They have borne their persecutions as best they could; but after twenty centuries of progress they have a right to demand just treatment. Their appeal is " Justice, justice shalt thou pursue !" and not merely in the narrow sense. They desire to see justice established in the world; to see justice and peace kiss each other. The Jew hates injustice wherever he sees it. The Jew, therefore, is in the van of all progressive move- ments, in all movements that desire to ameliorate the lot of suffering humanity. For that reason Jews are eminently charitable. It will be found, to take a small matter, that though among the lesser religious bodies in London, the Jewish collections for the Hospital Sunday Fund are pretty high up in the list. No wonder Tews have been called merciful sons of merciful . sires. Their charity springs from their love of justice, and those are surely blind prophets who fear that in Palestine the Christians or the Arabs will be deprived of their rights. The Jew's innate sense of justice is I sufficient guarantee not merely that those rights will I "JUSTICE SHALT THOU PURSUE" 117 not be curtailed but that they will receive proper consideration. Justice is the master-key to all our human problems whether political or social. It is because hate and not love dominates policy at present that Europe is threatened with disruption. It is because hate and not love dominates policy that justice does not come into her own. " Much it grieved my heart to think what man has made of man." Some im- provement there has been in the hundred years that have elapsed since Wordsworth uttered this thought. But there is room, much room, for still further improvement. This will come only when the Jewish ideal of Justice prevails. " Justice, justice shalt thou pursue !" ALMIGHTY GOD HOW much of human thought and human feeling is summed up in the word God! From the dawn of history down to this very day, mankind has clung to the conception. How much good and how much evil have been wrought in the world in God's name ! Of the evil, the Jews have been made to experience a goodly share; yet throughout they have remained steadfast in their devotion to God. Theirs has been, as it still is, as pure a conception of the divinity as the human mind can grasp. God is a spirit ; God is a unity. " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One !" That is the first ex- pression of faith taught to Jewish children; it is the last utterance of the Jew as he passes from the world. God is so precious a conception that the Jew does not trust himself to utter its name. As Josephus informed his contemporaries : " God revealed His name to Moses, but we are not permitted to speak of it." Only in the Temple service was the name of God expressed; otherwise it was hedged about by circumlocutions. " The Lord," *J1tf, was the principal of these; but when it came to be specially connected with prayer, even that was avoided in ordinary conversation. Other circumlocutions came into vogue, and they show how the Jew regarded God. The commonest of these was merely D?p| i.e., the Name. But there were others. The all-powerfulness of God was expressed 11* ALMIGHTY GOD 119 in the term mttJ; his holiness by N1PI "T-Q E>nDPl; the extent of his dominions by D'D>; the respect due to him by D'fifi? HXT; his all- presence by DIpDH. But though God's name was thus hedged about, the Jew believed in the close proximity of God to man. God dwells in the heavens above, but with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. The Jew realised, and helped the world to realise, that God is in Nature. " Lift up your eyes on high, and see : Who hath created these ?" " The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork." The Jew held this as a conviction, and not as the result of philosophical speculation. Possibly he knew it instinctively. Indeed, the Talmud does not encourage speculation as to the how and the wherefore of the universe; the Rabbis condemned too much thinking about JWK"Q Pl^yfc. " He who enquires too deeply about four things would best not have come into the world at all, and they are these: What is above, what is below, what before, and what after ?" It is not surprising, therefore, that the Talmud contains but little detailed information about the Creation. One illustration, however, is interesting. It is suggested that the world was established on a single stone, its pivot as it were, and that the stone in question was deposited in the Temple, and called the Foundation Stone of the World, PTW JIN- Clearer is the opinion as to why the world was created. It was created because of man. And only one man was first created. Why ? Jewish thought, with all its naivete on the subject, is worth recording. Only one man was created in order that every in- dividual may say, " I am responsible for the moral 120 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT progress of the world." Only one man was created in order that the nations might not fight with each other, saying, " Our founder was greater than yours," or " Our race is older than yours." Nor is the Jewish conception of God narrow. Wherever man's traces may be found, there also you will find God. But above all, the Jew has a boundless faith in the Love of God. "Could we with ink the ocean fill, Were every blade of grass a quill, Were the world of parchment made And every man a Scribe by trade To write the love Of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor would the scroll Contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky !" So wrote a Jewish teacher about the middle of the eleventh century, and he was expressing a sound Jewish trait. The Jew regards God as Father and King. " Our Father, our King, have mercy upon us !" The idea of God as King necessarily implies the Kingdom of Heaven, which lasts to all eternity. By accepting the Torah at Sinai, Israel accepted the Kingdom of Heaven. But God is also the good Father. The Pater Noster, the great prayer of Christians, is thoroughly Jewish in sentiment. It was in existence before Jesus; indeed, it is Biblical. " Beloved are the Israelites, for they are called the children of God." And even when they are foolish or wicked or full of faults they are still children of God so a pretty fancy is expressed in Rabbinic literature. Being children of God, men may appeal direct to their Father in heaven. Here we touch on a point of difference between Judaism and Christianity. Jesus undoubtedly spoke ALMIGHTY GOD 121 of God as Father, but he appeared to convey the '/' impression that God was in a special sense his father. " Neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and to whomsoever the son willeth to reveal Him." Judaism could never countenance such a claim, for Judaism teaches a much more universal relationship between God and man. All men may call on the Father; all are enjoined to love God with heart and soul and being. And if God is a loving Father to all mankind, all that He does must be well done. So the Jew became an optimist. Like Abiba, he said on all occasions : All that the Lord hath done is for the best. Nay more. The Talmud declares that a man is in duty bound to thank God for the bitter things of life no less than for the sweet. Moreover, if God is the good Father of man, man should obey His behests ^ with love. There is a curious old-world passage in Rabbinic literature on this point. " Say not," we \ are told, " I have no desire to wear mixed textiles, to eat pig's flesh, or to commit adultery. But say ? rather, I really do desire these things, but I am deter- \ mined to do without them out of love for my Father in Heaven !" Religion in this sense spells obedience; not, however, the blind obedience of the slave who trembles at the thought of his master, but rather the willing obedience of a child which loves its parent dearly. Never was the Jewish conception of God narrow. The Jewish God is not tribal. " For we bend the knee and offer worship and thanks before the supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, who stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth." Yet, despite God's grandeur, man holds intimate communion with Him. The Psalms 122 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT are possibly the best illustration of that divine and human intimacy. Post- Biblical literature may well compare with the Psalms in this respect. The pity is that it is not widely known. I have often wished that a collection of later Jewish prayers, hymns, and poems might be issued. Mrs. Henry Lucas' Jewish Tear is, however, a good instalment, containing as it does many renderings of the great mediaeval poets. But one need not go to literature, the expression and mirror of life; one will find ample evidence of God's nearness to man in Jewish life itself. Hearken to the talk of a pair of average Ghetto women on affairs of every day. God is in their minds constantly; con- stantly they desire His blessing or His help. And how touching the Yiddish circumlocution for God : " Ic h habe die Hdnde nicht gewaschen /" What a mixture of love and respectful dread ! Truly Rabbinic Writ declares that love and fear are only commingled when one thinks of God. " HALLOWED BE THY NAME " THE Pater Noster, or the Lord's Prayer, is quite wonderful in its way; and its brevity is striking. It begins with praise of God, recognises His supremacy as the greatest Good, and pleads for sus- tenance for the body and the soul. All Christians, be their doctrines and churches never so different, are united in their use of the Pater Noster. It is the first prayer taught to children; it is recited alike by the cultivated West European and the converted African negro. In a word, it is one of the gems of Christianity. But the Lord's Prayer, both in wording and senti- ment, is wholly Jewish. Practically every phrase of the Pater Noster has a Jewish source. 1. Our Father which art in heaven. A touching invocation which every Jew will at once recognise as D*/DE?3fc? I^IK. The phrase occurs in a special prayer recited during the synagogue services on Mondays and Thursdays before the Scroll is returned to the Ark. It will be found on p. 69 of Singer's Prayer Book, and if ever you have heard it chanted in that doleful tune which is associated with the passage, you will agree that it is a musical treasure of great value. 2. Hallowed be Thy Name. How often is this recited at Jewish services : T1JJV fcttl HW BHpJVl (" Magnified and sanctified be his great name "). 123 i2 4 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT 3. Thy Kingdom comerCT\^^ T^DI (" May he establish his Kingdom "). 4. Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth. A near approach to this in the Prayer Book is Nin nnnD pxn Sxn SMD& own D'nStfn (" He is God in the Heavens above and on the earth beneath "). But there is a passage in the Talmud which runs the Pater Noster very close. It is a prayer of Rabbi Eleazar, in these terms : " Do Thy will in heaven above, and on earth grant tranquillity of spirit to those who fear Thee, and do what seems good in Thy sight. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who nearest prayer." 5. Give us this day our daily bread. In the form of a statement the Prayer Book has : 1BO W? DH7 jntt KIP! (" He giveth food to all man- kind "), and in the form of a supplication : 13T17N ttWttl UW-IS 1M1T UXn W3K (" Our God, our Father, feed us, nourish us, sustain and support us "). 6. And jorgive us our trespasses as we also have forgiven those who trespass against us. This is a daily supplication of the Jew: 137 I17D UNDn *3 WIN (" Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned "). 7. And bring us not into temptation. This likewise is one of the daily prayers : tf7 13JO1H 7fcO [VD3 H'7 K71 KDH H'S. (" Bring us not into the power of sin ... or of temptation.") 8. But deliver us from evil. sn -anai *n "HALLOWED BE THY NAME" 125 (" And let not the evil inclination have sway over us ; keep us far from a bad man and a bad companion.") The world owes the Jew a debt of gratitude for this beautiful and simple prayer, which shows perfect trust in God, which is free from any theological difficulties, and which even a child can say with understanding. The introduction to the prayer, " Hallowed be Thy Name," is an enunciation of one of the most vital principles of Jewish thought. To hallow God's name is, and ought to be, the governing consideration in the Jew's conduct. A mere mechanical observance of ceremonial or recitation of prayers cannot be of much real value. It is essential that the idea of hallowing God's name should suffuse ceremonial and prayer. Otherwise religion loses its efficacy. Again and again we can see Jews who are punctilious in their religious duties, who do not omit one jot or tittle of traditional practice, but who of Q^H GPITp, of sanctifying God's name, know nothing, or they do not care. On the contrary, their daily conduct conduces to the very opposite, to Dfc^Pl /ITPl. In the opinion of the best Jewish thought, there can be no greater evil than this. One Talmudic teacher goes so far as to assert that even the worship of idols is not so heinous an offence as the desecration of God's name. A very high religious principle is involved. A man may do good and be good for moral reasons. But he may also give his conduct an added value by desiring to honour his parents. To do good for its own sake is excellent; to do good in order to show honour to his parents is still more excellent. Most excellent of all, however, is it to do good in order to sanctify God's 126 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT name. It has, indeed, been claimed that this is one of the noblest conceptions in the world's religious thought. " Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord, thy God, am holy." Is it not wonderful that man should be able to sanctify God, who is the acme of holiness ? " God, the Holy One, is sanctified by righteousness," says Isaiah. ETIQUETTE ONE of my favourite passages in the Bible is the answer of the Shunammite to Elisha. She had been hospitable to the prophet and he wished to show his gratitude. So he called her and asked what he could do for her. " Wouldest thou be spoken for to the King, or to the captain of the host ?" Her reply was touchingly simple: " I dwell among mine own people." I am glad to think that this answer, which has always been the cry of modern social re- formers, should have come from the mouth of a mother in Israel. Since Jewish ethics are social ethics, since Jews taught the world that grand lesson love thy neighbour as thyself it is not surprising that Jews have the social sense strongly developed. It shows itself throughout all their literature, and is best seen in Jewish rules for social intercourse. I have made a collection of these, and the first on my list is indeed cheering: " He who is beloved on earth may be sure that in Heaven also he is beloved." This dictum is paralleled by that of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, who used to say, " He in whom the spirit of his fellow- creatures takes delight, in him also the spirit of God takes delight." Now, how can you become beloved on earth ? You need only be essentially human; and you will find abundant guidance to this end in the old rules of Jewish etiquette. " Do not be different from your surroundings," we read in one place; and in 127 128 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT another the advice is elaborated. " Do not laugh when you are among those who weep; do not be sad when you are in the midst of those who are merry; sleep when others sleep, and be awake when others are awake; do not stand when the rest are sitting, and do not sit when others are standing." The con- sideration throughout is for your fellow- man, for, as old Ben Soma was fond of saying, " Who is honoured ? He who honours others." The Talmud teaches quite definitely that human society is, as it were, one great body possessing many limbs each of which assists the rest. Ac- cordingly, if a man's heart is laden with sorrow, let him ease himself by showing his grief to others, saying at the same time, " Heaven shield you from such a burden." In joy and in sorrow man cannot be alone; he needs his fellows to share the one and to aid him by comfort in submitting to the other. The Jew is therefore advised to go with the throng. " If you move from a place where people do not fast to one where they do, you should fast with your new neighbours." Here is sound consideration, if you like. And yet there are shallow- minded mischief- makers who have the temerity to declare that the Jew is a revolutionary ! Your revolutionary wants to break up society; the Jew has always striven to consolidate society. He is bidden, in the words of Hillel, to love all mankind. Is it not significant that the following legend is Jewish ? When the hostile Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, the angels wanted to break out into a song of joy and gratitude. But God Almighty chid them, saying, " My handiwork is destroyed, and you would sing !" It is only in accord with this spirit that the Talmud ETIQUETTE 129 declares, " Your neighbour's honour is the greatest thing in the world." What follows ? That con- sideration is due to the general good sense of the community, and so a man should be careful of his gait and his garments. Rabbi Jochanan indeed said, " My raiment that is my dignity." In another place the Talmud lays it down that " a man should sell the beams of his house to buy shoes withal for his feet." Again, what is the motive ? Surely it is not to hurt people's susceptibilities. The same idea must also underlie the saying, " He who eats in the open thoroughfare is like a dog." The Jew who lived in accord with his ancient code of etiquette was particular to give honour where honour is due. " In entering a house let the worthier go first, in leaving it let him go last; in going upstairs let him once more go first, but in going downstairs last." " If three people walk together the worthiest should be in the middle." There is a sense of justice in these rules of etiquette, a sense of justice which is perhaps often exaggerated, but which bears testimony to a proper spirit. Again and again it has seemed to me that the rules of Jewish etiquette are based on intense care to respect people's feelings. When callers come remember Shammai's favourite sentence, " Receive all men with a cheerful countenance." " When you are paying a call, be careful to announce your visit." " Wait for an invitation to be seated, and do not sit down until the worthier man has a seat." " When you are in company, don't lean back on your chair in a lolling fashion." I cannot help recalling in this connection the characterisation of the wise man that is, the well-bred man in the Aboth. " The wise man does 1 30 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT not speak before him who is greater than he in wisdom, he does not break in on the speech of his companion, he is not hasty to answer, his questions and his answers are to the point, and he deals with the matters at issue in their proper order, with the first first, and with the last last, he does not mind confessing his ignorance, and he admits the truth of a thing." Another piece of advice is added in another place: " When you address your remarks to anyone, call him by his name." Table etiquette is a sphere by itself, and is full of interest. To begin with, it is bad manners for the invited guest to bring with him another uninvited. And when you are sending out invitations, do not invite one who may be expected to reply with a refusal. " As a guest it is your duty to submit yourself wholly to the wishes of your host." Evidently the host enjoyed mighty respect. " Do not give food to one of the children or to the servants without the express permission of the host." Curious is the rule about wine. " To gulp down the glass in one go is greedy; to do so in three pulls is the mark of the fop ; the proper way is to take two sips, drinking half in the first and the other half in the second." In any event, " do not drink as soon as the wine is poured out ; it is manners to wait a little." I like the rules about parting from friends. Parting is a serious affair, and should be seriously performed. Friends should not part from each other with a jest, but rather with a weighty matter to occupy the mind or with a blessing. Of such parting gifts the Talmud has many instances. Let me quote one: " When Rab once took leave of Rabbi Simon ben Chalafta, he said to the son of his host : * May you ETIQUETTE 131 never be shamed and may you never shame others !' ' Do you see the depth of meaning in this wish ? Do you observe how the speaker was actuated by a true love of his fellows ? No less so was the author of the quaint advice as to the formula to be used in bidding a friend depart in peace. Say rather T? ftbwh and not Dl^l *]S. And why? Both mean the same. But Jethro used the first form in taking leave of Moses, and Moses prospered, while David adopted the second form in bidding farewell to Absalom, and Absalom came to a bad end. The mention of peace reminds me of the in- numerable sayings of the Talmudic teachers about peace. Let me quote one that springs easily to my memory. " It is written, Seek peace and pursue it. That is to say, seek to establish peace in your own town, and pursue it in order to set it up also in the next." Peace appears very frequently in the rules of etiquette, and the principal rule may be expressed thus : " It is a man's duty to inculcate the spirit of peace into all the members of his house- hold." The reason follows. Not only does peace make a happy life possible, but if there is no peace a bad example is set to all the neighbours. Besides, peace takes precedence over all things else in the world. What an appropriate motto for the League of Nations ! IN PRAISE OF WORK 1HAVE once more been reading Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olive, and have again been enchanted by his wise words on work. Every time I read that lecture I marvel at the earnestness of the man. I recall with pleasure his distinctions becween those who work and those who play; between those who produce the means of life and those who consume them; between those who work with the head and those who work with the hand; and between those who work wisely and those who work foolishly. And then there is Ruskin's characterisation of wise work as being honest, useful, and cheerful. Throughout his discourse he is preaching true religion, the religion of which the world stands so much in need to-day. Our age is perhaps too material; our trouble is that spiritual progress has not kept pace with material progress. Honest, useful, cheerful work was never so necessary as at present. The world has become impoverished by the war; huge quantities of the world's wealth of things that have value, that minister to human wants have been destroyed, and in order that the loss may be made good, it is necessary to work harder than before, and, if we are to follow Ruskin, to work wisely. This is one of the world's problems to-day; and its solution calls for the co- operation of every inhabitant of the globe. I always like to consider the attitude of Judaism to great world problems. As a Jew, I desire to find 132 IN PRAISE OF WORK 133 guidance in Jewish teaching: and I ask myself, there- fore, what does Judaism say about work ? In the ancient world work was considered as being beneath the dignity of a free man, and was left to be done by slaves. This was the opinion not merely of the crowd, but of the leading thinkers, and it would seem that even Aristotle shared it. According to the best Christian authorities, early Christianity also tended to despise work, to look upon it as an unavoid- able evil; while later, the doctors of scholasticism came to look upon work as a punishment, necessitated by the Fall of Man. This was also Luther's view. But Judaism regards work in a very different light. In Jewish teaching the world as God's handiwork is good; life on earth is good; and man's duty is to live life to its fullness " as ever in his great Task- master's eye." Life should be hallowed, and all that life offers should be enjoyed in gratitude as a gift of God. In this view work is a natural occupation of man, who was created not for selfish enjoyment or for idle meditation. Among the oldest Jewish traditions occurs the account of the planting of the Garden of Eden, into which Man was placed " to work and to guard it." That tradition has been continued through Jewish literature from the first page of the Bible, where God Himself is described as a worker : " On the seventh day He rested from all His work which He had made." The Bible has scores of other references in praise of work, of which perhaps the pleasantest is the Psalmist's blessing, " If thou eat of the work of thy hands, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee." In describing the courses of nature the writer of the iO4th Psalm refers as an ordinary process of life to 134 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT man going forth to his work and to his labour until the evening; while wise Koheleth preaches a truth that comes of experience, " Sweet is the sleep of the labouring man." The Rabbis continued the tradition. " Glorious is labour," said Rabbi Judah, " for it lends dignity to man." Certainly those of the Talmudic Fathers who were themselves labourers did not suffer in dignity. Very many of them earned their livelihood by some form of work. For we find that Rabbi Jochanan was a sandal- maker, Rabbi Isaac a blacksmith, Daniel a tailor, Abin a carpenter, Judah a baker, and Rav Papa a brewer. According to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, Adam was positively pleased when God Almighty indicated to him that he would obtain the fruit of the earth only by working in the sweat of his brow. " Love work," Shemaya, Abtalion's friend and Hillel's disciple, calls to the Jew through the ages; while another Talmudic admonition urges the slacker not to be too proud to work. Equally characteristic is the dictum : " If you are guilty of theft, go and steal no more, but work." For " idleness is the mother of sin," and " he who lives by the work of his hands is greater far than he who fears God." Work is put by the Rabbis on an equality with the Torah; the one as the other, they taught, is a bond between God and man. The old Jewish ideal still lives, and if a people's proverbs are a window into its soul, Jewish popular sayings about work are significant. One of the oldest is, Work is blessing. Jews think so still, and whenever an opportunity offers they seize upon it to give up trade for handicraft. When, for example, in 1849 Jews in Austria were permitted to engage in handicraft, IN PRAISE OF WORK 135 numbers gave up their little shops and went on to the land as agricultural labourers. It is the same to-day. Directly there was a prospect of settling in Palestine, Jews, and particularly young Jews, of Eastern Europe left commerce for industrial callings which they began to learn in order to practise in the Holy Land. Nor is this something new. Jews have always been devoted to work, and as long as they were permitted engaged in handicraft. We have it on the authority of Benjamin of Tudela, that great traveller, that in his day Jews were dyers, silk manufacturers, glass workers, and leather dressers. During the Middle Ages there were Jewish gold and silver smiths, printers, bakers, wine manufacturers, and even miners. In view of this list, the anti- Semitic accusation that Jews are drones and non- producers must be proved to be malicious. To assert that in the modern world the trader is a useless member of the body economic is to show but a superficial understanding of the economic aspect of modern life. Even if all Jews were traders and merchants, it would be incorrect to dub them drones. But in point of fact Jews number very many craftsmen. To-day there are Jewish tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and railway workers ; while Jews are not unknown among navvies : a goodly number of the labourers on the Panama Canal were Jews. From the earliest times Jews held bodily work in high esteem. The Jewish ideal was well put by Maimonides in a letter to a correspondent : " A single coin earned by one's own manual labour is worth more than the whole revenue of the Prince of the Captivity, seeing that this is derived from the gifts of others." Nor is the Jew unmindful of the value of wise work, 136 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT in Ruskin's sense. Perhaps one of the most cheering items of news that comes from Palestine to-day is that the Jewish road- builders are performing their work exceedingly well; they show that they possess stamina and the capacity for turning out honest work. It is good to think that Jewish muscle is literally making the highways of the New Palestine. Moreover, if Jews have passed the test of what Ruskin calls wise work in this, its most difficult field, it follows that they will be able to perform wise work throughout. The Jewish Home in the Holy Land can only be built up by work of this kind honest, useful, and cheerful. In modern economy society needs commodities and services of all kinds, and there is room for the trader, the craftsman, and the professional man. In Palestine there will be scope and need for all three, and in the Jewish revival it is to be hoped that the old, noble, Jewish conception of work will be accepted by all alike. Palestine will be rebuilt not by talking but by working; and the keynote of the Palestinian revival will be furnished by Shemaya of old, who bade the Jews to love work. PEACE IS it not significant that Peace is the Jewish greeting ? It might be argued that the Jew has suffered so much at the hands of persecutors that he knows instinctively the value of peace. But this thought is hardly adequate. The Jew's appreciation of peace reaches back beyond the Diaspora. It was a Jewish prophet who set forth for all time the true vision of peace, when nation should not lift up sword against nation, and when the knowledge of God and the sense of brotherhood which it generates should fill the earth even as the waters cover the sea. Peace may be said to be one of the very highest ideals of the Jew. The Priests' Blessing culminates in peace; it is as though the Divine Messenger wished to lead up to the highest rung in the ladder of blessing. The Lord bless thee, the Lord keep thee, the Lord make His countenance to shine upon thee all for what ? For peace. It is only to be expected that a people professing the belief in the unity of God and in its corollary, the unity of man, should inscribe peace on its banner as its watchword and its hope. It is only natural that a religion which preaches Righteousness should plead for peace " And the work of righteous- ness shall be peace " peace between nations, peace between individuals, and that greatest peace of all, peace in the soul. 138 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT Throughout history the Jews have been the pro- tagonists of peace between nations. The Hebrew prophets depicted the ideal state of the world as one of universal peace, when every man should sit under his fig-tree and his vine, " and none shall make them afraid." No doubt it is the destructiveness of war that appalled the Jew. The Jew regards human life as sacred; war esteems human life but lightly. The two therefore can never be in harmony. Even in the very earliest epochs of the people's history, in times that are usually termed primitive, when warfare was perhaps inevitable, the Jew was bidden to negotiate before fighting. " When thou drawest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it." How much human misery might have been avoided through the last twenty centuries if this simple injunction had been observed. " Proclaim peace unto it !" It is difficult in passing not to express satisfaction that in the last great European war it was an English statesman whose name will go down to history for having attempted to carry out this Jewish policy. It was Viscount Grey who urged the statesmen of Europe " to press the button for peace." His words fell on deaf ears. Europe was not yet sufficiently educated to put into practice a simple Jewish ordinance. Some people declare that, con- sidering the educational ideals of Europe, this inability to appreciate the worth of peace is only too intelligible. Consider that for the last five hundred years the best schools of Europe have taught their pupils the literature of the Greeks and Romans. Now there is very much that is lovely, much that is of good repute, much that is beautiful and wise in the Roman and Greek classics. PEACE 139 You will find in them excellent law and excellent philosophy, sound statecraft and wonderful oratory. But there is smoke in the flame. The Latin and Greek classics are infected with the spirit of war. In the ancient world war was looked upon as a necessity and a school of virtue: both Plato and Aristotle in their ideal commonwealth provide for war. Now what are you to expect from a system of education which in its highest aspects is moulded by a war- infected literature ? Here is one, at least, of the differences between Judaism and Heathendom. The former stood for peace, the latter for war. The Jewish view was well expressed by Rabbi Simon ben Gamliel, who declared that peace is one of the pillars of the universe. Observe also that Jeremiah bade the Jews pray for the peace of the city wherein they dwelt. The Jew is the Great Pacifist of History, and it is as well to lay stress on this fact in an age that is slowly beginning to realise the utter uselessness and the extreme wickedness of war. Here and there there may still remain some die-hards of the creed of force, but the best thought in Europe and America to-day is against war. If a plebiscite were taken to discover the feelings of the masses, the result would show that the millions are for peace. Jewish teaching will yet be held in honour by the world which is even now ready to utter the Jewish prayer with a fervour that comes of suffering " May the Lord grant us Peace !" It is only fitting, it is only in accord with our best traditions, that Jews should be foremost in each country among the supporters of the League of Nations Union. The Jews' love of peace extends to peace between 140 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT men. The Rabbis taught, supporting their precept by example, that it is the duty of a man to be first in greeting his fellow-man, whether that fellow- man be Jew or Gentile. Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai is specially commended for the practice of this virtue, one which is thoroughly in accord with Jewish ideals. If to love your neighbour as yourself is the principal precept of Judaism, it follows that to live at peace with your neighbour must be the highest aim of all human intercourse. " Behold ! how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity !" The Talmud in one place actually asserts that the maintenance of peace between men weighs up the whole of the Torah. In another it relates a story to drive home the same moral. A Rabbi, we are told, once met the prophet Elijah in the market-place of a town, and, falling into conversation with him, asked him, among other things, who in the crowd were the most worthy people. To the surprise of the Rabbi the prophet pointed out two insignificant-looking individuals who outwardly appeared to possess no marks of dis- tinction. The Rabbi questioned them, and dis- covered that they spent much of their time comforting mourners and making peace between those who fell out. Elijah assured the Rabbi that these two were certain of the blessedness of the world to come. In a third place the Talmud makes God Almighty say that so great is the virtue of peace that even if the Israelites serve idols, as long as there is peace among them He is powerless to punish them. Judaism abhors the savagery of war, since war is a negation of morality. Judaism pleads for peace in all human intercourse, whether between nations or PEACE 141 individuals. It is only crowning the structure of the Temple that Judaism gives those who live in accord- ance with its highest teaching that wonderfully precious gift inward peace. Truly the prophet said : " There is no peace unto the wicked." Is not the whole striving of men and women only to attain to that peace of the soul without which life would be unbearable ? We run to and fro in the earth seeking this cult and that in the hope of obtaining inward peace. In the Middle Ages men found this treasure in the monastic life. But Judaism does not encourage its devotees to withdraw from the world in order to save their souls. On the contrary, it insists on their saving their souls in the world and its work. But it provides guidance to this end, and those who shape their life according to the demands of their religion show in their countenance that they have found inward peace. Many of the old-fashioned Jews and Jewesses knew what it was to feel the peace of God when the Sabbath came. The work of the week was done; it may have been hard but this was ample reward. God was very near then, and the visible evidence of the inward peace reminded one of the calm of a summer evening in the country, the calm that Goethe must have felt when he wrote Ueber alien Gip/eln ist Rube, or Christina Rossetti when she penned those wonderful lines beginning, " O pleasant eventide." I am convinced that if we moderns completely lived our Judaism we should be in the highest sense of the term good citizens and good neighbours, and we should find that spiritual gift precious above all else in life the peace of God, of which Mrs. Alice Lucas has sung so well : 142 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT " Most blessed is, beyond compare, The peace of God. A crystal stream that softly flows, A shelter when the storm wind blows, A star, whose light for ever glows. The path we trod So wearily, grows perfect fair When heaven's own messenger is there The peace of God." " THE HAPPY WARRIOR " (JEWISH VERSION) A i often as I read Wordsworth's Happy Warrior I feel that its sentiment is wholly Jewish. The Happy Warrior makes his moral being his prime care, is placable, is even more pure as tempted more, is more alive to tenderness; he labours good on good to fix, and owes to virtue every triumph that he knows ; he does not chase honours, he is faithful to his trust, and above all he has implicit confidence in God. I cannot explain how Wordsworth should have so well seized upon these distinctively Jewish ideals. For Jewish they certainly are. From the earliest times Jews have possessed the conception of the Happy Warrior. He was the "1DH, the man who loves God passionately, whose desire is to render to his Maker more than the Divine laws prescribe. The I5th Psalm depicted the Happy Warrior of earlier Bible times, Micah laid down the three qualities that marked the man in later days, and the Rabbis warmly advocated the practice of those virtues that make the IDfl- It is not too much to say, I believe, that there is not a single Rabbi in theTalmud of any importance but preaches the excellency of TDH ftt7*233. In the Aboth there are at least three characterisations of the "IDH- He who says what is thine is thine and what is mine is also thine he is the Happy Warrior. He who gives charity and makes others give too he likewise is the Happy Warrior. H3 144 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT Thirdly, he who is hard to provoke to anger and is easily pacified he similarly is a "1DJ"I. In the Jewish conception of the IDH there are two dominating and all- pervading qualities. The one is his relation to God; the other is his relation to man. In a word, unselfish divine service coupled with self- sacrificing social service these are the traits of the Happy Warrior. The two run regularly throughout Jewish literature from the earliest times down to this very day. The "TDH loves God, and because he loves Him, he obeys Him. He does not look for a reward. He serves because it is a joy to serve. And in truth the very service of God consists in the service of man. Perhaps Abba Saul expressed this doctrine well when he declared that the true meaning of the phrase, " This is my God and I will glorify Him," was, Be like God. As He is merciful, be you merciful. As He is considerate to the poor, be you considerate to the poor. Kindly actions of this sort are lumped together under the term TDPI JllTJbJ, than which there can be nothing higher. The Talmud states that HDH TYITfiJ (which, by the way, cannot be adequately translated) is greater than mere chanty. The latter may be done by money, the former by money and personal service. Charity, again, is a virtue for the rich; 1DH JYP'fiJ for the rich as well as for the poor. Charity may be done only to the living; "1DPI ftlTfiJ to the living and to the dead. From the living there is always the possibility of receiving recompense; but in unselfish service to the dead the action is done for its own sake. God Himself is depicted as one who practises acts of loving- kindness. An old piece of exegesis points out that " THE HAPPY WARRIOR " 145 the beginning and the end of the Torah have reference to loving actions. In the beginning we are told that God clothed the naked (Adam and Eve); at the end, that He buried the dead (Moses). The exegesis may be a little naif, but who will not admit the splendid lesson the preacher had in mind ? Another teacher goes even further. Whoso, he asserts, denies the excellence of ^DH ni?*J is as though he denied God Himself. The Happy Warrior has been the constant theme of Jewish writers through the ages. " A man should always show kindness and consideration, even to one who has wronged him ; he should never avenge himself or bear a grudge, for it is not in the nature of a Jew to do so." This advice of the Midrash has been elaborated in a thousand forms, all bearing testimony to the essential nobility of Jewish ethics. It is the way of the Happy Warrior, we read in one place, actually to run after the poor, a saying not easily capped. Always the stress is on consideration. All those who have pity on human beings may be sure that they are of the seed of Abraham. Or again: Accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, strengthen each other in the fear of Heaven, and deal with each other kindly and considerately. God Himself is made to say in another passage setting forth the qualities of the Happy Warrior, " My dear children, I ask nothing of you that I lack. I only ask that ye love one another." It was an all-comprehensive love that was demanded. It did not exclude the non- Jew. It extended to business intercourse. It looked with scorn on the blackening of a man's reputation. " Be not like the flies," writes Rabbi Eliesar ben Isaac (about 1050), "which always settle on sore places: 10 146 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT do not gossip about other people's weaknesses." The same teacher pleads for cleanliness of person, of clothing, of mind, and of word. Another Eliesar, ben Juda, of Worms (about 1238), says of the Happy Warrior, that he looks upon the forgiveness of wrongs done to him as the highest virtue. Jewish Literature indeed possesses a whole treatise devoted to the Happy Warrior the D*TDn *)D. Here you will find the Jewish version of what " every man in arms should wish to be." Serve God, the writer advises, and do not think of Paradise or of other rewards. But after all it is nobleness in human relations that matters most. The Book of the "TDH is full of advice here. " Do not deceive anyone by your actions, and not even a non-Jew. Do not quarrel with folk, be their religion what it may. Be honest in business. Do not attempt to take a mean advantage of your customers. In your intercourse with non-Jews be guided by the same principles of honesty as in the case of Jews. If a non-Jew comes to you for advice in business, tell him to the best of your knowledge whom he can and whom he cannot trust. ... If a murderer takes refuge with you, give him no protection, even if he is a Jew. But if in a narrow way you meet a man bent under a heavy burden, make room for him to pass, even if he is a non-Jew. ... If you have been deceived by short measure, or if you have been robbed, or if false witnesses have accused you, take no revenge." These sentiments do not stand alone. They occur again and again in Jewish writings, and they are so frequent that the conclusion is warranted that the Jews produced Happy Warriors in large numbers. But the conclusion from literature is strengthened " THE HAPPY WARRIOR 147 mightily by the facts of life. To love their neigh- bours has been preached to Jews for so many centuries that it has become second nature with them. A story is told of one of the Talmud Rabbis who scrupu- lously buried bits of broken glass and potsherds under the earth so that no one might be hurt by them. The same Rabbi thought that if you are entrusted with another man's treasure, it is your duty not merely to return it intact, but to increase it for your client. The Jew at his best is a Happy Warrior. Not one of the traits in Wordsworth's poem, but he has practised it throughout the ages. The very fact that such a poem was written is, directly or indirectly, due to the influence of the Jew. The present is a period of unrest. Whether we look at business or conduct, the sky is cloudy. But clearly conditions must improve. I verily believe, however, that we shall not see a change for the better until the qualities of the Happy Warrior again find universal currency. Here is work for the Jew. He ought to throw in all his weight on the side of the forces which are working for moral regeneration. The world will only find healing in the adoption of the Jewish virtues of the Happy Warrior in *TDh PROSELYTES AND PROSELYTISING THE question is often asked why the Jews do not send out missionaries into the world to propagate their religion. The answer is that since the third century of the Common Era Jews have not sought proselytes. It is pretty certain that in the olden days, even as far back as the Bible times, there must have been many heathens who became Jews, while in the period of the Second Temple many proselytes joined themselves to the Jewish people. Of the Idumeans we have a positive historic record, and these converts to Judaism gave the Jews a king in the person of Herod. In the Roman period, judging from the complaints of Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Tacitus, Seneca, and others, large numbers of Roman citizens embraced Judaism. We learn that men and women of the best families, senators and their wives, even members of the Imperial House itself, adopted the Jewish faith. The Talmud actually speaks of distinguished Roman matrons who gave up idol worship and became pious Jewesses, while Philo men- tions as a special convert Fulvia, wife of Saturninus, a distinguished Roman senator. So great was the crowd of converts that Rabbi Eleazar once said Israel went into exile only to increase the number of prose- lytes. From of old these converts were welcomed; one need only instance Ruth, whose goodness, accord- ing to tradition, was so great that she was worthy of being the ancestress of King David himself. Many 148 PROSELYTES AND PROSELYTISING 149 of the great Rabbis were said to have been of non- Jewish origin; Akiba and Meir, Shemaya and Abtalion, and, of course, Onkelos. So far as we can gather, proselytes before they could be admitted into the Jewish fold had to be circumcised and baptised, and had to offer a special sacrifice. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai abrogated the third ceremony, and from his day down to this the two first ceremonies have remained. It is of interest to observe that in the second century of the Common Era the Jewish authorities were anxious to welcome proselytes. On one occasion at this time there was a lengthy discussion between Rabbi Eleazar and Rabbi Joshua as to whether circumcision or baptism might by itself suffice for the qualification of a prose- lyte. This discussion, however, yielded no practical result, and the two requirements stood. Of the proselytes two categories were generally mentioned. For the sake of clearness they may be described as complete proselytes and semi-proselytes. The best type of all were those who came of their own free will, actuated by the highest motives, and conscientiously believing that the doctrines of Judaism are the most spiritual in the world. According to Rabbi Simon ben Lakish, these proselytes were more precious in the sight of God than even the Israelites themselves. But all were not of this metal. Many proselytes came into the Jewish community for material benefits, and in the third century it appears that the numbers of those who became converts to Judaism for other than the highest motives increased enormously, so that it came to be said that they were as a leprosy unto Israel. Thereafter a tendency ISO JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT showed itself among Jewish teachers rather to restrain converts from coming into the Jewish fold; and when a candidate appeared it was pointed out to him what he would lose by becoming a Jew, how difficult the living of Judaism is, and he was urged to reconsider the matter very carefully. That is still the practice to-day. Converts are not exactly warmly welcomed, but, of course, if they insist, they are admitted in a friendly spirit; and it must be confessed that many converted Jews and Jewesses lead lives which for purity and goodness may well be a model for those who are born into the Jewish fold. Another reason why converts were not sought after was that from the third to the nineteenth centuries Jews suffered greatly at the hands of prose- lytes. In the third century, the proselytes turned traitors to the religion they had adopted, very often playing the part of spies for the authorities, and not infrequently spreading lies about the tenets and practices of Judaism. Even that might not have deterred the zealous in Israel from attempting to win converts. But when it is remembered that throughout the Middle Ages the Jew was subjected to a great number of disabilities, it is intelligible that he was not over-anxious to come into unnecessary conflict with the law. As it was, the ecclesiastical legislation of the Middle Ages, from the year 313 onwards, when Christianity became the State religion, definitely provided penalties for conversions to Judaism. This had already been the case in the third century, for both Nero and Septimus Severus passed laws to this effect. The anti-Jewish legislation of those days was characterised by prejudice, fanaticism, hate, and ignorance, and the Jews were so oppressed that it PROSELYTES AND PROSELYTISING 151 was hardly likely that anyone would have desired to become a Jew. There was no attraction in being despised and rejected of men. Besides, the Church saw to it that Jews and Christians were kept severely apart; in particular, social intercourse between them was strictly prohibited. At the present time Jews do not proselytise because, while they passionately hold to the tenets and practices of Judaism, they believe that the best kind of mis- sionary results are achieved by noble living. When the world realises some of the weaknesses of the established religions, and when, moreover, it learns the true inwardness of Judaism, thinking people will adopt Judaism as their religion because it is the highest expression of goodness and of truth. It is an insult to want to force one's own faith on other people. In the Middle Ages religion dominated the whole of life; to-day religion is entirely a private affair. Jews have too much respect for good people, be their faith what it may, to want to foist upon them another faith. Those who are good do not need to be converted to Judaism; and those who are bad Judaism does not require. For two thousand years Jews have taught that the pious of all peoples have a share in the world to come. Put into modern language, what else does this mean but that goodness, by whomsoever practised, is goodness still, whether it be Jewish, Christian, or Mohammedan ? From this point of view the work of the missionaries among Jews is an utter waste of effort, energy, and cash, all of which might be utilised to better purpose in making bad Christians into good men and women. If the missionary activities were transferred from Whitechapel to the denizens of the slums of Lambeth 152 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT or Marylebone, some good might ensue. Moreover, the material appeal of the missionaries to the Jews is to be utterly condemned. They do not seem to be as numerous in Park Lane as they are in Stepney. Their sixpences, their oranges, their blankets, and their medicine are given as bribes. And what is the result ? Do they ever catch an honest fish ? Far from it. They merely bring all religion into disrepute, for the poor wretches who go to them and accept what they have to give, pay only lip-service to Christ- ianity. I also object to the men whom they send out as agents. If Christians missionise I can at least understand their position, stupid though it is. Simple-minded folk, they think it is their duty to save the souls of the poor, misguided Jews. But when they send to us Jews who have themselves gone over to Christianity, and whose character, in many cases, will not bear looking into, I regard that as an insult. There seems to be a regular hierarchy of missionaries to the Jews, the lowest grade being themselves Jewish converts. I am reminded of the famous lines of De Morgan, the Cambridge mathematician: " Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum, And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on; While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on." Moreover, the ignorance of the missionaries about Jewish life and thought is appalling. Only the other day a missionary journal told its readers quite de- finitely that when the Jews are re-established in Palestine, sacrifices will be offered in the Temple and God's House will again become a shambles. Then, so the writer continued, the Jews of finer feeling will be so disgusted that they will throw up PROSELYTES AND PROSELYTISING 153 Judaism and turn to Christianity. One asks oneself, who is it that is taken in by arguments of this kind ? When I consider how much hatred there is in the world, how little the various sects love each other, how great is the opposition between Catholics and Protestants, how serious the differences among Pro- testants themselves, how the Anglican Church, for example, will not unite with Nonconformists when I consider these things I marvel that all the energy which is available among pious Christians is not devoted to closing up their own ranks before turning their attention outside. To fish for men to-day is behind the times. Who can venture to assert that his particular religion contains the highest form of goodness and of truth ? How can we tell but that the great religions of India, of China, even of Japan, may not lead men and women to as high a plane in the struggle for right as any of the religions known in Europe ? We Jews are convinced that Judaism represents a high grade of religious truth. But we are tolerant of other religions, to-day just as of old. We would not dream of foisting our faith on other people. If other people come to us of their own free will, that is another matter. Similarly, we object to having other faiths foisted on us, more especially when the young and the ignorant are first seized upon by those who missionise for pay. MONEY-LENDING R EADING the Letters of Petrarch recently, I came across a striking passage which is worth quoting: " We, dear friend, now have everything made of gold lances and shields and chains and coronets; gold binds and holds us; gold makes us rich or poor, happy or miserable. Gold enslaves the free and frees the slaves; it acquits evil-doers and punishes the innocent; it gives speech to the dumb and makes the eloquent speechless. ... It turns slaves into princes, and princes into slaves; makes brave men cowards, and gives the coward self-reliance; arms the defenceless and disarms the warrior; tames bold leaders and crushes whole peoples down; creates strong armies and wages long wars in a few hours' space; dictates and maintains peace; dries up rivers and surveys countries; connects oceans and removes mountains; throws open the entrance to cloisters; attacks cities, captures fortresses, and destroys stout ramparts. As Cicero says, no place is so strong but that an ass laden with gold will find a way in. Gold forges bonds of friendship, brings about partnerships, makes honourable marriages. You ask how ? By making the noble-hearted, the powerful, the learned, the handsome, and it may surprise you to hear it even the saintly its masters. Those who are rich are 154 MONEY-LENDING 155 called good citizens and their word is trusted. But in the poor there is little confidence, seeing that they have no money. There is much truth in the verses of the satirist who said : ' The good repute you may command is measured by your cash in hand.' Finally, gold is not merely powerful, it is all-powerful, and everything under the heavens is subject to its domina- tion. Piety and chastity and faith all serve gold; all virtue and all renown recognise it as their overlord. Gold holds Kings and Popes in thrall; it appeases mortals, and, as some assert, the Gods also. Nothing withstands its power; nothing is beyond its reach." Petrarch died in 1374, but did not a wise man long, long before, express the same sentiment, when he wrote: " A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things ?" The theme appears to be as old as the hills. Buckle went so far as to maintain that the two great springs of human nature are the love of wealth and the love of knowledge. Petrarch's witty statement set me thinking. Since " money answereth all things," it would seem that ever since money has been in existence there has been a demand for it. Men were willing to pay for the loan of money, and those who had amassed quantities of it were able to augment their holdings by lending to their less fortunate neighbours. Far from being barren dross, money in actuality was reproductive, and money-lending may probably be regarded as one of the oldest of callings. But great social dangers sprang from it. It led to the undue enrichment of one section of the community, and to the undue impoverishment of another. Accordingly an attempt 156 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT was made in all early legislation to regulate the practice. Ancient Jewish legislation is no exception. " If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him usury." Or, in another place: " If thy brother be waxen poor . . . then thou shalt uphold him. . . . Take thou no usury of him. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury." Perhaps the classical passage is in Deuteronomy (chapter xxiii., verse 20), of which the usual translation is : " Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother : usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury." The spirit of this legislation is clear. It should be the duty of Jews to help each other in a brotherly way. The same motive underlay the whole of mediaeval Catholic teaching about taking interest. But in the one case as in the other the needs of life were stronger than the prohibition of law. Men needed money and borrowed it, paying for the loan. Despite the strict ecclesiastical enactments of the Middle Ages condemning money-lending, the practice grew apace. It is a mistake to imagine that in the Middle Ages only Jews were money-lenders. In 1179, for example, the great Lateran Council held by Pope Alexander III. issued a canon in which it was stated that " in almost every place the crime of usury has become so prevalent that many persons give up all other business and become usurers." This complaint is by no means isolated. Indeed, the Popes themselves in their great need of money were MONEY-LENDING 157 forced to legalise the practice of taking interest in the case at least of one group of money-dealers the Caorsini. That in the Middle Ages the Jews carried on the business of money-lending was their misfortune and not their fault. The question has been discussed at great length; there is no need, therefore, to ex- patiate upon it again. But one or two comments may be added. It is necessary to rebut the suggestion that Jews are, as it were, by nature money-lenders. Far from it. Before they were forced into this narrow calling, they participated in all manner of economic activities in the same way as their non-Jewish neigh- bours. They were farmers and artisans and traders; on this the evidence is complete. Nor should it be overlooked that money-lending was condemned in ancient Israel. One of the quali- fications of the man who should sojourn in God's tabernacle and dwell in His holy hill was that " he putteth not out his money to usury." It was a " Proverb " in Israel that " he that augmenteth his substance by usury and increase gathereth it for him that hath pity on the poor." The Rabbis continued the tradition. He, they said, who eschews money- lending takes upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who practises usury throws off that yoke. But there is still the twenty-third chapter of Deuteronomy quoted above. Commentators have been at pains to draw the distinction between " thy brother " and the foreigner. Considered historically, that is, bearing in mind the economic conditions of the age in which the passage was composed, the verse in question may have much to say for it. But I 158 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT recollect an interpretation of the Hebrew which is at least interesting. According to this, the verse should be rendered: " Thou shalt not pay usury (or interest) to thy brother. . . . Unto a foreigner though mayest pay interest, but unto thy brother | thou shalt not pay." In the process of time, as the economic needs of men developed, a distinction arose between usury, which was looked upon as an extortionate payment for the loan of money, and interest, which was regarded as a fair payment. That distinction holds good to-day. . Much of the income of city institutions springs from payments for the loan of money. One need only glance at the balance-sheets of our great banking and insurance institutions for illustration of the fact. It seems that Bentham's proposition has now found universal acceptance: " That no man of ripe years and sound mind, acting freely, and with his eyes open, ought to be hindered, with a view to his advantage, from making such a bargain in the way of obtaining money, as he thinks fit ; nor (what is a necessary conse- quence) anybody hindered from supplying him, upon any terms he thinks proper to accede to." There can therefore to-day be no question of the " wicked " money-lender. A money-lender may con- ceivably be a public benefactor. But he may also be a social pest. Bentham's proposition is accepted in a general way, but the growth of the sense of social justice in recent years has modified men's attitude towards it. The lender of money who on reasonable terms advances the means of establishing a business or provides the wherewithal for some advantageous endeavour can in all conscience regard himself as a useful member of society. But about the man who MONEY-LENDING 159 battens on the sore needs of others, or who for a huge consideration enables the gilded youth of our time to waste their substance in advance, there cannot be two opinions. Whether Jew or Gentile, his conduct will be reprobated by his fellow-citizens, and the finger of scorn will be pointed at him. It seems clear to me that a distinction should be drawn between the participation of Jews in the business of lending out money in these days and in the Middle Ages. Then Jews had no choice. All other avenues of earning a livelihood were closed against them. As it was, they were more considerate to their clients than were, say, the Caorsini. But to-day, when eco- nomic liberty makes it possible for a man to choose from so many alternatives the method of earning his living, it is to be deplored that numbers of Jews are found in this calling. That in itself is a pity. But at least some may plead that their activities are no different from those of the great joint-stock banks all over Europe. In so far as their plea is honest, there is no more to be said. But what must be utterly condemned is the business of those Jews who lend money without any other consideration but that of harsh and unconscionable gain. The tenets of their faith they then cast to the winds. They forget the Jewish ideals which they must surely have learned at their mother's knee. If they are grasping, rapacious, inconsiderate, harsh, making hard and often cruel bargains which they do not hesitate to enforce they are un-Jewish in their conduct. They harm the Jewish cause; they tarnish the good name of Jew. Organised Jewry has the right, nay, the duty of making these people realise that they are a source of weakness to the community. It is no excuse to 160 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT say that non-Jews do likewise. The answer is that there should be no Jews guilty of such conduct. If there are they are like the men whom the ancient prophet condemned: " Woe unto them that join house to house and that lay field to field." Men of this stamp should not be tolerated in the public life of the community. Not money-lending is an evil thing in these days, but notorious hard-hearted money-lending which sets out to entrap the unwary, to profit by the misfortunes of others, and to grow rich in ways that the teachers of Judaism have always characterised as hateful in the sight of God and of man. If Judaism is a living reality for Jews, let them rise up and express their abhorrence of conduct which is un-Jewish. A MATTER OF SLAUGHTERING JUDAISM has no specific teaching as to vegetable foods, and Jews are permitted to eat all that grows out of the earth. But no ban is placed on flesh. Jews do not eat the flesh of all animals; they continue to maintain the difference between animals that are " clean " and those that are " unclean." Nor do they consume blood, nor flesh from a living animal. Judaism takes a rational view of these things. It ' does not prohibit the consumption of meat, but it reduces to a minimum the harshness (I will not say the brutality) in obtaining it. No doubt we should all agree that this harshness is deplorable. To do without flesh food altogether would be best. But is mankind yet ripe for such a course ? The taste for meat acquired centuries ago has become as it were a habit; a certain weight of medical opinion supports the practice as a necessity, especially in cold climates; and many people have actually developed a fondness for meat. To attempt to-day to banish meat from the average person's diet would prove a failure. To have at- tempted it five thousand years ago would have been utterly useless. The policy of Jewish teaching there- fore seems sensible. Man was allowed to eat meat, but an effort was made to diminish the cruelty involved in getting it. 161 ii i6a JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT The Bible nowhere states how animals should be killed. In the case of sacrifices the Hebrew word tDHBO occurs most frequently. The word is trans- lated, " And he shall kill." It was argued that just as sacrifices had to be killed in a way denoted by DHBH, so, too, in the case of animals to be used for food ntDTipa |^in tpt PI&TIB^ oBnp n&. But how was the killing to be done ? An old tradition declares that the method of slaughtering animals has been handed down among Jews from time immemorial. A curious piece of exegesis illustrates the point. The Bible text contains the passage: " And thou shalt kill thy oxen and thy sheep in the way I have com- manded thee." God must therefore have given some indication of the method of slaughter, and that was the tradition. The method is simple. The animal is killed by cutting its jugular vein with a slaughtering knife sharper even than a razor. Whether this process was disclosed to Moses by God himself, as Jewish tradition teaches, or whether it grew up among Jews generations ago, is from the practical point of view of little moment. The fact is that Jews have practised this method of slaughtering for ages past, and that if examined to-day in the light of a wider humanitarianism it stands the modern test adequately. A moment's reflection must show that the pain of a cut with a specially sharp knife is hardly felt by the animal. Death ensues as a result of loss of blood which renders the animal unconscious. Admittedly, this is a sickening thought. Perhaps if every time people sat down to a dish of meat, they allowed their minds to dwell on the means used for obtaining their A MATTER OF SLAUGHTERING 163 dainties, the number of meat-eaters might diminish. But there is at least this to be said for the Jewish method, that it reduces to a minimum the pain of the animal. Compare the Jewish method with the one commonly used by non-Jews. As a rule the animal is stunned by a blow on the head. The pain must be excruciating; the animal's distressing cries, which are deafening, are evidence enough of its sufferings, and it is some time before death sets in. More than fifty years ago a Christian writer described this method of slaughter as most cruel and savage. If this is bad, what shall be said of " sticking " animals ? In certain countries pig-sticking is almost a rite; the occasion is used as a popular festivity. In view of these barbarities, I cannot understand the attitude of mind of some people connected with Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals when they object to the Jewish method of slaughter on the score of cruelty. All killing must necessarily be cruel. But the Jewish method does reduce the cruelty and the suffering to a minimum. There is, however, just this to be said for the Jewish process. In it, it is needful that the animal shall lie down, and various devices have been evolved for " casting," an intricate matter in the case of heavy animals. It has been alleged that some of these give the animal pain. The allegation has been disputed by competent authorities, both Jewish and Gentile; and anyhow it is hardly comparable to the brutality of giving the animal a blow on the head. Those who have gone carefully into the subject and have made an unbiassed comparison of the Jewish and the other methods of slaughtering are agreed that the former is far superior. It is less cruel, and more 1 64 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT considerate. It is in accord with Jewish sentiment. For Jews have been described as " merciful children of merciful sires." As one mediaeval writer puts it, the Jews have three outstanding characteristics: they possess fineness of feeling, they are merciful, and they are charitable. Jewish legislation has not forgotten the dumb creatures. The Codes say, for example, that when a Jew sees horses pulling a heavy load up a hill, it is his duty to lend a hand if the poor animals need assistance. A people that cares for dumb creatures will also be mindful of kindness when it is necessary to put them to death. Characteristic of the Jewish attitude is the opinion of one Talmudic Rabbi concerning slaughtering. It cannot make any difference to God, he said, whether you kill an animal by cutting its throat or breaking its neck. But it makes considerable difference to you. The one method brutalises, the other tends to refine. Possibly the ideal is to eschew meat food altogether. Some medical authorities are definite in their opinion that a meatless diet makes for better health and longer life. For one reason or another many people cannot hope to reach this ideal. These will continue to take meat. Jews who are of the number owe it to themselves to make sure that the meat they eat has been Kasher killed that is, has been obtained by Shechita. And when Shechita is attacked, all Jews should unite to defend it, for they are fighting not only their own battle but that of humanity. The adoption of Shechita means increased humanitar- ianism. THE GOSPEL OF HILLEL MANY a time and oft have I read and heard it said that Jesus of Nazareth may have sat at the feet of one of the great teachers of his day, perhaps even the greatest to wit, Hillel. HillePs activity falls in the century before the destruction of the Temple, say between 30 B.C.E. and 10 C.E. It is not unlikely, therefore, that at Jerusalem Jesus may have known Hillel, may even have been among those to whom that great man gave instruction. Possibly Jesus imbibed from Hillel many of the doctrines he himself taught, and if this is so, it becomes a matter of supreme interest to the world to know what manner of man this Hillel was. Jews have always regarded him as one of those who was responsible for giving Judaism a new lease of life. " When the Torah was forgotten in Israel, Ezra came from Babylon and restored it; and when later it was forgotten again, Hillel came from Babylon and made it to flourish anew." So wrote Tradition of Hillel. He did, indeed, hail from Babylon, whither his ancestors, who claimed descent from the royal house of David, had emigrated when the First Temple was destroyed. But Hillel was athirst for knowledge, and rested not until he had drunk at the fountain- head the lecture halls at Jerusalem. Legend has woven around his name wonderful stories of his devotion to knowledge, how he earned a little coin each day as a water-carrier, and utilising only half 165 1 66 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT its value for his own needs, expended the remainder on improving his mind. Born with a gift for know- ledge, devoted to its acquisition, and modest in demeanour, Hillel soon rose to the top, and was chosen to be President of the Sanhedrin, a position which made him the religious head of Jewry in those days. Herod was then on the throne. The courtiers cared little for the tradition of their fathers, and aped the Romans in all things. Their tendency was to throw Judaism overboard. They may not have been a numerous party, but manifestly they were powerful. Then there were the sticklers for orthodoxy, who upheld the letter of the Torah, and would not swerve from it. Textualists these, of whom every age has its quota, dry-as-dust bookworms without the breath of life. Hillel avoided both extremes. He realised that Law must be made to square with Life, that Life is stronger than Law, and that development means bringing the two into harmony. In laying down the principles of religious practice, Hillel was guided by this policy. But it was not his religious enactments that won him the love of the people so much as his character. He mixed among the populace, learned to know their life, saw them at work or at worship, and always he went about teaching. His was a gospel of Peace. " Be a disciple of Aaron," he used to say, " loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow-creatures and bringing them near to the Torah." Loving your fellow-creatures that was his favourite doctrine, to which he gave classical expression in his reply to the flippant enquirer who desired to be taught the whole of the Torah while he stood on one leg. ' ' What is hateful to thee, do not do unto thy neigh- THE GOSPEL OF HILLEL 167 hour: this is the whole Torah, the rest is mere com- mentary." But he was no proclaimer of passive peace; he always urged the necessity of co-operative activities for social service. What else is the meaning of his admonition, " Separate not thyself from the Congregation " ? And when you are in the Con- gregation, " judge not thy neighbour until thou art come to his place." On the other hand, it was Hillel who taught " in the place where there are no eminent men, do you strive to be one." And then there was his whole-hearted, simple, trustful love of God. It must have shone out of his eyes; it must have been such that, had he lived as a monk in the Middle Ages, he would assuredly have been canonised. Is he not indeed Hillel the Saint ? When he died the people mourned, " Alack a day, the meek one ! Alack a day, the Saint ! Alack a day, the disciple of Ezra !" " God will provide," was Hillel' s motto. It is related of Shammai, a colleague of Hillel' s, that already on the first day of the week, he laid in a store for the Sabbath meals. Not so Hillel. Bearing in mind the Psalmist's confidence that " the Lord be blessed who loadeth us with benefits daily," he trusted that the Lord would provide for his Sabbath needs in due course; not for him to worry unduly, his but to be confident. Popular tradition ascribed universal knowledge to its hero. Hillel, it was said, mastered all wisdom. He knew all languages, even that of hills and dales, of trees and shrubs, of beasts and birds, yea, also of evil spirits. His wisdom was distilled in the form of parables (when Jesus replied in parables he was but following an ancient Jewish custom). It is related of Hillel that one day as he was walking with 1 68 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT his disciples, these enquired: " Master, whither goest thou ?" "I go to fulfil a religious duty," he replied. " And which may that be ?" the young men asked further. Hillel informed them that he was about to take a bath. The disciples were sur- prised; how could taking a bath be a religious duty? Hillel said: " In the theatres and circuses a special official is deputed to keep clean the statues of the kings. He is an important public servant, and his duty is great. How much more must it be a duty for me to keep clean my body, which has been created in the image of God, the King of kings." Another day he was walking with his disciples, to whom he declared, not for the first time, that he must hasten home to fulfil his duty to his guest. " Master," they asked, " have you then a guest every day ?" "Yea, truly," came the answer; "is not my soul a guest in my body, here to-day and gone to-morrow ?" The duty of man to himself he also taught in that fine saying: " If I do not shift for myself, who will shift for me ? And if I am only for myself, what am I ?" At the same time he uttered a warning against overweening conceit " Whoever would make a name for himself, loses his name." Hillel's charity was unbounded. We are told that he heard of a man of good family who had come down in the world. Hillel provided him out of his own means with a horse to ride on, and a slave to run before him, so that he should not be deprived of what he had been accustomed to enjoy. On one occasion Hillel could not find a slave, and rather than deprive the man of his joy, himself acted the part of the runner. In thought, too, Hillel was charitable. One day a distinguished stranger was invited to THE GOSPEL OF HILLEL 169 Hillel's house and a great repast prepared in his honour. But there came a poor man to the door, saying: " I have to celebrate a wedding feast but have not the wherewithal to do so." Hillel's wife gave him all the dishes she had ready for her guest, and set about preparing new ones. These, of course, were late, and when they were brought in, Hillel said: " My daughter, why did you not serve the food at the appointed hour ?" She told her story, whereupon Hillel said, " I was sure that whatever you had done was for the glory of God." An idealist to the core, meek and lowly and patient, a scholar and a saint, Hillel stands out a true Jewish hero, as one of the great Jews of history. RABBI AKIBA, MARTYR EVER since I first became acquainted with the career of Rabbi Akiba, I have felt that the noblest incident in his life was his exit from it. For me Akiba stands as the prototype of Jewish martyrdom throughout the ages. Passionately devoted to what he considered right, he would not swerve from his convictions for any consideration, and his deeply religious nature marks him as a great Jew. Yet legend declares that he was of Gentile origin. It is said that in his youth he was a simple shepherd who found employment with Kalba Shabua, a wealthy citizen of Jerusalem. Tall of stature and pleasant of countenance, Akiba won the love of Rachel, his master's daughter, who promised to become his wife if he would go to the centres of learning and fashion himself into a great teacher. Though he was forty at the time and a man without education, he decided to go, encouraged by a phenomenon he had once observed as he tended his sheep. Little drops of water constantly dripping on to a stone had made a hole in it. Un- lettered though he was, he perceived that persistence must achieve in the end, and some fifteen years before Titus destroyed the Temple he joined himself to a teacher, and devoting himself whole-heartedly to the acquisition of knowledge, qualified to win the hand of his mate. She meanwhile had been cast off by her father for her foolish attachment, and far from being dejected by her lot, she urged on Akiba to still 170 RABBI AKIBA, MARTYR 171 greater efforts. No woman urges a man in vain to worthy endeavour, and Akiba grew in intellectual stature until he himself became a leader of men. Twelve years after he left home, so the story goes, he returned a beloved Teacher, followed by three hundred disciples, and as a shabbily dressed woman pushed through the crowd to gaze on his countenance, the young men kept her back. But the Master recognised her, and bade them let her approach, telling them that she was worthy of great honour, since all that he was and all that they were was due entirely to her inspira- tion. The earlier days of the couple were spent in dire poverty; at one time a sack of straw was their pillow, and their daily sustenance was obtained by the sale of Rachel's beautiful hair. But the romance ended as all romances should: Kalba Shabua, proud of so distinguished a son-in-law, took back to his bosom his daughter and her man, and their latter days were spent in comfort. Perhaps all this is legendary. But it was no legend but reality that Akiba was a man of a very lovable disposition. Even when his contemporaries differed from his views, they expressed their criticism in a way which showed that they loved him. On one occasion Rabbi Eleazar cried out to him, " Why, Akiba, you are not fit to be a cowherd !" " No, and not even a shepherd !" was the reply. Akiba had a warm heart for his disciples, teaching them with infinite patience, visiting them when they were sick, and at all times caring for their welfare much like a father. Again and again he would explain a problem or a verse. Nothing was too much for the Master, who believed that he could overcome stupidity by painstaking per- sistency. " Do a set task each day," he taught. 172 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT " Learn a little thoroughly rather than a great deal superficially." Akiba was also a lover of the poor, and collected tithes for distribution among them. The people called him the Hand of the Needy. What is his place in Jewish tradition ? If Ezra's life-work was to show that beside the written word there was an oral tradition; if Hillel's was to provide rules for bringing the two into accord; Akiba's was to evolve a system whereby the accumulated mass of traditional doctrine and teaching could be sifted and duly ordered. It was said of him that he was like one who went into the fields with a basket, gathering all manner of herbs and shrubs; whatever came to his hand he placed in the basket. But when he returned home, he separated each sort by itself, and so brought order into a heterogeneous mass. Akiba laid the foundation of the Mishna. But he did more. He sought to discover new authority in the Torah for traditional doctrine. Be- lieving that Holy Writ is intended to make man happy, Akiba taught that there could be nothing super- fluous or accidental in the text of the Bible. He sought and found a meaning in every little word. There were some among his contemporaries who were not impressed with his method, but Akiba won the day and his system found acceptance. " If there were no Akiba," it was said of him in his own age, " the Torah might be in danger of being forgotten." Later generations were even more fulsome. In the third century it was said that even Moses himself could not match the explanations of the Torah provided by Akiba. He must have loved a discussion dearly; do we not read in the Hagadah that at B'ne B'rak he and his friends, forgetting the flight of time, dis- RABBI AKIBA, MARTYR 173 coursed on the Exodus all through the night, until the disciples came and informed them that it was time for morning prayer ? And yet he preached the precious- ness of silence. " The Massorah is a fence to the Torah; tithes are a fence to riches; vows are a fence to abstinence, while a fence to wisdom is silence." Akiba loved humanity a thoroughly Jewish trait. " Beloved is man," he used to say, " for he was created in the image of God; but it was by a special love that this fact was made known to him, for he is told in Holy Writ, ' In the image of God made He man.' ' Akiba gloried in being a Jew. " Beloved are Israel," he used to say, " for they are called Children of God ; but it was by a special love that this fact was made known to them, for Holy Writ declares, ' Ye are the children of the Lord your God.' ' Akiba had another version of this saying: "Beloved are Israel, for unto them was given a desirable instrument; but it was by a special love that this fact was made known to them, for Holy Writ declares, 'I have given you good doctrine, even my Torah, which you are not to forsake.' : This reminds me of Plato's prayer of thanksgiving to the Creator for having made him a man and not an unreasoning creature, a Greek and not a Barbarian. Akiba believed in Free Will. " Everything is fore- seen," he taught; "yet freedom of choice is given; the world is judged by grace, yet all is according to the amount of work." In another place he elaborated this idea. " Everything is given on pledge, and a net is spread for all the living. The shop is there; the dealer gives credit; the ledger is open; the hand writes; whoever wishes to borrow may come and 174 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT borrow; but the collectors regularly make their daily round and exact payment from man, whether he be content or not; and they have that whereon they can rely in their demand; and the judgment is a judgment of truth; and everything is prepared for the feast." This is a cardinal doctrine of Jewish theology that man has freedom of choice and that he will be rewarded according to his conduct. Akiba believed intensely in the Tightness of goodness. So great is goodness that even if the evil-doer repents, he can find grace. " Just as broken vessels of gold or glass may be melted down and modelled anew," Akiba taught, " so too a sinner who amends his ways." Like Hillel, Akiba was an optimist. Come what may, he was for ever saying, goodness must triumph some- where, somehow. He set his face like steel against superstition, especially as practised by the heathen. But he was ready to see good even among heathens. " For three things I admire the Medians," he once said. " They carve their meat on the table; when they kiss, they kiss only the hands ; and they hold their assemblies under the open sky." It is said that he counted many non-Jews among his disciples, including the famous Aquila. Akiba was thoroughly Jewish in his detestation of murder. Human life is precious. Every human being is a piece of the Divine; he, therefore, who is guilty of murder destroys as it were a part of God. But Akiba was no recluse. Scholar, thinker, and public teacher, his was no contemplative nature. He felt the call of the world and its problems; he realised intensely the affliction of his people, whose hopes he shared, whose difficulties he sought to lighten, whose struggles he encouraged. For he was RABBI AKIBA, MARTYR 175 a keen Nationalist. In the half-century after the destruction of the independent national existence, the yoke of Rome weighed heavily on the Jewish people. Akiba was to the fore as a man of affairs to lend a helping hand. He travelled all over Palestine, cheering, comforting his people; he visited neigh- bouring countries; he even went as far as Rome to plead the cause of the Jews at the Imperial Court. As he and his fellow-travellers approached the Roman capital, the noise of the great city brought tears to the eyes of Akiba's companions; they thought of the desolate silence of Jerusalem. Akiba comforted them. If this was the reward of the evil-doers, he urged, how great should be the hope of the good ! But the journey was fruitless. The Jews were made to feel the bitterness of defeat. Nevertheless, the spirit was not dead within them, and under Hadrian all the pent-up hatred and injustice broke out into flame. In the year 132 the revolt commenced, and a leader in the person of Bar-Kochba seemed to have been sent from heaven. Many believed him to be the expected Messiah, Akiba among them, and so passionate was his ardour that he became the new leader's armour-bearer. There were non-national Jews in those days too. They warned Akiba that he was being deluded. Rabbi Jochanan ben Tarta exclaimed: " Akiba, grass will grow on your chin before ever the Messiah comes !" Rabbi Jose ben Kisma counselled submission, declaring that the rule of Rome was divinely appointed. But Akiba was deaf to entreaties. Bar-Kochba, the Son of a Star, was the " Star that should come from Jacob." He lent his support to the revolt, which for three years proceeded from strength to strength. The Romans 176 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT were driven from nearly the whole of the land. The Emperor Hadrian saw that the situation was serious. He sent his most skilled generals, including Severus, who brought his veterans from Britain, to crush the Jews. Bar-Kochba was a disappointment; division, that most fatal of all enemies, crept into the ranks of the Jews; and Severus, capturing Bether on Tisha B'Ab in the year 135, crushed the revolt. Hadrian devastated the country with fire and sword. Those Jews who escaped were subjected to heavy penalties if they studied the Torah, kept the Sabbath, or initiated their children into the covenant of Abraham. Akiba, soul-sick at the outcome of the revolt, was, nevertheless, not downhearted. The Torah he would never forsake. Undaunted by the warnings of his friends, he taught the Torah to the people. It was not long before he fell into the hands of the Procurator, Titus Annius Rufus, who, in later Jewish literature, is called " Tyrannus Rufus." He was condemned to death. Rufus ordered his skin to be torn from his body with iron combs. Akiba's sufferings were horrible. Yet he smiled. The tyrant accused him of witchcraft. " I am no wizard," said Akiba. " The pain hurts terribly. Yet my heart is glad. All the days of my life I have wished to show God how much , I love Him. To-day at last I can do so." Akiba had taught that the words in the Shema, " And thou \ shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul," implied a readiness to give up one's life for God. " God is one," the martyr cried, and gave up the ghost. Mourning for him was general, and a later generation declared that since the death of Akiba the foundations of the Torah were destroyed and the sources of wisdom dried up. RABBI AKIBA, MARTYR 177 A career of struggle and endeavour, the acquisition of knowledge, the cultivation of kindliness and of a joyous spirit even when the sky was overcast, a devotee of God, a lover of man, an admirer of his people, a good life and a noble death this sums up Rabbi Akiba, martyr. 12 RABBI MEIR: A LIGHT IN DARKNESS Rf\BBI MEIR lived between the years 138 and 164 of the common era. The Jews in Palestine had just passed through a time of great trial, for the hand of the Emperor Hadrian had been heavy upon them. Hadrian, in one of his mad moods, determined to crush the Jews, and accordingly forbade the practice of their religion, forbade them to keep the Sabbath, to circumcise their male children, and to study the Torah. But persecution never stamps out the Jew, and the result was that the nation rebelled against the senseless legislation of Hadrian. The rebellion, however, was crushed; Bar Kochba, j its leader, taken; and, of his associates, some were I scattered to the winds of heaven and others died a martyr's death. When the first of the Antonines succeeded Hadrian and a peaceful wind blew over the Roman Empire, the Jews, too, felt its gentleness, and began slowly to recover hope. But that hope needed stimulating, for the men and women of those days had looked death in the face, and the sense of injustice which Hadrian's legislation had engendered was as iron which had entered into their souls. Recon- struction was needed in all directions economic reconstruction and reconstruction in the spiritual field. The hope of the time lay in wise leadership, which was itself instructed and which had in addition a sympathetic mind towards the problems and reforms of the time. 178 RABBI MEIR: A LIGHT IN DARKNESS 179 Of such leadership Rabbi Meir must have had a goodly portion. Nothing is known of his parentage, save only a tradition that he was a descendant of a family of proselytes closely related to the Emperor Nero. But this uncertainty is of little moment, seeing that great men are great on their own account and not because of their origin. We do know, how- ever, that he was one of the pupils of Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Ishmael, two giants of the previous genera- tion, and from both he learnt not only to know the Torah but also to appreciate profane learning, especially Greek. Meir is reputed to have known the Bible by heart, and we are informed that on one occasion, when he was at Sardes, in Asia Minor, on the Feast of Purim, and no Hebrew text of the Book of Esther was available to read in the synagogue, he read the Megillah in its entirety from memory. By profession he was a scribe, and it is said of him not only that he made a special kind of ink of his own which lent beauty to the script, but that his work- manship was very fine and out of the ordinary. His profession gave him great satisfaction, and he is responsible for the dictum that a man should teach his son a clean and easy business. His weekly earnings were said to have been three shekels. It is typical of the man and of his age that two-thirds of his income he used for his family, and the remainder he spent on the maintenance of scholars. Study and scholarship, learning and teaching, were in his view the basis of reconstruction needed in his age by the country and the people. The essence of the teaching of Meir was, if we are to use a modern expression, religious education. Do you recall what he said in praise of i8o JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT learning ? " He who studies the Torah for its own sake is worthy of many things; nor is this all, for the whole world is indebted to him; he is called friend, beloved, lover of God, and lover of mankind. He is clothed in meekness and reverence; he is made just, pious, upright and faithful; he is kept far from sin and is brought near to virtue; through him the world enjoys counsel and sound knowledge, under- standing and strength; he obtains the capacity to rule and to be discerning in judgment; the secrets of the Torah are revealed to him; he becomes like a never-failing fountain and like a river that flows on with sustained vigour; he is modest, long-suffering, and forgiving of insults; and he is magnified and exalted above all things." It is not difficult to imagine the Rabbi speaking to the people in some such strain as this, glorifying the duty of acquiring and spreading knowledge. In particular he was concerned to point out to parents the fundamental necessity for teaching their children, and his is the story one of the several thousands of others of the sureties demanded by God Almighty as Israel stood before Mount Sinai. The Almighty wanted to know whom the people were prepared to offer as securities that they would observe the Torah. They mentioned the Patriarchs, but these were found wanting; they mentioned others with a similar result. Finally, they declared that they offered their children as surety for their observance of God's commands, and the children were accepted. This appeal to parental love, and its mixing with religious duty, is not yet too old for our own generation. Meir was a great traveller. It is recorded that he RABBI MEIR: A LIGHT IN DARKNESS 181 wandered up and down Palestine, that he went to Lydia and Cappadocia in Asia Minor, teaching and preaching, encouraging and advising, his one aim being to bring about a spiritual revival among the Jews of his time, who were depressed and discouraged by the political events through which many of them had lived in terror. His advice must have been sound, for Meir is described as a brilliant reasoner, so brilliant that it came to be said that all who listened to Rabbi Meir were made to feel as though he uprooted mountains and set them side by side. His very staff was accounted wise, for the opinion spread that whatever it touched had wisdom imparted to it. Indeed, some go so far as to say that the man's name was not Meir at all, that his real name was Moses, and that Meir was but an appellation to explain that he lightened the eyes of the wise. Perhaps a few of his sayings may serve to illustrate his wisdom. " Let your words be few before God," he was con- stantly preaching; while another of his favourite dicta was, " All that God does for us is for our good." Accordingly, " suffering is not so much a sign of God's displeasure as a reminder that the sufferer should repent." Meir was a great believer in repentance. He held that if only a single individual repent, the whole of the society of which he is a member is pardoned. This is large-hearted, certainly; but then Meir had a large heart. He felt greatly for what his people had had to go through, and he comforted them with the thought that " man's sufferings are the sufferings of God." This is a bold picture, but who will deny its beauty ? Meir strove likewise to give fresh courage to his disheartened countrymen, telling 1 82 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT them that it was their duty to bless God for evil as well as for good, and insisting, contrary to the current non-Jewish opinion of the time, that their low estate was no evidence whatever that they had ceased to be Children of God. Children of God they would remain, whatever their condition might be, and, therefore, it was their duty to behave as such at all times. Characteristically Jewish was Meir's opinion that " a man's a man for a' that "; even when he does evil he still is a man, still the child of God. And so he praised the humanity of the Mosaic Law which prescribed that a criminal who was hanged on a tree should be taken down at even. He illustrated this lesson by telling his audience the story of twin brothers, one of whom became king, and the other joined a robber band. In due course the latter was hanged for his crimes, and because of his likeness to the king the people cried: "There hangs our sovereign"; as a result the king had him taken down. Meir was against vow-making. One can under- stand that the taking of vows should have been a refuge of the weak and the oppressed, just as in a time of trouble and uncertainty people should have pinned their faith to dreams. Dreams, Meir taught, are of no consequence. It is intelligible that there should have been a good deal of dissatisfaction in Palestine in the days of Rabbi Meir, and in this connection his definition of the truly rich is striking. " Who is rich ? He who finds contentment with his riches." Meir was sufficiently ahead of his time to be on friendly terms with non-Jews, and to pay attention to the opinion of minorities. " Do not look at the RABBI MEIR : A LIGHT IN DARKNESS 183 jug," he used to say, " but at what is inside. There is many a new jug full of old wine, and many an old jug with not even new wine in it." Meir also preached humility and practised it. There is a story told of a woman who regularly attended his lectures, and who on one occasion came home late in consequence. She found her lord and master full of wrath, and he insisted that he would leave her unless she went to the teacher to whose words she had listened and spat in his face seven times. When Meir heard of this he insisted that the woman should carry out her husband's wish, and was content that in this way he should be the peace-maker between the couple. Perhaps he realised the preciousness of a happy family life, for he was among those fortunate ones who were able to boast of this great gift. His wife, Beruria, that is Valeria, was accounted a wise woman in her generation, kindly, God-fearing, and full of sense. The story of how she informed her husband of the loss of their two boys is well known. It appears that they fell into a well one Sabbath day, and when they were drawn out the boys were dead. She took them into their room and covered their faces; and when Meir returned in the evening she came to him, and with an anxious voice enquired what she was to do. Someone had lent her two jewels, and now asked for their return. The Master's answer was definite and precise. Of course, she must give back the jewels at once. Taking him gently by the arm she led him to where the boys lay, and uncovering their faces, said to him: " These are the jewels of which I spoke, and He Who lent them to me asks for them back again." There was no further answer, nor need of one. 184 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT A great traveller himself, Meir had a curious theory as to how to travel. To travel alone was dangerous. To travel with another was inadvisable because that might lead to quarrelling. The best way was to travel in threes, and then you would be sure of peace. It is not difficult to imagine that travelling in Palestine in those days must have been no easy enterprise. Meir himself relates that on one occasion he and some companions intended to spend the night at an inn, but mine host attempted to persuade them to con- tinue their journey along a certain road. As it turned out, that road led straight into a robbers' cave, and many were the victims claimed by it. Meir, however, managed to convince the innkeeper that he was not yet ready to go along that particular road, seeing that he expected the arrival of his brother Ki-Tob (11OO). He was therefore allowed to spend the night at the inn, and when in the morning mine host came and inquired where the brother was, Meir explained that he had merely waited the dawn of day, for does not Holy Writ describe the dawn of a new day as 31D (i.e., good) ? Yet great traveller though Meir was, he was passionately fond of Palestine, and he went so far as to assert that he who lives in the Holy Land, speaks Hebrew, and eats kasher food will be certain to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven. This may sound a little harsh in our ears to-day, but let us not forget the age in which the man lived; perhaps there was good reason for the dictum then. When death caught Rabbi Meir he was at Sardes, in Lydia, and he requested on his death-bed that his coffin might be taken down to the sea coast, so that RABBI MEIR: A LIGHT IN DARKNESS 185 the waters of the great deep, which washed the shores of Palestine too, might be, as it were, a connecting link between his body and the Holy Land. Meir was responsible for the characterisation of the Jew as being pitiful, modest, and charitable. It seems to me that this perfectly characterises Rabbi Meir himself. A THIRD-CENTURY JEWISH REFORMER A often as I hear our pessimists cry that the present age is one of religious indifference, and that in consequence we are making straight for perdition, I am reminded of the ancient saw that Israel is never quite deserted. When the need is greatest a religious saviour arises and leads back the populace to the practice of Jewish ideals and to a higher standard of duty. A good illustration of this phenomenon occurred to me as I reflected on the deplorable state of the Jews in Mesopotamia seventeen hundred years ago. The bulk of the Jews in the world was then resident in the country between the Two Rivers; and in certain outlying parts the population was so ignorant of Jewish customs that in the town of Tatlafas they cooked meat in milk ! But this was perhaps less regrettable than the decline in morals. The pre- vailing standard was a disgrace to Jews. In that dark firmament there appeared a bright star which shed its light over the whole land. The country itself produced its own religious reformer; he was born about the year 175, and was known to his own and later generations simply as Rav (master), or Rav Abba, or Abba Arecha that is to say, Abba the Tall a man of sharp wit, great knowledge, and mystical inclinations, but of sound common sense withal. Losing his parents in his youth, he was brought up by his uncle, Rabbi Chia, one of the 186 THIRD-CENTURY JEWISH REFORMER 187 teachers of Israel in those days. Already in tender years Abba gave promise of intellectual ability, and his uncle, realising the boy's gifts, took pains over his education. Chia had migrated to the Schools of Palestine, and ultimately settled in Sephoris, where his nephew joined him, won the commendation of masters and students alike, and eventually came to be regarded as the most brilliant of the younger men. From the first he seemed destined for a great career, but, like a good many who are on the threshold of active work, he suffered disappointments. He made the best of things, however, conscious in some indefinable way that he would reach the goal in the end. On his return to Babylon he was made Inspector of Markets, a post where his vast learning was of little use, but on the other hand one which afforded him valuable opportunities of travelling up and down the country and becoming acquainted with men and affairs. It was his duty to inspect weights and measures in markets, to watch prices, especially the prices of the necessaries of life, and to prevent profiteering. In the course of his journeys he observed how little his co-religionists knew of Judaism, and how their manners and customs lacked all restraint and refinement. To a man of the mould of Abba, his course was clear. He would be the revitaliser of Judaism in Babylon; he would inspire a religious renaissance, the influence of which should extend to the uttermost bounds of the country. Just then the headship of the College at Nehardea became vacant and was offered to Abba. With magnificent self-sacrifice, characteristic of the man, he declined the honour in favour of a bosom friend, 1 88 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT and himself withdrew to the blackest spot on the map, to a district where ignorance was densest and evil most strongly entrenched to Sura, where he set up a new College to be a centre of religious life and moral health. Rav found a desolate valley so it was said in later ages and he put a fence round it. Disciples soon came in scores, and before very long Sura was a place of pilgrimage for all who were ambitious to obtain the best instruction. Abba counted at the least some 1,200 students, and the fame of his Seminary was assured. But he provided fare not only for students, he was anxious to reach the masses too, and he may well claim to have been the father of adult education. Twice a year, in the months of Ellul and Adar, he assembled about him great numbers of men and women, to whom he gave popular lectures on the ceremonial and ethical content of the approaching Festivals. So great was the popularity of these early " Summer Schools " that Sura was not able to provide lodgings for all who came, and many spent the nights in the open fields. The moral regeneration of the people was the first aim of Abba, and he began by insisting on the sanctity of marriage. He therefore ordained among other things that an engagement should precede marriage in order that the parties might have an opportunity of getting to know each other, and that parents should not marry off their daughters under age without their consent. He was determined that proper respect should be paid to the courts of justice and to their officers, and such was his personality that he was eminently successful in his crusade. What manner of man was this new Reformer ? He was probably tall of stature, extremely energetic, j y THIRD-CENTURY JEWISH REFORMER 189 and possessed of a fine sense of what was right. He was a rich man, but his own wants were few; he spent the major part of his income in the maintenance of his numerous students. Happy in his work, he was less happy in his domestic life. When he left Palestine to return home, his uncle, in giving him his blessing, had said, " God keep you from what is worse than death a woman who is contrary." The blessing must have missed its mark, for Abba's wife was ungracious and hard, a veritable thorn in his side. It is said of her that in order to annoy her husband she did in all things the very opposite of what he wished. By a stratagem their eldest son succeeded for a time in bringing about harmony between his parents. He always reported to his mother the direct contrary of his father's desires, with the result that those desires were carried out to the letter. This puzzled Abba, and on learning the cause of this pleasant surprise, he forbade his son to continue his course, lest thereby he should cultivate the habit of lying. No wonder the great reformer prayed for " any disease, but not a diseased stomach; any ache, but not heartache; and any disagreeable thing, but not an angry woman." Nor is it surprising that Abba attached the utmost importance to the acquisition of knowledge. All reformers must in the long run pin their faith to knowledge and enlightenment. He taught, there- fore, that though the purpose of learning is to direct conduct, nevertheless even without any relation to conduct learning is good. For you may begin without meaning to influence your conduct; but in the end you will probably do so in spite of yourself . Abba was a universalist, mindful of the brotherhood 190 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT of man. " As regards his head," he said, speaking of the individual Jew, " he belongs to Palestine; in respect of his trunk to Babylon; while as for the rest of him, he belongs to all other lands." He believed in a " world to come where there was neither eating nor drinking, business nor affairs, hate nor jealousy, but where the pious sat with crowns on their heads, enjoying the refulgence of the Divine Majesty." But let it not be imagined that he was one of those who despised this world. On the contrary. Abba had no sympathy with the other-worldly people, the killjoys and ascetics. His is the dictum that one day we shall be called to account for having refused to taste of the things we have seen. He is essentially human in his dicta. " It is even more important," he said, " to dispense hospitality to strangers than to receive God Himself." " He who has no pity in his heart cannot claim to be a descendant of Abraham." " Be rather of those who are cursed than of those who curse." How touching is his love of animals ! " A man should not himself eat before he has fed his dumb animals," and lastly a sound word of advice " All things prohibited by reason of their suspicious appearance are also to be eschewed even when no one is about." If the contemporaries of Abba were indebted to him, no less have later generations had good cause to be grateful to this religious leader. For he is the author of that magnificent prayer, rot?/ "Dvtf, which for pure adoration of Almighty God can hardly be surpassed. Nor does this stand alone. The three sections of the Musaph service of Rosh Hashana are his, the first teaching that God is King of the Uni- verse; the second that Divine Justice is supreme THIRD-CENTURY JEWISH REFORMER 191 in the world; and the third that God has revealed Himself to man. For seventeen centuries Jews have recited these magnificent prayers on New Year's Day; throughout this long span the spirit of Abba has dominated the Synagogue services. His must have been one of those grand personalities that stand out head and shoulders above their fellows. He died in the year 247, when seventy-two years old, after having been head of the College at Sura for twenty-eight years, and his co-religionists mourned for him for the space of a twelvemonth. His work was continued by many disciples, and once more it was proved that the needs of the time generally produce a master-mind to solve its problems. il 'si A PRINCE IN ISRAEL JEWISH Literature contains many Rabbis whose names are usually mentioned, but only one Rabbi who was known as Rabbi. It was said of him that since the days of Moses he was the first in whom learning and worldly greatness were com- bined. What manner of man was this who enjoyed so great a reputation among his contemporaries that when they spoke of the Rabbi, he was meant ? Tradition declares that Judah the Prince was born on the day Rabbi Akiba died (some time probably in the year 137 of the common era). He was the son of the Patriarch, Rabbi Simon ben Gamaliel II., and thus came into the world to enjoy affluence and rank. In those days the Patriarch or Prince was the spiritual head of the Jews, and as there was no other head in Jewry then, it may be said that Judah belonged to the first family among his people. While his birth was a source of joy to his parents, they were greatly troubled about his circumcision. The anti-Jewish legislation of Hadrian made the initiation of male children into the Abrahamic covenant punishable with death. Nothing daunted by this draconian law, the parents did their duty, and the child was duly circumcised, but not without the act coming to the ears of the Roman procurator of Judaea. There is a tradition extant that the mother and child were sent to Rome to be dealt with there; that when they arrived in the capital a new Emperor reigned in the seat of the 192 A PRINCE IN ISRAEL 193 Caesars, a man of mild character whose humanity was proverbial no less a person indeed than Antoninus Pius; and that on the intercession of the Empress, the Jewish mother and her child were liberated and sent home. Judah received the best education available in his day. He appeared to possess special gifts for languages ; it is related of him that he knew perfectly Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin. To Hebrew he was particu- larly devoted, taking a pride in retaining the purity of that tongue and using it in his home, so that even his non-Jewish servants were fluent speakers of Hebrew. Rabbi was also learned in the sciences of his age; astronomy is mentioned as a favourite study of his. Last, but not least, he was instructed in the literature of his people; and natural abilities improved by sound training soon brought him to the forefront as a scholar and a teacher whose fame attracted disciples from far and near. Learning is much but character is more. Rabbi Judah the Prince combined learning with character; he was a scholar and a gentleman. Scholarship may inspire with respect, but character wins love, and love is greater. The contemporaries of Rabbi un- questionably bowed before his knowledge, but it was the respect and love of his character that made them pray whole-heartedly for his life as this Prince in Israel of three score years and ten lay dying. They could not bring themselves to realise that such goodness should become the prey of the Angel of Death. They threatened to tear in pieces the messenger of his demise. But the sad intelligence had to be conveyed to the crowd somehow, and Bar Kappara, a beloved disciple of the Prince, appeared 13 194 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT among them, his head in a cowl and his garments rent. A hush fell on the assembly as he began to speak. " Angels and mortals strove together for the Ark of the Covenant; the Angels were victorious and the Ark is not here !" " So he is dead !" cried the crowd in unison. " Ye have spoken it !" was the answer, and the sound of the mourning cries could be heard in neighbouring towns. Even if this is but a tradition, it bears witness to a remarkable character. Rabbi was meek. " Much have I learned from my teachers," he is reported to have said; " more from my fellow-students; but most from my pupils." To his elders he was respectful, realising perhaps that the exercise of this quality is good for the soul. A wealthy man, Rabbi was a model of charity. His own wants were few; his loving consideration for the needy was boundless. During a year of famine he threw open his abundant stores of corn to the poor. Nor did he discriminate in his assistance. Poverty was the sole passport to his heart. The Talmud relates that when the daughters of Elisha ben Abuyah fell on evil days, Rabbi gave them succour despite the apostasy of their father. At the age of twenty-seven Rabbi succeeded his father as the Prince of Israel. The position was no sinecure; Moses of old had learned that the Jews were not an easy people to govern. But the strength of will and the energy of Rabbi stood him in good stead, though it must be confessed that in his decisions his heart co-operated with his brain to keep him essentially human. The qualities which made him a model of the social virtues also expressed themselves in his legal and religious enactments. He disliked A PRINCE IN ISRAEL 195 fasting; " it is not good to burden the community with too much fasting." He even went so far as to suggest the abolition of the Fast of the Ninth of Ab. In his desire to see a perfect observance of the Sabbath, he allowed certain things to be done on the Holy Day which before his time were prohibited. The ceremony of circumcision he held in high esteem, yet he laid it down that if a man had lost three sons by reason of their circumcision he should receive dispensation from circumcising the fourth. Rabbi Judah the Prince, who was also called Rabbi Judah the Saint, might in our own days have been criticised in some quarters as a Reformer. Some of us are apt to use that word loosely; others show an inclination to adopt it as a stick to beat with those who differ from them. And yet how necessary a function is the reformer's ! Without his activity our religious life might become more hopeless than even at present. Reformers we need, but they must be instructed; they must apply common sense along traditional lines. Such a Reformer was Rabbi. He rejected all the ordinances which were based on the hope of the restoration of the Temple. Contrary to the opinion of his predecessors, he allowed the three sections of Holy Writ to be bound together in one volume. Believing that work may be done on Purim, he himself worked in his garden on that day. Needless to add, the blind zealots of his genera- tion upbraided him for his conduct. They called him Reformer. His reply was typical of his common sense and of his force of character. There is always room for improvement, he told them; or, to use his own words, " My forefathers have left me a place round which to put a fence." 196 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT In all this he had but one cause at heart the welfare of his people and their religious health. Finding in his travels that in many congregations the teachers and spiritual guides were ignorant, he instituted the practice of giving authorisation to religious teachers of communities. He also provided for religious education. " The world would not exist," he used to say, " but for the voices of little children in the schools." Rabbi, it need hardly be stated, was intensely religious. He was ever mindful of his duties as being in his Great Taskmaster's eye. Indeed, he forestalled Milton in the very phrase. " Reflect on three things," he taught, " and thou wilt not come within the power of sin: know what is above thee an eye that sees, an ear that hears, and a book in which all thy deeds are recorded." In the service of God there is no great and small. " Be heedful of a light precept as of a grave one," was a favourite dictum of Rabbi's. And as for social intercourse, his advice was that a man's conduct should be such as is honourable to himself and also brings him honour from mankind. His also was the prayer to be delivered from an arrogant man, from a bad man, and from a bad neighbour. A man who so loved his fellows must have been a universal favourite, and we can well believe the tradition which says that Rabbi was a close friend of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and that the two took sweet counsel together. The Philosopher-Emperor came with his difficulties to the Rabbi-Prince, and many are the parables recorded which the latter propounded to the former. Rabbi's masterpiece I have left to the end. He is the editor of the Mishna, and as such deserves and A PRINCE IN ISRAEL 197 retains a high place among those who built up Jewish tradition. The work which Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai commenced, Rabbi Judah the Prince com- pleted. It was the work of a master mind, and Judaism owes him a deep debt of gratitude for col- lecting, sorting, and retaining the opinions and enactments of a thousand years, and giving them permanent form. Such was this Prince in Israel, so very different from princes of other peoples and other times. He was a Prince of the Spirit, a Prince among the teachers of religion, a Prince of whom it is true to say in an eminent degree that the Almighty had put some of His own glory on flesh and blood. THE GREATEST JEWISH HUMANIST WHO was the greatest Jew since the Diaspora began ? Jewish opinion will probably be unanimous that the greatest Jew of the last eighteen centuries was no other than Moses, the son of Maimon. " I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere of thought into which other men rise with labour and difficulty; he has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in large relations." According to this standard set up by Emerson, Maimonides was an exceedingly great man; indeed, he was one of the very greatest. What manner of man was he ? When did he live ? What were his achievements ? In twelfth-century Spain, a Moslem country, Jews had found a haven of rest. Jewish communities sprang up in wellnigh all the cities; thought and study were unfettered, and a race of scholars, Rabbis, poets, and philosophers was produced by the sun of tolerance. Among the places famed for high thinking was Cordova, and there, on the First Day of Passover in the year 1135, corresponding to March 3Oth, a son was born to the Dayan of the Jewish community, to Rabbi Maimon ben Joseph. The boy was called Moses; he became the great Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides. Of his mother nothing is known. But there is a saga that she was a butcher's daughter, and that her 198 THE GREATEST JEWISH HUMANIST 199 first-born was worthy of his maternal grandfather. He was idle and ignorant, stupid and unambitious. But one day, so the saga continues, his father's words of scorn seemed to have touched something within him. He left the house, and went to the synagogue, and there poured out his heart before God, asking that he might become a better lad, that he might be made acquainted with knowledge and at the hands of Elijah the Tishbite himself. Worn out with grief, the boy fell asleep in the synagogue, shortly to wake up and find a kindly old man standing before him, speaking to him with a gentle voice, offering to guide him in a new path. It was Elijah the Prophet, and he became his teacher. Years elapsed, and one Sabbath day a wandering preacher spoke to the assembled con- gregation of Israel in the city of Cordova. The audience was electrified; such wisdom, such learning had never been heard even in that hive of scholars. All wondered who the preacher was. It was not long before he made himself known, and was received with open arms into his father's house. So far the saga. How is it that men who seize upon the popular mind, by reason either of their extraordinary goodness or their vast knowledge, should become the heroes of marvellous stories of adventure ? This tale of the youth of Maimonides is not even original. It bears a strong likeness to the story told of Akiba. I have an impression that it is not unlike stories told of other great men. It is a case of the swineherd turning out to be a prince. In all probability Moses received instruction in Jewish lore from his learned father, and as likely as not also from Joseph ibn Zadik, the Rabbi of Cordova. But the boy was not content with Jewish 200 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT lore alone. He read Arabic treatises on the physical sciences, and before he had reached his teens it was obvious that his were intellectual abilities far above the average. Hardly was Maimon's son Barmitzvah when a wave of oppression overwhelmed the Jews in Spain. A fanatical sect of Moslems spread terror among " un- believers " in North Africa and Spain, offering them one of two alternatives the acceptance of the Moslem faith or death. Many Jews in North Africa pretended to acquiesce in the first alternative in order to escape the second. Soon the zealots captured Cordova, and the greater part of the Jewish community fled to other places in Spain. Among the fugitives was the Dayan and his family, consisting of two sons and one daughter. Between 1148 and 1160 they wandered homeless from one town to another. Such a life was hardly conducive to the acquisition of knowledge, but Moses ben Maimon was able to rise above his adversities, impelled, no doubt, by some force within him which marks all men of genius. With a heavy heart the Maimon family decided to leave the land they loved, and in 1160 they settled in Fez, where they continued for five years. At this time the position of those Jews who had made a pretence of adopting Mohammedanism was a question that greatly troubled Sephardic Jewry. One school of thought utterly condemned their action; Mai- monides, who also entered the lists, showed his mettle first by a reasoned and logical defence of this enforced apostasy, and, secondly, by kindly consideration for its victims. The position in Fez became more and more intolerable, and in 1165 Maimon's family were again wandering. This time their goal was Palestine, THE GREATEST JEWISH HUMANIST 201 which they reached after a four weeks' voyage not without its dangers and difficulties. In the autumn of 1165 they were in Jerusalem and Hebron. Their desire was to settle in the Holy Land. But there was little scope for earning a livelihood. Those were the days of the Crusades, which, not content with giving the crown of martyrdom to thousands of Jews in Western Europe, also embittered the lives of the Jews in the Holy Land itself. The Maimons decided to settle in Egypt; before the year 1165 was over they were living in Fostat, quite close to Cairo. It seemed as though their troubles were at last over. But no. Next year Rabbi Maimon died. The two brothers drew even more closely together, and agreed to carry on business together, David to be the active partner and Moses the sleeping partner. In all probability they dealt in precious stones which David brought from India. The arrangement allowed Moses to devote himself to his studies. In a letter to a friend he wrote, " He [the brother] is occupied in business and earns while I sit at ease." But the boon did not continue long. On one of his journeys David suffered shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, and Moses found it necessary to earn his own livelihood. He practised medicine, and soon became known as a skilful physician, whose patients came from far and near, and from all social grades. Before long he rose to be one of the physicians attached to the Sultan's court, and his position was assured. Medicine was his calling, but the Torah was his passion. The Torah he studied with all his soul and all his mind, and from the first he desired to make his knowledge accessible to others. Scarcely out of his teens he had resolved to write a commentary on the 202 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT Mishna. The work took him ten years to complete. It was a huge enterprise, and its execution showed that the author had a great fund of knowledge and no small skill in presenting what he knew in an orderly and logical fashion. Into this commentary, which was written in Arabic because he wanted the mass of people to read it, he poured out all that was in his mind of religious and profane lore. It was in con- nection with this commentary that Maimonides formulated the thirteen principles of Judaism, which, though generally accepted to-day, were subjected to attack and criticism when they were first made public. But, despite the magnitude of his commentary on the Mishna, its author was hardly known as yet. Recognition came slowly. When about the year 1170 Benjamin of Tudela was in Egypt, and gave a list of great Jews in that country, Maimonides was not included. It was perhaps best so. When fame did come, it was not of sudden growth. It was solid, rooted in the excellence of the man, and, therefore, permanent. Soon his name was known far and wide, and the Jews of Arabia, who had to go through much the same experience as their brethren in Fez, appealed to him for guidance and direction. His reply was characterised by deep religious feeling and by great human sympathy. Its contents were held in such esteem that one authority has said that if Maimonides had written nothing but this Letter to the Jews of Arabia his fame would have been established. He was consulted by Jews from all parts of the Orient, and always there was in his replies the same patience, the same fullness of knowledge, the same kindliness. His excellence was also recognised by his own com- THE GREATEST JEWISH HUMANIST 203 munity, and he became head of Egyptian Jewry. The religious conditions which were prevalent there were by no means satisfactory. Knowledge was lacking and religious life was at a low ebb. Maimonides observed, for example, that while the Reader was repeating the Amidah the congregants talked audibly and disturbed the service. This was something the Moslems, who were most reverent in their mosques, could not understand, and they blamed the Jews for their lack of devotion. Maimonides therefore intro- duced an innovation. He abolished the repetition of the Amidah by the Reader. The Reader recited the Amidah aloud, and the congregants silently read the prayers with him. In this way reverence was restored to the synagogue service. It is only necessary to mention his two other great masterpieces, the Mishna Torah and the Guide of the Perplexed. The former is a compendium of the Jewish religion; the latter a system of Jewish philo- sophy, dealing with God, the creation of the world, inspiration, miracles, good and evil, immortality of the soul, prophecy, and kindred problems on which thinking people desire to have guidance. Maimonides is a rational guide, whose teaching is not without value in modern times. All our questionings, all our problems he could not have foreseen; but, like most great men, his message is not only for his own age, but for all time. Maimonides must have been among those who find contentment in work. A letter of his to a friend conveys some idea of his great occupation. It was his duty to visit the royal family each morning; if all was well there, he could get back home in the afternoon; if not, he spent the day at the palace. On his return 204 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT home he found his waiting-room full of people, Jews and Moslems, the great and the lowly, all waiting for medical treatment. He had scarce time to partake of food, for the calls of his patients were insistent, and the stream continued until late at night, exhausting him so that towards the end of the day he had to lie on a couch. The Sabbath Day alone brought him rest. Then he considered and directed the affairs of the community and gave religious instruction to its members. In all his human relationships he was gentle and forgiving; he exhorted his friends to suffer gladly those who attacked him. His ideal of life was to be constantly working out his own moral and intellectual perfection, a policy he impressed on his disciples, and he warned them not to be influenced by the fashions and follies of their environment. When on December 13, 1204, he died, Jewry mourned for him as for a second Moses. From Moses the Prophet (it was said), unto Moses ben Maimon, there arose none like Moses. In the synagogues the passage from the Torah was read, " And Moses the servant of the Lord died." Jews and Moslems joined to express their lamentations for the loss of a great man, a kindly neighbour, a lover of mankind. He was buried in Tiberias, where his tomb remains unto this day. JEWISH WORLDLY WISDOM THE practice of reciting the Ethics of the Fathers (Singer's Prayer Book, p. 184) during the Satur- day afternoons of the summer months is wholly commendable. It is educational in two direc- tions. In the first place, both children and adults learn by heart good, crisp Hebrew always a useful acquisition; and in the second place, they have im- pressed on their minds sound wisdom, mellow with age, the accumulated experience of Jewish thinkers of many generations. I have been struck by three characteristics of the six Chapters. The first is the large amount of space devoted to learning and the study of the Torah; the second, the almost equally large amount of space devoted to social ethics and to human relations; and the third, the marvellous applicability of the worldly wisdom to the present age, and indeed, to all ages. There are probably more than 150 dicta in the whole collection, and yet there is only one to which exception could be taken by any reasonable person to-day. That is the aphorism of Jose ben Jochanan, of Jerusalem, who declared that it is advisable not to talk too much with women, not excluding even your own wife, and including, of course, other men's wives. Some years ago, I drew the attention of the head of a women's college, a non-Jewess, to these Chapters of the Fathers, and I still vividly recall the snort of hostile criticism that she emitted as she referred to the passage about 205 206 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT speech with women. One can understand her frame of mind; and I think on the whole that most of us to-day, not excluding even the members of the Agudas Yisrael, would sympathise with her. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the Rabbi spoke of " too much " talk. Nor is it difficult to realise an age and circumstances in which women were regarded as the instruments of the Evil One to lead men astray. Possibly in those days men felt too weak to withstand the temptation; or perhaps the temptation of the women was exceedingly powerful. Be that as it may, it speaks much for the excellence of the wisdom contained in these Chapters that any real objection can be taken to only one piece of advice. There is indeed one other as to which there is room for a difference of opinion. It is the saying of Rabbi Eleazar the Mede, which may seem a little harsh and intolerant. He said: "He who profanes sacred things, despises the festivals, puts his fellow-man to shame in public, makes void the Covenant of Abraham our father, and makes the Torah bear a meaning other than that which is right such a man, even though he be full of learning and of good deeds, has no share in the world to come." Who shall say what man has and what man has not a share in the world to come ? The true Jewish conception is surely far wider than Rabbi Eleazar's. The Rabbi is entitled to his view, but we need not accept it. Anyhow, it does not compare with the sentiment about over- much talk with women. There is yet a third passage wherein a view is expounded which is a matter of opinion. In the fifth section we are told that seven kinds of punishments come into the world for seven particular transgressions, and drought is brought into JEWISH WORLDLY WISDOM 207 relation with the non-payment of tithes, pestilence with the violation of the law regarding the fruits of the seventh year, war with the delay of justice, and captivity with idolatry and bloodshed. Whoever the author was, his opinion is hardly convincing. Rabbi Jannai was a wiser man. He used to say, " It is not in our power to explain either the prosperity of the wicked or the afflictions of the righteous." That is a sentiment which would find extensive currency to-day, and it is remarkable that it should have been coined so many centuries ago. On the whole, then, there is not very much to object to in the philosophy of life propounded by these Jewish rabbis. It is virile and exemplary; and the world would be the better if it lived up to the standard set in these pages of the Jewish Prayer Book. For my own part, I have always been attracted by the social ethics of the collection. I have always felt the force of the statement attributed to Simon the Righteous, that the world is based upon three things on the Torah, on divine service, and on the practice of charity. Even better is the opinion of Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel, that the three pillars of human society are truth, justice, and peace. These fundamentals are supplemented by very many precious pieces of advice for regulating intercourse between man and man. Think the best of everybody; kindness of heart is the highest quality; let your neighbour's honour be as dear to you as your own; be foremost in greetings these are a few samples of guiding principles in life. Christianity sometimes claims that it teaches the love of enemies; it should be remembered that Judaism teaches it no less. Samuel 208 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT the Younger put the doctrine in a nutshell: " Rejoice not," he taught, " when thine enemy falleth, and let not thy heart be glad when he stumbleth." Pos- sibly the master-key to human intercourse may be found in the advice of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, who said: " If men take pleasure in you, God, too, will take pleasure in you." Extensive as is the advice regarding social inter- course, that about the Torah and its study is even larger. This is not surprising in the People of the Book. Jose ben Joezer advised every man to cultivate the society of the learned; Joshua ben Perachyah urged the necessity for having a teacher. But if study was good, it was necessary to combine it with business, as Rabbi Gamaliel, the son of Rabbi Judah, taught, or as Rabbi Eleazar ben Azaryah was fond of saying: " Where there is no Torah there are no manners, and where there are no manners there is no Torah. Where there is no bread there is no Torah; where there is no Torah there is no bread." But even the Torah was not the highest ideal. Said Rabbi Simon : " There are three crowns : the crown of the Torah, the crown of the priesthood, and the crown of sovereignty, but [he proceeds] the crown of a good name excels them all." Occasionally a passage is to be found which lays stress on the vanity of humanity, as, for example, Hillel's phrase that a name made great is a name destroyed; or Akabya ben Mahalalel's advice to think of whence we come, whither we are going, and before whom we are destined to give an account of our actions. Occasional reflection on the meaning of life is good, but life would become a dreary business if we went about in the spirit of Rabbi Levitas, of Jabneh, who JEWISH WORLDLY WISDOM 209 is always reminding us that we shall one day be worms; or in that of Rabbi Eleazar Hakkapar, who cannot forget that " they that are born are destined to die." But these " dismal deans " are not very numerous, and on the whole it must be admitted that here, as elsewhere in Jewish literature, it is the joy of life that predominates, despite one or two curious references in praise of silence, such as Rabbi Akiba's, who said that silence is a fence to wisdom, or Simon ben Gamaliel's, who would have been an ornament to any Trappist monastery. Of the miscellaneous sayings, there is much wisdom in that passage in the second section, which would serve as an admirable motto for an electioneering period: " Be on your guard against the ruling power; for they who exercise it draw no man near to them except for their own interests, appearing as friends when it is to their own advantage, but when a man is in distress, they do not lend a hand." I like also the passage which sets forth the ages of man as con- ceived by Judah ben Tema. At five he expects you to be learning the Bible, at twelve the Mishna, at fifteen the Talmud, at eighteen you should be a bridegroom, at twenty you should be seeking a livelihood, at thirty you are at your full strength, at forty you are wiser than you ever will be, at fifty you are a good counsellor, at sixty you are old, at seventy you are hoary, at ninety you are bent beneath the weight of years, at a hundred you are of no further use and might as well be dead. I like, too, the sentiment (in the fifth section) that differences of opinion are to be recognised, but that those only will prevail which are in the name of Heaven. Similarly, we are told that the love that is unselfish will last H 210 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT longest, and the social group that has a high ideal may expect to continue. Rabbi Meir warned against judging by appearances. " Look not at the flask," he said, " but at what it contains. There may be a new flask full of old wine and an old flask that has not even new wine in it." No less attractive are the qualities of a cultured man. He can control his speech, letting others speak before him; he does not interrupt; he answers point by point, and is ready to declare his ignorance and to admit the truth. A remarkable piece of analysis is found in the fifth section, wherein four classes of men are noted those who say, " Mine is mine and thine is thine " (said to be the characteristic of the men of Sodom, who were notoriously evil); those who say, " Mine is thine and thine is mine" (these are boors) ; those who say, " Mine is thine and thine is thine " (these are saints); and those who say, "Mine is mine and thine is mine " (avoid these as you would the evil one !). One more illustration in conclusion, too precious not to be mentioned. I mean Ben Zoma's questions. " Who is wise ? He who learns from all men. Who is strong ? He who can control himself. Who is rich ? He who is satisfied with what he has. Who is honoured ? He who honours others." The view of life as reflected in these pages is in accord with the teaching of the Prophets and of the ethical portions of the Torah. The Chapters are an illustration of the continuity of Jewish tradition in support of justice, goodness, righteousness, and truth, and are full of that wisdom which when acted upon produces good Jews and good citizens. A JEWISH VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY IN order to understand Christianity, it is necessary to recall the condition of Jewry in the century before Jesus was born. The Jews were split into three great parties the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes. Of the first it need only be said that they were worldly in outlook, ever ready to make the best of the existing political conditions. They were the trimmers of their day. The Pharisees, tired and troubled by the uncertainties and the sufferings of the world around them, tired also of the intolerable yoke of Rome, looked for comfort to a new World to Come. " This World," said one of their early teachers, " is like a vestibule before the World to Come. Prepare thyself therefore in the vestibule that thou mayest enter into the hall." It is not easy to picture to one's mind the nature of this World to Come. It would seem to have been visualised as life after death, without sin or suffering. The Essenes went further still in their contemplation. They dreamed mystically of a new world in heaven, which they regarded as the Kingdom of God, and in order to prepare themselves for this state of bliss, they withdrew from the world, lived lonely lives in deserts and waste places, eschewed property, marriage, and all social institutions. The Essenes went about preaching the new Kingdom, and found a following in Galilee, a district of Palestine which admittedly was inhabited by the least cultured 211 212 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT of the population. These men of toil felt the heavy burden of oppression, of taxation, and of hopelessness. Capable of intense feeling as they were, they were only too ready to listen to good news of a better time coming, and of a Redeemer who should liberate Israel : from all his troubles. This expectation of a Redeemer i was deeply rooted among the suffering Jewish masses, . and when Jesus appeared in their midst as one of the/ itinerant Essenes, it was not long before he was hailec as the expected Messiah. But he was not the only one who was so regarded. Many other preachers of that age who came to call men to repentance were, as Josep^us states, also looked upon as God's anointed The case of Jesus grew into a cause celebre because became entangled in the political machine, and th State authorities were responsible for his death. Then legends grew thick and fast around his memory. A study of the mushroom-like development of legends is not only fascinating because of the kaleidoscopic tendency of human imagination, but is also instructive as showing how in all lands and in all times the human mind is prone to this weakness. Are we altogether free from legends in these days ? How easy therefore to conceive of the legends that grew around the name of Jesus. Men told each other that he had risen from the dead, that he was the Son of God, that he had been miraculously born, that his death was to be an atonement for the sins of his people. The stories found currency, and before long verses in the Bible were discovered which pointed to his career. " Out of Egypt did I call My son," says the prophet Hosea in one place, clearly referring to the early history of the Jews. But an incident in the life of Jesus was invented to fit in with this passage in the Book of A JEWISH VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY 213 Hosea. Others, too, were similarly invented. But there was nothing strange or new in this. It was just the Midrashic method of dealing with the Bible text, and the Gospels are nothing but Midrashim. A body of doctrine also gradually accumulated round the name of Jesus, in part Jewish, in part heathen. The earliest followers of the teacher of Nazareth, like himself, were Jews, living the Jewish life, practising the Jewish customs. They differed from their fellow- Jews in that they believed, rightly or wrongly, that the long-expected Messiah had already come. But slowly non-Jews joined the Fraternity. Then Paul appeared on the scene. If Jesus may be described as possessing an Haggadist mind, Paul's mind was certainly Halachic. Jesus appealed to the emotions; he pitied the poor and oppressed; he loved little children. Paul was a legalist; he loved system, and he built up a structure out of the materials that had accumulated. Who can say how opinions and beliefs grow up ? But there they were, a mosaic of Jewish and heathen beliefs, doctrines, practices, traditions. It did not take long before the new community severed itself from the Jews. Retaining many of the Jewish practices, the new sect changed their setting. They took over the Sabbath but fixed it on Sunday. They kept the Jewish Holy days Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, for example but gave them a somewhat different meaning and a different date. And they did more. They adopted distinctly heathen doctrines. They incorporated the idea of the Trinity; they taught the Incarnation, the virgin birth, and original sin. On the whole it may be said that Christianity adopted the ethics of Judaism and the dogmas of heathendom. There would not perhaps have been 214 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT so much harm done if the two had been kept apart and the second made subservient to the first. But the two were intertwined; nay, the second became the predominating element. Men might live righteous lives, fulfilling all God's commands, but if they did not subscribe to articles of faith, if they denied the virgin birth or the Trinity, or that bread and wine on an altar became flesh and blood, they were punished as heretics, more often than not at the stake. The heathen strain in Christianity poisoned the whole system; and the political policy of the Catholic Church but heightened the disease to madness. The history of Europe in the first sixteen centuries of our era is one long illustration of this fact. Protestantism was the first attempt to purge the diseased body. But good as was the purge, it was not effective enough. Gradually, however, the non-Jewish elements in Christianity are losing their hold on men's minds. They are the dead branches on the ancient tree. Do professing Christians still " believe " in the Trinity or in the Incarnation ? Many people do not bother about these dogmas. They have lost interest in them, and the insistence of the Church on their retention is one reason why churches are so empty. Men and women care far more for righteous- ness, for social justice, for clean living, for unselfish service. These are the Jewish elements in Christianity, and it is a sign of the times that while the heathen lumber is decaying, the Jewish strain in Christianity ; is becoming more and more alive. Perhaps Christian ' teachers will begin to realise before long that if : Christianity is to develop along healthy lines, it will have to approach Judaism more and more closely. A JEWISH VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY 215 After all, it will only be going back to the pure Gospel teaching. The best authorities on Christianity are agreed that that teaching is Jewish through and through. Even so accepted a leader of Christian thought as Harnack has to admit this, despite his fling at the Pharisees. It must be readily admitted that Christianity has served Judaism by spreading Jewish teachings among the Gentiles. When the Goths and the Huns adopted Christianity, they thereby imbibed Jewish ethics. The pity of it is that while Christianity taught Jewish ethics, it did not practise them. Christianity taught the love of neighbour; yet Christians, even those who occupied the highest position in the organised Church, killed each other for differences of opinion. Christians professed to follow the example of Jesus, who loved little children. But history records that Jewish children and tender women were mercilessly done to death by Christian hate. Nor is the dis- crepancy between doctrine and practice limited to the past; unfortunately it holds good to-day. The professions of Christianity and the practice of Christians are sadly at variance still. But it is not impossible that in the near future the daughter religion will come to realise whence it has sprung, and will have more respect for Judaism, its mother. When that occurs, we shall be nearer the day when the Lord shall be One, and His name One, and when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. AN ANALYSIS OF ANGLO-JEWRY T HE following table attempts to show the groups into which Anglo-Jewry is at the present day divided : Unat Li be Anglo- 1 Jewry 1 tached Left Wing Right Wing 1 als Berk( :ley St. United Federation of Mizra( Synagogue Synagogues Type Type hists Agudas Israel i r i 1 1 Anti- Zionists Non- Zionists Non- Zionists Non- Zionists Non- Zionists Zionists Zionists Zionists Zionists It is, of course, necessary to realise that, while it is not difficult to divide inanimate things into specific groups, it is by no means easy to do so with human beings. Eggs, or stones, or umbrellas may be placed into water-tight compartments, but water-tight divisions of the units in Anglo-Jewry that is quite another thing. Nevertheless, it should not be im- possible, bearing in mind that one is sketching only main outlines, to arrive at a more or less clear picture, at any rate of types. I have therefore in my table arranged three definite groups, one comprising the Right wing of the community, the other the Left wing, and the third those that are unattached, or attached by but slender threads. 216 AN ANALYSIS OF ANGLO-JEWRY 217 As I considered the problem it seemed to me that while the individual members of Anglo-Jewry are agreed about charitable or social work, there are two lines of cleavage which tend to produce two camps in the community. One is the cleavage produced by religious differences, and the other is the attitude of the various groups and individuals to what is termed Jewish Nationalism. The table takes into consideration both these great divisions. To the extreme Right I have placed the type represented by the people who style themselves Agudas Israel. Their orthodoxy they consider unimpeachable. For them the Shulchan Aruch is the supreme code for the regulation of every aspect of life. They are anti-Zionists to a man. But do not imagine that they are necessarily opposed to the idea of the establishment of a Jewish life in Palestine. On the contrary, they are particularly anxious to see there a flourishing Jewish life, but if it is to have any value it must be strictly and scrupulously orthodox. In numbers they appear not to be large; but, of course, with this group as with others one must content oneself with impressions. But it is very earnest, and is determined to hold aloft the banner of uncom- promising traditional orthodoxy. Its attitude to the community is that of a somewhat supercilious aloofness, and it is worthy of note that in this country as in others the group tends to form little Bethels of its own, which it perhaps likes to regard as oases in the desert of heterodoxy. Akin to them, but differing from them in many respects, is the Mizrachi wing. For one thing the Mizrachists have a strong sense of the corporateness of Israel, and truly orthodox though they are, for the 218 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT sake of this ideal they will work hand in hand with others who may not share their views entirely. Thus they are Zionists. They even co-operate with people who are professedly non-religionists. They may perhaps be best described as Jewish Nationalists for whom the essence of the restoration of Palestine to the Jews is the establishment of the religious life. Orthodoxy of a slightly different quality is professed by my third group, which I have termed the Federation of Synagogues. But in using this term I am not thinking necessarily only of the Federation of Syna- gogues in London. The term denotes a type which is found not only in the capital but alsoin the provinces. It delights in Chevras. Though it is orthodox, its orthodoxy is perhaps not quite so inflexible as that of the two groups already mentioned. On the question of Nationalism I should imagine that its members are divided. Some are, and others are not, Zionists. My own impression is that the proportion of the two is about equal. In London this group is jealous of its independence, and often shows a vigour and determination which some thinkers associate with democracy at its best. Yet its members are of foreign origin, and their mentality and their attitude to communal problems can only be understood if this cardinal point is borne in mind. Unlike the Agudas Israel, the Federation type recognises the authority of the Chief Rabbi, and wherever there is a com- munal organisation they are not absent from its counsels. My fourth and largest group of the Right wing of the Community is what I have termed the United Synagogue type. Here, too, I am not thinking of London only. I include in this section the constituent AN ANALYSIS OF ANGLO-JEWRY 219 synagogues of the United Synagogue, as well as synagogues like the " Great " in Manchester, Prince's Road in Liverpool, the Birmingham Synagogue, and similar congregations. I should say that this group includes the greater portion of the Jewish middle classes, who are comfortably off, who delight in speaking the King's English properly, and who in the general community form a part of the bourgeoisie. This group, too, is divided in regard to Zionism, and I should suggest that while some seventy per cent, are non-Zionists, the residue support the Zionist programme. I imagine that the rank and file of this group have given little thought to the meaning of Judaism, satisfied that as long as they pay their synagogue dues, assiduously read the Jewish press, attend synagogue on a fair number of Sabbaths during the year, and on the first days of most of the Holy Days, follow the lead of the honorary officers of the United Synagogue whether in regard to religious practices, charitable endeavour, or what I may term communal politics, all is well with them. My im- pression is that these people, if they were taken properly in hand, could be made to understand the Zionist attitude to the Jewish question. But it would be necessary first to penetrate a thick crust of i prejudice. Perhaps the appeal to sentiment, and the necessity for finding a haven of refuge for the persecuted victims of Poland and the Ukraine, may win them to support the Palestine idea in its entirety. I now come to consider the Left wing of the Com- munity. Here there are two groups, one represented by the Liberal Synagogue and the other by Berkeley Street. The Liberal Synagogue stands for the extreme conception of what is termed the Mission of Israel, 220 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT a Mission which can only be properly carried out if Israel is scattered among the nations. The attitude of members of this group towards Zionism is that of hostility. They object to the National idea. They claim that they are wholly Englishmen, not realising that they are mixing up the ideas of nationality and citizenship. I believe the people who preach this doctrine are very much in earnest and wholly sincere. But it has often been a puzzle to me to understand that they do not themselves see the absurdity of their claim. They seem to have a curious fear that if it should be proved that they are not English, something very awful would happen to them. Can they not realise that there are differences of blood or race in every political unit to-day ? Do they not appreciate the fact that in the British Empire there are many races, the members of which are all English citizens, all co-operating in giving expression to the ideals of the British Commonwealth ? On the other hand, I can well understand the dread these people have of the extreme Nationalism which has produced such evil results on the Continent of Europe. In many cases Nationalism has degenerated into chauvinism. It is loud, cruel, unjust, and often its pose is undignified. It is a disease which has afflicted many Gentiles on the Continent, and some Jews are suffering from it too. I should say that it is this evil side of Nationalism that the Liberals dread, and therefore they are constantly protesting that Jews are only a religious body. But this is clearly half the truth. Of course Jews are a religious body, but they are something else besides. Unfortunately, this idea that Jews are only a religious body is so deeply ingrained in the minds of the prominent leaders of the Liberals that one AN ANALYSIS OF ANGLO-JEWRY 221 gets the impression that they regard those whom for short I may term Nationalist Jews with a deep hostility which is disquieting. Of Berkeley Street it is only necessary to say that its " Reform " is of a mild character. The difference between the supporters of Berkeley Street and some members of the United Synagogue was once well brought out in that inimitable way of his by the late Professor Schechter, who said that the latter do not keep two days of the Festivals, and the former do not keep one day. Indeed, there is a strong element of Conservatism in the very reform at Berkeley Street, and in regard to a large number of families there is very little difference between those who go to Berkeley Street and those who go to the West End Synagogues of the United. As for the Zionist question, I should say that the members of Berkeley Street are divided; some are, and others are not, Zionists. But even of the latter it is probably true to assert that they occupy a position of friendly neutrality. Besides the differences I have already indicated, there is another which must not be lost sight of. I refer to the political principles of the leaders of the United Synagogue, Berkeley Street, and the Jewish Religious Union. Many of them are Conservatives in politics, and are therefore inclined to regard communal questions, too, from the Conservative standpoint. Time was when Anglo-Jewry was small, when its numbers were drawn from the same class, when it represented a compact mass in the body politic. In those days the remnants of the feudal system in communal affairs had not yet vanished, and the leaders of the past generations were men of 222 JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT power, whose word was law, and at whose presence the rank and file trembled. Some of our Conserva- tive leaders to-day have not yet been able to shake off this old conception, and judging from their opinions, expressed at the Board of Deputies, at the League of British Jews, at the Board of Guardians, and elsewhere, they deplore the passing of the feudal system in Anglo-Jewry and are making a stiff fight for their position. It may be that their opinion is right. It may be that the community would be better governed and better organised by an enlight- ened autocracy. But the fact is that what is called democracy has made progress, that it will be heard, and if often its voice is raucous, its speech unpolished, and its arguments extravagant, the fact remains that it is strong in numbers, and determined to make its influence felt. Wisdom ought to direct a course of gentle persuasion of the masses, and not of irate opposition. On the other hand, it must be remem- bered that the leaders who cherish the feudal ideals have one strong argument which cannot be gainsaid. When any difficulty arises, who is it that is called upon to subscribe funds ? These very leaders and their entourage. Candour bids us admit the force of this argument, but it can hardly be called noble. That it should be used proves how deep is the cleavage between the present and the past, between the old and the new, between the League of British Jews and the Zionists. There is danger in this cleavage. It may generate acute political antagonism in Anglo-Jewry, just as the uncompromising attitude of the extreme Left may produce religious hatred. Possibly in both cases nerves are on edge as a result of the war psychosis. AN ANALYSIS OF ANGLO-JEWRY 223 But it is time to recall men to reason, to good sense, and to brotherliness. Jews have ever suffered greatly from sectaries within their ranks. The present position of Jewry calls for a united Anglo-Jewry. Differences of opinion there must be where there is freedom of thought. But Jews must tolerate each other, however deep their internal differences may be, and the example should come from the " elder statesmen " in our midst. We simply must all pull together. The class which I have described as unattached still* remains to be considered. This includes a large) number of Jews and Jewesses who have married, as itj is called, " outside the Faith," and whose hearts/ nevertheless yearn for religious communion with! their brethren. Many are the pitiful cases one hasl heard of Jews and Jewesses who passionately desire toj observe the Passover or go to synagogue on the Day of Atonement, although their husbands or wives are non-Jews and although their whole life is anything but Jewish in outlook, in practice, or in sentiment. This group includes the large number of people (among whom, I am told, the Jewish World circulates largely) who just drift, so far as any sectional member- ship in the community is concerned; they comprise actors, miscellaneous music-hall artists, literary men, stockbrokers, and hosts and hosts of others who are, as it were, branches on the Jewish tree that flower not, neither do they burst into leaf. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED GUILDFORD AND ESHER UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-Series4939 A 000 876 105