Reform Judaism

“ Those reformers keenly appreciated the historical basis of a religion and knew well that the old basis cannot be arbitrarily replaced by a new one. Our reformers, on the contrary, attempted to reform the basis itself. Their reforms have only a negative purpose-if they have any aim at all-to firmly establish unbelief in the national foundation of the Jewish religion. No wonder that these reforms only fostered indifference to Judaism and conversions to Christianity. ”

“ What [216] prevented the Reform movement from becoming a real reformation and a vitalization of Judaism was that it sought to adjust Judaism to a Weltanschauung which had already begun to grow obsolete. We have to reckon with all that has been learned in the meantime concerning human society and the place of religion in it. When one comes to a strange land, and has with him only the coin of his native country, he must calculate in terms of the currency of the land he is in, if he wants to know whether or not he has enough to live on. Can we Jews afford to live spiritually upon our heritage? ”

“ Unitarianism, and its adherents are allowing themselves, where permitted, to become completely assimilated. Reform Judaism which began as a compromise is ending as a surrender. The final and unanswerable objection to Reform Judaism as a solution is that the majority of Jews will not even in theory accept it. The devotion to race, religion, and separation is too strong. The Gentile in asking the Jew to assimilate is undoubtedly right ”

“ Now in the history of the Jewish people, there was a time when Judaism did not exist, and if I understand the gentlemen who represent the Reform sect correctly—I speak under correction—the intention of the Reform movement is a reversion in fact to the religious attitude of the pre-Judaistic period in the history of the religion of the Jewish people. ”

“ Especially must our sympathies with those who are thus clearing the ground be quickened when the faith to be dis-immured is an old and venerable one, the nearest of all to our own,—a faith whereof any important modification must be fraught with incalculable consequences to the civilized world. The new Reform among the Jews is emphatically such a movement,—an effort to throw down the high and jealous walls behind which Judaism has kept itself in seclusion. ”

“ Judaism, like Christianity, would have to disappear as a result of the general state of enlightenment and progress, if it were not more than a mere dogmatic religion, namely, a national cult. The Jewish reformers, however, those who are still present in some German communities, and maintain, to the best of their ability, the theatrical show of religious reform, know so little of the value of national Judaism, that they are at great pains to erase carefully from their creed and worship all traces of Jewish nationalism. ”

“ In advocating the reform of Judaism, he was not actuated, as were so many in Western Europe, by the desire of adapting Judaism to the non-Jewish environment, but rather by the profound and painful conviction that dominant Rabbinism in its medieval phase did not represent the true essence of Judaism. Reform of Judaism, as interpreted by Lilienblum, does not mean a revolution, but an evolution of Judaism. Just as the Talmud had once reformed Judaism in accordance with the requirements of its time, so must Judaism be reformed by us in accordance with the demands of our own times. ”

“ But in more recent years education and the circumstances of life have brought about a change in the internal, spiritual condition of the Anglo-Jewish community: a new generation has arisen, which is very far removed from the spirit of Judaism. It is this internal change in the Jews which has called into being the Reform movement which we now see developing before our eyes. ”

“ But in England the Reform movement springs from a spiritual cause—from a conviction on the part of many Jews that they are spiritually akin to their Christian environment. It is not merely the external observances of traditional Judaism that fail any longer to appeal to them ”

“ It was aided in a large measure by the fact that the government in Germany, although distinctly opposed to anything which militates against the established order of things, mixes itself very seldom in the internal affairs of the Jewish communities. This Reform movement has colored the religious development of Judaism during the three-quarters of the century which is past. The heat of the controversy is now wellnigh spent. Many of those who stood in the front ranks have passed away, so that a more just estimate of its value can be reached. ”

“ The partisans of the reform movement, who proposed to remodel or set aside religious customs and traditional observances of historical Judaism as incompatible with modern life, had up to that time maintained the upper hand in the literary discussion of religious affairs. They were exerting constantly12 increasing attraction upon the younger generation, and were growing bolder and more impetuous in their propaganda for the obliteration, as far as possible, of religious peculiarities. ”

“ Reform movement-an appellation which characterizes it so well, inasmuch as it lays the ax at the root of Judaism and its national historical cult-accomplished its aim, so little will the tendency of some Jews to deny their racial descent fulfill their purpose. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Can the world afford to surrender a single one of its forces for good? If there are ten millions of men, women, and children who live, and live not ignobly, by Judaism, can it be contended that Judaism is obsolete? The first, the main justification of Judaism is its continued efficiency, its proved power still to control and inspire many millions of human lives. There are more people living as Jews to-day, than there were at any previous moment in the world's history. ”

“ Its agitation generally, coinciding with the revival of interest in Jewish history, has helped to transfer Jewish solidarity from a religious to a racial basis. The bond of a common race, vitalized by a new pride in Hebrew history and spurred on to resistance by the insults of the anti-Semites, has given a new spirit and a new source of strength to Judaism at a moment when the approximation of ethical systems and the revolt against dogma were sapping its essentially religious foundations. ”

“ This mutual rapprochement resulted, gradually, in a tacit agreement—an agreement far more durable than a legal compact, because founded on sentiment rather than on law—which implied the recognition of Judaism as composed of Religion and Nationalism, but left sufficient room to include the two extreme types of Jews: those whose loyalty to Judaism was entirely fed from the fountain of religion, and those whose devotion to Judaism was altogether grounded in race consciousness. ”

“ We must neither abolish for the pleasure of abolishing nor introduce an innovation because it is new. But we must abolish what contradicts our beliefs, because it would be an inconsistency to maintain it. We have no choice but to make an innovation if in turn our convictions call for it. And so with the other questions. It is equally wrong, it appears to me, to make the preservation of Judaism the only criterion by which to measure our acts. Sincerely as we may feel attached to Judaism, that would again be committing the mistake of exchanging convictions for policy. ”

“ A new Persia with a purified religion magnified itself in art and wisdom. So will a new Judea, poised between East and West—a covenant of reconciliation. Will any say, the prophetic vision of your race has been hopelessly mixed with folly and bigotry; the angel of progress has no message for Judaism—it is a half-buried city for the paid workers to lay open—the waters are rushing by it as a forsaken field? I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. ”

“ This conception of ‘nationality’ would point rather to a spiritual than to a temporal sovereignty, to a supremacy of mind rather than of matter, and appears to be in accord with the tone pervading{64} both ancient and modern Jewish literature, which exhibits Judaism as a perpetual living force, maintained from within rather than from without, and destined continually to influence religious thought, and to survive all dispensations. ”

“ He held, that an objective, unprejudiced account sufficed to demonstrate the vitality of Judaism, asserting itself again and again in the midst of distress and persecution; continuing to develop its monotheistic doctrines and its ethical system undisturbed by the loss of a national background, and borne onward only by virtue of its spirituality and ideality; producing thinkers, poets, and even statesmen despite untold suffering; and contributing zealously to the solution of the problems of human civilization, uprooted and dispersed though its adherents were. ”

“ In the multitudes of the ignorant on three continents who observe our rites and make the confession of the divine Unity, the soul of Judaism is not dead. Revive the organic centre: let the unity of Israel which has made the growth and form of its religion be an outward reality. Looking towards a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the East and the West—which will plant the wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and understanding. ”

“ Since the close of the last century, however, a great change has apparently come over the Jewish people. Not only have they abandoned their former attitude of reserve and mingled freely with their fellow-citizens of whatever creed, not only have they taken a leading part in the great political revolutions that swept over Europe, but the passion for change, so characteristic of the age in which we live, has extended even to their time-honored religion; and a movement aiming at nothing less than the complete reformation of Judaism has arisen, and rapidly acquired the largest dimensions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They accepted their mission; ‘All that the Lord has spoken will we do,’ came up a responsive cry from ‘all the people answering together,’ and in that supreme moment the ill-fed and so recently ill-treated groups were transformed into a nation. ‘I will make of thee a great people’; ‘Through thee shall all families of the earth be blessed’; the meaning of such predictions was borne in upon them in one bewildering flash, and in that flash the national idea of Judaism{149} found its dawn; they, the despised and the downtrodden, were to become trustees of civilisation. ”

“ 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. ”