S. Schechter

“ He regarded these as the most seductive of all forms of sin. But a few minutes before his death he was heard to murmur, “O vanity, vanity! even in this hour of death thou darest to approach me with thy temptations: ‘Bethink thee, Israel, what a grand funeral procession will be thine because thou hast been so wise and good.’ O vanity, vanity! beshrew thee.” “It should be indifferent to man,” says the master, “whether he be praised or blamed, loved or hated, reputed to be the wisest of mankind or the greatest of fools. ”

“ Such was the Sabbath of the old Rabbis and the same spirit continued through all ages. The Sabbath was and is still celebrated by the people who did and do observe it, in hundreds of hymns, which would fill volumes, as a day of rest and joy, of pleasure and delight, a day in which man enjoys some foretaste of the pure [pg 248] bliss and happiness which are stored up for the righteous in the world to come. Somebody, either the learned professors, or the millions of the Jewish people, must be under an illusion. ”

“ Suppose that we accept the view that Judaism is not a dogmatic religion. But how are we to conceive a religion without dogmas, or, if you prefer the expression, without principles or bases of belief? Or is Judaism, as some platitudinarians think, a mere national institute with some useful dietary and sanitary laws, but with nothing that makes for the sanctification of man, with no guidance to offer us in the great problems of our life, and in the greatest anxieties of the human soul? ”

“ For upon three things the world stands: upon truth, upon judgment, upon peace; as it is said, ‘Judge ye the truth and the judgment of peace in your gates.’ But he who breaks his word, his sin is as great as if he worshipped idols; and God, who punished the people of the time of the Flood, will also punish him who does not stand by his word. ”

“ The day was already drawing to its close, and, by a marvellous coincidence, I arrived at the synagogue just as the congregation was intoning the words: “The Lord is one, and His name is one to His renown and glory.” Here was sound, simple exegesis, though sadly lacking in the illustrative matter in which the Vatican is so rich. But what need was there of any real or artificial “aid to the believer,” in the presence of such a living faith, as enabled this little community to maintain its protesting position in the teeth of the mistress of the world! ”

“ We should study the Law not as we study a science for the sake of acquiring knowledge (he who studies it so has in truth been concerning himself with its mere outward form) , but we should learn from it the true service of God. Thus the study of the law is no end in itself. It is studied because, as the word of God, God is more easily discerned and absorbed in this revelation of Him than in any other. The Torah is eternal, but its explanation is to be made by the spiritual leaders of Judaism. It is to be interpreted by them in accordance with the Attribute of the age. ”

“ Now, this God, the God of Israel, is holy in every thinkable way of holiness. He is merciful and gracious, as it is said, ‘And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,’ even though he who is the recipient of God's grace has no merit of his own. ‘And I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy,’ that is, even to those who do not deserve it. His attributes are righteousness, loving-kindness, and truth. God speaks words of eternal truth, even as He himself is the eternal life. ”

“ But on the other hand, if we have not, like the fox in the fable, left our heart at home, let us not do violence to our feelings by passing over everything Jewish, over sights which might remind us of our history, with a certain indifference which would be affected on our part. We are not all little Goethes, nor even little Ruskins, and our artistic enjoyment is hardly so intense as to shut our hearts against impressions which force themselves upon us either by the way of remembrance of the past, or even as a living contrast in the present. ”

“ In every human thought God is present. If the thought be gross or evil, we should seek to raise and ennoble it by carrying it back to its origin. So, if a man be suddenly overwhelmed by the aspect of a beautiful woman, he should remember that this splendour of beauty is owing to the all-pervading emanation from the divine. When he remembers that the source of corporeal beauty is God, he will not be content to let his thought abide with the body when he can rise to the inward contemplation of the infinite soul of beauty, which is God. ”

“ Blessed is the man who fears God in private, and trusts in Him with all his heart, for such fear and trust arms him against every misfortune. He who puts his trust in the Holy One, blessed be He, God becomes his shield and protection in this world and in the next. He who has bread in his basket for to-day, and says, ‘What shall I have to eat to-morrow?’ is a man of little faith. ”

“ But those who try so hard to determine the miraculous distance of Christianity by the eclipses in Rabbinism, should, if they wish to be just or prove themselves worthy scholars, also endeavour to make themselves acquainted with the numberless bright stars that move in the wide universe of Jewish thought. We are often told that no creed or theological system which has come down to us from antiquity can afford to be judged by any other standard [pg xxv] than by its spiritual and poetic possibilities: this indulgence Judaism is as justly entitled to claim as any other religion. ”

“ Indeed, charity is one of the three pillars on which the world is based. It is more precious than all other virtues. The man who gives charity in secret is greater even than Moses our teacher. An act of charity and love it is to pray for our fellow-man, and to admonish him. ‘Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him’ (Lev. xix. 18) , means it is thy duty to admonish him a hundred times if need be, even if he be thy superior; for Jerusalem was only destroyed for the sin of its people in not admonishing one another. ”

“ We have a superfluity of essays on such delicate subjects as eternal punishment, immortality of the soul, the day of judgment, etc., and many treatises on the definition of Judaism. But knowing little or nothing of the progress recently made in Jewish theology, of the many protests against all kinds of infallibility, whether canonised in this century or in olden times, we in England still maintain that Judaism has no dogmas as if nothing to the contrary had ever been said. We seek the foundation of Judaism in political economy, in hygiene, in everything except religion. ”

“ But the moment that the sect of Shabbethai Tsebi identified the incarnate Original Adam with their leader, and worshipped him as a sort of God-Messiah, the Synagogue at once took up a hostile attitude against those who separated God from His world, and, declaring Shabbethai Tsebi and his followers to be apostates, excluded them from Judaism for ever.
Nor can it be proved that legalism or nomism has ever tended to suppress the spiritual side of religion, either in respect of consciousness of sin, or of individual love and devotion. With an equal logic quite the opposite might be argued. ”

“ To one of his pupils, who made concessions to the Chassidim and their Zaddikim worship, Krochmal wrote: “Be firm in this matter unless you wish to earn the contempt of every honest man. One who is afraid of these people, and debases himself before them bears a mean soul that was born to slavery. The man that wishes to rise above the mob, with its confused notions and corrupt morality, must be courageous as a lion in conquering the obstacles that beset his path. ”

“ Scholars are usually more slow in recognising greatness than simple mortals. Every new luminary does not only outshine their minor lights and thus hurt their personal vanity, but it threatens also sometimes to obscure certain traditions which they wish to keep prominently in view. But the literary genius of the Gaon was too great to be opposed with success, and his piety and devotion to religion far above suspicion. Thus the Gaon was very soon recognised by his contemporaries as their master and guide; not only in literary questions, but also in matters of belief and conduct. ”

“ Among the Chassidim of to-day there is not one in ten thousand who has the faintest conception of those sublime ideas which inspired Baalshem and his immediate disciples. It is still the interest of the wretched ringleaders of a widely spread delusion to crush and keep down every trace of reflection and thought so that they may play at will with the conscience and purses of their adherents. The new scientific movement, inaugurated by such men as Krochmal, Zunz, and others who came under the influence of the German critical spirit, found in them its hottest and most fanatical opponents. ”

“ And it is as absurd to say that the ancient world believed in God, as for a future historian to assert of the nineteenth century that it believed in the effects of electricity. We see them, and so antiquity saw God. If there was any danger, it lay not in the denial of the existence of a God, but in having a wrong belief. ”

“ And living as we do in an age in which history reigns supreme in all departments of human thought, we may hope that even its theology, as far as it goes, will “do” for us, though I neither hope nor believe that it will do for those who come after us. I may, however, humbly confess that the sixth essay in this volume was written in a spirit of rebellion against this all-absorbing Catholic Israel, with its decently veiled scepticism on the one hand, and its unfortunate tendency with many people to degenerate into a soulless conformity on the other hand. ”

“ Such a knowledge, which is free from all taint of worldliness and of other-worldliness, a knowledge sought simply and solely for pure love of God, who is Truth,—such a knowledge is in the highest sense a saving knowledge, and Nachman Krochmal was in possession of it. ”

“ One should be, like the angel of death in the legend, full of eyes, properly to see all the wonders of art and marvels of architecture at which human genius and piety laboured busily through centuries, in adorning the grandest of sacred buildings in the world. ”

“ God is righteous; be ye also righteous, O Israel. By righteousness the Rabbis understand love of truth, hatred of lying and backbiting. The seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is Truth, of which the actions of man should also bear the impress. Hence, let thy yea be yea, and thy nay, nay. He who is honest in money transactions, unto him this is reckoned as if he had fulfilled the whole of the Torah. Greater is he who earns his livelihood by the labour of his hands than even the God-fearing man; whilst the righteous judge is, as it were, the companion of God in the government of the world. ”

“ Another remarkable feature is the warning given to man before his birth that he will be responsible for his actions. He is regularly sworn in. The oath has the double purpose of impressing upon him the consciousness of his duty to lead a holy life, and of arming him against the danger of allowing a holy life to make him vain. As if to render this oath more impressive, the unborn hero is provided with two angels who, besides teaching him the whole of the Torah, take him every morning through paradise and show him the glory of the just ones who dwell there. ”

“ The belief in a single creation after which the Master withdrew from his completed work, is erroneous and heretical. The vivifying power is never withdrawn from the world which it animates. Creation is continuous; an unending manifestation of the goodness of God. All things are an affluence from the two divine attributes of Power and Love, which express themselves in various images and reflections.
This is the doctrine of universality in Chassidism. God, the father of Israel, God the Merciful, God the All-powerful, the God of Love, not only created everything but is embodied in everything. ”

“ Chassidim protested, that has put limits to the license of its modern false prophets.
Amid much that is bad, the Chassidim have preserved through the whole movement a warm heart, and an ardent, sincere faith. There is a certain openness of character and a ready friendliness about even the modern Chassidim which are very attractive. Religion is still to them a matter of life and death. Their faith is still real enough to satisfy the demands of a Luther, but it is diverted and wasted upon unworthy objects. If Chassidism is to be reformed, its worship must no longer be of man ”

“ They find no fault with religion, a false syllogism does not jar on their ears; what they are afraid of is that, being engaged as they are, all the six days of work, in their domestic affairs, religion may be too good a thing for them. “To appease their minds,” to edify them, to make life more sweet and death less terrible to them, and to show them that even their weaknesses, as far as they are conditioned by nature, are not irreconcilable with a holy life, was what Nachmanides strove after. ”

“ It is rather an unfortunate thing that history is so much made up of parallels and contrasts that the historian or even the biographer cannot possibly point out the greatness of some men without touching, however slightly, on the smallness of others. It is only natural that every strong shining object should push the minor lights of its surroundings into the background and darken them. Thus, when we are speaking of the superiority of the Gaon, we cannot escape hinting at least at the shortcomings of his contemporaries, as well as of his predecessors. ”

“ Our perfect Torah bids us to be joyful in the day of prosperity and to shed tears in the day of misfortune. It in no way forbids crying or demands of us to suppress our grief. On the contrary, the Torah suggests to us that to mourn over heavy losses is equivalent to a service of God, leading us, as it does, to reflect on our end and ponder over our destiny. ”

“ Those who are at all familiar with old Rabbinic literature hardly need to be told that “the sea of the Talmud” has also its gulf stream of mysticism which, taking its origin in the moralising portions of the Bible, runs through the wide ocean of Jewish thought, constantly commingling with the icy waters of legalism, and [pg xxiv] unceasingly washing the desolate shores of an apparently meaningless ceremonialism, communicating to it life, warmth, and spirituality. ”

“ Peacefulness and humility are also the fruit of love. Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing peace. Let every man be cautious in the fear of God; let him ever give the soft answer that turneth away wrath; let him promote peace, not only among his own relatives and acquaintances, but also among the Gentiles. For (the labour of) all the prophets was to plant peace in the world. Be exceeding lowly of spirit, since the hope of man is but the worm. Be humble as Hillel, for he who is humble causes the Divine presence to dwell with man. ”