Orthodox Judaism

“ The world is longing for a broad, simple faith that shall look on science as its friend and reason as its inspirer. People are turning in their despair even to table-rappings and Mahatmas. Now, for the first time in history, is the hour of Judaism. Only it must enlarge itself; its platform must be all-inclusive. Judaism is but a specialised form of Hebraism; even if Jews stick to their own special historical and ritual ceremonies, it is only Hebraism—the pure spiritual kernel—that they can offer the world.'
[209] 'But that is quite the orthodox Jewish idea on the subject,' said Raphael. ”

“ Make them Jews, that they may enjoy Christ's privileges, which are lodged in Judaism; teach them those rites and ceremonies, circumcision and the like, which hitherto have been dead ordinances, and now are living; and so the Apostles seem to have understood them (ibid. p. 65) .
So far as Nazarenism differentiated itself from contemporary orthodox Judaism, it seems to have tended towards a revival of the ethical and religious spirit of the prophetic age, accompanied by the belief in Jesus as the Messiah, and by various accretions which had grown round Judaism subsequently to the exile. ”

“ Beside Pharisaic Judaism as the stem proper there was a motley mass of formations which resulted from the contact of Judaism with foreign ideas, customs, and institutions (even with Babylonian and Persian) , and which attained importance for the development of the predominant church as well as for the formation of the so-called gnostic Christian communions. Hellenic elements found their way even into Pharisaic theology. Orthodox Judaism itself has marks which shew that no spiritual movement was able to escape the influence which proceeded from the victory of the Greeks over the east. ”

“ I have clearly stated my view that membership in the New York Board of Rabbis, or Synagogue Council of America, or similar religious bodies, strikes deeply at the roots of true Judaism. Such membership cannot escape the logical inference that the Conservative and Reform movements are recognized by the orthodox members of the said bodies as belonging within the fold of true Judaism, differing only in degree or in minor details; whereas, in truth these movements deny the very basis of true Judaism. Protestations to the contrary can only be regarded as empty words, refuted by actions. ”

“ Our contention is better proved by Rabbis reputed orthodox, who devoted themselves with enthusiasm to the cultivation of Hebrew literature. Without renouncing religion, they found a way of effecting the harmonization of religion and life. In point of fact, humanism of a conservative stripe reached its zenith at the precise moment when the realists, deceived by superficial appearances, were predicting the complete breaking up of traditional Judaism. ”

“ In the first place, it is, I conceive, the sole chance for the permanent continuance of the Jewish religion that it should undergo some such regeneration. If the proposed Reform perish in the bud, Orthodox Judaism will doubtless survive for some generations, but, according to the laws which govern human institutions, its days must be numbered. In former times, when every nation in Europe held aloof from its neighbors in fear and jealousy, it was possible for alien tribes, like the Jews and gypsies, to move among all, holding 88rigidly to their own tribal alliances and observances ”

“ The leading orthodox rabbi of this city naturally believes in the restoration of Palestine, the regeneration of Judaism, the resurrection of the Hebrew language, and the resuscitation of many things long dead and passed away. In his speeches he is a most ardent advocate of the revival of Hebrew lore, the essence of all wisdom according to him, and the greatest of all tongues, the Hebrew language, which revival, he avers, is the most radiant promise of Zionism. The neglect of the ancient lore in this country is his most woful regret. ”

“ It is the sign of a sound organism that its members perform their functions unconscious of activity. No charge, therefore, can be brought against the Jews when the assertion is put forward that, as yet, they have adhered to their doctrines with absolute and unwavering fidelity, but without a definite consciousness of their national vocation. They have defended a trust, the future of which is raised and established in their eyes beyond all doubt, without subtilising concerning its peculiarities. Judaism has, certainly, at all times been more than a mere religion for its adherents. ”

“ Thirdly, we have the ever-growing Reformed section, of which the Jewish philosopher, Moses Men- delssohn, who was born in Dessau, Prussia, in 1729, is generally regarded as the father. This division includes Jews of very diverse opinions, ranging from those who only reject the traditions of the Rabbis, to those who have thrown overboard all revealed religion, and are avowedly rationalistic if not infidel.
The strongholds of Reformed Judaism are Germany, Austria-Hungary, and America, though their "Temples" are multiplying even in Russia and Chassidic Galicia. ”

“ Let Reformed Judaism relight the old golden candlestick, and set it aloft, and it will give light unto all which are in the house,—not only the House of Israel, but in the House of Humanity. A glorious future may in God’s Providence await such purified, emancipated Judaism. It is true, it may not exhibit the special form of religion which one party or another among us altogether desires to see extended in the world. Some radical reformers who sympathize in its general scope would wish to find it stripping off altogether its Jewish character, and torn up from the root of Mosaism. ”

“ The history of German pulpit eloquence among the Jews will have to take note of this phenomenon and portray its growth; and a comparative glance at the works of Jost and Graetz shows us what measure of significance the national movement has attained to in modern thought. The consciousness of the wonderful union of Religion and Nationality in Judaism has already become so distinct that men are beginning to sever the inseparable, and to clare themselves enthusiastic admirers of its national, while they have long since cast away its religious side, as an irksome chain. ”

“ Thus these visions reveal the hopes that inspired certain of the Jewish race in its period of supreme trial: the belief that Jehovah through his angel would speedily overthrow the power of the heathen persecutor, that he would establish a universal kingdom in which his own people should have chief place, and finally that even the bonds of death would not hold those who had died for the law. Thus at last out of this struggle Judaism emerged with a new-found faith in individual immortality. ”

“ Those whom the worship of the synagogue and the temple no longer attracts either become wholly sceptical and indifferent, or, as is often the case, transfer their allegiance to the new humanitarian doctrine which is fast assuming the character of a religion in the ardor it inspires and the strong spiritual union it cements. For the great body of the Jews, however, the central doctrine of Judaism remains unshaken, and doubtless, so long as Christianity exists, Judaism as a distinct creed will coexist with it. ”

“ Thus, even at the height of Nazi persecution and in times of the extermination of the Jews, the Church would not acknowledge Judaism as a religion in its own right and on its own terms, but insisted that a Jew who became a Christian was merely fulfilling his predestined role ”

“ Many Jewish liturgies have, for instance, eliminated the prayers for the restoration of sacrifices; and several have removed or spiritualised the petitions for the recovery of the Jewish nationality. Modern reformed Judaism is a universalistic Judaism. It lays stress on the function of Israel, the Servant, as a 'Light to the Nations.' It tends to eliminate those ceremonies and beliefs which are less compatible with a universal than with, a racial religion. Modern Zionism is not a real reaction against this tendency. ”

“ Out of the mazes of the Cabala the pure doctrine of ancient Judaism found its way to the hearts of the faithful. Sects and schools might rise and fall, deafening the ears of the simple with the clamor of their disputes, still the Jew, retiring within his own soul, heard the voice of the God of Abraham. ”

“ The inference is sought to be drawn that the Jew is beginning to feel his isolation, and to sink his own national life amid that among which he dwells. We accept all the facts; but can only see in them that, under the influence of the profound thought and research of its great leaders, Judaism is shaking off the dust of ages, and is more vividly awaking to its mission upon earth. ”

“ Every word, every expression must have revealed a hitherto unsuspected meaning; the most difficult questions as to the being of God, and His relations to the heavenly powers and the lower creatures, were explained. Through their indifference to all that concerned the State, as well as the affairs of daily life, they gradually led Judaism (dependent as it was on the establishment of national prosperity) into the darkness and exaggerations of Mysticism. Their deep and mystic reverence for the Prophet and Lawgiver Moses carried them to the greatest excesses. ”

“ And if, heaven forbid, it should cease to believe in revelation, it must inevitably be assimilated with the other peoples.... The science of Judaism, with which some scholars are at present occupying themselves in Germany, cannot preserve Judaism. ”

“ The true Science of Judaism, the science which will last as long as time itself, is that which is founded on the faith; which endeavors to understand the Bible as a Divine work, and the history of a peculiar people whose lot has been peculiar; which, finally, dwells upon those moments in the various epochs of Jewish history when the innate genius of Judaism wages a conflict with the genius of humanity in general, as it lies in wait without, and how the Divine spirit of Judaism mastered the spirit of humanity throughout all the centuries. ”

“ The Jew alone, through these centuries, has remained the Jew: proscribed, persecuted, hunted as never was tiger or wolf, he is as vividly defined, as unchangeably national, as when he stood alone, everywhere without and beyond the despised and hated Gentile. And this intense and conservative nationality springs essentially out of the central conception of Judaism, “God is one.” ”

“ One inclines, perhaps, to accentuate the facts of history and to moralise over the might-have-beens where these fit into a theory; but so much as this at least seems indisputable—that those who would dissociate the national from the religious, or the religious from the national element in Judaism attempt the impossible. The ideal of the Jews must always be ‘from Zion shall come forth instruction, and the Word{156} of God from Jerusalem’; and to this end—‘that all people of the earth may know Thy name, as do thy people Israel.’ This is the goal of Jewish separateness. ”

“ His hard disposition had steadily gained the mastery over his gentle religion and humility, and his monkish narrowness could not at all comprehend Judaism with its laws, which brought forth and developed not the faith, but the morality and elevation, of man. ”

“ As we look ahead into the century which is now opening and cast our eye over the forces which the Jews will bring into its life, we can easily see that these forces tend in various directions.
We have first the Orthodox wing of the Jewish Church, which stands upon the broad basis of what the past has evolved. It holds firmly to the inspiration of the biblical word and the divine character of its interpretation as handed down in the oral law ”

“ Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent—which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognise, and it is, unfortunately, as conservative as zeal. Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive—while they kill Judaism.'
'Oh, I can't quite admit that,' said Raphael. 'I admit that scepticism is better than stagnation, but I cannot see why orthodoxy is the antithesis to Judaism. ”

“ Let us consider the real worldly Jews, not the Sabbath Jews, as Bauer does, but the every-day Jews.
We will not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but we will look for the secret of religion in the real Jew.
What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical needs, egoism.
What is the secular cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his secular God? Money.
Very well. Emancipation from huckstering and from money, and therefore from practical, real Judaism would be the self-emancipation of our epoch.
An organization of society, which would abolish the fundamental conditions of huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would render the Jew impossible. ”

“ Even to-day, the great majority of Occidental Jews pay homage to their ancient religion. Neither emancipation nor Christian proselytism, with its bait of material advantages, has succeeded in estranging the majority of Jews from their traditions. On the contrary, there have appeared of late, even among those who were formerly estranged from Judaism, men who display strong sympathies for the ancient Jewish mode of life. ”