Chapter I. The Meaning of Theology

1. The name Theology, “the teaching concerning God,” is taken from Greek philosophy. It was used by Plato and Aristotle to denote the knowledge concerning God and things godly, by which they meant the branch of Philosophy later called Metaphysics, after Aristotle. In the Christian Church the term gradually assumed the meaning of systematic exposition of the creed, a distinction being made between Rational, or Natural Theology, on the one hand, and Dogmatic Theology, on the other.1 In common usage Theology is understood to be the presentation of one specific system of faith after some logical method, and a distinction is made between Historical and Systematic Theology. The former traces the various doctrines of the faith in question through the different epochs and stages of culture, showing their historical process of growth and development; the latter presents these same doctrines in comprehensive form as a fixed system, as they have finally been elaborated and accepted upon the basis of the sacred scriptures and their authoritative interpretation.

2. Theology and Philosophy of Religion differ widely in their character. Theology deals exclusively with a specific religion; in expounding one doctrinal system, it starts from [pg 002] a positive belief in a divine revelation and in the continued working of the divine spirit, affecting also the interpretation and further development of the sacred books. Philosophy of Religion, on the other hand, while dealing with the same subject matter as Theology, treats religion from a general point of view as a matter of experience, and, as every philosophy must, without any foregone conclusion. Consequently it submits the beliefs and doctrines of religion in general to an impartial investigation, recognizing neither a divine revelation nor the superior claims of any one religion above any other, its main object being to ascertain how far the universal laws of human reason agree or disagree with the assertions of faith.2

3. It is therefore incorrect to speak of a Jewish religious philosophy. This has no better right to exist than has Jewish metaphysics or Jewish mathematics.3 The Jewish thinkers of the Spanish-Arabic period who endeavored to harmonize revelation and reason, utilizing the Neo-Platonic philosophy or the Aristotelian with a Neo-Platonic coloring, betray by their very conceptions of revelation and prophecy the influence of Mohammedan theology; this was really a graft of metaphysics on theology and called itself the “divine science,” a term corresponding exactly with the Greek “theology.” The so-called Jewish religious philosophers adopted both the methods and terminology of the Mohammedan theologians, attempting to present the doctrines of the Jewish faith in the light of philosophy, as truth based on reason. Thus they claimed to construct a Jewish theology upon the foundation of a philosophy of religion.

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But neither they nor their Mohammedan predecessors succeeded in working out a complete system of theology. They left untouched essential elements of religion which do not come within the sphere of rational verities, and did not give proper appreciation to the rich treasures of faith deposited in the Biblical and Rabbinical literature. Nor does the comprehensive theological system of Maimonides, which for centuries largely shaped the intellectual life of the Jew, form an exception. Only the mystics, Bahya at their head, paid attention to the spiritual side of Judaism, dwelling at length on such themes as prayer and repentance, divine forgiveness and holiness.

4. Closer acquaintance with the religious and philosophical systems of modern times has created a new demand for a Jewish theology by which the Jew can comprehend his own religious truths in the light of modern thought, and at the same time defend them against the aggressive attitude of the ruling religious sects. Thus far, however, the attempts made in this direction are but feeble and sporadic; if the structure is not to stand altogether in the air, the necessary material must be brought together from its many sources with painstaking labor.4 The special difficulty in the task lies in the radical difference which exists between our view of the past and that of the Biblical and medieval writers. All those things which have heretofore been taken as facts because related in the sacred books or other traditional sources, are viewed to-day with critical eyes, and are now regarded as more or less colored by human impression or conditioned by human judgment. In other words, we have learned to distinguish between subjective and objective truths,5 whereas theology by [pg 004] its very nature deals with truth as absolute. This makes it imperative for us to investigate historically the leading idea or fundamental principle underlying a doctrine, to note the different conceptions formed at various stages, and trace its process of growth. At times, indeed, we may find that the views of one age have rather taken a backward step and fallen below the original standard. The progress need not be uniform, but we must still trace its course.

5. We must recognize at the outset that Jewish theology cannot assume the character of apologetics, if it is to accomplish its great task of formulating religious truth as it exists in our consciousness to-day. It can no more afford to ignore the established results of modern linguistic, ethnological, and historical research, of Biblical criticism and comparative religion, than it can the undisputed facts of natural science, however much any of these may conflict with the Biblical view of the cosmos. Apologetics has its legitimate place to prove and defend the truths of Jewish theology against other systems of belief and thought, but cannot properly defend either Biblical or Talmudic statements by methods incompatible with scientific investigation. Judaism is a religion of historical growth, which, far from claiming to be the final truth, is ever regenerated anew at each turning point of history. The fall of the leaves at autumn requires no apology, for each successive spring testifies anew to nature's power of resurrection.

The object of a systematic theology of Judaism, accordingly, is to single out the essential forces of the faith. It then will become evident how these fundamental doctrines possess a vitality, a strength of conviction, as well as an adaptability to varying conditions, which make them potent factors amidst all changes of time and circumstance. According to Rabbinical tradition, the broken tablets of the covenant were deposited in the ark beside the new. In like [pg 005] manner the truths held sacred by the past, but found inadequate in their expression for a new generation, must be placed side by side with the deeper and more clarified truths of an advanced age, that they may appear together as the one divine truth reflected in different rays of light.

6. Jewish theology differs radically from Christian theology in the following three points:

A. The theology of Christianity deals with articles of faith formulated by the founders and heads of the Church as conditions of salvation, so that any alteration in favor of free thought threatens to undermine the very plan of salvation upon which the Church was founded. Judaism recognizes only such articles of faith as were adopted by the people voluntarily as expressions of their religious consciousness, both without external compulsion and without doing violence to the dictates of reason. Judaism does not know salvation by faith in the sense of Paul, the real founder of the Church, who declared the blind acceptance of belief to be in itself meritorious. It denies the existence of any irreconcilable opposition between faith and reason.

B. Christian theology rests upon a formula of confession, the so-called Symbolum of the Apostolic Church,6 which alone makes one a Christian. Judaism has no such formula of confession which renders a Jew a Jew. No ecclesiastical authority ever dictated or regulated the belief of the Jew; his faith has been voiced in the solemn liturgical form of prayer, and has ever retained its freshness and vigor of thought in the consciousness of the people. This partly accounts for the antipathy toward any kind of dogma or creed among Jews.

C. The creed is a conditio sine qua non of the Christian Church. To disbelieve its dogmas is to cut oneself loose from membership. Judaism is quite different. The Jew is [pg 006] born into it and cannot extricate himself from it even by the renunciation of his faith, which would but render him an apostate Jew. This condition exists, because the racial community formed, and still forms, the basis of the religious community. It is birth, not confession, that imposes on the Jew the obligation to work and strive for the eternal verities of Israel, for the preservation and propagation of which he has been chosen by the God of history.

7. The truth of the matter is that the aim and end of Judaism is not so much the salvation of the soul in the hereafter as the salvation of humanity in history. Its theology, therefore, must recognize the history of human progress, with which it is so closely interwoven. It does not, therefore, claim to offer the final or absolute truth, as does Christian theology, whether orthodox or liberal. It simply points out the way leading to the highest obtainable truth. Final and perfect truth is held forth as the ideal of all human searching and striving, together with perfect justice, righteousness, and peace, to be attained as the very end of history.

A systematic theology of Judaism must, accordingly, content itself with presenting Jewish doctrine and belief in relation to the most advanced scientific and philosophical ideas of the age, so as to offer a comprehensive view of life and the world (“Lebens- und Weltanschauung”); but it by no means claims for them the character of finality. The unfolding of Judaism's truths will be completed only when all mankind has attained the heights of Zion's mount of vision, as beheld by the prophets of Israel.7

Chapter II. What is Judaism?

1. It is very difficult to give an exact definition of Judaism because of its peculiarly complex character.8 It combines two widely differing elements, and when they are brought out separately, the aspect of the whole is not taken sufficiently into account. Religion and race form an inseparable whole in Judaism. The Jewish people stand in the same relation to Judaism as the body to the soul. The national or racial body of Judaism consists of the remnant of the tribe of Judah which succeeded in establishing a new commonwealth in Judæa in place of the ancient Israelitish kingdom, and which survived the downfall of state and temple to continue its existence as a separate people during a dispersion over the globe for thousands of years, forming ever a cosmopolitan element among all the nations in whose lands it dwelt. Judaism, on the other hand, is the religious system itself, the vital element which united the Jewish people, preserving it and regenerating it ever anew. It is the spirit which endowed the handful of Jews with a power of resistance and a fervor of faith unparalleled in history, enabling them to persevere [pg 008] in the mighty contest with heathenism and Christianity. It made of them a nation of martyrs and thinkers, suffering and struggling for the cause of truth and justice, yet forming, consciously or unconsciously, a potent factor in all the great intellectual movements which are ultimately to win the entire gentile world for the purest and loftiest truths concerning God and man.

2. Judaism, accordingly, does not denote the Jewish nationality, with its political and cultural achievements and aspirations, as those who have lost faith in the religious mission of Israel would have it. On the other hand, it is not a nomistic or legalistic religion confined to the Jewish people, as is maintained by Christian writers, who, lacking a full appreciation of its lofty world-wide purpose and its cosmopolitan and humanitarian character, claim that it has surrendered its universal prophetic truths to Christianity. Nor should it be presented as a religion of pure Theism, aiming to unite all believers in one God into a Church Universal, of which certain visionaries dream. Judaism is nothing less than a message concerning the One and holy God and one, undivided humanity with a world-uniting Messianic goal, a message intrusted by divine revelation to the Jewish people. Thus Israel is its prophetic harbinger and priestly guardian, its witness and defender throughout the ages, who is never to falter in the task of upholding and unfolding its truths until they have become the possession of the whole human race.

3. Owing to this twofold nature of a universal religious truth and at the same time a mission intrusted to a specially selected nation or race, Judaism offers in a sense the sharpest contrasts imaginable, which render it an enigma to the student of religion and history, and make him often incapable of impartial judgment. On the one hand, it shows the most tenacious adherence to forms originally intended to preserve the Jewish people in its priestly sanctity and separateness, [pg 009] and thereby also to keep its religious truths pure and free from encroachments. On the other hand, it manifests a mighty impulse to come into close touch with the various civilized nations, partly in order to disseminate among them its sublime truths, appealing alike to mind and heart, partly to clarify and deepen those truths by assimilating the wisdom and culture of these very nations. Thus the spirit of separatism and of universalism work in opposite directions. Still, however hostile the two elements may appear, they emanate from the same source. For the Jewish people, unlike any other civilization of antiquity, entered history with the proud claim that it possessed a truth destined to become some day the property of mankind, and its three thousand years of history have verified this claim.

Israel's relation to the world thus became a double one. Its priestly world-mission gave rise to all those laws and customs which were to separate it from its idolatrous surroundings, and this occasioned the charge of hostility to the nations. The accusation of Jewish misanthropy occurred as early as the Balaam and Haman stories. As the separation continued through the centuries, a deep-seated Jew-hatred sprang up, first in Alexandria and Rome, then becoming a consuming fire throughout Christendom, unquenched through the ages and bursting forth anew, even from the midst of would-be liberals. In contrast to this, Israel's prophetic ideal of a humanity united in justice and peace gave to history a new meaning and a larger outlook, kindling in the souls of all truly great leaders and teachers, seers and sages of mankind a love and longing for the broadening of humanity which opened new avenues of progress and liberty. Moreover, by its conception of man as the image of God and its teaching of righteousness as the true path of life, Israel's Law established a new standard of human worth and put the imprint of Jewish idealism upon the entire Aryan civilization.

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Owing to these two opposing forces, the one centripetal, the other centrifugal, Judaism tended now inward, away from world-culture, now outward toward the learning and the thought of all nations; and this makes it doubly difficult to obtain a true estimate of its character. But, after all, these very currents and counter-currents at the different eras of history kept Judaism in continuous tension and fluctuation, preventing its stagnation by dogmatic formulas and its division by ecclesiastical dissensions. “Both words are the words of the living God” became the maxim of the contending schools.9

4. If we now ask what period we may fix as the beginning of Judaism, we must by no means single out the decisive moment when Ezra the Scribe established the new commonwealth of Judæa, based upon the Mosaic book of Law, and excluding the Samaritans who claimed to be the heirs of ancient Israel. This important step was but the climax, the fruitage of that religious spirit engendered by the Judaism of the Babylonian exile. The Captivity had become a refining furnace for the people, making them cling with a zeal unknown before to the teachings of the prophets, now offered by their disciples, and to the laws, as preserved by the priestly guilds; so the religious treasures of the few became the common property of the many, and were soon regarded as “the inheritance of the whole congregation of Jacob.” As a matter of fact, Ezra represents the culmination rather than the starting point of the great spiritual reawakening, when he came from Babylon with a complete Code of Law, and promulgated it in the Holy City to a worshipful congregation.10 It was Judaism, winged with a new spirit, which carried the great unknown seer of the Exile to the very pinnacle of prophetic vision, and made the Psalmists ring forth from the harp of David the deepest soul-stirring notes of religious [pg 011] devotion and aspiration that ever moved the hearts of men. Moreover, all the great truths of prophetic revelation, of legislative and popular wisdom, were then collected and focused, creating a sacred literature which was to serve the whole community as the source of instruction, consolation, and edification. The powerful and unique institutions of the Synagogue, intended for common instruction and devotion, are altogether creations of the Exile, and replaced the former priestly Torah by the Torah for the people. More wonderful still, the priestly lore of ancient Babylon was transformed by sublime monotheistic truths and utilized in the formation of a sacred literature; it was placed before the history of the Hebrew patriarchs, to form, as it were, an introduction to the Bible of humanity.

Judaism, then, far from being the late product of the Torah and tradition, as it is often considered, was actually the creator of the Law. Transformed and unfolded in Babylonia, it created its own sacred literature and shaped it ever anew, filling it always with its own spirit and with new thoughts. It is by no means the petrifaction of the Mosaic law and the prophetic teachings, as we are so often told, but a continuous process of unfolding and regeneration of its great religious truth.

5. True enough, traditional or orthodox Judaism does not share this view. The idea of gradual development is precluded by its conception of divine revelation, by its doctrine that both the oral and the written Torah were given at Sinai complete and unchangeable for all time. It makes allowance only for special institutions begun either by the prophets, by Ezra and the Men of the Great Synagogue, his associates, or by the masters of the Law in succeeding centuries. Nevertheless, tradition says that the Men of the Great Synagogue themselves collected and partly completed the sacred books, except the five books of Moses, and that the canon was made under the influence of the holy spirit. This holy spirit remained in force also during the creative period of Talmudism, [pg 012] sanctioning innovations or alterations of many kinds.11 Modern critical and historical research has taught us to distinguish the products of different periods and stages of development in both the Biblical and Rabbinical sources, and therefore compels us to reject the idea of a uniform origin of the Law, and also of an uninterrupted chain of tradition reaching back to Moses on Sinai. Therefore we must attach still more importance to the process of transformation which Judaism had to undergo through the centuries.12

Judaism manifested its wondrous power of assimilation by renewing itself to meet the demands of the time, first under the influence of the ancient civilizations, Babylonia and Persia, then of Greece and Rome, finally of the Occidental powers, molding its religious truths and customs in ever new forms, but all in consonance with its own genius. It adopted the Babylonian and Persian views of the hereafter, of the upper and the nether world with their angels and demons; so later on it incorporated into its religious and legal system elements of Greek and Egyptian gnosticism, Greek philosophy, and methods of jurisprudence from Egypt, Babylon, and Rome. In fact, the various parties which arose during the second Temple beside each other or successively—Sadducees and Pharisees, Essenes and Zealots—represent, on closer observation, the different stages in the process of assimilation which Judaism had to undergo. In like manner, the Hellenistic, Apocryphal and Apocalyptic literature, which was rejected and lost to sight by traditional Judaism, and which partly fills the gap between the Bible and the Talmudic writings, casts a flood of light upon the development of the Halakah [pg 013] and the Haggadah. Just as the book of Ezekiel, which was almost excluded from the Canon on account of its divergence from the Mosaic Law, has been helpful in tracing the development of the Priestly Code,13 so the Sadduceean book of Ben Sira14 and the Zealotic book of Jubilees15—not to mention the various Apocalyptic works—throw their searchlight upon pre-Talmudic Judaism.

6. Instead of representing Judaism—as the Christian theologians do under the guise of scientific methods—as a nomistic religion, caring only for the external observance of the Law, it is necessary to distinguish two opposite fundamental tendencies; the one expressing the spirit of legalistic nationalism, the other that of ethical or prophetic universalism. These two work by turn, directing the general trend in the one or the other direction according to circumstances. At one time the center and focus of Israel's religion is the Mosaic Law, with its sacrificial cult in charge of the priesthood of Jerusalem's Temple; at another time it is the Synagogue, with its congregational devotion and public instruction, its inspiring song of the Psalmist and its prophetic consolation and hope confined to no narrow territory, but opened wide for a listening world. Here it is the reign of the Halakah holding fast to the form of tradition, and there the free and fanciful Haggadah, with its appeal to the sentiments and views of the people. Here it is the spirit of ritualism, bent on separating the Jews from the influence of foreign elements, and there again the spirit of rationalism, eager to take part in general culture and in the progress of the outside world.

The liberal views of Maimonides and Gersonides concerning [pg 014] miracle and revelation, God and immortality were scarcely shared by the majority of Jews, who, no doubt, sided rather with the mystics, and found their mouthpiece in Abraham ben David of Posquieres, the fierce opponent of Maimonides. An impartial Jewish theology must therefore take cognizance of both sides; it must include the mysticism of Isaac Luria and Sabbathai Horwitz as well as the rationalism of Albo and Leo da Modena. Wherever is voiced a new doctrine or a new view of life and life's duty, which yet bears the imprint of the Jewish consciousness, there the well-spring of divine inspiration is seen pouring forth its living waters.

7. Even the latest interpretation of the Law, offered by a disciple who is recognized for true conscientiousness in religion, was revealed to Moses on Sinai, according to a Rabbinical dictum.16 Thus is exquisitely expressed the idea of a continuous development of Israel's religious truth. As a safeguard against arbitrary individualism, there was the principle of loyalty and proper regard for tradition, which is aptly termed by Professor Lazarus a “historical continuity.”17 The Midrashic statement is quite significant that other creeds founded on our Bible can only adhere to the letter, but the Jewish religion possesses the key to the deeper meaning hidden and presented in the traditional interpretation of the Scriptures.18 That is, for Judaism Holy Scripture in its literal sense is not the final word of God; the Bible is rather a living spring of divine revelation, to be kept ever fresh and flowing by the active force of the spirit. To sum up: Judaism, far from offering a system of beliefs and ceremonies fixed for all time, is as multifarious and manifold in its aspects as is life itself. It comprises all phases and characteristics of both a national and a world religion.

Chapter III. The Essence of the Religion of Judaism

1. We have seen how difficult it is to define Judaism clearly and adequately, including its manifold tendencies and institutions. Still it is necessary that we reach a full understanding of the essence of Judaism as it manifested itself in all periods of its history,19 and that we single out the fundamental idea which underlies its various forms of existence and its different movements, both intellectual and spiritual. There can be no disputing the fact that the central idea of Judaism and its life purpose is the doctrine of the One Only and Holy God, whose kingdom of truth, justice and peace is to be universally established at the end of time. This is the main teaching of Scripture and the hope voiced in the liturgy; while Israel's mission to defend, to unfold and to propagate this truth is a corollary of the doctrine itself and cannot be separated from it. Whether we regard it as Law or a system of doctrine, as religious truth or world-mission, this belief pledged the little tribe of Judah to a warfare of many thousands of years against the hordes of heathendom with all their idolatry and brutality, their deification of man and their degradation of deity to human rank. It betokened a battle for the pure idea of God and man, which is not to end until the principle of divine holiness has done away with every form of life that tends to degrade and to disunite mankind, and until Israel's Only One has become the unifying power and the highest ideal of all humanity.

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2. Of this great world-duty of Israel only the few will ever become fully conscious. As in the days of the prophets, so in later periods, only a “small remnant” was fully imbued with the lofty ideal. In times of oppression the great multitude of the people persisted in a conscientious observance of the Law and underwent suffering without a murmur. Yet in times of liberty and enlightenment this same majority often neglects to assimilate the new culture to its own superior spirit, but instead eagerly assimilates itself to the surrounding world, and thereby loses much of its intrinsic strength and self-respect. The pendulum of thought and sentiment swings to and fro between the national and the universal ideals, while only a few maturer minds have a clear vision of the goal as it is to be reached along both lines of development. Nevertheless, Judaism is in a true sense a religion of the people. It is free from all priestly tutelage and hierarchical interference. It has no ecclesiastical system of belief, guarded and supervised by men invested with superior powers. Its teachers and leaders have always been men from among the people, like the prophets of yore, with no sacerdotal privilege or title; in fact, in his own household each father is the God-appointed teacher of his children.20

3. Neither is Judaism the creation of a single person, either prophet or a man with divine claims. It points back to the patriarchs as its first source of revelation. It speaks not of the God of Moses, of Amos and Isaiah, but of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thereby declaring the Jewish genius to be the creator of its own religious ideas. It is therefore incorrect to speak of a “Mosaic,” “Hebrew,” or “Israelitish,” religion. The name Judaism alone expresses the preservation of the religious heritage of Israel by the tribe of Judah, with a loyalty which was first displayed by Judah himself in the patriarchal household, and which became its characteristic [pg 017] virtue in the history of the various tribes. Likewise the rigid measures of Ezra in expelling all foreign elements from the new commonwealth proved instrumental in impressing loyalty and piety upon Jewish family life.

4. As it was bound up with the life of the Jewish people, Judaism remained forever in close touch with the world. Therefore it appreciated adequately the boons of life, and escaped being reduced to the shadowy form of “otherworldliness.”21 It is a religion of life, which it wishes to sanctify by duty rather than by laying stress on the hereafter. It looks to the deed and the purity of the motive, not to the empty creed and the blind belief. Nor is it a religion of redemption, contemning this earthly life; for Judaism repudiates the assumption of a radical power of evil in man or in the world. Faith in the ultimate triumph of the good is essential to it. In fact, this perfect confidence in the final victory of truth and justice over all the powers of falsehood and wrong lent it both its wondrous intellectual force and its high idealism, and adorned its adherents with the martyr's crown of thorns, such as no other human brow has ever borne.

5. Christianity and Islam, notwithstanding their alienation from Judaism and frequent hostility, are still daughter-religions. In so far as they have sown the seeds of Jewish truth over all the globe and have done their share in upbuilding the Kingdom of God on earth, they must be recognized as divinely appointed emissaries and agencies. Still Judaism sets forth its doctrine of God's unity and of life's holiness in a far superior form than does Christianity. It neither permits the deity to be degraded into the sphere of the sensual and human, nor does it base its morality upon a love bereft of the vital principle of justice. Against the rigid monotheism of Islam, which demands blind submission to the stern decrees of inexorable fate, Judaism on the other hand urges its belief [pg 018] in God's paternal love and mercy, which educates all the children of men, through trial and suffering, for their high destiny.

6. Judaism denies most emphatically the right of Christianity or any other religion to arrogate to itself the title of “the absolute religion” or to claim to be “the finest blossom and the ripest fruit of religious development.” As if any mortal man at any time or under any condition could say without presumption: “I am the Truth” or “No one cometh unto the Father but by me.”22 “When man was to proceed from the hands of his Maker,” says the Midrash, “the Holy One, Blessed be His name, cast truth down to the earth, saying, ‘Let truth spring forth from the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven.’ ”23 The full unfolding of the religious and moral life of mankind is the work of countless generations yet to come, and many divine heralds of truth and righteousness have yet to contribute their share. In this work of untold ages, Judaism claims that it has achieved and is still achieving its full part as the prophetic world-religion. Its law of righteousness, which takes for its scope the whole of human life, in its political and social relations as well as its personal aspects, forms the foundation of its ethics for all time; while its hope for a future realization of the Kingdom of God has actually become the aim of human history. As a matter of fact, when the true object of religion is the hallowing of life rather than the salvation of the soul, there is little room left for sectarian exclusiveness, or for a heaven for believers and a hell for unbelievers. With this broad outlook upon life, Judaism lays claim, not to perfection, but to perfectibility; it has supreme capacity for growing toward the highest ideals of mankind, as beheld by the prophets in their Messianic visions.

Chapter IV. The Jewish Articles of Faith

1. In order to reach a clear opinion, whether or not Judaism has articles of faith in the sense of Church dogmas, a question so much discussed since the days of Moses Mendelssohn, it seems necessary first to ascertain what faith in general means to the Jew.24 Now the word used in Jewish literature for faith is Emunah, from the root Aman, to be firm; this denotes firm reliance upon God, and likewise firm adherence to him, hence both faith and faithfulness. Both Scripture and the Rabbis demanded confiding trust in God, His messengers, and His words, not the formal acceptance of a prescribed belief.25 Only when contact with the non-Jewish world emphasized the need for a clear expression of the belief in the unity of God, such as was found in the Shema,26 and when the proselyte was expected to declare in some definite form the fundamentals of the faith he espoused, was the importance of a concrete confession felt.27 Accordingly we find the beginnings of a formulated belief in the synagogal liturgy, in the Emeth we [pg 020] Yatzib28 and the Alenu,29 while in the Haggadah Abraham is represented both as the exemplar of a hero of faith and as the type of a missionary, wandering about to lead the heathen world towards the pure monotheistic faith.30 While the Jewish concept of faith underwent a certain transformation, influenced by other systems of belief, and the formulation of Jewish doctrines appeared necessary, particularly in opposition to the Christian and Mohammedan creeds, still belief never became the essential part of religion, conditioning salvation, as in the Church founded by Paul. For, as pointed out above, Judaism lays all stress upon conduct, not confession; upon a hallowed life, not a hollow creed.

2. There is no Biblical nor Rabbinical precept, “Thou shalt believe!” Jewish thinkers felt all the more the need to point out as fundamentals or roots of Judaism those doctrines upon which it rests, and from which it derives its vital force. To the rabbis, the “root” of faith is the recognition of a divine Judge to whom we owe account for all our doings.31 The recital of the Shema, which is called in the Mishnah “accepting the yoke of God's sovereignty,” and which is followed by the solemn affirmation, “True and firm belief is this for us”32 (Emeth we Yatzib or Emeth we Emunah), is, in fact, the earliest form of the confession of faith.33 In the course of time this confession of belief in the unity of God was no longer deemed sufficient to serve as basis for the whole structure of Judaism; so the various schools and authorities endeavored to work out in detail a series of fundamental doctrines.

3. The Mishnah, in Sanhedrin, X, 1, which seems to date back to the beginnings of Pharisaism, declares the following [pg 021] three to have no share in the world to come: he who denies the resurrection of the dead; he who says that the Torah—both the written and the oral Law—is not divinely revealed; and the Epicurean, who does not believe in the moral government of the world.34 We find here (in reverse order, owing to historical conditions), the beliefs in Revelation, Retribution, and the Hereafter singled out as the three fundamentals of Rabbinical Judaism. Rabbi Hananel, the great North African Talmudist, about the middle of the tenth century, seems to have been under the influence of Mohammedan and Karaite doctrines, when he speaks of four fundamentals of the faith: God, the prophets, the future reward and punishment, and the Messiah.35

4. The doctrine of the One and Only God stands, as a matter of course, in the foreground. Philo of Alexandria, at the end of his treatise on Creation, singles out five principles which are bound up with it, viz.: 1, God's existence and His government of the world; 2, His unity; 3, the world as His creation; 4, the harmonious plan by which it was established; and 5, His Providence. Josephus, too, in his apology for Judaism written against Apion,36 emphasizes the belief in God's all-encompassing Providence, His incorporeality, and His self-sufficiency as the Creator of the universe.

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The example of Islam, which had very early formulated a confession of faith of speculative character for daily recitation,37 influenced first Karaite and then Rabbanite teachers to elaborate the Jewish doctrine of One Only God into a philosophic creed. The Karaites modeled their creed after the Mohammedan pattern, which gave them ten articles of faith; of these the first three dwelt on: 1, creation out of nothing; 2, the existence of God, the Creator; 3, the unity and incorporeality of God.38

Abraham ben David (Ibn Daud) of Toledo sets forth in his “Sublime Faith” six essentials of the Jewish faith: 1, the existence; 2, the unity; 3, the incorporeality; 4, the omnipotence of God (to this he subjoins the existence of angelic beings); 5, revelation and the immutability of the Law; and 6, divine Providence.39 Maimonides, the greatest of all medieval thinkers, propounded thirteen articles of faith, which took the place of a creed in the Synagogue for the following centuries, as they were incorporated in the liturgy both in the form of a credo (Ani Maamin) and in a poetic version. His first five articles were: 1, the existence; 2, the unity; 3, the incorporeality; 4, the eternity of God; and 5, that He alone should be the object of worship; to which we must add his 10th, divine Providence.40 Others, not satisfied with the purely metaphysical form of the Maimonidean creed, accentuated the doctrines of creation out of nothing and special Providence.41

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This speculative form of faith, however, has been most severely denounced by Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865) as “Atticism”;42 that is, the Hellenistic or philosophic tendency to consider religion as a purely intellectual system, instead of the great dynamic force for man's moral and spiritual elevation. He holds that Judaism, as the faith transmitted to us from Abraham, our ancestor, must be considered, not as a mere speculative mode of reasoning, but as a moral life force, manifested in the practice of righteousness and brotherly love. Indeed, this view is supported by modern Biblical research, which brings out as the salient point in Biblical teaching the ethical character of the God taught by the prophets, and shows that the essential truth of revelation is not to be found in a metaphysical but in an ethical monotheism. At the same time, the fact must not be overlooked that the Jewish doctrine of God's unity was strengthened in the contest with the dualistic and trinitarian beliefs of other religions, and that this unity gave Jewish thought both lucidity and sublimity, so that it has surpassed other faiths in intellectual power and in passion for truth. The Jewish conception of God thus makes truth, as well as righteousness and love, both a moral duty for man and a historical task comprising all humanity.

5. The second fundamental article of the Jewish faith is divine revelation, or, as the Mishnah expresses it, the belief that the Torah emanates from God (min ha shamayim). In the Maimonidean thirteen articles, this is divided into four: his 6th, belief in the prophets; 7, in the prophecy of Moses as the greatest of all; 8, in the divine origin of the Torah, both the written and the oral Law; and 9, its immutability. The fundamental character of these, however, was contested [pg 024] by Hisdai Crescas and his disciples, Simon Duran and Joseph Albo.43 As a matter of fact, they are based not so much upon Rabbinical teaching as upon the prevailing views of Mohammedan theology,44 and were undoubtedly dictated by the desire to dispute the claims of Christianity and Islam that they represented a higher revelation. Our modern historical view, however, includes all human thought and belief; it therefore rejects altogether the assumption of a supernatural origin of either the written or the oral Torah, and insists that the subject of prophecy, revelation, and inspiration in general be studied in the light of psychology and ethnology, of general history and comparative religion.

6. The third fundamental article of the Jewish faith is the belief in a moral government of the world, which manifests itself in the reward of good and the punishment of evil, either here or hereafter. Maimonides divides this into two articles, which really belong together, his 10th, God's knowledge of all human acts and motives, and 11, reward and punishment. The latter includes the hereafter and the last Day of Judgment, which, of course, applies to all human beings.

7. Closely connected with retribution is the belief in the resurrection of the dead, which is last among the thirteen articles. This belief, which originally among the Pharisees had a national and political character, and was therefore connected especially with the Holy Land (as will be seen in Chapter LIV below), received in the Rabbinical schools more and more a universal form. Maimonides went so far as to follow the Platonic view rather than that of the Bible or the Talmud, and thus transformed it into a belief in the continuity of the soul after death. In this form, however, it is actually a postulate, or corollary, of the belief in retribution.

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8. The old hope for the national resurrection of Israel took in the Maimonidean system the form of a belief in the coming of the Messiah (article 12), to which, in the commentary on the Mishnah, he gives the character of a belief in the restoration of the Davidic dynasty. Joseph Albo, with others, disputes strongly the fundamental character of this belief; he shows the untenability of Maimonides' position by referring to many Talmudic passages, and at the same time he casts polemical side glances upon the Christian Church, which is really founded on Messianism in the special form of its Christology.45 Jehuda ha Levi, in his Cuzari, substitutes for this as a fundamental doctrine the belief in the election of Israel for its world-mission.46 It certainly redounds to the credit of the leaders of the modern Reform movement that they took the election of Israel rather than the Messiah as their cardinal doctrine, again bringing it home to the religious consciousness of the Jew, and placing it at the very center of their system. In this way they reclaimed for the Messianic hope the universal character which was originally given it by the great seer of the Exile.47

9. The thirteen articles of Maimonides, in setting forth a Jewish Credo, formed a vigorous opposition to the Christian and Mohammedan creeds; they therefore met almost universal acceptance among the Jewish people, and were given a place in the common prayerbook, in spite of their deficiencies, as shown by Crescas and his school. Nevertheless, we must admit that Crescas shows the deeper insight into the nature of religion when he observes that the main fallacy of the Maimonidean system lies in founding the Jewish faith on speculative knowledge, which is a matter of the intellect, rather than love which flows from the heart, and which alone leads to piety and goodness. True love, he says, requires [pg 026] the belief neither in retribution nor in immortality. Moreover, in striking contrast to the insistence of Maimonides or the immutability of the Mosaic Law, Crescas maintains the possibility of its continuous progress in accordance with the intellectual and spiritual needs of the time, or, what amounts to the same thing, the continuous perfectibility of the revealed Law itself.48 Thus the criticism of Crescas leads at once to a radically different theology than that of Maimonides, and one which appeals far more to our own religious thought.

10. Another doctrine of Judaism, which was greatly underrated by medieval scholars, and which has been emphasized in modern times only in contrast to the Christian theory of original sin, is that man was created in the image of God. Judaism holds that the soul of man came forth pure from the hand of its Maker, endowed with freedom, unsullied by any inherent evil or inherited sin. Thus man is, through the exercise of his own free will, capable of attaining to an ever higher degree his mental, moral, and spiritual powers in the course of history. This is the Biblical idea of God's spirit as immanent in man; all prophetic truth is based upon it; and though it was often obscured, this theory was voiced by many of the masters of Rabbinical lore, such as R. Akiba and others.49

11. Every attempt to formulate the doctrines or articles of faith of Judaism was made, in order to guard the Jewish faith from the intrusion of foreign beliefs, never to impose disputed beliefs upon the Jewish community itself. Many, indeed, challenged the fundamental character of the thirteen articles of Maimonides. Albo reduced them to three, viz.: the belief in God, in revelation, and retribution; others, with more arbitrariness than judgement, singled out three, five, six, or even more as principal doctrines;50 while rigid conservatives, [pg 027] such as Isaac Abravanel and David ben Zimra, altogether disapproved the attempt to formulate articles of faith. The former maintained that every word in the Torah is, in fact, a principle of faith, and the latter51 pointed in the same way to the 613 commandments of the Torah, spoken of by R. Simlai the Haggadist in the third century.52

The present age of historical research imposes the same necessity of restatement or reformulation upon us. We must do as Maimonides did,—as Jews have always done,—point out anew the really fundamental doctrines, and discard those which have lost their holdup on the modern Jew, or which conflict directly with his religious consciousness. If Judaism is to retain its prominent position among the powers of thought, and to be clearly understood by the modern world, it must again reshape its religious truths in harmony with the dominant ideas of the age.

Many attempts of this character have been made by modern rabbis and teachers, most of them founded upon Albo's three articles. Those who penetrated somewhat more deeply into the essence of Judaism added a fourth article, the belief in Israel's priestly mission, and at the same time, instead of the belief in retribution, included the doctrine of man's kinship with God, or, if one may coin the word, his God-childship.53 Few, however, have succeeded in working out the entire content of the Jewish faith from a modern viewpoint, which must include historical, critical, and psychological research, as well as the study of comparative religion.

12. The following tripartite plan is that of the present attempt to present the doctrines of Judaism systematically along the lines of historical development:

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I. God

a. Man's consciousness of God, and divine revelation.

b. God's spirituality, His unity, His holiness, His perfection.

c. His relation to the world: Creation and Providence.

d. His relation to man: His justice, His love and mercy.

II. Man

a. Man's God-childship; his moral freedom and yearning for God.

b. Sin and repentance; prayer and worship; immortality, reward and punishment.

c. Man and humanity: the moral factors in history.

III. Israel and the Kingdom of God

a. The priest-mission of Israel, its destiny as teacher and martyr among the nations, and its Messianic hope.

b. The Kingdom of God: the nations and religions of the world in a divine plan of universal salvation.

c. The Synagogue and its institutions.

d. The ethics of Judaism and the Kingdom of God.

A. God As He Makes Himself Known To Man

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B. The Idea Of God In Judaism

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C. God In Relation To The World

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Chapter XXXIII. Man's Place in Creation

1. The doctrine concerning man is inseparably connected with that about God. Heathenism formed its deities after the image of man; they were merely human beings of a larger growth. Judaism, on the contrary, asserts that God is beyond comparison with mankind; He is a purely spiritual being without form or image, and therefore utterly unlike man. On the other hand, man has a divine nature, as he was made in the image of God, fashioned after His likeness. The highest and deepest in man, his mental, moral, and spiritual life, is the reflection of the divine nature implanted within him, a force capable of ever greater development toward perfection. This unique distinction among all creatures gives man the highest place in all creation.

2. The superiority of the human race is expressed differently in various passages in Scripture. According to the first chapter of Genesis the whole work of creation finds its culmination in man, whose making is introduced by a solemn appeal of God to the hosts of heaven: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”628 This declaration proclaimed that man was the completion and the climax of the physical creation, as well as the beginning of a new order of creation, [pg 207] a world of moral aims and purposes, of self-perfection and self-control. In the world of man all life is placed at the service of a higher ideal, after the divine pattern.

The second chapter of Genesis depicts man's creation differently. Here he appears as the first of created beings, leading a life of perfect innocence in the garden of divine bliss. Before him God brings all the newly created beings that he may give them a name and a purpose. But the Serpent enters Paradise as tempter, casting the seed of discord into the hearts of the man and the woman. As they prove too feeble to resist temptation, they can no longer remain in the heavenly garden in their former happy state. Only the memory of Paradise remains, a golden dream to cast hope over the life of struggle and labor into which they enter. The idea of the legend is that man's proper place is not among beings of the earth, but he can reach his lofty destiny only by arduous struggle with the world of the senses and a constant striving toward the divine. The same idea is expressed more directly in the eighth Psalm:

3. According to the Haggadists,629 before the fall man excelled even the angels in appearance and wisdom, so that they were ready to prostrate themselves before him. Only when God caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, they recognized his frailty and kinship with other beings of the earth. The idea expressed in this legend resembles the one implied in the legend of Paradise, viz. man has a twofold nature. With his heavenly spirit he can soar freely to the highest [pg 208] realm of thought, above the station of the angels; yet his earthly frame holds him ever near the dust. It is this very contrast that constitutes his greatness, for it makes him a citizen of two worlds, one perishable, the other eternal. He is the highest result of Creation, the pride of the Creator.630 Thus he was appointed God's vice-regent on earth by the words spoken to the first man and woman: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.”631 The rabbis add a striking comment upon the word R'du, which is used here for “have dominion” but which may also mean, “go down.” They say: “The choice is left in man's own hand. If you maintain your heaven-born dignity, you will have dominion over all things; if not, you will descend to the level of the brute creation.”632

4. An ancient Mishnah derives a significant lesson from the story of the creation of man633: “Both the vegetable and animal worlds were created in multitudes. Man alone was created as a single individual in order that he may realize that he constitutes a world in himself, and carries within him the true value of life. Hence each human being is entitled to say: ‘The whole world was created for my sake.’ He who saves a single human life is as one who saves a whole world, and he who destroys a single human life is as one who destroys a whole world.”

5. While it is man's spiritual side which is the image of God, yet he derives all his powers and faculties from earthly life, just as a tree draws its strength from the soil in which it is rooted. Judaism does not consider the soul the exclusive [pg 209] seat of the divine, as opposed to the body. In fact, Judaism admits no complete dualism of spirit and matter, however striking some aspects of their contrast may be. The whole human personality is divine, just so far as it asserts its freedom and molds its motives toward a divine end. In recognition of this fact Hillel claimed reverence for the human body as well as mind, comparing it to the homage rendered to the statue of a king, for man is made in the image of God, the King of all the world.634 Thus the Greek idea that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature, reflecting the cosmos on a smaller scale, was expressed in the Tannaitic schools as well.635 The stamp of divinity is borne by man in his entire heaven-aspiring nature, as he strives to elevate the very realm of the senses into the sphere of morality and holiness.

6. In this respect the Jewish view parts from that of Plato and the Hindu philosophers. These divide man into a pure celestial soul and an impure earthly body and hold that the physical life is tainted by sin, while the spirit is divine only in so far as it frees itself from its prison house of flesh. Judaism, on the other hand, emphasizes the unified character of man, by which he can bend all his faculties and functions to a godlike mastery over the material world. This appears first in his upright posture and heavenward glance, which proclaim him master over the whole animal world cowering before him in lowly dread. His whole bodily structure corresponds to this, with its constant growth, its wondrous symmetry, and the unique flexibility of the hands, with which he can perform ever new and greater achievements. Above all, we see the nobility of man in his high forehead and receding jaw, which contrast so strikingly with the structure of most animals and even with many of the lower races. Indeed, primitive man could scarcely imagine a nobler pattern by which to model his deity than the figure of a man.

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7. In fact, the Biblical verse, “God created man after the image of the divine beings” (elohim), was originally taken literally, in the sense that angels posed as models for the creation of man.636 The phrase was referred to the spiritual, god-like nature of man only when the difference between material and spiritual things became better understood, and man obtained a clearer knowledge of himself. Man grew to feel that his craving for the perfect, whether in the field of truth and right, or of beauty, is the force which lifts him, in spite of all his limitations, into the realm of the divine. His soaring imagination and ceaseless longing for perfection disclose before his eyes a partial vista of the infinite. The human spirit carries mortal man above the confines of time and space into those boundless realms where God resides in lonely majesty.637

Man did not emanate perfect from the hand of the Creator, but ready for an ever greater perfection. Being the last of all created beings, as the Midrash says, he can be put to shame by the smallest insect, which is prior to him. Yet before the beginning of creation a light shone upon his spirit that has illumined his achievements through untold generations.638

8. The resemblance of man to God is attributed also to his free will and self-consciousness, by which he claims moral dignity and mastery over all things.639 Still, all these superior qualities which we call human are not ready-made endowments, free gifts bestowed by God; they are simply potentialities [pg 211] which may be gradually developed. Man must strive to attain the place destined for him in the scheme of creation by the exertion of his own will and the unfolding of the powers that lie within him. The impulse toward self-perfection, which is constantly stimulated by the desire to overcome obstacles and to extend one's power, knowledge, and possessions, forms the kernel of the divine in man. This is the “spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty, that giveth them understanding.”640 Thus the teaching of modern science, of the gradual ascent of man through all the stages of animal life, does not impair the lofty position in creation which Judaism has assigned him. Plant and animal are what they have always been, children of the earth; man with his heaven-aspiring soul is the image of his Creator, a child of God. Giver of name and purpose to all things about him, he ranks above the angels; he “marches on while all the rest stand still.”641

Chapter XXXIV. The Dual Nature of Man

1. According to Jewish doctrines, man is formed by a union of two natures: the flesh, which he shares with all the animals, and the spirit, which renders him a child of God. The former is rooted in the earth and is earthward bent; the latter is a “breath from God” and strives to unfold the divine in man until he attains the divine image. This discord brings a tremendous internal conflict, leading from one historic stage to another, achieving ever higher things, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, until at last the whole earth is to be a divine kingdom, the dwelling-place of truth, goodness, and holiness.

2. According to the Biblical view man consists of flesh (basar) and spirit (ruah). The term flesh is used impartially of all animals, hence the Biblical term “all flesh”642 includes both man and beast. The body becomes a living being by being penetrated with the “breath of life” (ruah hayim), at whose departure the living body turns at once into a lifeless clod. This breath of life is possessed by the animal as well as by man, as both of them breathe the air. Hence in ancient tongues “breath” and “soul” are used as synonyms, as the Hebrew nefesh and neshamah, the Latin anima and spiritus, the Greek pneuma and psyche. A different primitive belief connected the soul with the blood, noting that man or beast dies when the hot life-blood flows out of the body, so that we read in the Bible, “the blood is the soul.”643 In this [pg 213] the soul is identified with the life, while the word ruah, denoting the moving force of the air, is used more in the sense of spirit or soul as distinct from the body.

Thus both man and beast possess a soul, nefesh. The soul of man is merely distinguished by its richer endowment, its manifold faculties by which it is enabled to move forward to higher things. Thus the animal soul is bound for all time to its destined place, while the divine spirit in man makes him a free creative personality, self-conscious and god-like. For this reason the creation of man forms a special act in the account in Genesis. Both the plant and animal worlds rose at God's bidding from the soil of mother earth, and the soul of the animal is limited in origin and goal by the earthly sphere. The creation of man inaugurates a new world. God is described as forming the body of man from the dust of the earth and then breathing His spirit into the lifeless frame, endowing it with both life and personality. The whole man, both body and soul, has thus the potentiality of a higher and nobler life.

3. Accordingly Scripture does not have a thorough-going dualism, of a carnal nature which is sinful and a spiritual nature which is pure. We are not told that man is composed of an impure earthly body and a pure heavenly soul, but instead that the whole of man is permeated by the spirit of God. Both body and soul are endowed with the power of continuous self-improvement. In order to see the great superiority of the Jewish view over the heathen one, we need only study the old Babylonian legend preserved by Berosus. In this the deity made man by mixing earth with some of its own life-blood, thus endowing the human soul with higher powers. In the Bible the difference between man and beast does not lie in the blood, although the blood is still thought to be the life. The distinction of man is in the spirit, ruah, which emanates from God and penetrates both body and soul, [pg 214] lifting the whole man into a higher realm and making him a free moral personality.

Still the Bible makes no clear distinction between the three terms, nefesh, neshamah, and ruah.644 Philo first distinguished between three different substances of the soul, but his theory was the Platonic one, for which he simply used the three Biblical names.645 The Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages, beginning with Saadia, took the same attitude, even though they realized more or less that the division of the soul into three substances has no Scriptural warrant.646 In rabbinical literature this division is scarcely known, and there is little mention of either the animal soul, nefesh, or the vital spark, ruah. Instead the word neshamah is used for the human psyche as the higher spiritual substance, and the contrast to it is not the Biblical basar, flesh, but the Aramaic guph, body.647 This bears a trace of Persian dualism, with its strong contrast between the earthly body and the heavenly soul.

4. In fact, rabbinical Judaism does not recognize any relationship between the soul of the animal and that of man, but claims that man has a special type of existence. The Midrash tells648 that God formed Adam's body so as to reach from earth to heaven, and then caused the soul to enter it. In the same way God implants the soul into the embryo before its birth and while in the womb. Before this the soul had a bird-like existence in an immense celestial cage (guph = columbarium), and when it leaves the body in death, it again takes [pg 215] its flight toward heaven. There its conduct on earth will reap a reward in the garden of eternal bliss or a punishment in the infernal regions. The belief in the preëxistence of the soul was shared by the rabbis with the apocryphal authors and Philo.649

However, rabbinical Judaism never followed Philo so far in the footsteps of Plato as to consider the body or the flesh the source of impurity and sin, or “the prison house of the soul.” This view is fundamental in the Paulinian system of other-worldliness. For the rabbis the sensuous desire of the body (yezer) is a tendency toward sin, but never a compulsion. The weakness of the flesh may cause a straying from the right path, but man can turn the desires of the flesh into the service of the good. He can always assert his divine power of freedom by opposing the evil inclination (yezer ha ra) with the good inclination (yezer ha tob) to overcome it.650 In fact, the rabbis are so far from acknowledging the existence of a compulsion of evil in the flesh, that they point to the history of great men as proof that the highest characters have the mightiest passions in their souls, and that their greatness consists in the will by which they have learned to control themselves.651

5. In the light of modern science the whole theory separating body and soul falls to the ground, and the one connecting man more closely with the animal world is revived. In this connection we think of the idea which medieval thinkers adopted from Plato and Aristotle, that there is a substance of souls—nefesh hahiyonith—which forms the basic life-force [pg 216] of men and animals. Physiology and psychology reveal the interaction and dependence of body and soul in the lowest forms of animal life as well as in the higher forms, including man. The beginnings of the human mind must be sought once for all in the animal, just as the origin of the animal reaches back into the plant world. Indeed, Aristotle anticipates the discoveries of modern science, placing the vegetative and animal souls beside the spirit of man. Thus motion and sensibility form the lower boundary-line of the animal kingdom, and self-consciousness and self-determination are the criteria of humanity.

Yet this very self-conscious freedom which forms man's personality, his ego, lifts him into a realm of free action under higher motives, transcending nature's law of necessity, and therefore not falling within the domain of natural science. Dust-born man, notwithstanding his earthly limitations, in spite of his kinship to mollusk and mammal, enters the realm of the divine spirit. In the Midrash the rabbis remark that man shares the nature of both animals and angels.652 Admitting this, we feel that he is tied neither to heaven nor to the earth, but free to lift himself above all creatures or sink below them all.

6. Endowed with this dual nature, man stands in the very center of the universe, and God esteems him “equal in value to the entire creation,” as Rabbi Nehemiah says of a single human soul.653 Rabbi Akiba stresses the image of God in humanity when he says: “Beloved is man, for he is created in God's image, and it was a special token of love that he became conscious of it. Beloved is Israel, for they are called the children of God, and it was a special token of love that they became conscious of it.”654 The Midrash compares man to God in exquisite manner: “Just as God permeates the world and carries it, unseen yet seeing all, enthroned [pg 217] within as the Only One, the Perfect, and the Pure, yet never to be reached or found out; so the soul penetrates and carries the body, as the one pure and luminous being which sees and holds all things, while itself unseen and unreached.”655 The conception of the soul is here divested of every sensory attribute, and portrayed as a divine force within the body. This conception, which was accepted by the medieval philosophers, is thoroughly consistent with our view of the world. The soul it is which mirrors both the material and spiritual worlds and holds them in mutual relation through its own power. It is at the same time swayed upward and downward by its various cravings, heavenly and earthly, and this very tension constitutes the dual nature of the human soul.

Chapter XXXV. The Origin and Destiny of Man

1. Of all created beings man alone possesses the power of self-determination; he assigns his destiny to himself. While he endeavors to find the object of all other things and even of his own existence in the world, he finds his own purpose within himself. Star and stone, plant and beast fulfill their purpose in the whole plan of creation by their existence and varied natures, and are accordingly called “good” as they are. Man, however, realizes that he must accomplish his purpose by his manner of life and the voluntary exertion of his own powers. He is “good” only as far as he fulfills his destiny on earth. He is not good by mere existence, but by his conduct. Not what he is, but what he ought to be gives value to his being. He is good or bad according to the direction of his will and acts by the imperative: “I ought” or “I ought not,” which comes to him in his conscience, the voice of God calling to his soul.

2. The problem of human destiny is answered by Judaism with the idea that God is the ideal and pattern of all morality. The answer given, then, is “To walk in the ways of God, to be righteous and just,” as He is.656 The prophet Micah expressed it in the familiar words: “It has been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee: Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”657 Accordingly the Bible considers men of the older generations the prototypes of moral conduct, “righteous [pg 219] men who walked with God.” Such men were Enoch, Noah, and above all Abraham, to whom God said: “I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be thou whole-hearted. And I will make My covenant between thee and Me.”658 The rabbis singled out Abraham as the type of a perfect man on account of his love of righteousness and peace; contrasting him with Adam who sinned, they beheld him as “the great man among the heroes of the ancient times.” They even considered him the type of true humanity, in whom the object of creation was attained.659

3. This moral consciousness, however, which tells man to walk in the ways of God and be perfect, is also the source of shame and remorse. With such an ideal man must feel constantly that he falls short, that he is not what he ought to be. Only the little child, who knows nothing as yet of good and evil, can preserve the joy of life unmarred. Similarly, primitive man, being ignorant of guilt, could pass his days without care or fear. But as soon as he becomes conscious of guilt, discord enters his soul, and he feels as if he had been driven from the presence of God.

This feeling is allegorized in the Paradise legend. The garden of bliss, half earthly, half heavenly, which is elsewhere called the “mountain of God,”660 a place of wondrous trees, beasts, and precious stones, whence the four great rivers flow, is the abode of divine beings. The first man and woman could dwell in it only so long as they lived in harmony with God and His commandments. As soon as the tempter in the shape of the serpent called forth a discord between the divine will and human desire, man could no longer enjoy celestial bliss, but must begin the dreary earthly life, with its burdens and trials.

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4. This story of the fall of the first man is an allegorical description of the state of childlike innocence which man must leave behind in order to attain true strength of character. It is based upon a view common to all antiquity of a descent of the race; that is: first came the golden age, when man led a life of ease and pleasure in company with the gods; then an age of silver, another of brass, and finally the iron age, with its toil and bitter woe. Thus did evil deeds and wild passions increase among men. This view fails utterly to recognize the value of labor as a civilizing force making for progress, and it contradicts the modern historical view. The prophets of Israel placed the golden age at the end, not the beginning of history, so that the purpose of mankind was to establish a heavenly kingdom upon the earth. In fact, the fall of man is not referred to anywhere in Scripture and never became a doctrine, or belief, of Judaism. On the contrary, the Hellenistic expounders of the Bible take it for granted that the story is an allegory, and the book of Proverbs understands the tree of life symbolically, in the verse: “She (the Torah) is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.”661

5. Still the rabbis in Talmud and Midrash accepted the legend in good faith as historical662 and took it literally as did the great English poet:

In fact, they even followed the Persian dualism with its evil principle, the primeval serpent, or the Babylonian legend of the sea-monster Tiamat, and regarded the serpent in Paradise as a demon. He was identified with Satan, the arch-fiend, and later with evil in general, the yezer ha ra.663 Thus the [pg 221] belief arose that the poisonous breath of the serpent infected all generations, causing death even of the sinless.664 The apocrypha also held that the envy of Satan brought death into the world.665 This prepared for the dismal church doctrine of original sin, the basis of Paul's teachings, which demanded a blood atonement for curse-laden humanity, and found it after the pagan pattern in the vicarious sacrifice of a dying god.666

Against such perversion of the simple Paradise story the sound common sense of the Jewish people rebelled. While the early Talmudists occasionally mention the poisoning of the human race by the serpent, they find an antidote for the Jewish people in the covenant with Abraham or that of Sinai.667 One cannot, however, discern the least indication of belief in original sin, either as inherent in the human race or inherited by them. Nor does the liturgy express any such idea, especially for the Day of Penitence, when it would certainly be mentioned if the conception found any place in Jewish doctrine. On the contrary, the prevailing thought of Judaism is that of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel,668 that “Each man dies by his own sin,” that every soul must bear only the consequences of his own deeds. The rabbis even state that no man dies unless he has brought it upon himself by his own sin, and mention especially certain exceptions to this rule, such as the four saintly men who died without sin,669 or certain children whose death was due to the sin of their parents.670 They could never admit that the whole human race was so corrupted by the sin of the first man that it is still in a state of sinfulness.

6. Of course, the rabbinical schools took literally the Biblical story of the fall of man and laid the chief blame upon [pg 222] woman, who fell a prey to the wiles of the serpent. This is done even by Ben Sira, who says: “With woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all must die.”671 So the Talmud says that due to woman, man, the crown, light, and life of creation, lost his purity, his luster, and his immortality.672 The Biblical verse, “They did eat, and the eyes of them both were opened,” is interpreted by Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiba as “They saw the dire consequences of their sin upon all coming generations.”673 The fall of man is treated most elaborately in the same spirit in the two apocalyptic books written after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Apocalypse of Baruch and the IV Book of Esdras.674 The incompatibility of divine love with the sufferings of man and of the Jewish people on account of the sin of the first man is solved by an appeal to the final Day of Judgment, and the striking remark is added that, after all, “each is his own Adam and is held responsible for his own sin.” We cannot deny that these two books contain much that is near the Paulinian view of original sin. It seems, however, that the Jewish teachers were put on their guard by the emphasis of this pessimistic dogma by the nascent Church, and did their best to give a different aspect to the story of the first sin. Thus they say: “If Adam had but shown repentance, and done penance after he committed his sin, he would have been spared the death penalty.”675 Moreover, they actually represent Adam and Eve as patterns of repentant sinners, who underwent severe penance and thus obtained the promise of divine mercy and also of final resurrection.676 Instead of transmitting the heritage of sin to coming generations, the [pg 223] first man is for them an example of repentance. So do the Haggadists tell us quite characteristically that God merely wanted to test the first man by an insignificant command, so that the first representative of the human race should show whether he was worthy to enter eternal life in his mortal garb, as did Enoch and Elijah. As he could not stand the test, he forfeited the marks of divine rank, his celestial radiance, his gigantic size, and his power to overcome death.677 Obviously the Biblical story was embellished with material from the Persian legend of the fall of Yima or Djemshid, the first man, from superhuman greatness because of his sin,678 but it was always related frankly as a legend, and could never influence the Jewish conception of the fall of man.

7. Judaism rejects completely the belief in hereditary sin and the corruption of the flesh. The Biblical verse, “God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions,”679 is explained in the Midrash: “Upright and just as is God, He made man after His likeness in order that he might strive after righteousness, and unfold ever more his god-like nature, but men in their dissensions have marred the divine image.”680 With reference to another verse in Ecclesiastes:681 “The dust returneth unto the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it,” the rabbis teach “Pure as the soul is when entering upon its earthly career, so can man return it to his Maker.”682 Therefore the pious Jew begins his daily prayers with the words: “My God, the soul which Thou hast given me is pure.”683 The life-long battle with [pg 224] sin begins only at the age when sensual desire, “the evil inclination,” awakens in youth; then the state of primitive innocence makes way for the sterner contest for manly virtue and strength of character.

8. In fact, the whole Paradise story could never be made the basis for a dogma. The historicity of the serpent is denied by Saadia;684 the rabbis transfer Paradise with the tree of life to heaven as a reward for the future;685 and both Nahmanides the mystic and Maimonides the philosopher give it an allegorical meaning.686 On the other hand, the Haggadic teachers perceived the simple truth that a life of indolence in Paradise would incapacitate man for his cultural task, and that the toils and struggles inflicted on man as a curse are in reality a blessing. Therefore they laid special stress on the Biblical statement: “He put man into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”687 The following parable is especially suggestive: “When Adam heard the stern sentence passed: ‘Thou shalt eat the herb of the field,’ he burst into tears, and said: ‘Am I and my ass to eat out of the same manger?’ Then came another sentence from God to reassure him, ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,’ and forthwith he became aware that man shall attain a higher dignity by dint of labor.”688 Indeed, labor transforms the wilderness into a garden and the earth into a habitation worthy of the son of God. The “book of the generations of [pg 225] man” which begins with Adam is accordingly not the history of man's descent, but of his continuous ascent, of ever higher achievements and aspirations; it is not a record of the fall of man, but of his rise from age to age. According to the Midrash689 God opened before Adam the book with the deeds and names of the leading spirits of all the coming generations, showing him the latent powers of the human intellect and soul. The phrase, “the fall of man,” can mean, in fact, only the inner experience of the individual, who does fall from his original idea of purity and divine nobility into transgression and sin. It cannot refer to mankind as a whole, for the human race has never experienced a fall, nor is it affected by original or hereditary sin.

Chapter XXXVI. God's Spirit in Man

1. Man is placed in an animal world of dull feelings, of blind and crude cravings. Yet his clear understanding, his self-conscious will and his aspirations forward and upward lead him into a higher world where he obtains insight into the order and unity of all things. By the spirit of God he is able to understand material things and grasp them in their relations; thus he can apply all his knowledge and creative imagination to construct a world of ideals. But this world, in all its truth, beauty and goodness, is still limited and finite, a feeble shadow of the infinite world of God. As the Bible says: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inward parts.”690 “It is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty, that giveth them understanding.”691

2. According to the Biblical conception, the spirit of God endows men with all their differing capacities; it gives to one man wisdom by which he penetrates into the causes of existence and orders facts into a scientific system; to another the seeing eye by which he captures the secret of beauty and creates works of art; and to a third the genius to perceive the ways of God, the laws of virtue, that he may become a teacher of ethical truth. In other words, the spirit of God is “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”692 It works upon the scientific interest of the investigator, [pg 227] the imagination of the artist and poet, the ethical and social sense of the prophet, teacher, statesman, and lawgiver. Thus their high and holy vision of the divine is brought home to the people and implanted within them under the inspiration of God. In commenting upon the Biblical verse, “Wisdom and might are His ... He giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding,”693 the sages wisely remark, “God carefully selects those who possess wisdom for His gift of wisdom.” Even as a musical instrument must be attuned for the finer notes that it may have a clear, resonant tone, so the human soul must be made especially susceptible to the gifts of the spirit in order to be capable of unfolding them. Thus the Talmud records an interesting dialogue on this very passage between a Roman matron familiar with the Scripture, and Rabbi Jose ben Halafta. She asked sarcastically, “Would it not have been more generous of your God to have given wisdom to those that are unwise than to those that already possess it?” Thereupon the Jewish master replied, “If you were to lend a precious ornament, would you not lend it to one who was able to make use of it? So God gives the treasure of wisdom to the wise, who know how to appreciate and develop it, not to the unwise, who do not know its value.”694

3. Thus the diverse gifts of the divine spirit are distributed differently among the various classes and tribes of men, according to their capacity and the corresponding task which is assigned them by Providence. The divine spark is set aglow in each human soul, sometimes feebly, sometimes brightly, but it blazes high only in the privileged personality or group. The mutual relationship between God and man is recognized by the Synagogue in the Eighteen Benedictions, where the [pg 228] one directly following the three praises of God is devoted to wisdom and knowledge: “Thou favorest man with knowledge, and teachest mortals understanding. So favor us with knowledge, understanding, and discernment from Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, gracious Giver of knowledge.”695 This petition, remarks Jehuda ha Levi,696 deserves its position as first among these prayers, because wisdom brings us nearer to God. It is also noteworthy that the Synagogue prescribes a special benediction at the sight of a renowned sage, even if he is not a Jew, reading, “Praised be He who has imparted of His wisdom to flesh and blood.”697

4. Maimonides holds that in the same degree as a man studies the works of God in nature, he will be filled with longing for direct knowledge of God and true love of Him.698 “Not only religion, but also the sciences emanate from God, both being the outcome of the wisdom which God imparts to all nations,”—thus wrote a sixteenth-century rabbi, Loewe ben Bezalel of Prague, known usually as “the eminent Rabbi Loewe.”699 The men of the Talmud also accord the palm in certain types of knowledge to heathen sages, and did not hesitate to ascribe to some heathens the highest knowledge of God in their time.700 As a mystic of the thirteenth century, Isaac ben Latif, says: “That faith is the most perfect which perceives truth most fully, since God is the source of all truth.”701 Of the two heads of the Babylonian academies, Rab and Samuel, one asserted that Moses through his prophetic genius reached forty-nine of the fifty degrees of the divine understanding (as the fiftieth is reserved for God alone), while the other claimed the same distinction for King Solomon as the result of his wisdom.702

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5. Thus the spirit of God creates in man both consciously and unconsciously a world of ideas, which proves him a being of a higher order in creation. This impulse may work actively, searching, investigating, and creating, or passively as an instrument of a higher power. At first it is a dim, uncertain groping of the spirit; then the mind acquires greater lucidity by which it illumines the dark world; and, as one question calls for the other and one thought suggests another, the world of ideas opens up as a well-connected whole. Thus man creates by slow steps his languages, the arts and sciences, ethics, law and all the religions with their varying practices and doctrines. At times this spirit bursts forth with greater vehemence in great men, geniuses who lift the race with one stroke to a higher level. Such men may say, in the words of David, the holy singer: “The spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was upon my tongue.”703 They may repeat the experience of Eliphaz the friend of Job:

In such manner men of former ages received a religious revelation, a divine message.

6. The divine spirit always selects as its instruments individuals with special endowments. Still, insight into history shows that these men must needs have grown from the [pg 230] very heart of their own people and their own age, in order that they might hold a lofty position among them and command attention for their message. However far the people or the age may be from the man chosen by God, the multitude must feel at least that the divine spirit speaks through him, or works within him. Or, if not his own time, then a later generation must respond to his message, lest it be lost entirely to the world.

The rabbis, who knew nothing of laws of development for the human mind, assumed that the first man, made by God Himself, must have known every branch of knowledge and skill, that the spirit of God must have been most vigorous in him.705 They therefore believed in a primeval revelation, coeval with the first man. Our age, with its tremendous emphasis on the historical view, sees the divine spirit manifested most clearly in the very development and growth of all life, social, intellectual, moral and spiritual, proceeding steadily toward the highest of all goals. With this emphasis, however, on process, we must lay stress equally on the origin, on the divine impulse or initiative in this historical development, the spirit which gives direction and value to the whole.

Chapter XXXVII. Free Will and Moral Responsibility

1. Judaism has ever emphasized the freedom of the will as one of its chief doctrines. The dignity and greatness of man depends largely upon his freedom, his power of self-determination. He differs from the lower animals in his independence of instinct as the dictator of his actions. He acts from free choice and conscious design, and is able to change his mind at any moment, at any new evidence or even through whim. He is therefore responsible for his every act or omission, even for his every intention. This alone renders him a moral being, a child of God; thus the moral sense rests upon freedom of the will.706

2. The idea of moral freedom is expressed as early as the first pages of the Bible, in the words which God spoke to Cain while he was planning the murder of his brother Abel: “Whether or not, thou offerest an acceptable gift,” (New Bible translation: “If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well,”) “sin coucheth at the door; and unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it.”707 Here, without any reference to the sin of Adam in the first generation, the man of the second generation is told that he is free to choose between good and evil, that he alone is responsible before God for what he does or omits to do. This certainly indicates that the moral freedom of man is not impaired by hereditary sin, or by any evil power outside [pg 232] of man himself. This principle is established in the words of Moses spoken in the name of God: “I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.”708 In like manner Jeremiah proclaims in God's name: “Behold I set before you the way of life and the way of death.”709

3. From these passages and many similar ones the sages derived their oft-repeated idea that man stands ever at the parting of the ways, to choose either the good or the evil path.710 Thus the words spoken by God to the angels when Adam and Eve were to be expelled from Paradise: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil,” are interpreted by R. Akiba: “He was given the choice to go the way of life or the way of death, but he chose the way of death by eating of the forbidden fruit.”711 R. Akiba emphasizes the principle of the freedom of the will again in the terse saying: “All things are foreseen (by God), but free will is granted (to man).”712

4. At the first encounter of Judaism with those philosophical schools of Hellas which denied the freedom of the human will, the Jewish teachers insisted strongly on this principle. The first reference is found in Ben Sira, who refutes the arguments of the Determinists that God could make man sin, and then goes on: “God created man at the beginning, endowing him with the power of self-determination, saying to him: If thou but willest, thou canst observe My commandments; to practice faithfulness is a matter of free will.... As when fire and water are put before thee, so that thou mayest reach forth thy hand to that which thou desirest, so are life and death placed before man, and whatever he chooses of [pg 233] his own desire will be given to him.”713 The Book of Enoch voices this truth also in the forceful sentences: “Sin has not been sent upon the earth (from above), but men have produced it out of themselves; therefore they who commit sin are condemned.”714 We read similar sentiments in the Psalms of Solomon, a Pharisean work of the first pre-Christian century:715 “Our actions are the outcome of the free choice and power of our own soul; to practice justice or injustice lies in the work of our own hands.”

The Apocalypse of Ezra is especially instructive in the great stress which it lays on freedom, in connection with its chief theme, the sinfulness of the children of Adam. “This is the condition of the contest which man who is born on earth must wage, that, if he be conquered by the evil inclination, he must suffer that of which thou hast spoken (the tortures of hell), but if he be victorious, he shall receive (the reward) which I (the angel) have mentioned. For this is the way whereof Moses spoke when he lived, saying unto the people, ‘Choose life, that thou mayest live!’... For all who knew Me not in life when they received My benefits, who despised My law when they yet had freedom, and did not heed the door of repentance while it was still open before them, but disregarded it, after death they shall come to know it!”716

5. Hellenistic Judaism also, particularly Philo,717 considered the truly divine in man to be his free will, which distinguishes him from the beast. Yet Hellenistic naturalism could not grasp the fact that man's power to do evil in opposition to God, the Source of the good, is the greatest reminder of his moral responsibility. Josephus likewise mentions frequently as a characteristic teaching of the Pharisees that man's free will [pg 234] determines his acts without any compulsion of destiny.718 Only we must not accept too easily the words of this Jewish historian, who wrote for his Roman masters and, therefore, represented the Jewish parties as so many philosophical schools after the Greek pattern. The Pharisean doctrine is presented most tersely in the Talmudic maxim: “Everything is in the hands of God except the fear of God.”719 Like the quotation from R. Akiba above, this contains the great truth that man's destiny is determined by Providence, but his character depends upon his own free decision. This idea recurs frequently in such Talmudic sayings as these: “The wicked are in the power of their desires; the righteous have their desires in their own power;”720 “The eye, the ear, and the nostrils are not in man's power, but the mouth, the hand, and the feet are.”721 That is, the impressions we receive from the world without us come involuntarily, but our acts, our steps, and our words arise from our own volition.

6. A deeper insight into the problem of free will is offered in two other Talmudic sayings; the one is: “Whosoever desires to pollute himself with sin will find all the gates open before him, and whosoever desires to attain the highest purity will find all the forces of goodness ready to help him.”722 The other reads: “It can be proved by the Torah, the Prophets, and the other sacred writings that man is led along the road which he wishes to follow.”723

As a matter of fact, no person is absolutely free, for innumerable influences affect his decisions, consciously and unconsciously. For this reason many thinkers, both ancient and modern, consider freedom a delusion and hold to determinism, [pg 235] the doctrine that man acts always under the compulsion of external and internal forces. In opposition to this theory is one incontestable fact, our own inner sense of freedom which tells us at every step that we have acted, and at every decision that we have decided. Man can maintain his own power of self-determination against all influences from without and within; his will is the final arbiter over every impulse and every pressure. Moreover, as we penetrate more deeply into the working of the mind, we see that a long series of our own voluntary acts has occasioned much that we consider external, that the very pressure of the past on our thoughts, feelings and habits, which leaves so little weight for the decision of the moment, is really only our past will influencing our present will. That is, the will may determine itself, but it does not do so arbitrarily; its action is along the lines of its own character. We have the power to receive the influence of either the noble or the ignoble series of impressions, and thus to yield either to the lofty or the low impulses of the soul.

In this way the rabbis interpret various expressions of Scripture which would seem to limit man's freedom, as where God induces man to good or evil acts, or hardens the heart of Pharaoh so that he will not let the Israelites go, until the plagues had been fulfilled upon him and his people.724 They understand in such an instance that a man's heart has a prevailing inclination toward right or wrong, the expression of his character, and that God encouraged this inclination along the evil course; thus the freedom of the human will was kept intact.

7. The doctrine of man's free will presents another difficulty from the side of divine omniscience. For if God knows in [pg 236] advance what is to happen, then man's acts are determined by this very foreknowledge; he is no longer free, and his moral responsibility becomes an idle dream. In order to escape this dilemma, the Mohammedan theologians were compelled to limit either the divine omniscience or human freedom, and most of them resorted to the latter method. It is characteristic of Judaism that its great thinkers, from Saadia to Maimonides and Gersonides,725 dared not alter the doctrine of man's free will and moral responsibility, but even preferred to limit the divine omniscience. Hisdai Crescas is the only one to restrict human freedom in favor of the foreknowledge of God.726

8. The insistence of Judaism on unrestricted freedom of will for each individual entirely excludes hereditary sin. This is shown in the traditional explanation of the verse of the Decalogue: “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.”727 According to the rabbis the words “of them that hate Me” do not refer to the fathers, according to the plain meaning of the passage, but to the children and children's children. These are to be punished only when they hate God and follow the evil example of their fathers.728 Despite example and hereditary disposition, the descendants of evildoers can lead a virtuous life, and their punishment comes only when they fail to resist the evil influences of their parental household. To illustrate the Biblical words, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?”729 the rabbis single out Abraham, the son of Terah, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, and Josiah, the son of Manasseh.730 Man, being made in [pg 237] God's image, determines his own character by his own free choice; by his will he can raise or lower himself in the scale of being.

9. The fundamental character of the doctrine of free will for Judaism is shown by Maimonides, who devotes a special chapter of his Code to it,731 and calls it the pillar of Israel's faith and morality, since through it alone man manifests his god-like sovereignty. For should his freedom be limited by any kind of predestination, he would be deprived of his moral responsibility, which constitutes his real greatness. In endeavoring to reconcile God's omnipotence and omniscience with man's freedom, Maimonides says that God wants man to erect a kingdom of morality without interference from above; moreover, God's knowledge is different in kind from that of man, and thus is not an infringement upon man's freedom, as the human type of knowledge would be. However, Abraham ben David of Posquieres blames Maimonides for proposing questions which he could not answer satisfactorily in the Code, which is intended for non-philosophical readers. The fact is that this is only another of the problems insoluble to human reasoning; the freedom of the will must remain for all time a postulate of moral responsibility, and therefore of religion.

Chapter XXXVIII. The Meaning of Sin

1. Sin is a religious conception. It does not signify a breach of law or morality, or of popular custom and sacred usage, but an offense against God, provoking His punishment. As long as the deity is merely dreaded as an external power, not adored as a moral power ruling life from within for a holy purpose, sin, too, is considered a purely formal offense. The deity demands to be worshiped by certain rites and may be propitiated by other formal acts.732 For Judaism, however, sin is a straying from the path of God, an offense against the divine order of holiness. Thus it signifies an abuse of the freedom granted man as his most precious boon. Therefore sin has a twofold character; formally it is an offense against the majesty of God, whose laws are broken; essentially it is a severance of the soul's inner relations to God, an estrangement from Him.

2. Scripture has three different terms for sin, which do not differ greatly in point of language, but indicate three stages of thought. First is het or hataah, which connotes any straying from the right path, whether caused by levity, carelessness, or design, and may even include wrongs committed unwittingly, shegagah. Second is avon, a crookedness or perversion of the straight order of the law. Third is pesha, a wicked act committed presumptuously in defiance of God and His law. As a matter of course, the conception of [pg 239] sin was deepened by degrees, as the prophets, psalmists and moralists grew to think of God as the pattern of the highest moral perfection, as the Holy One before whom an evil act or thought cannot abide.

The rabbis usually employed the term aberah, that is, a transgression of a divine commandment. In contrast to this they used mitzwah, a divine command, which denotes also the whole range of duty, including the desire and intention of the human soul. From this point of view every evil design or impulse, every thought and act contrary to God's law, becomes a sin.

3. Sin arises from the weakness of the flesh, the desire of the heart, and accordingly in the first instance from an error of judgment. The Bible frequently speaks of sin as “folly.”733 A rabbinical saying brings out this same idea: “No one sins unless the spirit of folly has entered into him to deceive him.”734 A sinful imagination lures one to sin; the repetition of the forbidden act lowers the barrier of the commandment, until the trespass is hardened into “callous” and “stubborn” disregard, and finally into “reckless defiance” and “insolent godlessness.” Such a process is graphically expressed by the various terms used in the Bible. According to the rabbinical figure, “sin appears at first as thin as a spider's web, but grows stronger and stronger, until it becomes like a wagon-rope to bind a man.” Or, “sin comes at first as a passer-by to tarry for a moment, then as a visitor to stay, finally as the master of the house to claim possession.” Therefore it is incumbent upon us to “guard” the heart, and not “to go astray following after our eyes and our heart.”735

4. According to the doctrine of Judaism no one is sinful by nature. No person sins by an inner compulsion. But [pg 240] as man has a nature of flesh, which is sensuous and selfish, each person is inclined to sin and none is perfectly free from it. “Who can say: I have made my heart clean, I am pure from any sin?”736 This is the voice of the Bible and of all human experience; “For there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”737 The expression occurs repeatedly in Job: “Shall mortal man be just before God? Shall a man be pure before his Maker?”738 Even Moses is represented in numerous passages as showing human foibles and failings.739 In fact, “the greater the personality, the more severely will God call him to account for the smallest trespass, for God desires to be ‘sanctified’ by His righteous ones.”740 The Midrash tells us that no one is to be called holy, until death has put an end to his struggle with the ever-lurking tempter within, and he lies in the earth with the victor's crown of peace upon his brow.741 When we read the stern sentence: “Behold, He putteth no trust in His holy ones,”742 the rabbis refer us to the patriarchs, each of whom had his faults.743 Measured by the Pattern of all holiness, no human being is free from blemish.

5. In connection with the God-idea, the conception of sin grew from crude beginnings to the higher meaning given it by Judaism. The ancient Babylonians used the same terminology as the Bible for sin and sin-offering, but their view, like that of other Semites, was far more external.744 If one was afflicted with disease or misfortune, the inference was that he had neglected the ritual of some deity and must appease the angered one with a sacrificial offering. Any irregularity in the cult was an offense against the deity. This became more moralized with the higher God-idea; the god [pg 241] became the guardian of moral principles; and the calamities, even of the nation, were then ascribed to the divine wrath on account of moral lapses. The same process may be observed in the views of ancient Israel. Here, too, during the dominance of the priestly view the gravest possible offense was one against the cult, a culpable act entailing the death penalty—asham, or “doom” of the offender. We shudder at the thought that the least violation of the hierarchical rules for the sanctuary or even for the burning of incense should meet the penalty of death. Yet such is the plain statement of the Mosaic law and such was the actual practice of the people.745

The more the prophetic conception of the moral nature of the Deity permeated the Jewish religion, the more the term sin came to mean an offense against the holiness of God, the Guardian of morality. Hence the great prophets upbraided the people for their moral, not their ceremonial failings. They attacked scathingly transgressions of the laws of righteousness and purity, the true sins against God, because these originate in dullness of heart, unbridled passion, and overbearing pride, all so hateful to Him. The only ritual offenses emphasized as sins against God are idolatry, violation of the name of God and of the Sabbath, for these express the sanctity of life.746 Except for these points, the prophets and psalmists insisted only on righteous conduct and integrity of soul, and repudiated entirely the ritualism of the priesthood and the formalism of the cult.747 This view is anticipated by Samuel, the master of the prophetic schools, when he says:

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As soon as we realize that obedience to God's will means right conduct and purity of soul, we see in sin the desecration of the divine image in man, the violation of his heavenly patent of nobility.

6. Sin, then, is in its essence unfaithfulness to God and to our own god-like nature. We see this thought expressed in Job:749

Thus the source of sin is the human heart, the origin of all our thinking and planning. We know sin chiefly as consciousness of guilt. Man's conscience accuses him and compels him to confess, “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned.”750 Not only the deed itself, but even more the will which caused it, is condemned by conscience. Such self-accusation constantly proves anew that there is no place for original sin through the fall of Adam. “I could have controlled my evil desire, if I had but earnestly willed it,” said King David, according to the Talmud.751

7. Sin engenders a feeling of disunion with God through the consciousness of guilt which accompanies it. It erects a “wall of separation” between man and his Maker, depriving him of peace and security.752 Guilt causes pain, which overwhelms him, until he has made atonement and obtained pardon before God. This is no imaginary feeling, easily overcome and capable of being suppressed by the sinner with impunity. Instead, he must pay the full penalty for his sin, lest it lead him to the very abyss of evil, to physical and moral death. Sin in the individual becomes a sense of self-condemnation, [pg 243] the consciousness of the divine anger. Hence the Hebrew term avon, sin, is often synonymous with punishment,753 and asham, guilt, often signifies the atonement for the guilt, and sometimes doom and perdition as a consequence of guilt.754 Undoubtedly this still contains a remnant of the old Semitic idea that an awful divine visitation may come upon an entire household or community because of a criminal or sacrilegious act committed, consciously or unconsciously, by one of its members. Such a fate can be averted only by an atoning sacrifice. This accords with the rather strange fact that the Priestly Code prescribes certain guilt offerings for sins committed unwittingly, which are called asham.755

8. But even these unintentional sins can be avoided by the constant exercise of caution, so that their commission implies a certain degree of guilt, which demands a measure of repentance. Thus the Psalmist says: “Who can discern errors? Clear Thou me from hidden faults.”756 He thus implies that we feel responsible in a certain sense for all our sins, including those which we commit unknowingly. The rabbis dwell especially on the idea that we are never altogether free from sinful thoughts. For this reason, they tell us, the two burnt offerings were brought to the altar each morning and evening, to atone for the sinful thoughts of the people during the preceding day or night.757

9. At any rate, Judaism recognizes no sin which does not arise from the individual conscience or moral personality. The condemnation of a whole generation or race in consequence of the sin of a single individual is an essentially heathen idea, which was overcome by Judaism in the course of time through the prophetic teaching of the divine justice and man's moral responsibility. This sentiment was voiced by Moses [pg 244] and Aaron after the rebellion of Korah in the words: “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt Thou be wroth with all the congregation?”758 In commenting upon this, the Midrash says: “A human king may make war upon a whole province, because it contains rebels who have caused sedition, and so the innocent must suffer together with the guilty; but it does not behoove God, the Ruler of the spirits, who looks into the hearts of men, to punish the guiltless together with the guilty.”759 The Christian view of universal guilt as a consequence of Adam's sin, the dogma of original sin, is actually a relapse from the Jewish stage to the heathen doctrine from which the Jewish religion freed itself.

10. According to the Biblical view sin contaminates man, so that he cannot stand in the presence of God. The holiness of Him who is “of eyes too pure to behold evil”760 becomes to the sinner “a devouring fire.”761 Even the lofty prophet Isaiah realizes his own human limitations at the sublime vision of the God of holiness enthroned on high, while the angelic choruses chant their thrice holy. In humility and contrition he cries out: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”762 The prophet must undergo atonement in order to be prepared for his high prophetic task. One of the Seraphs purges him of his sins by touching his lips with a live coal taken from the altar of God.

Under the influence of Persian dualism, rabbinical Judaism considers sin a pollution which puts man under the power of unclean spirits.763 In the later Cabbalah this idea is elaborated until the world of sin is considered a cosmic power of impurity, opposed to the realm of right, working evil ever [pg 245] since the fall of Adam.764 Still, however close this may come to the Christian dogma, it never becomes identical with it; the recognition is always preserved of man's power to extricate himself from the realm of impurity and to elevate himself into the realm of purity by his own repentance. Sin never becomes a demoniacal power depriving man of his divine dignity of self-determination and condemning him to eternal damnation. It ever remains merely a going astray from the right path, a stumbling from which man may rise again to his heavenly height, exerting his own powers as the son of God.

Chapter XXXIX. Repentance Or the Return To God

1. The brightest gem among the teachings of Judaism is its doctrine of repentance or, in its own characteristic term, the return of the wayward sinner to God.765 Man, full of remorse at having fallen away from the divine Fountainhead of purity, conscious of deserving a sentence of condemnation from the eternal Judge, would be less happy than the unreasoning brute which cannot sin at all. Religion restores him by the power to rise from his shame and guilt, to return to God in repentance, as the penitent son returns to his father. Whether we regard sin as estrangement from God or as a disturbance of the divine order, it has a detrimental effect on both body and soul, and leads inevitably to death. On this point the Bible affords many historical illustrations and doctrinal teachings.766 If man had no way to escape from sin, then he would be the most unfortunate of creatures, in spite of his god-like nature. Therefore the merciful God opens the gate of repentance for the sinner, saying as through His prophets of old: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”767

2. The great value of the gift of divine grace, by which the sinner may repent and return to God with a new spirit, appears [pg 247] in the following rabbinical saying: “Wisdom was asked, ‘What shall be the sinner's punishment?’ and answered, ‘Evil pursues sinners’;768 then Prophecy was asked, and answered, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die’;769 the Torah, or legal code, was consulted, and its answer was: ‘He shall bring a sin-offering, and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.’770 Finally God Himself was asked, and He answered:771 ‘Good and upright is the Lord; therefore doth He instruct sinners in the way.’ ”772 The Jewish idea of atonement by the sinner's return to God excludes every kind of mediatorship. Neither the priesthood nor sacrifice is necessary to secure the divine grace; man need only find the way to God by his own efforts. “Seek ye Me, and live,”773 says God to His erring children.

3. Teshubah, which means return, is an idea peculiar to Judaism, created by the prophets of Israel, and arising directly from the simple Jewish conception of sin. Since sin is a deviation from the path of salvation, a “straying” into the road of perdition and death, the erring can return with heart and soul, end his ways, and thus change his entire being. This is not properly expressed by the term repentance, which denotes only regret for the wrong, but not the inner transformation. Nor is Teshubah to be rendered by either penitence or penance. The former indicates a sort of bodily self-castigation, the latter some other kind of penalty undergone in order to expiate sin. Such external forms of asceticism were prescribed and practiced by many tribes and some of the historical religions. The Jewish prophets, however, opposed them bitterly, demanding an inner change, a transformation of soul, renewing both heart and spirit.

[pg 248]

Judaism considers sin merely moral aberration, not utter corruption, and believes in the capability of the very worst of sinners to improve his ways; therefore it waits ever for his regeneration. This is truly a return to God, the restoration of the divine image which has been disfigured and corrupted by sin.

4. The doctrine of Teshubah, or the return of the sinner, has a specially instructive history, as this most precious and unique conception of Judaism is little understood or appreciated by Christian theologians. Often without intentional bias, these are so under the influence of the Paulinian dogma that they see no redemption for man corrupted by sin, except by his belief in a superhuman act of atonement. It is certainly significant that the legal code, which is of priestly origin, does not mention repentance or the sinner's return. It prescribes various types of sin-offerings, speaks of reparation for wrong inflicted, of penalties for crime, and of confession for sins, but it does not state how the soul can be purged of sin, so that man can regain his former state of purity. This great gap is filled by the prophetic books and the Psalms. The book of Deuteronomy alone, written under prophetic influence, alludes to repentance, in connection with the time when Israel would be taken captive from its land as punishment for its violation of the law. There we read: “Thou shalt return unto the Lord thy God, ... with all thy heart, and all thy soul, then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee.”775

Amos, the prophet of stern justice, has not yet reached the idea of averting the divine wrath by the return of the sinner.776 [pg 249] Hosea, the prophet of divine mercy and loving-kindness, in his deep compassion for the unfaithful and backsliding people, became the preacher of repentance as the condition for attaining the divine pardon.

The appeal of Jeremiah is still more vigorous:

Ezekiel, while emphasizing the guilt of the individual, preached repentance still more insistently. “Return ye, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so shall they not be a stumbling-block of iniquity to you. Cast away from you all your transgressions, wherein ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn yourselves, and live.”779 The same appeal recurs after the exile in the last prophets, Zechariah780 and Malachi.781 The latter says: “Return unto Me, and I shall return unto you.” Likewise [pg 250] the penitential sermon written in a time of great distress, which is ascribed to the prophet Joel, contains the appeal:

This prophetic view, which demands contrition and craving for God instead of external modes of atonement, is expressed in the penitential Psalms as well,783 especially in Psalm LI. The idea is expanded further in the parable of the prophet Jonah, which conveys the lesson that even a heathen nation like the people of Nineveh can avert the impending judgment of God by true repentance.784 From this point of view the whole conception took on a larger aspect, and the entire history of mankind was seen in a new light. The Jewish sages realized that God punishes man only when the expected change of mind and heart fails to come.785

5. The Jewish plan of divine salvation presents a striking contrast to that of the Church, for it is built upon the presumption that all sinners can find their way back to God and godliness, if they but earnestly so desire. Even before God created the world, He determined to offer man the possibility of Teshubah, so that, in the midst of the continual struggle with the allurements of the senses, the repentant sinner can ever change heart and mind and return to God.786 Without such a possibility the world of man could not endure; thus, because no man can stand before the divine tribunal of stern justice, the paternal arm of a merciful God is extended to [pg 251] receive the penitent. This sublime truth is constantly reiterated in the Talmud and in the liturgy, especially of the great Day of Atonement.787 Not only does God's long-suffering give the sinner time to repent; His paternal love urges him to return. Thus the Haggadists purposely represent almost all the sinners mentioned in the Bible as models of sincere repentance. First of all comes King David, who is considered such a pattern of repentance, as the author of the fifty-first Psalm, that he would not have been allowed to sin so grievously, if he had not been providentially appointed as the shining example of the penitent's return to God.788 Then there is King Manasseh, the most wicked among all the kings of Judah and Israel, who had committed the most abominable sins of idolatrous worship. Referring to the story told of him in Chronicles, it is said that God responded to his tearful prayers and incessant supplications by opening a rift under His throne of mercy and receiving his petition for pardon. Thus all mankind might see that none can be so wicked that he will not find the door of repentance open, if he but seek it sincerely and persistently.789 Likewise Adam and Cain, Reuben and Judah, Korah, Jeroboam, Ahab, Josiah, and Jechoniah are described in Talmud, Midrash, and the apocalyptic literature as penitent sinners who obtained at last the coveted pardon.790 The optimistic spirit of Judaism cannot tolerate the idea that mortal man is hopelessly lost under the burden of his sins, or that he need ever lose faith in himself. No one can sink so low that he cannot find his way back to his heavenly Father by untiring self-discipline. As the Talmud says, nothing can finally withstand the power of [pg 252] sincere repentance: “It reaches up to the very seat of God;” “upon it rests the welfare of the world.”791

6. The rabbis follow up the idea first announced in the book of Jonah, that the saving power of repentance applies to the heathen world as well. Thus they show how God constantly offered time and opportunity to the heathens for repentance. For example, when the generation of the flood, the builders of the Tower of Babel, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were to be punished, God waited to give them time for Repentance and improvement of their ways.792 Noah, Enoch, and Abraham are represented as monitors of their contemporaries, warning them, like the prophets, to repent in time lest they meet their doom.793 Thus the whole Hellenistic literature of propaganda, especially the Sibylline books, echoes the warning and the hope that the heathen should repent of their grievous sins and return to God, whom they had deserted in idolatry, so that they might escape the impending doom of the last judgment day. According to one Haggadist,794 even the Messiah will appear first as a preacher of repentance, admonishing the heathen nations to be converted to the true God and repent before Him, lest they fall into perdition. Indeed, it is said that even Pharaoh and the Egyptians were warned and given time for repentance before their fate overtook them.

7. Accordingly, the principle of repentance is a universal human one, and by no means exclusively national, as the Christian theologians represent it.795 The sages thus describe Adam as the type of the penitent sinner, who is granted pardon [pg 253] by God. The “sign” of Cain also was to be a sign for all sinners, assuring them they might all obtain forgiveness and salvation, if they would but return to God.796 In fact, the prophetic appeal to Israel for repentance, vain at the time, effected the regeneration of the people during the Exile and gave rise to Judaism and its institutions. In the same way, the appeal to the heathen world by the Hellenistic propaganda and the Essene preachers of repentance did not induce the nations at once to prepare for the coming of the Messianic kingdom, but finally led to the rise of the Christian religion, and, through certain intermediaries, of the Mohammedan as well.

However, the long-cherished hope for a universal conversion of the heathen world, voiced in the preachments and the prayers of the “pious ones,” gave way to a reaction. The rise of antinomian sects in Judaism occasioned the dropping of this pious hope, and only certain individual conversions were dwelt on as shining exceptions.797 The heathen world in general was not regarded as disposed to repent, and so its ultimate fate was the doom of Gehenna. Experience seemed to confirm the stern view, which rabbinical interpretation could find in Scripture also, that “Even at the very gate of the nether world wicked men shall not return.”798 The growing violence of the oppressors and the increasing number of the maligners of Judaism darkened the hope for a universal conversion of humanity to the pure faith of Israel and its law of righteousness. On the contrary, a certain satisfaction was felt by the Jew in the thought that these enemies of Judaism should not be allowed to repent and obtain salvation in the hereafter.799

8. The idea of repentance was applied all the more intensely in Jewish life, and a still more prominent place was [pg 254] accorded it in Jewish literature. The rabbis have numberless sayings800 in the Talmud and also in the Haggadic and ethical writings concerning the power and value of repentance. In passages such as these we see how profoundly Judaism dealt with the failings and shortcomings of man. The term asa teshubah, do repentance, implies no mere external act of penitence, as Christian theologians often assert. On the contrary, the chief stress is always laid on the feeling of remorse and on the change of heart which contrition and self-accusation bring. Yet even these would not be sufficient to cast off the oppressive consciousness of guilt, unless the contrite heart were reassured by God that He forgives the penitent son of man with paternal grace and love. In other words, religion demands a special means of atonement, that is, at-one-ment with God, to restore the broken relation of man to his Maker. The true spiritual power of Judaism appears in this, that it gradually liberates the kernel of the atonement idea from its priestly shell. The Jew realizes, as does the adherent of no other religion, that even in sin he is a child of God and certain of His paternal love. This is brought home especially on the Day of Atonement, which will be treated in a later chapter.

9. At all events, the blotting out of man's sins with their punishment remains ever an act of grace by God.801 In compassion for man's frailty He has ordained repentance as the means of salvation, and promised pardon to the penitent. This truth is brought out in the liturgy for the Day of Atonement, as well as in the Apocalyptic Prayer of Manasseh. At the same time, Judaism awards the palm of victory to him who has wrestled with sin and conquered it by his own will. Thus the rabbis boldly assert: “Those who have [pg 255] sinned and repented rank higher in the world to come than the righteous who have never sinned,” which is paralleled in the New Testament: “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance.”802 No intermediary power from without secures the divine grace and pardon for the repentant sinner, but his own inner transformation alone.

Chapter XL. Man, the Child of God

1. The belief that God hears our prayers and pardons our sins rests upon the assumption of a mutual relation between man and God. This belief is insusceptible of proof, but rests entirely upon our religious feelings and is rooted purely in our emotional life. We apply to the relation between man and God the finest feelings known in human life, the devotion and love of parents for their children and the affection and trust the child entertains for its parents. Thus we are led to the conviction that earth-born man has a Helper enthroned in the heavens above, who hearkens when he implores Him for aid. In his innermost heart man feels that he has a special claim on the divine protection. In the words of Job,803 he knows that his Redeemer liveth. He need not perish in misery. Unlike the brute creation and the hosts of stars, which know nothing of their Maker, man feels akin to the God who lives within him; he is His image, His child. He cannot be deprived of His paternal love and favor. This truly human emotion is nowhere expressed so clearly as in Judaism. “Ye are the children of the Lord your God.”804 “Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?”805 “Like as a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion upon them that fear Him.”806

2. Still, this simple idea of man's filial relation to God and God's paternal love for man did not begin in its beautiful final form. For a long time the Jew seems to have avoided the [pg 257] term “Father” for God, because it was used by the heathen for their deities as physical progenitors, and did not refer to the moral relation between the Deity and mankind. Thus worshipers of wooden idols would, according to Scripture, “say to a stock, Thou art my father.”807 Hosea was the first to call the people of Israel “children of the living God,”808 if they would but improve their ways and enter into right relations with Him. Jeremiah also hopes for the time when Israel would invoke the Lord, saying, “Thou art my Father,” and in return God would prove a true father to him.809 However, Scripture calls God a Father only in referring to the people as a whole.810 The “pious ones” established a closer relation between God and the individual by means of prayer, so that through them the epithets, “Father,” “Our Father,” and “Our Father in heaven” came into general use. Hence, the liturgy frequently uses the invocation, “Our Father, Our King!” We owe to Rabbi Akiba the significant saying, in opposition to the Paulinian dogma, “Blessed are ye, O Israelites! Before whom do you purify yourselves (from your sins)? And who is it that purifies you? Your Father in heaven.”811 Previously Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanos dwelt on the moral degeneration of his age, which betokened the end of time, and exclaimed: “In whom, then, shall we find support? In our Father who is in heaven.”812 The appellative “Father in heaven” was the stereotyped term used by the “pious ones” during the century preceding and the one following the rise of Christianity, as a glance at the literature of the period indicates.813

3. It is instructive to follow the history of this term. In Scripture God is represented as speaking to David, “I will be [pg 258] to him for a father, and he shall be to Me for a son,”814 or “He shall call unto Me: Thou art my Father, ... I also will appoint him first-born.”815 So in the apocryphal writings God speaks both to Israel and to individual saints: “I shall be to them a Father, and they shall be My children.”816 Elsewhere it is said of the righteous, “He calls God his Father,” and “he shall be counted among the sons of God.”817 We read concerning the Messiah: “When all wrongdoing will be removed from the midst of the people, he shall know that all are sons of God.”818 Obviously only righteousness or personal merit entitles a man to be called a son of God. In fact, we are expressly told of Onias, the great Essene saint, that his intimate relation with God emboldened him to converse with the Master of the Universe as a son would speak with his father.819 According to the Mishnah the older generation of “pious ones” used to spend “an hour in silent devotion before offering their daily prayer, in order to concentrate heart and soul upon their communion with their Father in heaven.”820 Thus it is said of congregational prayer that through it “Israel lifts his eyes to his Father in heaven.”821 In this way prayer took the place of the altar, of which R. Johanan ben Zakkai said that it established peace between Israel and his Father in heaven.822 Afterwards the question was discussed by Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Jehuda whether even sin-laden Israel had a right to be called “children of God.” Rabbi Meir pointed to Hosea as proof that the backsliders also remain “children of the living God.”823

4. In the Hellenistic literature, with its dominating idea of universal monotheism, God is frequently invoked or spoken of as the Father of mankind. The implication is that each [pg 259] person who invokes God as Father enters into filial relation with Him. Thus what was first applied to Israel in particular was now broadened to include mankind in general, and consequently all men were considered “children of the living God.” The words of God to Pharaoh, speaking of Israel as His “first-born son,”824 were taken as proof that all the nations of the earth are sons of God and He the universal Father. Israel is the first-born among the sons of God, because his patriarchs, prophets, and psalmists first recognized Him as the universal Father and Ruler. From this point of view Judaism declared love for fellow-men and regard for the dignity of humanity to be fundamental principles of ethics. “As God is kind and merciful toward His creation, be thou also kind and merciful toward all fellow-creatures,” is the oft-repeated teaching of the rabbis.825 Likewise, “Whoever takes pity on his fellow-beings, on him God in heaven will also take pity.”826 Love of humanity has so permeated the nature of the Jew that the rabbis assert: “He who has pity on his fellow-men has the blood of Abraham in his veins.”827 This bold remark casts light upon the strange dictum: “Ye Israelites are called by the name of man, but the heathen are not.”828 The Jewish teachers were so deeply impressed with man's inhumanity to man, so common among the heathen nations, and the immorality of the lives by which these desecrated God's image, that they insisted that the laws of humanity alone make for divine dignity in man.

5. Rabbi Akiba probably referred to the Paulinian dogma that Jesus, the crucified Messiah, is the only son of God, in his well-known saying: “Beloved is man, for he is created in God's image, and it was a special token of love that he became conscious of it. Beloved is Israel, for they are called the children of God, and it was a special token of love that they [pg 260] became conscious of it.”829 Here he claims the glory of being a son of God for Israel, but not for all men. Still, as soon as the likeness of man to God is taken in a spiritual sense, then it is implied that all men have the same capacity for being a son of God which is claimed for Israel. This is unquestionably the view of Judaism when it considers the Torah as entrusted to Israel to bring light and blessing to all the families of men. Rabbi Meir, the disciple of Rabbi Akiba, said: “The Scriptural words, ‘The statutes and ordinances which man shall do and live thereby,’ and similar expressions indicate that the final aim of Judaism is not attained by the Aaronide, nor the Levite, nor even the Israelite, but by mankind.”830 Such a saying expresses clearly and emphatically that God's fatherly love extends to all men as His children.

6. According to the religious consciousness of modern Israel man is made in God's image, and is thus a child of God. Consequently Jew and non-Jew, saint and sinner have the same claim upon God's paternal love and mercy. There is no distinction in favor of Israel except as he lives a higher and more god-like life. Even those who have fallen away from God and have committed crime and sin remain God's children. If they send up their penitent cry to the throne of God, “Pardon us, O Father, for we have sinned! Forgive us, O King, for we have done evil!”; their prayer is heard by the heavenly Father exactly like that of the pious son of Israel.

Chapter XLI. Prayer and Sacrifice

1. The gap between man and the sublime Master of the universe is vast, but not absolute. The thoughts of God are high above our thoughts, and the ways of God above our ways, baffling our reason when we endeavor to solve the vexatious problems of destiny, of merit and demerit, of retribution and atonement. Yet religion offers a wondrous medium to bring the heart of man into close communion with Him who is enthroned above the heavens, one that overleaps all distances, removes all barriers, and blends all dissonances into one great harmony, and that is—Prayer. As the child must relieve itself of its troubles and sorrows upon the bosom of its mother or father in order to turn its pain into gladness, so men at all times seek to approach the Deity, confiding to Him all their fears and longings in order to obtain peace of heart. Prayer, communion between the human soul and the Creator, is the glorious privilege enjoyed by man alone among all creatures, as he alone is the child of God. It voices the longing of the human heart for its Father in heaven. As the Psalmist has it, “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.”831

2. However, both language, the means of intercourse between man and man, and prayer, the means of intercourse between man and God, show traces of a slow development lasting for thousands of years, until the loftiest thoughts and [pg 262] sublimest emotions could be expressed. The real efficacy of prayer could not be truly appreciated, until the prophetic spirit triumphed over the priestly element in Judaism. In the history of speech the language of signs preceded that of sounds, and images gradually ripened into abstract thoughts. Similarly, primitive man approaches his God with many kinds of gifts and sacrificial rites to express his sentiments. He acts out or depicts what he expects from the Deity, whether rain, fertility of the soil, or the extermination of his foes. He shares with his God his food and drink, to obtain His friendship and protection in time of trouble, and sacrifices the dearest of his possessions to assuage His wrath or obtain His favor.

3. In the lowest stage of culture man needed no mediator in his intercourse with the Deity, who appeared to him in the phenomena of nature as well as in the fetish, totem, and the like. But soon he rose to a higher stage of thought, and the Deity withdrew before him to the celestial heights, filling him with awe and fear; then rose a class of men who claimed the privilege to approach the Deity and influence Him by certain secret practices. Henceforth these acted as mediators between the mass of the people and the Deity. In the first place, these were the magicians, medicine-men, and similar persons, who were credited with the power to conjure up the hidden forces of nature, considered either divine or demoniac. After these arose the priests, distinguished from the people by special dress and diet, who established in the various tribes temples, altars, and cults, under their own control. Then there were the saints, pious penitents or Nazarites, who led an ascetic life secluded from the masses, hoping thus to obtain higher powers over the will of the Deity. All these entertained more or less clearly the notion that they stood in closer relation to the Deity than the common people, whom they then excluded from the sanctuary and all access to the Deity.

[pg 263]

The Mosaic cult, in the so-called Priestly Code, was founded upon this stage of religious life, forming a hierarchical institution like those of other ancient nations. It differed from them, however, in one essential point. The prime element in the cult of other nations was magic, consisting of oracle, incantation and divination, but this was entirely contrary to the principles of the Jewish faith. On the other hand, all the rites and ceremonies handed down from remote antiquity were placed in the service of Israel's holy God, in order to train His people into the highest moral purity. The patriarchs and prophets, who are depicted in Scripture as approaching God in prayer and hearing His voice in reply, come under the category of saints or elect ones, above the mass of the people.

4. Foreign as the entire idea of sacrifice is to our mode of religious thought, to antiquity it appeared as the only means of intercourse with the Deity. “In every place offerings are presented unto My name, even pure oblations,”832 says the prophet Malachi in the name of Israel's God. Even from a higher point of view the underlying idea seems to be of a simple offering laid upon the altar. Such were the meal-offering (minha);833 the burnt offering (olah), which sends its pillar of smoke up toward heaven, symbolizing the idea of self-sacrifice; while the various sin-offerings (hattath or asham) expressed the desire to propitiate an offended Deity. However, since the sacrificial cult was always dominated by the priesthood in Israel as well as other nations, the lawgiver made no essential changes in the traditional practice and terminology. Thus it was left to the consciousness of the people to find a deeper spiritual meaning in the sacrifices [pg 264] instead of stating one directly. The want was supplied only by the later Haggadists who tried to create a symbolism of the sacrificial cult. The laying on of hands by the individual who brought the offering, seems to have been a genuine symbolic expression of self-surrender. In the case of sin-offerings the Mosaic cult added a higher meaning by ordering a preceding confession of sin. Here, indeed, the individual entered into personal communion with God through his prayer for pardon, even though the priest performed the act of expiation for him.

5. The great prophets of Israel alone recognized that the entire sacrificial system was out of harmony with the true spirit of Judaism and led to all sorts of abuses, above all to a misconception of the worship of God, which requires the uplifting of the heart. In impassioned language, therefore, they hurled words of scathing denunciation against the practice and principle of ritualism: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Yea, though ye offer Me burnt-offerings and your meal-offerings, I will not accept them; Neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs; and let Me not hear the melody of thy psalteries.

But let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”834

Thus speaks Amos in the name of the Lord. And Hosea:

Isaiah spoke in a similar vein:

Most striking of all are the words of Jeremiah, spoken in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh. For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying; ‘Hearken unto My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people; and walk ye in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ ”837

6. However, the mere rejection of the sacrificial cult was quite negative, and did not satisfy the normal need for communion with God. Therefore the various codes established a sort of compromise between the prophetic ideal and the priestly practice, in which the ideal was by no means supreme. Sometimes the prophetic spirit stirred the soul of inspired psalmists, and their lips echoed forth again the divine revelation:

“Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: God, thy God, am I. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; and thy burnt-offerings are continually before Me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.... [pg 266] Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?”838 Another psalmist says: “Sacrifice and meal-offering thou hast no delight in; Mine ears hast Thou opened; burnt-offering and sin-offering hast Thou not required.”839

Still, the sacrificial cult was too deeply rooted in the life of the people to be disturbed by the voice of the prophets or the words of a few psalmists. It was connected with the Temple, and the Temple was the center of the social life of the nation. The few faint voices of protest went practically unheeded. The priestly pomp of sacrifice could only be displaced by the more elevating and more spiritual devotion of the entire congregation in prayer, and this process demanded a new environment, and a group of men with entirely new ideas.

7. The need of a deeper devotion through prayer was not felt until the Exile. There altar and priesthood were no more, but the words of the prophets and the songs of the Levites remained to kindle the people's longing for God with a new zeal. Until then prayer was rare and for special occasions. Hannah's prayer at Shiloh filled even the high priest with amazement.840 The prophets alone interceded in behalf of the people, because the ordinary man was not considered sufficiently clean from sin to approach the Deity in prayer. But on foreign soil, where sacrifices could not be offered to the God of Israel, the harp of David resounded with solemn songs expressing the national longing toward God. The most touching psalms of penitence and thanksgiving date from the exile. A select class of devout men, called the godly or pious ones, Hasidim or Anavim,841 assembled by the rivers of Babylon for regular prayer, turning their faces toward [pg 267] Jerusalem, that the God of Israel might answer them from His ancient seat.842 Thus the great seer of the exile voiced the hope for “a house of prayer for all peoples” to stand in the very place where the sacrifices were offered to God.843 The congregation of Hasidim elaborated a liturgy under the Persian influence, in which prayer was the chief element, and the secondary part, the instruction from the Torah and the monitions of the prophets. The Synagogue, the house of meeting for the people, spread all over the world, and by its light of truth and glow of fervor it soon eclipsed the Temple, with all its worldly pomp. In fact, the priesthood of the Temple were finally compelled to make concessions to the lay movement of the Hasidim. They added a prayer service, morning and evening, to the daily sacrifices, and opened the Hall of Hewn Stones, the meeting place of the High Court of Justice, as a Synagogue in charge of the priests.844

8. In this manner the ancient sacrificial cult, thus long monopolized by the priesthood, was gradually superseded by congregational prayer which was no longer confined to a certain time or class, and justly called by the rabbis “a service of the heart.”845 Moreover, the Temple itself lost much of its hold upon the hearts of the people, owing to the more spiritual character of the Synagogue. Thus the torch of the Roman soldiery which turned the Temple into a heap of ashes broke only the national bond, but left the religious bond of the Synagogue unbroken. True, the hope for the restoration of the Temple with the priestly sacrifices was not relinquished, and officially the daily prayers were considered only a “temporary substitute” for the divinely ordained sacrificial cult.846

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Nevertheless, the deeper religious consciousness of the people felt that the celestial gate of divine mercy opens only to prayer, which emanates from the innermost depths of the soul. Accordingly, some of the Haggadists try to prove from Scripture that prayer ranks above sacrifice,847 while others even identify worship with prayer.848 They represent God as appearing to Moses in the guise of one who leads the congregation in prayer, His face covered by the prayer-shawl (tallith), in order to teach man for all time the mode and power of prayer.849 Still these remain isolated expressions of an underlying sentiment; on the whole, the rabbis regarded the Mosaic legislation, with its emphasis on sacrifice, far too highly to accord prayer any but a secondary place, either accompanying sacrifice or as its substitute.850

9. Through many centuries, then, the belief in the divine origin of the sacrificial cult remained, even though it could no longer be carried out. The liturgy contained prayers for the speedy restoration of the Temple and the sacrifices, which were preserved by tradition, and nowhere was even an echo heard of the bold words of Jeremiah denying the divine character of the sacrifices,851 even though the idea of the restoration of the old cult must have been repugnant to thinkers. The sages of former ages could only resort to a compromise or an allegorical interpretation. It is noteworthy that the Haggadist Rabbi Levi considered the sacrifices a concession of God to the people, who were disposed to idolatry, in order to win them gradually for the pure monotheistic ideal.852 This view was adopted by the Church Fathers, and later by Maimonides and other medieval thinkers. On the other hand, an allegorical meaning was assigned to the sacrifices by Philo [pg 269] and Jehuda ha Levi, as well as by Samson Raphael Hirsch in modern times.853

Reform Judaism, recognizing the results of Biblical research and the law of religious progress, adopted the prophetic view of the sacrifices. Accordingly, the sacrificial cult of the Mosaic code has no validity for the liberal movement, and all reference to it has been eliminated from the reform liturgy. In this, however, the connection with the past was by no means severed. The main part of the service remains the same, although much of the character and many of the details have been changed.854 Only the allusions to the Temple worship and the sacrifices were eliminated, and the entire form of the service was made more solemn and inspiring “by combining ancient time-honored formulas with modern prayers and meditations in the vernacular and in the spirit of the age.” The morning and evening services retained their places, while the additional festal service (mussaf) was abrogated, because it stood for the additional festal sacrifice. As to the voluntary element in the old sacrificial system, the peace, sin, and thank-offerings, this is replaced in the reform ritual, as in the traditional practice, by private devotions for special occasions, to be selected by the individual.

The traditional Jewish prayer has certainly a wondrous force. It remains a source of inspiration from which the religious consciousness will ever draw new strength and vitality. It echoes the voice of Israel singing the song of redemption by the Red Sea: “This is My God, and I will [pg 270] glorify Him; My father's God, and I will exalt Him.”855 Consequently our liturgy must ever respond to a double demand; it must throb with the spirit of continuity with our great past, to make us feel one with our fathers of yore; and it must express clearly and fully our own views and needs, our convictions and our hopes.

Chapter XLII. The Nature and Purpose of Prayer

1. Prayer is the expression of man's longing and yearning for God in times of dire need and of overflowing joy, an outflow of the emotions of the soul in its dependence on God, the ever-present Helper, the eternal Source of its existence. Springing from the deepest necessity of human weakness, the expression of a momentary wish, prayer is felt to be the proud prerogative of man as the child of God, and at last it becomes adoration of the Most High, whose wisdom and whose paternal love and goodness inspire man with confidence and love.

2. Every prayer is offered on the presumption that it will be heard by God on high. “O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee doth all flesh come,” sings the Psalmist.856 No doubt of the efficacy of prayer can arise in the devout spirit. There can be only the question whether, and how far, the Deity can allow its decrees to be influenced by human wishes. Childlike faith anticipates divine interference in the natural order at any time, because it has not yet attained the conception of a moral order in the universe and, therefore, expects from prayer also miraculous effects on life. As the Deity can suddenly send or withhold rain or drought, barrenness or birth, life or death, so the inference is that the man of God can do the same with his prayer. This is the point of view of the Biblical and Talmudic periods, as well as of the entire ancient world. It seems almost childish to our religious consciousness when, [pg 272] according to Talmudic tradition, the high priest petitioned God in the Sanctuary on the Day of Atonement for a year rich in rain and blessed with sunshine and with dew, and at the same time expressed the entreaty that the prayers of travelers for dry or cool weather should find no hearing.857 That the prayers of the pious may alter God's decree is not doubted for a moment by the rabbis; only they insist that God has taken into account beforehand the efficacy of this prayer in deciding the fate of the pious, in order that they may petition for that which He actually plans to do. “God longs for the prayer of the pious”; for that reason, they say, the Mothers of Israel were afflicted with barrenness, until the prayers of the Patriarchs had accomplished the transformation in their constitutions.858 On the other hand, the rabbis warn against excessive pondering over prayer and its efficacy, as through it that childlike faith would be weakened, which is the basis of all prayer.859

3. According to the rabbinic viewpoint, prayer has the power to reverse every heavenly decree, inasmuch as it appeals from the punitive justice of God, which has decided thus, to His attributes of grace and mercy, which can at any time effect a change. When the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah with the message: “Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die,” he replied, “Finish thy message and go; I have received the tradition from my royal ancestor David that, even when the sword already touches the neck, man shall not desist from an appeal to the divine mercy.”860 Nay more, the rabbis believed that God Himself prays, saying, “Oh, that My mercy shall prevail over My justice!”861 Only after the divine judgment has been executed prayer becomes vain. In general, the entire Talmudic period ascribed miraculous power to prayer, especially the prayers of the pious, like the popular [pg 273] saint Onias or Hanina ben Dosa.862 In many such cases the invocation of God was combined with the use of the sacred name, the tetragrammaton, to which magical powers were ascribed.863

4. The two attributes of God, Justice and Mercy, correspond to the double nature of mankind, as the sinful man, who deserves punishment, is called to account by the former, while the righteous man may appeal to the latter. Accordingly, the efficacy of prayer could be so explained that, before it can influence the decision of God, it demands the reformation of man. While the unregenerate man meets an evil destiny, the reformed man has become a different being, and hence instead of justice mercy will control his fate. Albo pleads for this view of prayer, when he cites the Talmudic incident about R. Meir. It is said that R. Meir interceded for the people of Mimla, who all seemed to have been doomed to die on attaining manhood because they inherited the curse of the priestly family of Eli.864 But he also recommended to them that they should devote their lives to worthy deeds, as it is said in the Proverbs:865 “The hoary head is a crown of glory, it is found in the way of righteousness.”866

Other thinkers ascribe to prayer the power to change the fate determined by the stars, because it exalts man into a higher sphere of godliness, exactly like the spirit of prophecy. Of course, this conception is connected with the belief in astrology, which swayed even clear thinkers like Ibn Ezra.867

5. According to our modern thinking there can be no question of any influence upon a Deity exalted above time and [pg 274] space, omniscient, unchangeable in will and action, by the prayer of mortals. Prayer can exert power only over the relation of man to God, not over God Himself. This indicates the nature and purpose of prayer. Man often feels lonely and forlorn in a world which overpowers him, to which he feels superior, and yet which he cannot master. Therefore he longs for that unseen Spirit of the universe, with whom alone he feels himself akin, and in whom alone he finds peace and bliss amid life's struggle and unrest. This longing is both expressed and satisfied in prayer. Following the natural impulse of his soul, man must pour out before his God all his desires and sighs, all the emotions of grief and delight which sway his heart, in order that he may find rest, like a child at its mother's bosom. Therefore the childlike mind believes that God can be induced to come down from His heavenly heights to offer help, and that He can be moved and influenced in human fashion. The truth is that every genuine prayer lifts man up toward God, satisfies the desire for His hallowing presence, unlocks the heavenly gate of mercy and bliss, and bestows upon man the beatific and liberating sense of being a child of God. The intellect may question the effect of prayer upon the physical, mental, or social constitution of man, or may declare prayer to be pious self-deception. The religious spirit experiences in prayer the soaring up of the soul toward union with God in consecrated moments of our mortal pilgrimage. This is no deception. The man who prays receives from the Godhead, toward whom he fervently lifts himself, the power to defy fate, to conquer sin, misery, and death. “The Lord is nigh to all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth.”868

6. To pray, then, is to look up to God and to pour out before Him one's wishes, thoughts, sorrows, and joys. Certainly the All-knowing does not require to be told by us what we desire [pg 275] or what we need. “For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether.”869 But we mortals merely aspire toward Him who bears the world on His eternal arms, to express in His presence our agony and our jubilation, because we are certain of His paternal sympathy. When we praise and extol Him for the happiness and the many pleasures which He has granted us, He becomes the Partaker and Protector of our fortune, just as He is our sympathetic Helper when we cry out to Him under the burden of sin or grief, in the anxiety of danger or of guilt. Every genuine prayer realizes deeply the truth of the words, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain thee.”870

7. Self-expression before God in prayer has thus a double effect; it strengthens faith in God's love and kindness, as well as in His all-wise and all-bountiful prescience. But it also chastens the desires and feelings of man, teaching him to banish from his heart all thoughts of self-seeking and sin, and to raise himself toward the purity and the freedom of the divine will and demand. The essence of every prayer of supplication is that one should be in unison with the divine will, to sum up all the wishes of the heart in the one phrase, “Do that which is good in Thine own eyes, O Lord.”871 On the other hand, only the prayer which avoids impure thoughts and motives can venture to approach a holy God, as the sages infer from the words of Job, “There is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.”872

8. Every prayer, teach the sages, should begin with the praise of God's greatness, wisdom, and goodness, in order that man should learn submission and implicit confidence before he proffers his requests.873 While looking up to the divine Ideal [pg 276] of holiness and perfection, he will strive to emulate Him, and seek to grow ever nearer to the holy and the perfect. But only when he prays with and for others, that is, in public worship, will he realize that he is a member of a greater whole, for then he prays only for that which advances the welfare of all. “He who prays with the community,” say the rabbis, “will have his prayer granted.”874

Another saying of theirs is that he who prays should have his face directed to the sanctuary, and when he stands on its sacred precincts, he should turn his face toward the Holy of Holies.875 By this they meant that the attitude of the suppliant should ever be toward the highest, making the soul soar up to the Highest and Holiest in reverent awe and adoration, transforming the worshiper into a new character, pure from all dross.

9. Therefore prayer offered with the community upon the sanctified ground of the house of God exerts a specially powerful influence upon the individual. In the silent chamber the oppressed spirit may find calm and composure in prayer; but the pure atmosphere of heavenly freedom and bliss is attained with overwhelming might only by the united worship of hundreds of devout adorers, which rings out like the roaring of majestic billows: “The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.”876 The familiar strains from days of yore touch the deep, long-silent chords of the heart, and awaken dormant sentiments and repressed thoughts, endowing the soul with new wings, to lift itself up toward God, the Father, from whom it had felt itself alienated. In the ardor of communal worship the traditional words of the prayer-book obtain invigorating power; the heart is newly strengthened; the covenant with heaven sealed anew. To such communal prayer, which springs from the heart, the rabbis refer the Biblical words, “to serve Him with the whole [pg 277] heart.”877 The synagogal worship exerts an ennobling influence upon the spirit of the individual as well as that of the community. For after all the main object is that the soul which aspires toward God may learn to find God. “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call ye upon Him while He is near.”878 No man is so poor as he who calls in agony: “O God!” and to whom neither the heaven above nor the heart within answers, “Behold, God is here.” Nor is any man so rich with all his possessions as he who realizes, like the Psalmist, that “the nearness of God is the true good,” and imbued with this thought exclaims, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And beside Thee I desire none upon earth.”879

Chapter XLIII. Death and the Future Life

1. The vision of man is directed upwards and forwards; he will not resign himself to decay in the dust like the beast. As he bears in his breast the consciousness of a higher divine world, he is equally confident of his own continuity after death. He cannot and will not believe that with the giving up of his last living breath his being would become dust like that of the animal; or that his soul, which has hitherto accomplished and planned so much, should now suddenly cease altogether to exist. The longing for a future life, however expressed, has filled him and buoyed him up since the very beginning of history. Even the most primitive tribe does not allow its dead to lie and rot like the carcasses of the beast, but lays them to rest in the grave with all their possessions, in the expectation that somewhere and somehow, under, over or beyond the earth, they will continue their lives, even in a better form than before.

This longing for immortality implanted in the human soul is so represented in the legend of Paradise that the tree whose fruit bestowed upon the celestial beings the gift of eternal life—like the Greek ambrosia, “the food of the gods”—was originally intended for mankind also in the divine “Garden of Bliss.” But after man fell through sin, all access to it was denied him, in order that he might not stretch out his hand for it and thereby attain that immortality which was vouchsafed only to divine beings.880 According to his original destiny, therefore, man should live forever; and, just as legend allows [pg 279] those divinely elected, like Enoch and Elijah,881 to ascend to heaven alive, so at a later period prophecy predicts a time when God will annihilate death forever.882 Accordingly, through the power of his divine soul man possesses a claim to immortality, to eternal life with God, the “Fountain of life.”

2. It was just this keen longing for an energetic life on earth, this mighty yearning to “walk before God in the land of the living,”883 which made it more difficult for Judaism to brighten the “valley of the shadow of death” and to elevate the vague notion of a shadowy existence in the hereafter into a special religious teaching. Until long after the Exile the Jewish people shared the view of the entire ancient world,—both the Semitic nations, such as the Babylonians and Phœnicians, and the Aryans, such as the Greeks and Romans,—that the dead continue to exist in the shadowy realm of the nether world (Sheol), the land of no return (Beliyaal),884 of eternal silence (Dumah), and oblivion (Neshiyah),885 a dull, ghostly existence without clear consciousness and without any awakening to a better life. We must, however, not overlook the fact that even in these most primitive conceptions a certain imperishability is ascribed to man as marking his superiority over the animal world, which is altogether abandoned to decay. Hence the belief in the existence of the shades, the Refaim in Sheol.886 But throughout the Biblical period no ethical idea yet permeated this conception, and no attempt was made to transform the nether world into a place of divine judgment, of recompense for the good and evil deeds accomplished on earth,887 as did the Babylonians and Egyptians. Both the prophets and the Mosaic code persist in applying their promises and threats, in fact, their entire view of retribution, to this world, nor do [pg 280] they indicate by a single word the belief in a judgment or a weighing of actions in the world to come.

3. Whether the Mosaic-prophetic writings be regarded from the standpoint of traditional faith or of historical criticism, the limitation of their teaching and exhortation to the present life can be considered narrowness only by biased expounders of the “Old Testament.” The Israelitish lawgiver could not have been altogether ignorant of the Egyptian or the Babylonian conceptions of the future world. Obviously Israel's prophets and lawgivers deliberately avoided giving any definite expression to the common belief in a future life after death, especially as the Canaanitish magicians and necromancers used this popular belief to carry on their superstitious practices, so dangerous to all moral progress.888 The great task which prophetic Judaism set itself was to place the entire life of men and nations in the service of the God of justice and holiness; there was thus no motive to extend the dominion of JHVH, the God of life, to the underworld, the playground of the forces of fear and superstition. As late as the author of the book of Job and of the earlier Psalms, Sheol was known as the despot of the nether world with its demoniacal forms, as the “king of terrors” who extends his scepter over the dead.889 Only gradually does the thought find expression in the Psalms that the Omnipotent Ruler of heaven could also rescue the soul out of the power of Sheol,890 and that His omnipresence included likewise the nether world.891 In this trustful spirit the Hasidic Psalmist expressed the hope: “Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy godly one to see the pit. Thou makest me to know the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy; in Thy right hand bliss forevermore.”892

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4. Biblical Judaism evinced such a powerful impetus toward a complete and blissful life with God, that the center and purpose of existence could not be transferred to the hereafter, as in other systems of belief, but was found in the desire to work out the life here on earth to its fullest possible development. Virtue and wisdom, righteousness and piety, signify and secure true life; vice and folly, iniquity and sin, lead to death and annihilation. This is the ever recurring burden of the popular as well as of the prophetic and priestly wisdom of Israel.893 In the song of thanks of King Hezekiah after his recovery, the Jewish soul expresses itself, when he says:894 “I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living.... But Thou hast delivered my soul from the pit of corruption. For the nether world cannot praise Thee; death cannot celebrate Thee. The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day. The father to the children shall make known Thy truth.” Therefore the author of the seventy-third Psalm, ennobled by trials, finds sufficient comfort and happiness in the presence of God that he can spurn all earthly treasures.895 Job, too, in his affliction longed for death as release from all earthly pain and sorrow, but not to bring him a state of rest and peace like the Nirvana of the Indian beggar-monk, or an outlook into a better world to come. Such an awakening to a new life seems to him unthinkable,—although many commentators have often endeavored to read such a hope into certain of his expressions.896 Instead, his belief in God as the Ruler of the infinite world, with His lofty moral purpose far outreaching all human wisdom, lent him courage and power for further effort and persistent striving on earth. Since to this [pg 282] suffering hero, impelled to deeds by his own energy, life is a continuous battle, a hereafter as a “world of reward and punishment” can hardly solve the great enigma of human existence in a satisfactory manner for him. The wise ones—says a Talmudic maxim—find rest neither in this world nor in the world to come, but “they shall ascend from strength to strength, until they appear before God on Zion.”897

5. In the course of time, however, the question of existence after death demanded more and more a satisfactory answer. Under the severe political and social oppression that came upon the Jewish people, the pious ones failed to see a just equation of man's doings and his destiny in this life. The bitter disappointment which they experienced made them look to the God of justice for a future, when virtue would receive its due reward and vice its befitting punishment. The community of the pious especially awaited in vain the realization of the great messianic hope with which the prophetic words of comfort had filled their hearts. They had willingly offered up their lives for the truth of Judaism, and the God of faithfulness could not deceive them. Surely the shadowy realm of the nether world could not be the end of all. So the voice of promise came to them from the book of Isaiah, where these encouraging and comforting words were inserted by a later hand: “Thy dead shall live; thy (My) dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for Thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the shades.”898 Even before this time the God of Israel had been praised as “He who killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to Sheol, and bringeth up.”899 So was also the miraculous power of restoring the dead to life ascribed to the [pg 283] prophets.900 Furthermore, the vision of the prophet Ezekiel concerning the dry bones which arose to new life, in which he beheld the divine revelation of the approaching event of the restoration of the Jewish nation,901 shows how familiar the idea of resurrection must have been to the people. Hence the minds of the Jewish people were sufficiently prepared to adopt the Persian belief in the resurrection of the dead.

6. This, however, led to a tremendous process of transformation in Judaism with a wide chasm between Mosaism and Rabbinism, or, more accurately, between the Sadducees, who adhered to the letter of the law, and the Pharisees, who embodied the progressive spirit of the people. On the one hand, Jesus ben Sira, who at the close of his book speaks with great admiration of the high-priest Simon the Just as his contemporary, knew as yet nothing of a future life, and like Koheleth saw the end of all human existence in the dismal realm of the nether world. Yet at the same time, the Hasidim or pious ones and their successors, the Pharisees, were developing after the Persian pattern the thought of a divine judgment day after death, when the just were to awaken to eternal life, and the evil-doers to shame and everlasting contempt.902 This advanced moral view, frequently overlooked, transformed the ancient Semitic Sheol from the realm of shades to a place of punishment for sinners, and thus invested it with an ethical purpose.903 After this the various Biblical names for the nether world became the various divisions of [pg 284] hell.904 Indeed, the Psalmists and the Proverbs had announced to the wicked their destruction in Sheol, and on the other hand held out for the godly the hope of deliverance from Sheol and a beatific sight of God in the land of the living. Thus the transition was prepared for the new world-conception. All the promises and threats of the law and the prophets, when they did not receive fulfillment in this world, appeared now to point forward to the world to come. Moreover, the Pharisees in their disputes with the Sadducees made use of every reference, however slight, to the future life,—even of such passages as those which speak of the Patriarchs as receiving the promise of possessing the Holy Land, as if they were still alive,—as proofs of the continued life of the dead, or of their resurrection.905 Thus it came about that the leading authorities of rabbinic Judaism were in the position to declare in the Mishnah: “He who says that the belief in the resurrection of the dead is not founded on the Torah (and therefore does not accept it) shall have no share in the world to come.”906

7. The founders of the liturgy of the Synagogue, in opposition to the Sadducees, formulated therefore the belief in resurrection in the second of the “Eighteen (or Seven) Benedictions” of the daily prayer in the following words: “Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou revivest the dead. Thou art mighty to save. Thou sustainest the living with loving-kindness, revivest the dead with great mercy, supportest the falling, healest the sick, loosest the bound, and keepest Thy faith to them that sleep in the dust. (This refers to the Patriarchs, to whom God has promised the land of the future.) Who is like unto Thee, O Lord of mighty acts, and who resembleth Thee, O King, who killest and bringest to life, and causest salvation to spring forth? Yea, faithful art Thou to [pg 285] revive the dead. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who revivest the dead.” In this prayer dating from the age of the Maccabees907 the Jewish consciousness of two thousand years found a twofold hope,—the national and the universally human. The national hope, which combined the belief in the restoration of the kingdom of David and of the sacrificial cult with the resurrection of the dead in the Holy Land, can be understood only in connection with a historic view of Israel's place in the world, and is treated in the third part of this book. The purely human hope for the continuity or the renewal of life rests on two fundamental problems which must be examined more closely in the next two chapters. The one belongs to the province of psychology and considers the question: What is the eternal divine element in man? The other goes more deeply into the religious and moral nature of man and considers the question: Where and how does divine retribution—reward or punishment—take place in human life? To both of these questions our modern view, with its special aim toward a unified grasp of the totality of life, requires a special answer. This can be neither that of rabbinic Judaism, which rests upon Persian dualism, nor that of medieval philosophy, which was under the Platonic-Aristotelian influence.

Chapter XLIV. The Immortal Soul of Man

1. The idea of immortality has been found in Scripture in a rather obscure and probably corrupt passage,908 “In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” In the same spirit Aquila, the Bible translator, who belonged to the school of R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, renders the equally obscure passage from the Psalms,909 “He will lead us to immortality,” reading al maveth, the Al with Alef, for al muth, the Al with Ayin. There is more solid foundation for the view that the verse, “God created man in His own image” implies that there is an imperishable divine essence in man. In fact, that which distinguishes man from the animal as well as from the rest of creation, both the starry worlds above and the manifold forms of life on earth about him, is his self-conscious personality, his ego, through which he feels himself akin with God, the great world-ruling I Am. This self-conscious part of man, which lends to his every manifestation its value and purpose, can no more disappear into nothingness than can God, who called into existence this world with all its phenomena, who set it in motion and directs it. Whatever thought the crudest of men may have of his ego, his self,910 or however the most learned scholar may explain the marvelous action and interaction of physical and psychical or spiritual [pg 287] forces which culminates in his own self-conscious personality, it appears certain that this ego cannot cease to be with the cessation of the bodily functions. There is in us something divine, immortal, and the only question is wherein it may be found.

2. The creation of man which is described in the Bible in the words, “God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul”911 corresponds to the child-like conceptions of a primitive people. On the other hand, Scripture speaks of death in parallel terms, “The dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit (Ruah, the life-giving breath) returneth unto God who gave it.”912

The conception that the soul enters into man as the breath of life and leaves him at his death, flying toward heaven like a bird,913 is quite as ancient and as universal as the other, that the soul descends into the nether world as a shadowy image of the body, there to continue a dull existence. The two are related to one another, and in the Bible, as well as in the literature of other peoples, they have given rise to diverse definitions of the soul. This was the point of departure for the development of the conception of immortality in one or the other direction, according to whether the body was considered a part of the personality which somehow survives after death, or only the spiritual substance of the soul was thought to live on in celestial regions as something divine. The former led to the theory of the resurrection of the body and its reunion with the soul; the latter to the belief in a future life for the soul, after it had been separated or released from the body.

3. When once the soul was felt to be a “lamp of the Lord,” filling the body with light when man is awake,914 it was easy to imagine that the soul had escaped and temporarily returned [pg 288] to God in sleep. This induced the teachers of the Synagogue to prescribe a morning prayer of thanks which reads, “Blessed art Thou, O God, who restorest the souls unto dead bodies.”915 The conception underlying this prayer throws light upon the entire belief in resurrection. Death to the pious is only a prolonged sleep. On that account the prophet in the passage from Isaiah already referred to, as well as the Hasidic author of the Book of Daniel,916 could express the hope that “those who sleep in the dust shall awake.” As at every awakening from sleep in the morning, so at the great awakening in the future, the souls which have departed in death shall return again to their bodies. These bodies could then hardly be conceived of as subject to decomposition, and the picture in Ezekiel's vision of resurrection917 had to be accepted as fact. Still R. Simeon b. Yohai in the especially instructive thirty-fourth chapter of Pirke de R. Eliezer assumes the complete disintegration of the body, in order to render the miracle of resurrection so much the greater. Later still arose the legend of an indestructible bone of the spinal column, called Luz, which was to form the nucleus for the revival of the whole body.918 The name Luz, which denotes an almond tree and is the name given in the Bible to a city also,919 seemed to point to a connection with two legends, a fabulous city into which death could not enter,920 and the tree of resurrection in the Osiris cycle.921

4. Still, no clear, consistent view of the soul prevailed as yet in the rabbinic age. The popular belief, influenced by Persian notions, was that the soul lingers near the body for a certain time after it has relinquished it, either from three to seven days or for an entire year.922 Furthermore it was said that after death the souls hovered between heaven and earth [pg 289] in the form of ghosts, able to overhear the secrets of the future decreed above and to betray them to human beings below. In fact, the rabbis of the Talmud, especially the Hasidim, never hesitated to accept these ghost stories.923 Some sages of the Talmudic period taught that the souls of the righteous ascend to heaven, there to dwell under the throne of the divine majesty, awaiting the time of the renewal of the world, while the souls of the godless hovered over the horizon of the earth as restless demoniacal spirits, finally to succumb to the fate of annihilation, after they had been cast down into the fiery pit of Gehenna or Sheol.924 Of course, this view, which prevails in both the Talmud and the New Testament, according to which the souls of the wicked are to be consumed in the fire of Gehenna, is inconsistent with the conception of the purely spiritual nature of the soul.

Nevertheless at this same epoch we find the higher idea expressed that the soul is an invisible, god-like essence, pervading the body as a spiritual force and differing from it in nature in much the same way as God is differentiated from the world.925 “Thou wishest to know where God dwells, who is as high as are the heavens above the earth; tell me then where dwells thy soul, which is so near,” replied R. Gamaliel to a heathen.926 The prevailing view of the schools is that God implants the soul in the embryo while in the mother's womb, together with all the spiritual potentialities which make it human. In fact, R. Simlai, the third-century Haggadist, advances the Platonic conception of the preëxistence of the soul, as a being of the highest intelligence, which sees before birth all things throughout the world, but forgets all at birth, so that all subsequent learning is only a recollection.927 In Hellenistic Judaism especially the doctrine seems to have been general of the preëxistence of the soul, or of the creation of all human souls simultaneously [pg 290] with the creation of the world.928 Of course, the soul which emanates from a higher world must be eternal.

5. The first clear idea of the nature of the soul came with the philosophically trained thinkers, who were dependent either on Plato, main founder of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, or on Aristotle, who ascribes immortality only to the creative spirit of God, the supreme Intelligence as a cosmic power. The nearest approach to Plato was Philo,929 who saw in the three Biblical names for the soul, nefesh, ruah, and neshama, the three souls of the Platonic system,—the sensuous soul, which has its seat in the abdomen; the courageous or emotional soul, situated in the breast; and the intellectual soul, which dwells in the brain and contains the imperishable divine nature. This last is kept in its physical environment as in a prison or a grave, and ever yearns for liberation and reunion with God. The soul of the righteous enters the world of angels after death; that of the wicked the world of demons.

Saadia, who was under the influence of Aristotle interpreted from the neo-Platonic viewpoint, did not share the Platonic dualism of matter and spirit, nor did he divide the soul into three parts, seated in various parts of the human body. He finds the soul to be a spiritual substance created simultaneously with the body, and uniting the three forces of the soul distinguished in Scripture into one inseparable whole, the seat of which is in the heart,—wherefore soul and heart are often synonymous in the Bible. This indivisible substance possesses a luminous nature like that of the spheres, but is simpler, finer, and purer than they, and endowed with the power of thought. It was created by God out of the primal ether from which He made the angels, simultaneously with the body and [pg 291] within it. By this union it was qualified to display that moral activity prescribed for it in the divine teaching, the neglect of which would defile and tarnish it. According to Saadia some kind of material substance adheres to the soul as well as to the angels, and on that account he does not hesitate to accept the Talmudic expressions about the abode of the soul after death, or the last judgment which is to take place as soon as the appointed number of souls shall have made their entrance into their earthly bodies, when the souls of the righteous will have their angelic nature recognized, and those of the wicked will have their lower character revealed. However, Saadia combats with so much greater fervor the Hindu teaching of metempsychosis, which had been adopted by Plato and Pythagoras.930

Bahya connects his theory with the three souls of Plato, and likewise ascribes to the soul an ethereal essence.931 He holds that its destiny is to raise itself to the order of the angels through self-purification, and finally to return to God as the divine Source of light. To this end the intellectual soul, which has its being from the primal light, must overcome the lower sensuous soul which leads to sin.

6. The conception that the soul is a substance derived from the luminous primal matter, like the heavenly spheres and the angels, was now persistently retained by the Jewish thinkers, who explained thereby its immortality. In adopting the Aristotelian theory that the soul is the form-principle of the body, the Platonic doctrine of its preexistence was gradually relinquished, and its existence ascribed to a creative act of God at the birth of the child or at its conception. But Jehuda ha-Levi, the most pious of all the philosophers, emphasized vigorously the indivisibility of the soul, its incorporeality and [pg 292] its reality apart from the condition of the body, and—in opposition to the Aristotelian free-thinkers, who expected the human soul to be absorbed into the divine soul, the active intellect,—he declared the immortality of the individual a fundamental article of faith.932

Now some of the Jewish thinkers, following Jehuda ha Levi, Ibn Daud, and others, though Aristotelians, shrank from the logical conclusion of denying all individuality to the soul, and attributed to it rather a process of purification, which ends with the elevation of the soul-essence to angelic rank and thus guarantees its immortality. Not so Maimonides, who accepted with inexorable earnestness the Aristotelian idea of form as the perfection of matter. The essence of the human soul is, for him, that force or potentiality which qualifies it for the highest development of the intellect, and is alone capable of grasping the divine. Yet it can acquire a part in the creative World-spirit only in the same degree as it unfolds this potentiality to share the divine intellect, whose seat is the highest sphere of the universe. By dint of this acquired intelligence it can live on as an independent intellect, in the image of God, and thus attain beatitude in the contemplation of Divinity.933

7. Naturally the view of Maimonides, that a certain measure of immortality is granted only to the wise,—though they must be morally perfect as well,—aroused great opposition. Hasdai Crescas proves its untenableness by asking, “Why shall the wise alone share in immortality? Furthermore, how can something that came into existence in the course of human life suddenly acquire eternal duration? Or how can there be any bliss in the knowledge of God where there is no personality, [pg 293] no self-conscious ego to enjoy it?” Therefore Crescas ascribed to the soul an indestructible spiritual essence whose perfection is attained, not by mere intellect or knowledge, but by love of God manifested in a religious and moral life, and which is thereby made to share in eternal bliss.934

8. All these various thinkers find the future life either expressed or suggested in the Scriptures as a truth based upon reason. This is especially the conception of Abraham ibn Daud, who, contrary to his Aristotelian successor Maimonides, sees in self-consciousness, by which the soul differentiates itself from the body as a personality, the proof that it cannot be subject to dissolution with the body.935

Besides the philosophic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, however, the traditional belief in the resurrection of the body demanded some consideration on the part of these philosophers. Saadia defends the latter with all his might, endeavoring to reconcile the two as best he can.936 All the rest leave us in doubt whether resurrection is to be understood literally or symbolically. Maimonides especially involves himself in difficulties, inasmuch as in his commentary on the Mishna he considers the resurrection of the dead an unalterable article of faith, whereas in his Code937 and in the Moreh he speaks only of immortality; and again before the end of his life he wrote, obviously in self-defense, a work which seems to favor bodily resurrection, yet without clarifying his conceptions at any time.938 The belief in resurrection had taken too deep a root in the Jewish consciousness and had been too firmly established through the liturgy of the Synagogue for any philosopher to touch it without injuring the very foundations of faith.

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Moreover, beside external caution a certain inner need seems to have impelled toward the acceptance of resurrection. As soon as one thinks of the soul as existing or continuing to live in an incorporeal state, one is involuntarily led toward the belief in the soul's preëxistence or even in the possibility of metempsychosis. Thus it seemed more reasonable to believe in a new formation of the human body together with a new creation of the world. Therewith came the disposition to assign to the soul in the future world a body of finer substance, like that assumed by the mystic Nahmanides,939 in order to assure to the new humanity a wondrous duration of life like that of Elijah.

9. While the popular philosopher Albo rightly declares that the nature of the soul is as far beyond all human understanding as is the nature of God,940 the mystics sought all the more to penetrate its secrets. The Cabbalah also divides the soul into three different substances according to the three Biblical names, assigning their origins to the three different spheres of the universe, and reiterating the Platonic theory of the preexistence of the soul and its future transmigration. This division into three parts provided scope for all types of theories concerning the soul in its sensuous, its moral, and its intellectual nature. Fundamentally the Cabbalah considered the soul an emanation from the divine intellect with a luminous character just like the philosophers. But in the Platonic view of the ascending order of creation, which forms the basis of the Cabbalah, this mundane life is an abyss of moral degradation, so that the soul yearns toward the primal Source of light, finally to find freedom and bliss with God.941 Thus the later Cabbalah returned to the teachings of Philo, the Jewish Plato, for whom death was only the stripping off of the earthly frame in order to enter the pure and luminous world of God.

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10. With Moses Mendelssohn, who in his Phædon tried to translate Plato's proof of immortality into modern terms, a new attitude toward the nature and destiny of the soul arose in Judaism among both the philosophers and the educated laity. Mendelssohn not only endeavored to prove the immortality of the soul through its indivisibility and incorporeality, as all the neo-Platonists and Jewish philosophers had done before him; he also attempted to show from the harmonious plan which pervades and controls all of God's creation, that the soul may enter a sphere of existence greater in extent and content than the little span of earthly life which it relinquishes. The progress of the soul toward its highest unfolding, unsatisfied in this life, demands a future growth in the direction of god-like perfection.942 At this point the philosopher enters the province of faith, and thus furnishes for all time the cardinal point of the belief in immortality. The divine spirit in man, which is evinced in the self-conscious, morally active personality, bears within itself the proof and promise of its future life. Moreover, this corresponds with the belief in God as One who rules the world for the eternal purposes and aims of perfection, who cannot deceive the hope of the human heart for a continued living and striving onward and forward, without thereby impairing His own perfection. For we all close our lives without having attained the goal of moral and spiritual perfection toward which we strive; and therefore our very nature demands a world where we may reach the higher degree of perfection for which we long. In this sense we may interpret the Psalmist's verse: “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with (beholding) Thy likeness.”943 That is: our spirit, when no longer bound to the earth, shall behold the divine glory,—a vision which transcends our powers of thought.

11. In the light of modern investigation, body and soul are seen to be indissolubly bound together by a reciprocal relation [pg 296] which either benefits or impedes them both. Wherein the spiritual bond exists that renders both the physical organs with their muscular and nervous systems and the magnetic or electric currents which set them in motion subservient to the will of the intellect; what the mind actually is, into whose deepest recesses science is casting its search-light to illumine its processes,—these are problems which will probably remain ever incapable of solution by human knowledge, and will therefore always afford new food for the imagination. Yet it is just in periods like ours, when the belief in God is weakening, that the human spirit is especially solicitous to guard itself against the thought of the complete annihilation of its god-like self-conscious personality. This gives rise to the superstitious effort to spy out the soul by sensory means and to find ways of seeing or hearing the spirits of the dead,—a tendency which is as dangerous to the spiritual and moral welfare of humanity as was the ancient practice of necromancy.944 It is therefore all the more important to base the belief in immortality solely on the God-likeness of the human soul, which is the mirror of Divinity. Just as one postulate of faith holds that God, the Creator of the world, rules in accordance with a moral order, so another is the immortality of the human soul, which, amidst yearning and groping, beholds God. The question where, and how, this self-same ego is to continue, will be left for the power of the imagination to answer ever anew.

12. Certainly it is both comforting and convenient to imagine the dead who are laid to rest in the earth as being asleep and to await their reawakening. As the fructifying rain awakens to a new life the seeds within the soil, so that they rise from the depths arrayed in new raiment, so, when touched by the heavenly dew of life, will those who linger in the grave arise to a new existence, clad in new bodies. This is the belief which inspired the pious founders of the synagogal [pg 297] liturgy even before the period of the Maccabees, when they expressed their praise of God's power in that He would send the fertilizing rain upon the vegetation of the earth, and likewise in due time the revivifying dew upon the sleeping world of man. Both appeared to the sages of that age to be evidences of the same wonder-working power of God. Whoever, therefore, still sees God's greatness, as they did, revealed through miracles, that is, through interruptions of the natural order of life, may cling to the traditional belief in resurrection, so comforting in ancient times. On the other hand, he who recognizes the unchangeable will of an all-wise, all-ruling God in the immutable laws of nature must find it impossible to praise God according to the traditional formula as the “Reviver of the dead,” but will avail himself instead of the expression used in the Union Prayer Book after the pattern of Einhorn, “He who has implanted within us immortal life.”945

Chapter XLV. Divine Retribution: Reward and Punishment.

1. The feeling of equity is deeply rooted in human nature, demanding reparation for every wanton wrong and yielding recognition to every benevolent act. In fact, upon this universal principle is based all justice and to a certain extent all morality. Judaism of every age compresses this demand of the religious and moral nature of man into the doctrine: God rewards the good and punishes the evil. This doctrine, which is the eleventh of Maimonides' articles of faith, constitutes the underlying presumption of all the Biblical narratives as well as of the prophetic threats and warnings and those of the Mosaic law, in so far as earthly success and prosperity were regarded as the rewards of God and earthly misfortune and misery as His punishments. In the same degree, however, as experience contradicted this doctrine, and as examples multiplied of wicked persons revelling in prosperity and innocent ones laboring under adversity and woe, it became necessary to defer the divine retribution more and more to the future—at first to a future on earth and later to one in the world to come, until finally it developed into a pure spiritual conception in full accord with a higher ethical view of life.

2. As long as in the primitive process of law the family or the clan was held responsible for the crime of the individual, ancient Israel also adhered to the idea that “God visits the sins of the fathers upon the third and fourth generation,” as Jeremiah still did946 in full accord with the second commandment. [pg 299] It was in a far later stage that the rabbis interpreted the words “of those who hate Me” in the sense of individual responsibility.947 Only in accordance with the Deuteronomic law which says: “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin,”948 did the religious consciousness rebel against the thought that a later generation should suffer for the sins of its ancestors, and hence the popular adage arose, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.”949 It is the prophet Ezekiel who refutes once and for all the idea of a guilt transmitted to children and consequently of hereditary sin and punishment, insisting on the doctrine that personal responsibility alone determines divine retribution.950 But here a new element affects divine retribution. God's long-suffering and mercy do not desire the immediate punishment, the death of the sinner. He should be given time to return to a better mode of life.951

But the great enigma of human destiny, which vexes the author of the seventy-third Psalm and that of the book of Job, still presses for a better solution. It is true that the popular belief and popular legends which are preserved in post-Biblical writings as well, insisted on a justice which requites “measure for measure.”952 Still insight into actual life does not confirm the teaching of the popular philosophy that the “righteous will be requited in the earth” and that “evil pursueth sinners.”953 The unshakeable belief in the justice of God had to find another solution for life's antinomies, and was forced to reach out for another world in which the divine righteousness would find its complete realization.

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3. Biblical Judaism with few exceptions recognized only the present world and the subterranean world of shadows, a view preserved in its essentials by Ben Sira and the Sadducees, who were subsequently declared heretics. In contrast to them Pharisaic or Rabbinic Judaism teaches a resurrection after death for a life of eternal bliss or eternal torment, according as the divine judgment finds one righteous and another wicked. We may leave aside the consideration that the first impulse toward a Jewish belief in resurrection came from the non-fulfillment of the national hope, wherefore it was always bound up with the soil of the Holy Land, as will be seen in Chapter LIV. The fact remains that the divine judgment to follow upon resurrection was consistently regarded as a great world-judgment, which was to decide the future lot of all men and spirits. It must be noted also that the apocalyptic and midrashic literature often identifies the pious with the God-fearing Israelites as those who shall arise to eternal life, while the wicked are identified with the idolatrous heathen, who are condemned to eternal death, or, as it is frequently expressed, to a second death.954

4. Exactly as the old Persian Mazdaism expected the resurrection of all, both good and bad, the believers in Ahura Mazda as well as the rest of humanity, so the apocalyptic writers prior to the Talmudic period describe resurrection as universal: “In those days the earth will give back those who have been entrusted to her, and the nether-world will release that which it has received,” according to Enoch LI, 1. Similarly fourth Esdras remarks: “And after seven days of silence for all creatures, the new order of the world shall be raised up, and mortality itself shall perish; and the earth shall restore [pg 301] those that are asleep in her; and so shall the dust give back those that dwell in silence; and the chambers shall deliver those souls that were committed unto them. The Most High shall appear on the throne of judgment, and shall say: Judgment only shall remain, truth shall stand, and faith shall wax strong. The good deeds shall be of force, and wicked deeds shall no longer sleep. The lake of torment shall be revealed, and opposite to it the place of joy; the furnace of Gehinnom will be visible, and opposite to it the bliss of Paradise. Then the Most High will speak to the heathen nations, who have awakened: behold now Him whom ye have denied, whom ye have not served, whose command ye have abhorred. Gaze now here and there,—here bliss and rest, there fire and torment.”955

The rabbinic form of the doctrine of resurrection is quite unambiguous: “Those born into the world are destined to die; the dead, to live again; and those who enter the world to come, to be judged.”956 And wherever the rabbinic or apocalyptic literature mentions the share of the pious, or of Israel, in eternal life, this implies that, while these enter the world to come, the evil-doers or idolaters shall enter hell for eternal death; the understanding being that there is a universal resurrection for the world-judgment.

5. The whole system of eschatology in connection with resurrection arose undoubtedly from the Persian doctrine, according to which death together with all that is evil and unclean is created by Ahriman, the evil principle, and will suffer annihilation with him, as soon as the good principle, Ahura Mazda, has achieved the final victory. Then Soshiosh “the Savior,” the descendant of Zoroaster, will begin his kingdom of eternal life for the righteous, coincident with the [pg 302] awakening of the dead.957 Pharisaic Judaism, however, gave the hope of resurrection a deeper moral and religious meaning. The proofs, or rather analogies from nature, of the seeds springing from the earth in a new form, of men awakening from sleep in the morning, or of the original creation, are shared by the rabbis and the New Testament writers with the Persians. On the other hand, proofs based on the prophetic hope for the future are purely national. So also are those proofs based on the Biblical passage that the God of the fathers had sworn to the Patriarchs to give them the Promised Land.958 Likewise the reference to the wondrous resurrections related in the history of Elijah and Elisha offers no proof of a universal resurrection. A striking point and one which deepens the idea of retribution is the simile of the Lame and the Blind959 employed by Jehuda ha Nasi in a dialogue with the Emperor Antoninus. The latter had said that at the last judgment both soul and body might deny all guilt. The body may say: “The soul alone has sinned, for since it has parted from me, I have lain motionless as a stone.” And the soul, on its part, may reply: “It must be the body that sinned, for since I have parted from it I soar about in the air free as a bird.” To this Jehuda ha Nasi answered: “A king once possessed a garden with splendid fig-trees, and appointed as watchmen in it a blind man and a lame man. Then the lame man spoke to the blind man, ‘I see fine figs up there; take me upon your shoulders, and I shall pick them, and we can enjoy them together.’ They did so, and when the king [pg 303] entered the garden, the figs were gone. But when they were held to account for it, the lame man said, ‘How could I have taken them, since I cannot walk?’ And the blind man said, ‘And I cannot see.’ Then the king had the lame man placed upon the shoulders of the blind man and judged them both together. In like manner will God treat the body and the soul, as it is said:960 ‘He calleth to the heavens above—that is, the heavenly element, the soul—and to the earth beneath—the earthly body—and places them together before His throne of judgment.’ ”

6. It cannot be denied that the idea that the soul and body, having committed good or evil deeds together in this life, should receive in common their reward or punishment in the world to come, satisfied the Jewish sense of justice better than the conception developed by Hellenistic Judaism (after the Platonic and, in the last resort, the Egyptian view) that the soul alone should partake of eternal bliss or torment. Nevertheless the philosophically trained Jewish thinkers of Alexandria could not bring themselves to accept a bodily resurrection, and therefore emphasized so much more strongly the great day of judgment and the reward and punishment of the soul in the world to come. Still we find much inconsistency among various authors, sometimes even in the same work, in the conception of future bliss for the good and torture for the wicked. These varied according to the more sensuous or more spiritual view taken of the soul and the celestial world, and according to the literal or figurative interpretation of the Biblical allusions to “fire,” “worms,” and the like in the punishment of evil-doers, and of the delights awaiting the righteous in the future.961

On this point free play was allowed to the imagination of the people and the fancy of the Haggadists. Still, throughout, the [pg 304] solemn thought found its echo that mortal man must give account to the inexorable Judge of the living and the dead for the life just completed, in order to be ushered, according to his deserts, into the portals of the celestial Paradise or of hell.962 This led to the view that this whole mundane life is but like a wayfarers' inn for the life to come, or the vestibule of the palace (more precisely the “banquet-hall”) of the future.963

7. A further development of the principle of justice in application to future retribution led not merely to such a depiction of the tortures of hell and the delights of heaven that the maxim: “measure for measure,” so often deviated from in this life, could find complete realization in the world to come. An intermediate stage also was devised for those whose merit or guilt would enroll them neither among the righteous for eternal bliss, nor among the wicked for eternal punishment. While the stern teachers of the school of Shammai insisted that these mediocre ones must undergo a twelve-month process of purification in the fires of Gehenna, the milder school of Hillel maintained that the divine mercy would grant them admission into Paradise even without the fires of purgatory964, either through the merit of the patriarchs965 or owing to the deserts of a son who has been trained to reverence for God, as is indicated by the legend concerning the Kaddish prayer.966 In any case, the teaching of Hillel concerning the all-sufficing mercy of God swept aside the old hopeless conception that eternal suffering in hell awaits the average man, which was adhered to by the Christian church in connection with its dogma of the atoning blood of Christ. Likewise, in the dispute of schools as to whether or not the bliss of eternal life would be accorded also to the righteous among the heathen, [pg 305] the more humane view of Joshua ben Hananiah prevailed over the gloomier one of the Shammaite Eliezer ben Hyrcanos, and therefore the doctrine became generally accepted, “The righteous of all nations shall have a share in the world to come.”967

8. The apocalyptic writers, who largely influenced the New Testament, and also the Haggadists refer with fond interest to the banquet of the pious in the world to come, where they would be served with heavenly manna as bread, with wine preserved from the days of the creation, and with the flesh of the Leviathan or the fruit of the Tree of Life.968 On the other hand they elaborated the tortures of the evil-doers in hell which are to afford a pleasing sight to the pious in heaven, just as the torments of the sinners are aggravated by the sight of the righteous enjoying all delights.969 But at the same time we meet with a more refined and spiritual conception of future reward and punishment among the disciples of R. Jehuda ha Nasi, in the Babylonian Rab, and the Palestinian R. Johanan [pg 306] and his pupil Simeon ben Lakish. “In the future world,” says Rab, “there are no sensual enjoyments nor passions, but the righteous sit at the table of God with wreaths upon their heads (like the Greek sages at a symposium!), feeding on the radiance of the divine majesty, as did the chosen ones of Israel on the heights of Sinai.”970 R. Johanan teaches, “All the promises held forth in Scripture in definite form as reward for the future, refer to the Messianic era, whereas in regard to the bliss awaiting the pious in the world to come, the words of Isaiah hold good: ‘No eye hath seen it, O God, beside Thee.’ ”971 Simeon ben Lakish even went so far as to say, “There is neither hell nor paradise. Instead, God sends out the sun in its full strength from its encasement, and the wicked are consumed by its heat, while the pious find delight and healing in its beams.”972

However, the popular imagination demanded more perceptible pictures of heaven and hell, if fear of punishment was to deter men from sin, and hope of reward to lead them to virtue. The description of the modes of reward and punishment for the future in the Koran is the outcome of mingled Persian and Jewish popular conceptions, and its crass sensuousness exerted in turn a decisive influence upon the entire Gaonic period,973 leaving its mark upon even so clear a thinker as Saadia. Not only does he admit into his philosophic work all the crude and conflicting descriptions of the future world, but he also argues for the eternity of the punishments of hell and of the delights of heaven as logical necessities, because only such could sufficiently deter or allure mankind, and a righteous God must certainly carry out His threats and promises.974

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9. The entire Jewish philosophy or theology of the Middle Ages remained under the influence of the traditional belief in resurrection. Even Maimonides, whose purely spiritual conception of the soul and of salvation is utterly irreconcilable with the belief in bodily resurrection, and who accordingly dwells instead, in both his Moreh and his Code, on the future world of spirits, with explicit emphasis on their incorporeality, did not have the courage to break altogether with the traditional belief in resurrection. In his apologetic treatise on resurrection he even attempts to present it as a miraculous act of God beyond the grasp of the intellect. He omits, however, to specify what purpose this miracle may serve, since in the Maimonidean system reward and punishment would be administered in the world of spirits in a much purer and more satisfactory manner.975 The same standpoint is taken also by Jehuda ha Levi as well as by Crescas and Albo.976 If then resurrection be a miracle, it falls outside the scope of philosophic speculation and becomes a matter of faith; accordingly the mystics from Nahmanides down to Manasseh ben Israel associated with it the grossest conceptions.977

10. The actual view of Maimonides concerning future retribution is expressed clearly and unambiguously in both his early product, the commentary on the Mishna, and in the ripest fruit of his life work, the Mishneh Torah, where he says “Not immortality, but the power to win eternal life through the knowledge and the love of God is implanted in the human soul. If it has the ability to free itself from the bondage of the senses and by means of the knowledge of God to lift itself to the highest morality and the purest thinking, then it has attained divine bliss, true immortality, and it enters the realm [pg 308] of the eternal Spirit together with the angels. If it sinks into the sensuousness of earthly existence, then it is cut off from eternal life; it suffers annihilation like the beast. In reality this life eternal is not the future, but is already potentially present and invariably at hand in the spirit of man himself, with its constant striving toward the highest. When the rabbis speak of paradise and hell, describing vividly the delights of the one and the torments of the other, these are only metaphors for the agony of sin and the happiness of virtue. True piety serves God neither from fear of punishment nor from desire for reward, as servants obey their master, but from pure love of God and truth. Thus the saying of Ben Azai is verified, ‘The reward of a good deed is the good deed itself.’978 Only children need bribes and threats to be trained to morality. Thus religion trains mankind. The people who cannot penetrate into the kernel need the shell, the external means of threats and promises.”979 These splendid words of the great thinker require supplementing or modification in only one direction, and that has been afforded by the keenest critic among Jewish philosophers, Hasdai Crescas. Too deeply enmeshed in the Aristotelian system, Maimonides found the happiness and immortality of man solely in the acquired intellectual power which becomes part of the divine intellect, and the mere knowledge of God is to him tantamount to the blissful enjoyment of the pious in the radiance of God's majesty. Consequently those who strive and soar heavenward through their moral conduct and noble aspirations, without at the same time being thinkers, receive no reward. Against this Aristotelian one-sidedness Crescas emphasizes God's love and goodness for which the righteous yearn, and in whose pursuit man finds perfection and happiness. Not for the sake of attaining bliss shall we love God and practice virtue and truth, but to love God and practice virtue is itself [pg 309] true bliss. This is the nearness of God referred to by the Psalmist and declared to be man's highest good.980 There is no need of any other reward than this, and there is no greater punishment than to be deprived of this boon forever.981

11. In the face of these two great thinkers, to whom Spinoza owes the fundamental ideas of his ethics,982 the question considered by Albo, whether the eternal duration of the tortures of hell is reconcilable with the divine mercy,983 a question which still plays an important rôle in Christian theology, and which was probably suggested to Albo through his disputations with representatives of the Church,—is for us superfluous and superseded. Our modern conceptions of time and space admit neither a place or a world-period for the reward and punishment of souls, nor the intolerable conception of eternal joy without useful action and eternal agony without any moral purpose. Modern man knows that he bears heaven and hell within his own bosom. Indeed, so much more difficult is the life of duty which knows of no other reward than happiness through harmony with God, the Father of the immortal soul, and of no other punishment than the soul's distress at its inner discord with the primal Source and the divine Ideal of all morality. All the more powerfully is modern man controlled by the thought that the universe permits no stagnation, no barren enjoyment or barren suffering, but that every death marks the transition to a higher goal for greater accomplishment. This yearning of the soul finds expression in the Talmudic maxim, “The righteous find rest neither in this world, nor in the world to come, as it is said, ‘They go from strength to strength, until they appear before God on Zion.’ ”984

Chapter XLVI. The Individual and the Race

1. In every system of belief the object of divine care and guidance is the individual. His soul and his conscience raise him up, especially according to the Jewish doctrine, to the divine image, to Godchildship. His freedom and moral responsibility are the patent of nobility for his divine nature; his ego, controlling external forces and carrying out its own designs, vouches for his immortality. Nevertheless the spirit of the Biblical language indicates rightly that the individual is only a son of man,—ben adam,—that is, a segment or member of the human race, but not the perfect typical exemplification of the whole of mankind. From the social organism he receives what he is, what he has, and what he ought to do, both his nature and his destiny; and only in association with the community and under the guidance of the highest ideal of humanity can he attain true perfection. Only mankind as a whole, in its coöperation, as it extends over the vast expanse of the earth, and in its succession which reaches through the centuries of the world's history, can bring to full development the divine image in man, his moral and religious nature with all its varied potentialities. It is man collectively who in the first chapter of Genesis receives the command to subject the earth with all its creatures to his cultural purposes.985 In whatever stage of culture we meet [pg 311] man, his modes of thought and speech, his customs and moral views, even his spiritual faculties are the result of a long historic process of development, the product of an extremely complicated past, as well as the basis of a future which expands in all directions. The ancients expressed this in their suggestive way, remarking in connection with the verse of the Psalm, “Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance, and in Thy book they were all written,”986 that at the creation of the first man God recorded the succession of races with their sages, seers and leaders until the end of time.987 And when the Haggadists say that in creating man God took dust from every part of the world, so that he would be everywhere at home,988 again they were thinking of mankind. Similarly in the passage from the Psalms, “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before,” they explain that God made the first man with two faces, one looking forward and the other backward, that is, with a Janus head; and thus they regard man in his relation to the past and the future, in his historic continuity.989 As both physically and spiritually he is the heir of innumerable ancestors who have transmitted to him with their blood all their idiosyncrasies and capacities in a peculiar combination, so will he transmit both consciously and unconsciously the inherited possessions of mankind to future generations for continued growth or for degeneration. He forms but a link in the great chain of history, whose goal is the perfected ideal of humanity, the completed idea of man. This was the underlying thought of Ben Azzai in his dispute with R. Akiba, who held that the principal maxim of Jewish teaching is “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” In opposition to this Ben Azzai presented as the most important lesson of the Bible [pg 312] the verse which says, “This is the book of the generations of man; in the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him.”990 The godlikeness of man develops more and more through the evolution of the human race. This is the basic force for all human love and all human worth.

2. This social bond existing between the individual and the race imposes upon him in accordance with his occupation certain duties in the same degree as it confers benefits. Ben Zoma, a colleague of Ben Azzai, expressed this as follows: When he saw great crowds of people together, he exclaimed, “Praised be Thou who hast created all these to serve me.” In explanation of this blessing he said, “How hard the first man in his loneliness must have toiled, until he could eat a morsel of bread or wear a garment, but I find everything prepared. The various workmen, from the farmer to the miller and the baker, from the weaver to the tailor, all labor for me. Can I then be ungrateful and be oblivious of my duty?”991 In the same sense he interprets the last verse in Koheleth, “This is the end of the matter; fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” That is to say, all mankind toils for him who does so. Thus does human life rest upon a reciprocal relation, upon mutual duty.992

3. Man is a social being who must strike root in many spheres of life in order that the variegated blossoms and fruits of his spiritual and emotional nature may sprout forth. The more richly the communal life is specialized into professions and occupations, the more does the province of the individual expand, and the more difficult it is for him to attain perfection on all sides. According to his faculties and predisposition he must always develop one or the other side of human endeavor and pursue now the beautiful, now the good, now the true and now the useful, if as the image of God he is to emulate [pg 313] the Ideal of all existence, the Pattern of all creation. Consequently he may reflect some radiance of the divine glory in his character and achievements, whether as moral hero, as sage and thinker, as statesman and battler for freedom, as artist, or as the discoverer of new forces and new worlds; and yet the full splendor of God's greatness is mirrored only by mankind as a whole through its ceaseless common action and interaction. Therefore Judaism deprecates every attempt to present a single individual, be he ever so noble or wise, as the ideal of all human perfection, as a perfect man, free from fault or blemish. “There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside Thee,” says Scripture.993 Instead of extolling any single mortal as the type or ideal of perfection, our sages rather say with reference to the lofty characters of the Bible: “There is no generation which cannot show a man with the love for righteousness of an Abraham, or the nobility of spirit of a Moses, or the love for truth of a Samuel.”994 That is to say, every age creates its own heroes, who reflect the majesty of God in their own way.

4. As man is the keystone of all creation, so he is called upon to take his full share in the progress of the race. “He who formed the earth created it not a waste; He formed it to be inhabited,” says the prophet.995 True humanity has its seat, not in the life of the recluse, but in the family circle, amid mutual love and loyalty between husband and wife, between parents and children. The sages, with their keen insight into the spirit of the Scripture, point to the fact that it is man and wife together who first receive the name of “man,” because only the mutual helpfulness and influence, the care and toil for one another draw forth the treasures of the soul, and create relations which warrant permanency and give promise of a future.996

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5. Still the family circle itself is only a segment of the nation, which creates speech and custom, and assigns to each person his share in the common activity of the various classes of men. Only within the social bond of the nation or tribe is the interdependence of all brought home to the consciousness of the individual, together with all the common moral obligations and religious yearnings. Through the few elect ones of the nation or tribe, God's voice is heard as to what is right in both custom and law, and through them the individual is roused to a sense of duty. It is society which enables the human mind to triumph over physical necessity by ever new discoveries of tools and means of life, thus to attain freedom and prosperity, and, through meditation over the continually expanding realm of God's world, to build up the various systems of science and of art.

6. But the single nation also is too dependent upon the conditions of its historic past, of its land and its racial characteristics, to bring the divine image to its full development in a perfect man. Humanity as a whole comes to its own, to true self-consciousness, only through the reciprocal contact of race with race, through the coöperation of the various circles and classes of life which extend beyond the narrow limits of nationality and have in view common interests and aims, whether in the pursuit of truth, in the achievement of good, or in the creation of the useful and the beautiful. Only when the various nations and groups of men learn to regard themselves as members of one great family, will the life of the individual find its true value in relation to the idea and the ideal of humanity. Then only will the unity and harmony of the entire cosmic life find its reflection in the blending of the factors and forces of human society.

7. Judaism has evolved the idea of the unity of mankind as a corollary of its ethical monotheism. Therefore the Bible begins the history of the world with the creation of Adam and [pg 315] Eve, the one human pair. The covenant which God concluded after the flood with Noah, the father of the new mankind, has its corresponding goal at the end of time in the divine covenant which is to include all tribes of men in one great brotherhood; and so also the dispersion of man through the confusion of tongues at the building of the Tower of Babel has its counterpart in the rallying of all nations at the end of time for the worship of the One and Only God in a pure tongue and a united spirit on Zion's heights.997 Whatever the civilizations of Greece and Rome and the Stoic philosophy have achieved for the idea of humanity, Judaism has offered in its prophetic hope for a Messianic future the guiding idea for the progress of man in history, thus giving him the impulse to ceaseless efforts toward the highest of all aims for the realization of which all nations and classes, all systems of faith and thought, must labor together for millenniums to come.

Chapter XLVII. The Moral Elements of Civilization

1. Because Judaism sees the attainment of human perfection only when the divine in man has reached complete development through the unimpeded activity of all his spiritual, moral, and social forces, it insists upon the full recognition of all branches of human society as instruments of man's elevation, either individually or collectively. It deprecates the idea that any force or faculty of human life be regarded as unholy and therefore be suppressed. It thus rejects on principle monastic renunciation and isolation, pointing to the Scriptural verse, “He who formed the earth created it not a waste; He formed it to be inhabited.998”

2. Accordingly Judaism regards the establishment of family life through marriage as a duty obligatory on mankind, and sees in the entrance into the marital relation an act of life's supreme consecration. In contrast to the celibacy sanctioned by the Church and approved by the rabbis only under certain conditions, and exceptionally for their holy exercises by the Essenes, the Tannaite R. Eliezer pronounces the man who through bachelorhood shirks the duty of rearing children to be guilty of murder against the human race. Another calls him a despoiler of the divine image. Another rabbi says that such a one renounces his privilege of true humanity, in so far as only in the married state can happiness, blessing, and peace be attained.999 It is significant as to the spirit of Judaism that, while other religions regard the celibacy of the priests and saints as signs of highest sanctity, the [pg 317] Jewish law expressly commands that the high priest shall not be allowed to observe the solemn rites of the Day of Atonement if unmarried.1000 Love for the wife, the keeper and guardian of the home, must attune his heart to tenderness and sympathy, if he is to plead for the people before the Holy God. He can make intercession for the household of Israel only if he himself has founded a family, in which are practiced faithfulness and modesty, love and regard for the life-companion, all the domestic virtues inherited from the past.

3. Another moral factor for human development is industry, which secures to the individual his independence and his dignity when he engages in creative labor after the divine pattern, and which rewards him with comfort and the joy of life. This also is so highly valued by Judaism that industrial activity, which unlocks from the earth ever new treasures to enrich human life, is enjoined upon all, even those pursuing more spiritual vocations. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings.”1001 “When thou eatest the labor of thy hands, happy art thou and it shall be well with thee.”1002 In commenting on this last verse, the sages say: “This means that thou wilt be doubly blessed; happy art thou in this world, and it shall be well with thee in the world to come.”1003 Again they say, “No labor, however humble, is dishonoring,”1004 also: “Idleness, even amid great wealth, leads to the wasting of the intellect.”1005 Moreover it is said, “Whoever neglects to train his son to a trade, rears him to become a robber.”1006 True, there were some among the pious who themselves abstained from participation in industry, and therefore proclaimed, in the same tenor as the Sermon on the Mount, “Behold the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven, they sow not and reap not, and their heavenly Father [pg 318] cares for them.”1007 But these formed an exception, while the majority of Jewish teachers extolled the real blessing of labor and its efficacy in ennobling heart and spirit.1008

4. Neither does Judaism begrudge man the joy of life which is the fruit of industry, nor rob it of its moral value. On the contrary, that ascetic spirit which encourages self-mortification and rigid renunciation of all pleasure is declared sinful.1009 Instead, we are told that in the world to come man shall have to give account for every enjoyment offered him in this life, whether he used it gratefully or rejected it in ingratitude.1010 Abstinence is declared to be praiseworthy only in curbing wild desires and passions. For the rest, true piety lies in the consecration of every gift of God, every pleasure of life which He has offered, and using it in His service, so that the seal of holiness shall be imprinted even upon the satisfaction of the most sensuous desires.

5. Judaism, then, lays special emphasis upon sociability as advancing all that is good and noble in man. The life of the recluse, according to its teaching, is of little use to the world at large and hence of no moral value. Only in association with one's fellow-men does life find incentive and opportunity for worthy work. “Either a life among friends or death” is a Talmudic proverb.1011 Unselfish friendship like that of David and Jonathan is lauded and pointed out for imitation.1012 Through it man learns to step beyond the narrow boundaries of his ego, and in caring for others he will purify and exalt his own soul, until at last its love will include all mankind.

6. “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,” says the book of Proverbs,1013 and the sages derive from this verse the doctrine that learning does not thrive in solitude.1014 A single log does not nourish the [pg 319] flame; to keep up the fire one must throw in one piece of wood after the other. This applies also to learning; it lacks in vigor, if it is not communicated to others. Wisdom calls to her votaries on the highways, in order that the stream of knowledge may overflow for many. For both the culture of the intellect and the ennobling of the soul it is necessary that man should step out of the narrow limits of self and come into touch with a larger world. Only in devotion to his fellows is man made to realize his own godlike nature. In the same measure as he honors God's image in others, in foe as well as in friend, in the most lowly servant as well in the most noble master, man increases his own dignity. This is the fundamental thought of morality as expressed in Job, especially in the beautiful thirty-first chapter, and as embodied in Abraham,1015 and later reflected in various Talmudic sayings about the dignity of man.1016 Everywhere man's relation to society becomes a test of his own worth. The idea of interdependence and reciprocal duty among all members of the human family forms the outstanding characteristic of Jewish ethics. For it is far more concerned in the welfare of society than in that of the individual, and demands that those endowed with fortune should care for the unfortunate, the strong for the weak, and those blessed with vision for the blind. As God Himself is Father to the fatherless, Judge of the widows, and Protector of the oppressed, so should man be. “Works of benevolence form the beginning and the end of the Torah,” points out R. Simlai.1017

7. It is in the life of the nation that the individual first realizes that he is only a part of a greater whole. The nation to which he belongs is the mother who nourishes him with her spirit, teaches him to speak and to think, and equips him with all the means to take part in the achievements and tasks of [pg 320] humanity. In fact, the State, which guarantees to all its citizens safety, order and opportunity under the law, and which arranges the relations of the various groups and classes of society that they may advance one another and thus promote the welfare and progress of all, is human society in miniature. Here the citizen first learns obedience to the law which is binding upon all alike, then respect and reverence for the authority embodied in the guardians of the law who administer justice “which is God's,” and hence also loyalty and devotion to the whole, together with reciprocal obligation and helpfulness among the separate members and classes of society. The words of Jeremiah to his exiled brethren, “Seek ye the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace,”1018 became the guiding maxim of Jewry when torn from its native soil. It impressed upon them, once for all, the deeply rooted virtues of loyalty and love for the country in which they dwelt. To pray for the welfare of the State and its ruler, under whose dominion all citizens were protected, and so in modern times for its legislative and administrative authorities, has become a sacred duty of the Jewish religious community. To sacrifice one's life willingly, if need be, for the welfare of the country in which he lived, was a demand of loyalty which the Jew has never disregarded. “The law of the State is as the law of God”1019 taught Samuel the Babylonian, and another sage of Babylon said, “The government on earth is to be regarded as an image of God's government in heaven.”1020

8. But, after all, the community of the State or the nation is too confined in its cultural work by its special interests and particular tasks ever to reach the universal ideal of man, that is, a perfected humanity. Where the interests of one State or [pg 321] nation come into conflict with those of another, far too often the result is enmity and murderous warfare. Therefore there must be a higher power to quench the brands of war whenever they flare up, to cultivate every motive leading toward peace and harmony among nations, to impel men toward a higher righteousness and to obviate all conflict of interests, because in place of selfishness it implants in the heart the self-forgetfulness of love. Religion is the power which trains peoples as well as individuals toward the conception of one humanity, in the same measure as it points to the one and only God, Ruler over all the contending motives of men, the Source and Shield of all righteousness, truth, and love, the Father of mankind as the only foundation upon which the grand edifice of human civilization must ultimately rest. Thus it teaches us to regard the common life and endeavor of peoples and societies as one household of divine goodness. Every system of belief, every religious denomination which transcends the limits of the national consciousness with a view to the broader conception of mankind, and binds the national groups and interests into a higher unity to include and influence all the depths and heights of the human spirit, paves the way toward the attainment of the mighty goal. In the same sense the united efforts of the various classes and societies or States for the common advance of culture, prosperity, national welfare and international commerce, as well as of science and art, tend unceasingly toward that full realization of the idea of humanity which constitutes the brotherhood of man.

9. Not yet has any religious body, however great and remarkable its accomplishments may have been, nor any of the religious, scientific, or national organizations, much as they have achieved, performed the sublime task which the prophets of Israel foretold as the goal of history. Each one has drawn to itself only a portion of mankind, and promised it success or redemption and bliss, while the rest have been [pg 322] excluded and denied both temporal and eternal happiness. Each one has singled out one side of human nature in order to link to it the entire absolute truth, but at the same time has underestimated or cast aside all other sides of human life, and thereby blocked the road to complete truth, which can never be presented in final form, nor ever be the exclusive possession of one portion of humanity. Judaism, which is neither a religious nor a national system solely, but aims to be a covenant with God uniting all peoples, lays claim to no exclusive truth, and makes its appeal to no single group of mankind. The Messianic hope, which aims to unite all races and classes of men into a bond of brotherhood, has become an impelling force in the history of the world, and both Christianity and Islam, in so far as they owe their existence to this hope and to the adoption of Jewish teachings, constitute parts of the history of Judaism. Between these world-religions with their wide domains of civilization stands the little Jewish people as a cosmopolitan element. It points to an ideal future, with a humanity truly united in God, when, through ceaseless progress in the pursuit of ever more perfect ideals, truth, justice, and peace will triumph,—to the realization of the kingdom of God.

Chapter XLVIII. The Election of Israel

1. The central point of Jewish theology and the key to an understanding of the nature of Judaism is the doctrine, “God chose Israel as His people.” The election of Israel as the chosen people of God, or, what amounts to the same, as the nation whose special task and historic mission it is to be the bearer of the most lofty truths of religion among mankind, forms the basis and the chief condition of revelation. Before God proclaimed the Ten Words of the Covenant on Sinai, He addressed the people through His chosen messenger, Moses, saying: “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice, indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.”1021

2. The fact of Israel's election by God as His peculiar nation is repeated in Deuteronomy, with the special declaration that God had found delight in them as the smallest of the peoples, on account of the love and the faith He had sworn to the Patriarchs.1022 It is accentuated in the Synagogal liturgy, [pg 324] especially in the prayer for holy days which begins with the words: “Thou hast chosen us from all peoples; Thou hast loved us and found pleasure in us and hast exalted us above all tongues; Thou hast sanctified us by Thy commandments and brought us near unto Thy service, O King, and hast called us by Thy great and holy name.”1023 Inasmuch as the election of Israel is connected with the deliverance of the people from Egypt, the whole relation of the Jewish nation to its God assumes from the outset an essentially different character from that of other nations to their deities. The God of Israel is not inseparably connected with His people by mere natural bonds, as is the case with every other ancient divinity. He is not a national God in the ordinary sense. He has chosen Israel freely of His own accord. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son,” says God through Hosea,1024 and thus prefers to call Himself “thy God from the land of Egypt.” This election from love is echoed also in Jeremiah, who said, “Israel is the Lord's hallowed portion, His first-fruits of the increase.”1025 The moral relation between God and Israel is most clearly characterized, however, by Amos, in the words: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.”1026 Here is stated in explicit terms that the God of history selected Israel as an instrument for His plan of salvation, in the expectation that he would remain faithful to His will.

3. The real purpose of the election and mission of Israel was announced by the great prophet of the Exile when he called Israel the “servant of the Lord,” who has been formed from his mother's bosom and delivered from every other bondage, in order that he may declare the praise of God among the peoples, and be a harbinger of light and a bond of [pg 325] union among the nations, the witness of God, the proclaimer of His truth and righteousness throughout the world.1027 The entire history of Israel as far back as the Patriarchs was reconstructed in this light, and we find the election of Abraham also similarly described in the Psalms1028 and in the liturgy. Indeed, in every morning prayer for the past two thousand years the Jewish people have offered thanks to God for the divine teaching that has been intrusted to their care, and praised Him “who has chosen Israel in love.”1029

4. The belief in the election of Israel rests on the conviction that the Jewish people has a certain superiority over other peoples in being especially qualified to be the messenger and champion of religious truth. In one sense this prerogative takes into account every people which has contributed something unique to any department of human power or knowledge, and therein has served others as pattern and guide. From the broader standpoint, all great historic peoples appear as though appointed by divine providence for their special cultural tasks, in which others can at most emulate them without achieving their greatness. Yet we cannot speak in quite the same way of the election of the Greeks or Romans or of the nations of remote antiquity for mastery in art and science, or for skill in jurisprudence and statecraft. The fact is that these nations were never fully conscious that they had a historic or providential destiny to influence mankind in this special direction. Israel alone was self-conscious, realizing its task as harbinger and defender of its religious truth as soon as it had entered into its possession. Its election, therefore, does not imply presumption, but rather a grave duty and responsibility. As the great seer of the Captivity had already declared, to be the servant of the Lord is to undergo [pg 326] the destiny of suffering, to be “the man of sorrow,” from whose bruises comes healing unto all mankind.1030

5. Accordingly the election of Israel cannot be regarded as a single divine act, concluded at one moment of revelation, or even during the Biblical period. It must instead be considered a divine call persisting through all ages and encompassing all lands, a continuous activity of the spirit which has ever summoned for itself new heralds and heroes to testify to truth, justice, and sublime faith, with an unparalleled scorn for death, and to work for their dissemination by words and deeds and by their whole life. Judaism differs from all other religions in that it is neither the creation of one great moral teacher and preacher of truth, nor seeks to typify the moral and spiritual sublimity which it aims to develop in a single person, who is then lifted up into the realm of the superhuman. Judaism counts its prophets, its sages, and its martyrs by generations; it is still demonstrating its power to reshape and regenerate religion as a vital force. Moreover, Judaism does not separate religion from life, so as to regard only a segment of the common life and the national existence as holy. The entire people, the entire life, must bear the stamp of holiness and be filled with priestly consecration. Whether this lofty aim can ever be completely attained is a question not to be decided by short-sighted humanity, but only by God, the Ruler of history. It is sufficient that the life of the individual as well as that of the people should aspire toward this ideal.

6. Of course, the election of Israel presupposes an inner calling, a special capacity of soul and tendency of intellect which fit it for the divine task. The people which has given mankind its greatest prophets and psalmists, its boldest thinkers and its noblest martyrs, which has brought to fruition the three great world-religions, the Church, the Mosque, and—mother of them both—the Synagogue, must be the [pg 327] religious people par excellence. It must have within itself enough of the heavenly spark of truth and of the impetus of the religious genius as to be able and eager, whenever and wherever the opportunity is favorable, to direct the spiritual flight of humanity toward the highest and holiest. In fact, the soul of the Jewish people reveals a peculiar mingling of characteristics, a union of contrasts, which makes it especially fit for its providential mission in history. Together with the marked individuality of each person we find a common spirit highly sensitive to every encroachment. Here there is a tenacious adherence to what is old and traditional, and there an eager assimilation of what is new and strange. On the one hand, a materialistic self-interest; on the other, an idealism soaring to the stars.1031 The sages of the Tannaitic period already remarked that Israel has been intrusted with the law which it is to defend and to disseminate, just because it is the boldest and most obstinate of nations.1032 On the other hand, the three special characteristics of the Jewish people according to the Talmud are its chastity and purity of life, its benevolence and its active love for humanity.1033 A heathen scoffer calls Israel “a people of generous impulses which promised at Sinai to do what God would command, even before it had hearkened to the commandments.”1034 “Gentle and shy as a dove, it is also willing like the dove to stretch out its neck for the sacrifice, for love of its heavenly Father,” says the Haggadist.1035 And yet R. Johanan remarks that Israel, called to be the bearer of light to the world, must be pressed like the olive before it will yield its precious oil.1036 Every individual in Israel possesses the requisite qualities for a holy priest-people, according to a Midrash of the Tannaitic period, and hence we read in Deuteronomy, “The Lord [pg 328] hath chosen thee to be His own treasure out of all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.”1037

7. All these and similar sayings disprove completely the idea that the election of Israel was an arbitrary act of God. It is due rather to hereditary virtues and to tendencies of mind and spirit which equip Israel for his calling. To this must be added the important fact that God educated the people for its task through the Law, which was to make it conscious of its priestly sanctity and keep it ever active in mind and heart. The election of Israel is emphasized in Deuteronomy especially in connection with the prohibition of marriage with idolaters and with the prohibition of unclean animals, which also originated in the priestly laws.1038 The underlying idea is that the mission of Israel to battle for the Most High imperatively demands separation from the heathen peoples, and on the other hand, that its priestly calling necessitates an especial abstinence. And as has the law in its development and realization for thousands of years, so has also God's wise guidance trained Israel in the course of history so as to render him at times the unyielding preserver and defender and at other times the bold champion and protagonist of the highest truth and justice, according as the outlook and the mental horizon of the period were narrow or broad.

8. It is true that the thought of Israel's calling and mission in world-history first became clear when its prophets and sages attained a view of great world-movements from the lofty watch-tower of the centuries, so that they could take cognizance of the varying relations of Judaism to the civilized peoples around. The summons of the Jewish people to be heralds of truth and workers for peace is first mentioned in Isaiah and Micah,1039 while only in the great movement of nations [pg 329] under Cyrus did the seer of the Exile recognize the peculiar mission of Israel in the history of the world. If in gloomy periods the outlook became dark, still the hope for the fulfillment of this mission was never entirely lost. In fact, the contact of the Jewish people with Greek culture after Alexander the Great gave new power and fresh impetus to the conception of Israel's mission,1040 as the rich Hellenistic literature and the vision of Daniel in chapter VII testify. In fact, Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, became for the earliest Haggadists a wandering missionary and a great preacher of the unity of God, and his picture was the pattern for both Paul and Mohammed.1041 The election of Israel is clearly and unequivocally expressed by Rabbi Eleazar ben Pedath in the words, “God sent Israel among the heathen nations that they may win a rich harvest of proselytes, for, as God said through Hosea, ‘I will sow her unto Me in the land,’ so He wishes from this seed to reap a bountiful and world-wide harvest.”1042

9. In the Middle Ages, when the historical viewpoint and the idea of human progress were both lacking, the belief in the mission of Israel was confined to the Messianic hope. Both Jehuda ha Levi and Maimonides, however, regard Christianity and Islam as preparatory steps for the Messiah, who is to unify the world through the knowledge of God.1043 “The work of the Messiah is the fruit, of which Israel will be universally acknowledged as the root,” says the Jewish sage in the Cuzari. Therefore he rightly accepts the election of Israel as a fundamental doctrine of belief. Modern times, however, with their awakened historical sense and their idea of progress, have again placed in the foreground the belief [pg 330] in the election and mission of Israel. The founders of reform Judaism have cast this ancient doctrine in a new form. On the one hand, they have reinterpreted the Messianic hope in the prophetic spirit, as the realization of the highest ideals of a united humanity. On the other, they have rejected the entire theory that Israel was exiled from his ancient land because of his sins, and that he is eventually to return there and to restore the sacrificial cult in the Temple at Jerusalem. Therefore the whole view concerning Israel's future had to undergo a transformation.1044 The historic mission of Israel as priest of humanity and champion of truth assumed a higher meaning, and his peculiar position in history and in the Law necessarily received a different interpretation from that of Talmudic Judaism or that of the Church. As individuals, indeed, many Jews have taken part in the achievements and efforts of all civilized peoples; the Jewish people as such has accomplished great things in only one field, the field of religion. The following chapters will consider more closely how Judaism has taken up and carried out this sacred mission.

Chapter XLIX. The Kingdom of God and the Mission of Israel

1. The hope of Judaism for the future is comprised in the phrase, “the kingdom of God,”—malkuth shaddai or malkuth Shamayim,—which means the sovereign rule of God. From ancient times the liturgy of the Synagogue concludes regularly with the solemn Alenu, in which God is addressed as the “King of kings of kings”—king of kings being the Persian title for the ruler of the whole Empire—and directly after this the hope is expressed that “we may speedily behold the glory of Thy might, when Thou wilt remove the abominations from the earth, and the idols will be utterly cut off; when the world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty, and all the children of flesh will call upon Thy name; when Thou wilt turn unto Thyself all the wicked of the earth. Let all the inhabitants of the earth perceive and know that unto Thee every knee must bend, and every tongue give homage. Let them all accept the yoke of Thy kingdom, and do Thou reign over them speedily, and forever and ever.”1045 At the close of the Torah lesson in the house of learning the assembly regularly recited the blessing, “Praised be Thy name! May Thy kingdom soon come!”—afterwards known as the Kaddish,1046 and reëchoed in the so-called “Lord's Prayer” of the Church. The words of the prophet, “The Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall the Lord be One, and His name One,”1047 voiced for all ages this ideal of the future, and thus gave a goal and a purpose to the history of the world [pg 332] and at the same time centered it in Israel, the chosen people of God.

2. The establishment of the kingdom of the One and Only God throughput the entire world constitutes the divine plan of salvation toward which, according to Jewish teaching, the efforts of all the ages are tending. This “Kingdom of God” is not, however, a kingdom of heaven in the world to come, which men are to enter only after death, and then only if redeemed from sin by accepting the belief in a supernatural Savior as their Messiah, as is taught by the Church. Judaism points to God's Kingdom on earth as the goal and hope of mankind, to a world in which all men and nations shall turn away from idolatry and wickedness, falsehood and violence, and become united in their recognition of the sovereignty of God, the Holy One, as proclaimed by Israel, His servant and herald, the Messiah of the nations. It is not the hope of bliss in a future life (which is the leading motive of Christianity), but the building up of the divine kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among men by Israel's teaching and practice.1048 In this sense God speaks through the mouth of the prophet, “I will also give thee for a light of the nations, that My salvation may be unto the end of the earth.”1049 “All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”1050 “The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples, as dew from the Lord, as showers upon the grass.”1051

3. Clearly, the idea of a world-kingdom of God arose only as the result of the gradual development of the Jewish God-consciousness. It was necessary at first that the prophetic idea of God's kingship, the theocracy in Israel, should triumph over the monarchical view and absorb it. The patriarchal life of the shepherd was certainly not favorable to a monarchical rule. “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule [pg 333] over you, the Lord shall rule over you,” said Gideon in refusing the title of king which the people had offered him.1052 According to one tradition Samuel blamed the people for desiring a king and thereby rejecting the divine kingship.1053 “I give thee a king in Mine anger,” says God through Hosea.1054 The more the monarchy, with its exclusively worldly and materialistic aims, came into conflict with the demands of the prophets and their religious truth, the higher rose the prophetic hope for the dawning of a day when God alone would rule in absolute sovereignty over the entire world. Now, in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, with its frequently changing dynasties, the old patriarchal conception was dominant, while in the kingdom of Judah, which remained loyal to the house of David, the monarchical idea developed. Isaiah, living in Jerusalem and favorably disposed towards the monarchy, prophesied that a shoot from the house of David, endowed with marvelous spiritual powers, should come forth, occupying the throne in the place of God, and through his victories would plant righteousness and the knowledge of God everywhere upon earth, and establish throughout the world a wonderful reign of peace.1055 Upon this royal “shoot” of David1056 rested the Messianic hope during the Exile, and amidst the disappointments of the time this vision became all the more idealized. In contrast to this the great prophet of the Exile announced the establishment of the absolute dominion of God as the true “King of Israel”1057 over all the earth by the nucleus of Israel, “the servant of God,” who would become conscious of his great historic mission in the world and be willing to offer his very life in its cause. In all this the prophet makes no reference to the royal house of David, but makes [pg 334] bold to confer the title of the “anointed of God”—that is, Messiah—upon Cyrus, the king of Persia, as the one who was to usher in the new era.1058 Subsequently these two divergent hopes for the future run parallel in the Psalms and the liturgy as well as in the apocryphal and rabbinic literature.

4. While the Messianic aspirations as such bore rather a political and national character in Judaism (as will be explained in Chapter LIII), yet the religious hope for a universal kingdom of God took root even more deeply in the heart of the Jewish people. It created the conception of Israel's mission and also the literature and activity of the Hellenistic propaganda, and it gave a new impetus to the making of proselytes among the heathen, to which both Christianity and Islam owe their existence. The words of Isaiah, repeated later by Habakkuk, “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,”1059 became now an article of faith. While in earlier times the rule of Israel's God, JHVH, was attached to Zion, from whose holy mount He ruled as invisible King,1060 later on we find Zechariah proclaiming Him who was enthroned in heaven as having dominion over the entire earth,1061 and the Psalter summons all nations to acknowledge, adore, and extol Him as King of the world.1062 Nay, at the very time when Judah lay humbled to the ground, the prophet exclaimed, “Who would not fear Thee, O King of the nations? for it befitteth Thee; forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royalty there is none like unto Thee.”1063 Israel's great hope for the future is expressed most completely and in most sublime language in the New Year liturgy: “O Lord our God, impose Thine [pg 335] awe upon all Thy works, and let Thy dread be upon all that Thou hast created, that they may all form one single band to do Thy will with a perfect heart.... Our God and God of our fathers, reveal Thyself in Thy splendor as King over all the inhabitants of the world, that every handiwork of Thine may know that Thou hast made it, and every creature may acknowledge 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.”1064

5. In the earlier period, then, the rule of JHVH seems to have been confined to Israel as the people of His covenant. During the Second Temple Jerusalem was called the “city of the great King”1065 and the constitution was considered by Josephus to have been a theocracy, that is, a government by God.1066 Indeed, the entire Mosaic code has as its main purpose to make Israel a “kingdom of priests,” over which JHVH, the God of the covenant, was alone to rule as King. The chief object of the strict nationalists, in opposition to the cosmopolitanism of the Hellenists, was that this government of God, in its intimate association with the Holy Land and the Holy People, should be maintained unchanged for all the future. Thus the book of Daniel predicts the speedy downfall of the fourth world-kingdom and the establishment of the kingdom of God through Israel, “the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.”1067 Naturally, such a purely nationalistic conception of the rulership of God does not admit the thought of a mission or its corollary, the conversion of the heathen.1068 These appear among the liberal school of Hillel in their opposition to the more rigorous Shammaites and the party of the Zealots.1069 It is, therefore, quite consistent that the modern nationalists should again dispute the mission of Israel.

[pg 336]

6. As soon as Jewish monotheism had once been conceived by the Jewish mind as the universal truth, the idea of the mission of Israel as a bearer of light and a witness of God for the nations, as enunciated by Deutero-Isaiah, became ever more firmly established. Many Psalms exhort the people to make known the wondrous doings of God among the nations, so that the heathen world might at last acknowledge the One and Only God.1070 Nay, Israel is even called God's anointed and prophet,1071 and in one Psalm we find Zion, the city of God, elevated to be the religious metropolis of the world.1072 The book of Jonah is simply a refutation of the narrow nationalistic conception of Judaism; it holds forth the hope of the conversion of the heathen to the true knowledge of God. In the same spirit Ruth the Moabitess became the type of the heathen who are eager to “take refuge under the wings of God's majesty.”1073 The author of the book of Job no longer knows of a national God; to him God is the highest ideal of morality as it lives and grows in the human heart. The wisdom literature also teaches a God of humanity. Under His wings Shem and Japheth, the teaching of the Jew and the wisdom of the Greek, can join hands; the religious truth of the one and the philosophic truth of the other may harmoniously blend.

7. Thus a new impulse was given to Jewish proselytism in Alexandria, and the earlier history of Israel, especially the pre-Israelite epoch with its simple human types, was read in a new light. Enoch1074 and Noah1075 became preachers of penitence, heralds of the pure monotheism from which the heathen world had departed. Abraham especially, the progenitor of Israel, was looked upon as a prototype of the wandering [pg 337] missionary people, converting the heathen.1076 Wherever he journeyed, his teaching and his example of true benevolence won souls for the Lord proclaimed by him as the “God of the heaven and the earth.”1077 In this sense of missionary activity were now interpreted the words, “Be thou a blessing ... and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”1078 This was no longer understood in the original sense, that Abraham by his prosperity should be an example of a blessed man, to be pointed out in blessing others; the words were given the higher meaning that Abraham with his descendants should become a source of blessing for mankind through his teachings and his conduct, so that all the families of men should attain blessing and salvation by following his doctrine and example. Thus the idea of the Jewish mission was connected with Abraham, the “father of a multitude of nations,”1079 and this was later on adopted by Paul and Mohammed in establishing the Church and the Mosque.

8. In contradistinction, then, to the political concept of the kingdom of God, which Ezekiel still hoped to see established by the exercise of external power,1080 the idea assumed now a purely spiritual meaning. This kingdom of God is accepted by the pious Jew every morning through his confession of the divine Unity in the Shema. Abraham had anticipated this, say the rabbis, when he swore by the God of heaven and earth, and so also had Israel in accepting the Torah at Sinai and at the Red Sea.1081 In fact, the kingdom of God began, we are told, with the first man, since, when he adored God freely as King of the world, every living creature acknowledged Him also. But only when Israel as a people proclaimed God's dominion at the Red Sea, was the throne [pg 338] of God and His kingdom on earth established for eternity.1082 And when Ezekiel says: “With a mighty hand will I be King over you,” they explain this to mean that the people chosen as the servant of God will be continually constrained anew by the prophets to recognize His kingdom.1083 Yea, the closing words of the Song at the Red Sea, “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever” were taken to imply that all the nations would in the end recognize only Israel's One God as King of the world.1084 As a matter of fact, the rabbinical view is that every proselyte, in “taking upon himself the yoke of the sovereignty of God,” enters that divine Kingdom which at the end of time will embrace all men and nations.1085 In the book of Tobit and the Sibylline Oracles also we find this universalistic conception of the Messianic age expressed.1086

9. Accordingly, proselytism found open and solemn recognition both before and after the time of the Maccabees, as we see in the Psalms,—especially those which speak of proselytes in the term, “they that fear the Lord,”1087 and also in the ancient synagogal liturgy, where the “proselytes of righteousness” are especially mentioned.1088 The school of Hillel followed precisely this course. Matters changed, however, under the Roman dominion, which was contrasted to the dominion of God especially from the time of Herod, when the belief became current that “only when the one is destroyed, will the other arise.”1089 Particularly after the Christian Church had become identified with Rome, all missionary endeavors by the Jews were considered dangerous and were therefore discouraged as much as possible. In their [pg 339] place arose the hope for a miraculous intervention of God. In Hellenistic circles the Messiah was believed to be the future founder of the kingdom of God,1090 which assumed more and more of an other-worldly nature, such as the Church developed for it later on.

10. The more the harsh oppression of the times forced the Jew to isolate himself and to spend his life in studying and practicing the law,—which was tantamount to “placing himself under the kingdom of God,”1091 the more he lost sight of his sublime mission for the world at large. Only individual thinkers, such as Jehuda ha Levi and Maimonides, kept a vision of the world-mission of Israel, when they called Jesus and Mohammed, as founders of Christianity and Islam, messengers of God to the idolatrous nations, divinely appointed to bring them nearer to Israel's truth,1092 or when they pointed forward to the time when all peoples will recognize in the truth their common mother and in God the Father of all mankind.1093 A most instructive Midrash on Zechariah IX, 9 gives the keynote of this belief. “At that time God as the King of Zion will speak to the righteous of all times, and say to them, ‘Dear as the words of My teaching are to Me, yet have ye erred in that ye have followed only My Torah, and have not waited for My world-kingdom. I swear to you that I shall remember for good him who has waited for My kingdom, as it is said, Wait ye for Me until the day that I rise up as a witness.’ ”1094

On the other hand, it was owing to the sad consequences of the missionary endeavors of the Church that the idea of the mission of Judaism was given a different direction. Not conversion, but conviction by teaching and example, is the [pg 340] historic task of Judaism, whose maxim is expressed in the verse of Zechariah, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”1095 It is not the creed, but the deed, which tells. Not the confession, but conduct, with the moral principles which govern it, counts. Such a view is implied in the well-known teaching of Joshua ben Hananiah, “The righteous of all nations will have a share in the world of eternal bliss.”1096 Judaism does not deny salvation to those professing other religions, which would tend to undermine the foundation of their spiritual life. Standing upon the high watchtower of time, it rather strives ever to clarify and strengthen the universal longing for truth and righteousness which lies at the heart of all religion, and is thus to become a bond of union, an all-illuminating light for the world. To quote the beautiful words of Leopold Stein in his Schrift des Lebens:1097 “Judaism, while recognizing the historic justification of all systems of thought and faith, does not cherish the ambition to become the Church Universal in the usual sense of the term, but aims rather to be the focus, or mirror, of religious unity for all the rest. ‘The people from of old,’ as the prophet called them, are to accompany mankind in its progress through the ages and the continents, until it reaches the goal of the kingdom of God on earth, the ‘new heaven and new earth’ of the prophetic vision.”1098 The thought of the Jewish mission is most adequately expressed in the Neilah service of the Union Prayer Book, based upon the Einhorn Prayerbook, which reads as follows:1099 “Endow us, our Guardian, with strength and patience for our holy mission. Grant that all the children of Thy people may recognize the goal of our changeful career, so that they may exemplify by their zeal and love for mankind the truth of Israel's watchword: One humanity on earth, even as there is but One God [pg 341] in heaven. Enlighten all that call themselves by Thy name with the knowledge that the sanctuary of wood and stone, which erst crowned Zion's hill, was but a gate through which Israel should step out into the world, to reconcile all mankind unto Thee!”

Chapter L. The Priest-people and its Law of Holiness

1. The checkered, stormy, and yet triumphant march of the Jewish people through the ages remains the great enigma of history for all those who do not believe in a divine plan of salvation to be consummated through Israel. The idea of Israel's mission alone throws light on its law and its destiny. Even before God had revealed to the people at Mt. Sinai the Ten Commandments, the foundation of all religion and morality, and there concluded with them a covenant for all time, He spoke: “Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” thus consecrating them to be a priest-people among the nations, and enjoining them to a life of especial holiness. Possessing as a heritage from the Patriarchs the germ of a higher religious consciousness, in distinction from all other peoples, they were to make the cultivation, development, and promotion of the highest religious truth their life-task, and thus to become the people of God. At first they were to establish in the Holy Land a theocratic government, a State in which God alone was the Ruler, while they lived in priestly isolation from all the nations around. Thus they prepared themselves for the time when, scattered over all the earth, they might again work as the priest-people through the ages for the upbuilding of the universal kingdom of God. This was Israel's destiny from the very first, as expressed by the great seer of the Exile when he beheld Israel wandering forth among the nations, “Ye shall be named the [pg 343] priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God.”1100

2. Among all religions the priest is considered especially holy as the mediator between God and man, and in his appearance as well as in his mode of life he must observe special forms of purity and holiness. He alone may approach the Godhead, ascertain its will, and administer the sacrificial cult in the sanctuary. He must represent the Divinity in its relation to the people, embody it in his outward life, enjoy nothing which it abhors, and touch nothing which could render him impure. These priestly rules exist among all the nations of antiquity in striking similarity, and indicate a common origin in the prehistoric period, during which the entire cult developed through a priestly caste, beginning with simple, primitive conceptions and transmitted in ever more elaborate form from father to son. It goes without saying that the priests of the original Hebrew race, which migrated from Babylonia, retained the ancient customs and rules. They must also have adopted many other things from neighboring peoples. During the entire period of the first temple, the priests—despite all prophetic warnings—preferred the heathen cult with its vainglorious pomp to the simple worship of the patriarchal times. As everywhere else, the priesthood of Israel, and later of Judæa as well, thought only of its own interests, of the retention of its ancient prerogatives, unmindful of the higher calling to which it had been chosen, to serve the God of truth and justice, to exemplify true holiness, to stand for moral rather than ceremonial purity. Yet the sacerdotal institutions were indispensable so long as the people required a sanctuary where the Deity should dwell, and where the sacrificial cult should be administered. Every trespass by a layman on the sanctuary reserved for the priests was considered sacrilege and called for divine punishment. [pg 344] It was thus necessary to deepen the popular notion of holiness and of the reverence due the sanctuary, before these could be elevated into the realm of spirituality and morality. The priesthood had to be won for the service of the loftier religious ideas, so that it might gradually educate the people in general for its sublime priestly mission. This conception underlies both the Mosaic law and its rabbinical interpretation.

3. Through Biblical and post-Biblical literature and history there runs a twofold tendency, one anti-sacerdotal,—emanating from the prophets and later the Hasideans or Pharisees,—the other a mediating tendency, favorable to the priesthood. The ritualistic piety of the priests was bitterly assailed by the prophets as being subversive of all morality, and later on the Sadducean hierarchy also constituted a threat to the moral and spiritual welfare of the people. Before even the revelation at Sinai was to take place, we read that warning was given to the priests “not to break through” and stand above the people.1101

On the other hand, the law demands of the Aaronites a peculiar degree of holiness, since “they offer the bread of their God upon the altar.”1102 Their blood must be kept pure by the avoidance of improper marriages. Everything unclean or polluting must be kept far from them.1103 The law, following a tradition which probably arose in ancient Babylon, prescribed minutely their mode of admission into the divine service, their vestments and their conditions of life, the ritual of sacrifice and of purity; and every violation of these laws, every trespass by a layman, was declared to be punishable with death.1104 The sanctuary contains no room for the nation of priests; no layman durst venture to cross its threshold. Even in the legal system of the rabbis the ancient rights and privileges of the priesthood, dating from the time when they [pg 345] possessed no property, remained inviolate, and their precedence in everything was undisputed.1105

The glaring contrast between the idea of a universal priesthood of the people and the institution of the Aaronites is explained by a deeper insight into history. The success of the reformation under Josiah on the basis of the Deuteronomic code rested in the last analysis on the fact that the priests of the house of Zadok at Jerusalem were placed in the service of the higher prophetic teaching by being rendered the guardians, executors, and later, in conjunction with the Levites, the teachers of the Law, as it was presented in the book of the law of Moses, soon afterward completed. The priesthood, deprived of everything that might remind one of the former idolatry and heathenish practices, was, in its purer and holier character, to lead the priest-people to true moral holiness through its connection with the sanctuary and its ancient cult. Still the impulse for the moral rebirth of the nation, for the establishment of a priest-people, did not emanate from the Temple priesthood, nor even from the sacred soil of Palestine; but from the Synagogue, which began in the Exile, under the influence of the prophetic word and the Levitical song, in the form of public worship by the congregation of the pious. Here arose a generation of godly men, a class of singularly devout ones, living in priestly holiness, who consecrated their lives to the practice of the law, and whom the exile seer had designated as the true Israel, the servant of the Lord, and these formed the nucleus of the renewed Israel.

4. That which the prophet Ezekiel had attempted in his proposed constitution1106 was accomplished in a far more thorough manner by the Holiness Code, which emanated from his school and became the central portion of the Mosaic books, and by the so-called Priestly Code, which followed later. The object was to bring about the sanctification of [pg 346] the entire people upon the holy soil of the national land, through institutions embodying the ideal of the holiness of God in the life and cult of the people. Circumcision, idealized by the prophetic author of Deuteronomy,1107 was to be made the sign of the covenant to mark as holy the progeny of Abraham;1108 strict laws of marriage were to put an end to all heathenish unchastity; the Sabbath rest was to consecrate the labors of the week, the Sabbatical month and year the produce of the soil.1109 The prohibition of unclean foods, heretofore reserved, as among other nations, for the priests and other consecrated persons, was now applied to the whole community in order that Israel should learn “to set itself apart from all other nations as a holy people.”1110 Even their apparel was to proclaim the priestly holiness of the people by a blue fringe at the border of the garments.1111

Whereas from the time of Ezra to Simon the Just priestly rulers endeavored to promote the work of educating the people for holiness, the pious men from among the people made still greater efforts to assert the claim of holiness for the entire Jewish people as a priest-nation.1112 The repasts of these pious fellowships should be in no way inferior in sanctity to those of the priests in the Temple. New ceremonies of sanctification were to open and close the Sabbaths and festivals. Symbols of priestly consecration should adorn forehead and arm in the form of the phylacteries (tefillin), and should be placed at the entrance of every house in the so-called mezuzzah. “God has given unto all an heritage (the Torah), the kingdom, the priesthood, and the sanctuary”1113—this became the leitmotif for the Pharisaic school, who constantly enlarged the domain of piety so that it should include [pg 347] the whole of life. Whoever did not belong to this circle of the pious was regarded with scorn as one of the lower class (am ha-aretz).

5. The chief effort of the pious, the founders of the Judaism of the Synagogue, was to keep the Jewish people from the demoralizing influences of pagan nature-worship, represented first by Semitic and later by Greek culture. The leaders of the Pharisees “built a fence about the law”1114 extending the prohibition of mingling with the heathen nations so as also to prohibit eating with them and participating in their feasts and social gatherings,—not for the preservation of the Jewish race merely, as Christian theologians maintain, but for the sake of keeping its inner life intact and pure.1115 “God surrounded us with brazen walls, hedged us in with laws of purity in regard to food and drink and physical contact, yea, even to that which we see and hear, in order that we should be pure in body and soul, free from absurd beliefs, not polluted by contact with others or through association with the wicked; for most of the peoples defile themselves with their sexual practices, and whole lands pride themselves upon it. But we hold ourselves aloof from all this”—so spoke Eleazar the priest to King Ptolemy Philadelphus, according to the Letter of Aristeas, thus giving expression to the sentiment most deeply rooted in the souls of the pious of that period.1116 They strove to build up a nation of whom the Tannaim could say, “Whoever possesses no sense of shame and chastity, of him it is certain that his ancestors did not stand at Sinai.”1117

Naturally enough, the Greek and Roman people took offense at this aloofness and separation from every contact with the outer world, and explained it as due to a spirit of hostility to mankind. Even up to the present it has been the lot of Jewry and Judaism to be misunderstood by the world [pg 348] at large, to be the object of either its hate or its pity. The world disregards the magnificence of the plan by which an entire people were to be reared as a priest-nation, as citizens of a kingdom of God, among whom, in the course of centuries, the seed of prophetic truth was to germinate and sprout forth for the salvation of humanity. If, in complete contrast to heathen immorality, the Jew in his life, his thinking, and his will was governed by the strictest moral discipline; if, in spite of the most cruel persecutions and the most insidious temptations, the Jewish people remained steadfast to its pure belief in God and its traditional standards of chastity, exhibiting a loyalty which amazed the nations and the religious sects about, but was neither understood nor followed by them, this was mainly due to the hallowing influences of the priestly laws. They steeled the people for the fulfillment of their duty and shielded them against all hostile powers both within and without. The very burden of the law, so bitterly denounced by Christianity since the time of Paul, lent Judaism its dignity at all times, protecting it from the assaults of the tempter; and that which seemed to the outsider a heavy load was to the Jew a source of pride in the consciousness of his divine election.1118

6. But most significant in the character and development of Judaism is the fact that all the leading ideas and motives which emanated from the priesthood of the Jewish people were concentrated in one single focus, the hallowing of the name of God. Two terms expressed this idea in both a negative and a positive form, the warning against “Hillul ha Shem”—profanation of the name of God—and the duty of “Kiddush ha Shem”—sanctification of God's name. These exerted a marvelous power in curbing the passions and self-indulgence of the Jew and in spurring him on to the greatest [pg 349] possible self-sacrifice and to an unparalleled willingness to undergo suffering and martyrdom for the cause. These terms are derived from the Biblical verse, “Ye shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel; I am the Lord who halloweth you.”1119 This verse forms the concluding sentence of the precepts for the Aaronitic priesthood and warns them as the guardians of the sanctuary to do nothing which might in the popular estimation degrade them or the divine cause intrusted to them. When, however, during the Maccabean wars, the little band of the pious proved themselves to be the true priesthood in their Opposition to the faithless Aaronites, offering their very lives as a sacrifice for the preservation of the true faith in God, the Scriptural word received a new and higher meaning. It came to signify the obligation of the entire priest-people to consecrate the name of God by the sacrifice of their lives, and also their duty to guard against its profanation by any offensive act. In connection with this Scriptural passage the sages represent God as saying, “I have brought you out of Egypt only on the condition that you are ready to sacrifice your lives, if need be, to consecrate My name.”1120 From that period it became a duty and even a law of Judaism, as Maimonides shows in his Code, for each person in life and in death to bear witness to His God.1121 “Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and I am God”1122—and witnesses being in the Greek version martyrs, the word afterward received the meaning of “blood-witnesses.”—This passage of the prophet is commented on by Simeon ben Johai, one of the great teachers who suffered under Hadrian's persecution, in the following words, “If ye become My witnesses, then am I your Lord, God of the world; but if ye do not witness to Me, I cease to [pg 350] be, as it were, the Lord, God of all the world.”1123 That is to say, it is the martyrdom of the pious which glorifies God's name before all the world. Or, as Felix Perles says so beautifully, “As every good and noble man must ever bear in mind that the dignity of humanity is intrusted to his hand, so should each earnest adherent of the Jewish faith remember that the glory of God is intrusted to his care.”1124 The Jewish people has fulfilled this priestly task through a martyrdom of over two thousand years and has scornfully resisted every demand to abandon its faith in God, not consenting to do so even in appearance. Surely historians or philosophers who can ridicule or commiserate such resistance betray a hatred which blinds their sense of justice. As a matter of fact, it was the consciousness of the Jewish people of its priestly mission that has made it a pattern of loyalty for all time.

7. Moreover, the fear of profaning the divine name became the highest incentive to, and safeguard of the morality of the Jew. Every misdeed toward a non-Jew is considered by the teachers of Judaism a double sin, yea, sometimes, an unpardonable one, because it gives a false impression of the moral standard of Judaism and infringes upon the honor of God as well as that of man. The disciples of Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach once bought an ass for him from an Arab, and to their joy found a precious stone in its collar. “Did the seller know of this gem?” asked the master. On being answered in the negative, he called out angrily, “Do you consider me a barbarian? Return the Arab his precious stone immediately!” And when the heathen received it back, he cried out, “Praised be the God of Simeon ben Shetach!”1125 Thus the conscientious Jew honors his God by his conduct, says the Talmud, referring to this and many similar examples. Such lessons of the Jew's responsibility for the recognition [pg 351] of the high moral purity of his religion have ever constituted a high barrier against immoral acts.

The words, “Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” form significantly the introduction to the chapter on the love of man, the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, placed at the very center of the entire Priestly Code. “Your self-sanctification sanctifies Me, as it were,” says God to Israel, according to the interpretation of this verse by the sages.1126 In contrast to heathendom, which deifies nature with its appeal to the senses, Judaism teaches that holiness is a moral quality, as it means the curbing of the senses. And in order to prevent Israel, the bearer of this ideal of holiness, from sinking into the mire of heathen wantonness and lust, the separation of the Jew from the heathen world, whether in his domestic or social life, was a necessity and became the rule and maxim of his life for that period. All the many prohibitions and commands had for their object the purification of the people in order to render the highest moral purity a hereditary virtue among them, according to the rabbis.1127

8. It is true that the accumulation of “law upon law, prohibition upon prohibition” by the rabbis had eventually the same injurious effect which it had exerted upon the priests in the Temple. The formal law, “the precepts learned by rote,” became the important factor, while their purpose was lost to sight. The shell smothered the kernel, and blind obedience to the letter of the law came to be regarded as true piety. It cannot be denied that adherence to the mere form, which was transmitted from the Temple practice to the legalism of the Pharisees and the later rabbinic schools with their casuistry, impaired and tarnished the lofty prophetic ideal of holiness. It almost seems as if the clarion notes of such sublime passages as that of the Psalmist,

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no longer found its full resonance in the heart of Judaism. In the practice of external acts of piety religion became petrified and the spirit took flight. That which is of secondary importance became of primary consideration. This is the fundamental error into which the practice and the development of the Law in Judaism lapsed, and to which no careful observer can or dares close his eyes. Undoubtedly the Law, as it embraced the whole of life in its power, sharpened the Jewish sense of duty, and served the Jew as an iron wall of defense against temptations, aberrations, and enticements of the centuries. As soon as the modern Jew, however, undertook to free himself from the tutelage of a blind acceptance of authority and inquired after the purpose of all the restrictions which the Law laid upon him, his ancient loyalty to the same collapsed and the pillars of Judaism seemed to be shaken. Then the leaders of Reform, imbued with the prophetic spirit, felt it to be their imperative duty to search out the fundamental ideas of the priestly law of holiness, and, accordingly, they learned how to separate the kernel from the shell. In opposition to the orthodox tendency to worship the letter, they insisted on the fact that Israel's separation from the world—which it is ultimately to win for the divine truth—cannot itself be its end and aim, and that blind obedience to the law does not constitute true piety. Only the fundamental idea, that Israel as the “first-born” among the nations has been elected as a priest-people, must remain our imperishable truth, a truth to which the centuries of history bear witness by showing that it has given its life-blood as a ransom for humanity, and is ever bringing new sacrifices for its cause.

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Only because it has kept itself distinct as a priest-people among the nations could it carry out its great task in history; and only if it remains conscious of its priestly calling and therefore maintains itself as the people of God, can it fulfill its mission. Not until the end of time, when all of God's children will have entered the kingdom of God, may Israel, the high-priest among the nations, renounce his priesthood.

Chapter LI. Israel, the People of the Law, and its World Mission

1. Judaism differs from all the ancient religions chiefly in its intrusting its truth to the whole people instead of a special priesthood. The law which “Moses commanded us is an inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob,”1129 is the Scriptural lesson impressed upon every Jew in early childhood. As soon as the Torah passed from the care of the priests into that of the whole nation, the people of the book became the priest-nation, and set forth to conquer the world by its religious truth. This aim was expressed by all the prophets beginning with Moses, who said: “Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His spirit upon them.”1130 The prophetic ideal was that “they shall all know Me (God), from the least of them unto the greatest of them,”1131 and that “all thy (Zion's) children shall be taught of the Lord.”1132 After the people came to realize that the Law was “their wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples,”1133 they soon felt the hope that one day “the isles shall wait for His teaching,”1134 and confidently expected the time when “many peoples shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”1135 Once liberated from the dominance of the priesthood, religion [pg 355] became the instrument of universal instruction, the factor of general spiritual and moral advancement. In addition it endowed humanity with an educational ideal, destined to regenerate its moral life far more deeply than Greek culture could ever do. The object was to elevate all classes of the people by the living word of God, by the reading and expounding of the Scripture for the dissemination of its truth among the masses.

2. Those who define Judaism as a religion of law completely misunderstand its nature and its historic forces. This is done by all those Christian theologians who endeavor to prove the extraordinary assertion of the apostle Paul that the Jewish people was providentially destined to produce the Old Testament law and become enmeshed in it, like the silkworm in its cocoon, finally to dry up and perish, leaving its prophetic truth for the Church. This fateful misconception of Judaism is based upon a false interpretation of the word Torah, which denotes moral and spiritual instruction as often as law, and thus includes all kinds of religious teaching and knowledge together with its primary meaning, the written and the oral codes.1136 In fact, in post-Biblical times it comprised the entire religion, as subject of both instruction and scientific investigation. True, law is fundamental in Jewish history; Israel accepted the divine covenant on the basis of the Sinaitic code; the reforms of King Josiah were founded on the Deuteronomic law;1137 and the restoration of the Judean commonwealth was based upon the completed Mosaic code brought from Babylon by Ezra the Scribe.1138 This book of law, with its further development and interpretation, remained the normative factor for Judaism for all time. Still, from the very beginning the Law of the [pg 356] covenant contained a certain element which distinguished it from all the priestly and political codes of antiquity. Beside the traditional juridical and ritualistic statutes, which betray a Babylonian origin, it contains laws and doctrines of kindness toward the poor and helpless, the enemy and the slave, even toward the dumb beast, in striking contrast to the spirit of cruelty and violence in the Babylonian law.1139 In the name of the all-seeing, all-ruling God it appeals to the sympathy of man. These exhortations to tenderness increase in later codes of law under the prophetic influence, until finally the rabbis extended them as far as possible. They held that every negligence which leads to the loss of life or property by the neighbor, every neglect of a domestic animal, even every act of deceit by which one attempts to “steal” the good opinion of one's fellow-men, is a violation of the law.1140 Hence Rabbi Simlai, the Haggadist, said that from beginning to end the Law is but a system of teachings of human love,1141 while another sage tried to prove from the books of Moses that God implanted mercy, modesty, and benevolence in the souls of Israel as hereditary virtues.1142 In the same spirit Rabbi Meir described the law of Israel as the law of humanity, supporting his statement by a number of biblical passages.1143

3. But, as light by its very nature illumines its surroundings, so the Torah in the possession of the Jewish people was certain to become the light of mankind. First of all, the book of Law itself insists that the father shall teach the word of God to his children, using many signs and ceremonies that they may meditate on the works of God and walk in [pg 357] the path of virtue, and that the divine commands should be “in the mouth and in the heart of all to do them.”1144 It was made incumbent upon the high priest or king to read the Law at least once every seven years to the whole people assembled in the holy city for the autumnal festival,—men, women, children, and the sojourners in the gates,—so that it should become their common property.1145 This precept probably gave rise to the triennial and later the annual system of Torah reading on the Sabbath. But in addition to the book of Law the prophetic words of consolation were read to the people, a custom which originated in the Babylonian exile, and was continued under the name of Haftarah (“dismissal” of the congregation).1146 The seer of the exile refers to these prophetic words of comfort which were offered to the people on the Sabbath as well as other feasts and fasts: “Attend unto Me, O My people, and give ear unto Me, O My nation, for instruction (Torah) shall go forth from Me, and My right on a sudden for a light of the people.... Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law; fear ye not the taunt of men, neither be ye dismayed at their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but My favor shall be forever, and My salvation unto all generations.”1147 Moved by such stirring ideals, Synagogues arose in Jewish settlements all over the globe, and the book of the Law, in its vernacular versions, Greek and Aramaic, together with the words of the prophets, became the general source of instruction. In the words of the Psalms, it became “the testimony of the Lord, making wise the simple,” “rejoicing the heart,” “enlightening the eyes,” “more to be desired than gold.”1148 Nay more, the [pg 358] study of the Law became the duty of every man, and he who failed to live up to the precepts of the devotees of the Law, the Pharisean fellowships, was scorned as belonging to the lower class, am haaretz. Every morning the pious Jew, first thanking God for the light of day, followed this up by thanking Him for the Torah, which illumines the path of life. “The welfare of society rests upon the study of the Law, divine service and organized charity,” was a saying of Simon the Just, a high priest of the beginning of the third pre-Christian century.1149 Thus learning and teaching became leading occupations for the Jew, and the two main departments of Jewish literature, correspondingly, are Torah and Talmud, that is, the written Law and its exposition. Indeed, the highest title which the rabbis could find for Moses was simply “Moses our Teacher.” Nay, God Himself was frequently represented as a venerable Master, teaching the Law in awful majesty.1150

4. Later under the successive influence of Babylonian and Greek culture, the wisdom literature was added to the Prophets and the Psalms, giving to the whole Torah a universal scope, like that claimed for Greek philosophy. The Jewish love of learning led to an ever greater longing for truth by adding the wisdom of other cultured nations to its own store of knowledge. This motive for universalism became all the stronger, as the faith became more centered in the sublime conception of God as Master of all the world. As the God of Israel appeared the primal source of all truth, so the revealed word of God was considered the very embodiment of divine wisdom.1151 In fact, the men of hoary antiquity described in the opening chapters of Genesis were actually credited with being the instructors of the Greeks and other [pg 359] nations.1152 We read a strange story by a pupil of Aristotle that the great sage admired a Jew, whom he happened to meet, as both wise and pious, so that the little Jewish nation was often considered, like the wise men of India, to be a sect of philosophers.1153 Indeed, Judaism became a matter of curiosity to the pagan world on account of the Synagogue, which attracted them as a unique center of religious devotion and instruction, and especially because of the Bible, which was read and expounded in its Greek garb from Sabbath to Sabbath. The Jewish people raised themselves to be a nation of thinkers, and largely through association with Greek thought. For example, in the Greek translation of the Scriptures all anthropomorphic expressions are avoided. As the personal name of Israel's God of the covenant, JHVH, was replaced by the name Adonai, “the Lord,”1154 the universality of the Jewish God became still more evident. Thus the pagan world could find God in the Scriptures to be the living God who dwells in the heart and is sought by all mankind. The Jew became the herald of the One God of the universe, his Bible a book of universal instruction. Many of the heathen, without merging themselves into the community of the covenant people and without accepting all its particularistic customs, rallied around its central standard as simple theists, “worshipers of God,” or “they who fear the Lord,” according to the terminology of the Psalms.1155

5. An old rabbinical legend, which is reflected in the New Testament miracle of Pentecost, relates that the Ten Words of Sinai were uttered in seventy tongues of fire to reach [pg 360] the known seventy nations of the earth.1156 We are told that when the people entered Canaan, the words of the Law were engraved in seventy languages on the stones of the altar at Mount Ebal.1157 That is, the law of Sinai was intended to provide the foundation for all human society. One Haggadist even asserts that the heathen nations all refused to accept the Law, and if Israel also had rejected it, the world would have returned to chaos.1158 Israel was, so to speak, forced by divine Providence to accept the Law on behalf of the entire race. Hillel, under the Romanized reign of Herod, was fully conscious of this world-mission when he said: “Love your fellow creatures and lead them to the study of the Law.”1159

6. The outlook for the Jewish people, however, became darker and darker through its struggle with Rome. The fanatical Zealots entirely opposed the spreading of the knowledge of the Torah among those who did not belong to the household of Israel.1160 Then the Church sent forth her missionaries to convert the pagan world by constant concessions to its polytheistic views and practices. The seed sown by Hellenistic Judaism yielded a rich harvest for the Church, even though it was won at the sacrifice of pure Jewish monotheism. The Ten Words of Sinai, the Mosaic laws of marriage, the poor laws, and other Biblical statutes became the cornerstone of civilization, but in a different guise; the heritage of Judaism was transplanted to the Christian and Mohammedan world in a new garb and under a new name. Henceforth the Jew, dispersed, isolated, and afflicted, had to struggle to preserve his faith in its pristine purity. The very danger besetting the study of the Law during [pg 361] the Hadrianic persecutions, which followed the Bar Kochba revolt, increased his zeal and courage. “Devoid of the Torah, our vital element, we are surely threatened with death,” said Rabbi Akiba, applying to himself the fable of the fox and the fishes, as he defied the Roman edict.1161 The fear lest the Torah should be forgotten, stimulated the teachers and their disciples ever anew to its pursuit. The Torah was regarded as the bond and pledge of God's nearness; hence the many rabbinical sayings concerning its value in the eyes of God, which are frequently couched in poetic and extravagant language.1162 The underlying idea of them all is that Israel could dispense with its State and its Temple, but not with its storehouse of divine truth, from which it constantly derives new life and new youth.

7. One important question, however, remains, which must be answered: Has the Jewish people, shut up for centuries by the ramparts of Talmudic Judaism, actually renounced its world mission? In transmitting part of its inheritance to its two daughter-religions, has Judaism lost its claim to be a world-religion? The Congregation of Israel, according to the Midrash, answers this question in the words of the Shulamite in the Song of Songs: “I sleep, but my heart waketh.”1163 During the sad period of the Middle Ages, Judaism in its relation to the outer world slept a long winter-sleep, now in one land and now in another, but its inner life always manifested a splendid activity of mind and soul, exerting a mighty influence upon the history of the world. It was declared dead by the ruling Church, and yet it constantly filled her with alarm by the truths it uttered. The Jewish people was given over to destruction and persecution a thousand times, but all the floods of hatred and [pg 362] violence could not quench its flame. Its marvelous endurance constituted the strongest possible protest against the creed of the Church, which claimed to possess an exclusive truth and the only means of salvation. To suffer and die as martyrs by thousands and tens of thousands, at the stake and under the torture of bloodthirsty mobs, testifying to the One Only God of Israel and humanity, was, to say the least, as heroic a mission as to convert the heathen. Indeed, the Jew, in reciting the Shema each morning in the house of God, renewed daily his zeal and faith, by which he was encouraged to sacrifice himself for his sacred heritage.

8. But the cultivation of the Torah, obligatory upon every Jew, effected more even than the preservation of monotheism. Alongside of the Church, which did its best to suppress free thought, Islam provided a culture which encouraged study and investigation, and this brought the leading spirits in Judaism to a profounder grasp of their own literary treasures. Bold truth-seekers arose under the Mohammedan sway who had the courage to break the chains of belief in the letter of the Scripture, and to claim the right of the human reason to give an opinion on the highest questions of religion. The leading authorities of the Synagogue followed a different course from that of the Church, which had brought the Deity into the sphere of the senses, divided the one God into three persons, and induced the people to worship the image of Mary and her God-child rather than God the Father. They insisted on the absolute unity and spirituality of God, eliminated all the human attributes ascribed to Him in Scripture, and strove to attain the loftiest and purest possible conception of His being. It took a mighty effort for the people of the Law to reëxamine the entire mass of tradition in order to harmonize philosophy and religion, and invest the divine revelation with the highest spiritual character. This mental activity exerted a great influence [pg 363] upon the whole course of thought of subsequent centuries and even upon modern philosophy. Again Israel became conscious of his mission of light. Jewish thinkers, often combining rabbi, physician, and astronomer in one person, carried the torch of science and free investigation, directly or indirectly, into the cell of many a Christian monk, rousing the dull spirit of the Middle Ages and bringing new intellectual nurture to the Church, else she might have starved in her mental poverty.

The Jews of Spain became the teachers of Christian Europe. The forerunners of the Protestant Reformation sat at the feet of Jewish masters. Jewish students of the Hebrew language, scientifically trained, opened up the simple meaning of the Scriptural word, so long hidden by traditional interpretation. The Lutheran and the English translations of the Bible were due to their efforts, and thus also the rise of Protestantism, which inaugurated the modern era. Yet this intellectual revival, this wonderful activity of various thinkers among medieval Jewry, required a soil susceptible to such seeds, an atmosphere favorable to this intense search for truth. This existed only in the Jewish people, since the universal study of the Torah brought it about that “all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings” even while dense darkness covered the nations of the medieval world.

9. We must not underrate the cultural mission of the Jewish people, with its striking contrast to the New Testament point of view, which created monasteries and the celibate ideal, and thus discouraged industry, commerce, and scientific inquiry. Dispersed as they were, the Jewish people cultivated both commerce and science, and thus for centuries were the real bearers of culture, the intermediaries between East and West. While the Church divided mankind into heirs of heaven and hell, thus sowing discord and hatred, the little group of Jews maintained their ideal of an undivided [pg 364] humanity. But even their industrial and commercial activity had more than a mere economic significance. Forced upon the Jew by external pressure, it was favored by Jewish teaching as a means of promoting spiritual life. Not poverty and beggary, but wealth begotten by honest toil has the sanction of Judaism in accordance with the saying “Where there is no flour for bread, there can be no support for the study of the Torah.”1164 Moreover, the rabbis interpreted the verse, “Rejoice, O Zebulun, in thy going out, and thou, Issachar, in thy tents,”1165 as meaning that Zebulun, the seafarer, shared the profit of his commerce with Issachar, who taught the law in the tents of the Torah, that he, in turn, might share his brother's spiritual reward. Indeed, the Jew used his gains won by trade in the service of the promotion of learning, and thus his entire industry assumed a higher character. Our modern civilization, with its higher values of life, owes much to the cultural activity of the medieval Jew, which many leaders of the ruling Church still ignore completely. It is true that the hard struggle for their very existence kept the people unconscious of their cultural mission, and only now that they have attained the higher historical point of view can they exclaim with Joseph their ancestor: “As for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”1166 The fact is that Jewish commerce has been an important cosmopolitan factor in the past, and is still working, to a certain extent, in the same direction.1167

10. New and great tasks have been assigned by divine Providence to the Jew of modern times, who is a full citizen in the cultural, social, and political life of the various nations. [pg 365] These tasks are most holy to him as Jew, the bearer of a great mission to the world, which is embodied in his heritage, the Torah. However splendid may have been his achievements in the fields of industry and commerce, of literature and art, his own peculiar possession is the Torah alone, the religious truth for which he fought and suffered all these centuries past; this must forever remain the central thought, the aim of all his striving.1168 Every achievement of the Jewish people, every attainment in power, knowledge, or skill, must lead toward the completion of the divine kingdom of truth and justice; that for which the Jew laid the foundation at the beginning of his history is still leading forward the entire social life of man to render it a divine household of love and peace. In order that it may carry out the world mission mapped out by its great seers of yore, the Jewish people must guard against absorption by the multitude of nations as much as against isolation from them. It must preserve its identity without going back into a separation rooted in self-adulation and clannishness. Instead, the great goal of Israel will be reached only by patient endurance and perseverance, confidently awaiting the fulfillment in God's own time of the glorious prophecy that all the nations shall be led up to the mountain of the Lord by the priest-people, there to worship God in truth and righteousness. The Law is to go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, as a spiritual, not a geographical center. This vision forms the highest pinnacle of human aspiration, rising higher and higher before the mind, as man ascends from one stage of culture to another, striving ever for perfection, for the sublimest ideal of life. This is characteristically expressed by the Midrash, which refers to the Messianic vision: “And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the top of the [pg 366] mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills.”1169 “One great mountain of the earth will be piled upon the other, and Mount Zion will be placed upon the top as the culminating point of all human ascents.” Taken in a figurative sense, in which alone the saying is acceptable, this means that all the heights of the various ideals will finally merge into the loftiest of all ideals, when Israel's one holy God will be acknowledged as the One for whom all hearts yearn, whom all minds seek as the Ideal of all ideals.

Chapter LII. Israel, the Servant of the Lord, Martyr and Messiah Of the Nations

1. “If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence. If the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are borne, ennoble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land. If a literature is called rich which contains a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors are also the heroes?” With these classic words Leopold Zunz introduces the history of sufferings which have occasioned the hundreds of plaintive and penitential songs of the Synagogue described in his book, Die Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters. They are the cries of a nation of martyrs, resounding through the whole Jewish liturgy, and appearing already in many of the Psalms: “Thou hast given us like sheep to be eaten; and hast scattered us among the nations. Thou makest us a taunt to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten Thee, neither have we been false to Thy covenant: Nay, for Thy sake are we killed all the day; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Awake, why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Arouse Thyself, cast not off forever. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?”1170 Thus the congregation of Israel laments; and what is the answer of Heaven?

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2. The Bible contains two answers: the first by Ezekiel, priest and prophet; the other by the great unknown seer of the Exile whose words of comfort are given in the latter part of Isaiah. Ezekiel gave a stern and direct answer: “The nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity because of their iniquity, because they broke faith with Me, and I hid My face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they fell all of them by the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions did I unto them; and I hid My face from them. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Now will I bring back the captivity of Jacob, and have compassion upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name. And they shall bear their shame, and all their breach of faith which they committed against Me.”1171 These words are echoed in the harrowing admonitory chapter of Leviticus, which, however, closes with words of comfort: “And they shall confess their iniquity ... if then perchance their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then be paid the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.”1172 This view of divine justice as external and punitive was basic to the Synagogue liturgy and the entire rabbinic system. The priestly idea of atonement, that sin could be wiped out by sacrifice, made a profound impression, not only upon individual sinners, but also upon the nation. Hence it was applied especially to the people in exile when they could not bring sacrifices to their God. Still, one means of atonement remained, the exile itself, which could lead the people to repentance and finally to God's forgiveness.1173 Thus the people retained a hope of return from their captivity. They were assured by their [pg 369] prophetic monitors that the faithful community of the Lord would again be received in favor by the God of faithfulness. They even built their hope upon the portions of the Law, which was read to assembled worshipers that they might know and observe it on their return to the land of their fathers. Israel could say with the Psalmist: “Unless Thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in mine affliction.”1174 According to a Palestinian Haggadist, “Israel would never have persevered so long, had not the Torah, the marriage contract of Israel with its God, pledged to it a glorious future on the holy soil.”1175 Wait patiently for God's mercy, which in His own time will rebuild Israel's State and Temple!—this is the keynote of all the prayers and songs of the Synagogue.

3. But the great seer of the exile, whose anonymity lends still greater impressiveness to his words of comfort, stood on a higher historical plane than that of Ezekiel the priest. He witnessed the transformation of the entire political world of his time through the victory of Cyrus the Mede over the Babylonian empire, and thus was able to attain a profounder grasp of the destiny of his own nation. Hence he was not satisfied with the view of Ezekiel. The latter had applied the popular saying, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge,”1176 to refute the belief that an individual was punished for the sins of his fathers; but he failed to extend this doctrine to the whole nation. Whatever sins were committed by the generation who were exiled, their children ought not to suffer for them “in double measure.”1177 Moreover, the realm of love has a higher law than atonement through retribution. Love brings its sacrifice without asking why. By willing sacrifice of self it serves its higher purpose. He who struggles and suffers silently for the good and true is God's servant, who cannot [pg 370] perish. He attains a higher glory, transcending the fate of mortality. This is the new revelation that came to the seer, as he pondered on the destiny of Israel in exile, illumining for him that dark enigma of his people's tragic history.

The problem of suffering, especially that of the servant of God, or the pious, occupied the Jewish mind ever since the days of Jeremiah and especially during the exile. The author of the book of Job elaborated this into a great theodicy, speaking of Job also as the “servant of the Lord.”1178 Whatever pattern our exilic seer employed, beside the chapters about the Servant of the Lord,1179 whatever tragic fate of some great contemporary the plaintive song in the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters referred to (some point to Jeremiah, others to Zerubabel),1180 or whether the poet had in mind only the tragic fate of Israel, as many modern exegetes think; in any case he conceived the unique and pathetic picture of Israel as the suffering Servant of the Lord, who is at last to be exalted:1181

“Behold, My servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. According as many were appalled at thee—so marred was his visage unlike that of a man, and his form unlike that of the sons of men—so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard shall they perceive. Who would have believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shot up right forth as a sapling, and as a root out of a dry ground; [pg 371] he had no form nor comeliness, that we should look upon him, nor beauty that we should delight in him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of pains, and acquainted with disease, and as one from whom men hide their face; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely our diseases he did bear, and our pains he carried; whereas we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his stripes we were healed. All we, like sheep, did go astray, we turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, though he humbled himself, and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea, he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and with his generation who did reason? For he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich his tomb; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to crush him by disease; to see if his soul would offer itself in restitution, that he might see his seed, prolong his days, and that the purpose of the Lord might prosper by his hand. Of the travail of his soul he shall see to the full, even My servant, who by his knowledge did justify the Righteous One to the many, and their iniquities he did bear. Therefore will I divide him a portion among the great, and he shall divide his soul with the mighty; because he bared his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

4. Whatever be the historical background of this great elegy, our seer uses it to portray Israel as the tragic hero [pg 372] of the world's history. His prophetic genius possessed a unique insight into the character and destiny of his people, seeing Israel as a man of woe and grief, chosen by Providence to undergo unheard-of trials for a great cause, by which, at the last, he is to be exalted. Bent and disfigured by his burden of misery and shame, shunned and abhorred as one laden with sin, he suffers for no guilt of his own. He is called to testify to his God among all the peoples, and is thus the Servant of the Lord, the atoning sacrifice for the sins of mankind, from whose bruises healing is to come to all the nations,—an inimitable picture of a self-sacrificing hero, whose death means life to the world and glory to God, and who will at last live forever with the Lord whom he has served so steadfastly. Our seer mentions in earlier passages the Servant of the Lord who “gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; and hid not his face from shame and spitting.”1182 Yet “he shall set his face like a flint,” so that “he shall not fail nor be crushed, till he have set the right in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his teaching.”1183 Still more directly, he says: “And He said unto Me, ‘Thou art My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ ... It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the offspring of Israel; I will also give thee for a light of the nations, that My salvation may be unto the end of the earth. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him who is despised of men, to him who is abhorred of nations, to a servant of rulers: kings shall see and arise, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the Lord that is faithful, even the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee.”1184

5. It was, however, no easy matter for men reared in the old view to reach the lofty conception of a suffering hero. Even the dramatic figure of Job seemed to lack the right [pg 373] solution. Job protests his guiltlessness, defies the dark power of fate, and even challenges divine justice, but God himself announces at the end that no man can grasp the essence of His plan for the world. A later and more naïve writer, who added the conclusion of the book, reversed Job's destiny and compensated him by a double share of what he had lost in both wealth and family.1185 As if the great problem of suffering could be solved by such external means! Neither would the problem of the great tragedy of Israel, the martyr-priest of the centuries, the Job of the nations, ever find its solution in a national restoration. A mere political rebirth could never compensate for the thousandfold death and untold woe of the Jew for his God and his faith! But the people at large could not grasp such a conception as is that of Deutero-Isaiah's of the mission of Israel to be the suffering servant of the Lord, the witness of God—which is “martyr” in the Greek version,—the redeemer of the nations. They were eager to return to Palestine, to rebuild State and Temple under the leadership of the heir to the throne of David. But when their hope had failed that Zerubbabel would prove to be the “shoot of Jesse,”1186 the prophetic elegy was referred to the Messiah, and the belief gained ground that he would have to suffer before he would triumph.1187 Thus many a pseudo-Messiah fell a victim to the tyranny of Rome in both Judæa and Samaria,—for the Samaritans also hoped for a Messiah, a redeemer of the type of Moses.1188 Finally a belief arose that there would be two Messiahs, one of the house of Joseph, that is, the tribe of Ephraim, [pg 374] who would fall before the sword of the enemy,1189 and the other of the house of David, who was to conquer the heathen nations and establish his throne forever.1190

The Church referred the pathetic figure of the man of sorrow to her crucified Messiah or Christ. Yet he who was to be a world-savior bore through his followers damnation to his own kinsmen, and thus was rendered the chief cause of the persecution of the martyr-race of Israel.

6. We learn, however, from Origen, a Church father of the third century, that Jewish scholars, in a controversy with him, expressed the view that the Servant of the Lord refers to the Jewish people, which, dispersed among the nations and universally despised, would finally obtain the ascendancy over them, so that many of the heathen would espouse the Jewish faith.1191 Most of the medieval Jewish exegetes, including Rashi, who usually follows the traditional view, refer the chapter likewise to the Jewish people. As a matter of fact, the earlier chapters which speak of the Servant of the Lord can have no other meaning, while many points in the description of the suffering hero, especially the reference to his seed after his death, do not fit the Nazarene at all. Hence all independent Christian scholars to-day have abandoned the tradition of the Church, and admit that Israel alone is declared by the prophet to be the one singled out by God to atone for the sins of the nations, to arouse all humanity to a deeper spiritual vision, and finally to triumph over all the heathen world.1192

7. Thus the strange history of the martyr people is put in the right light and the great tragedy of Israel explained. Israel is the champion of the Lord, chosen to battle and suffer for the supreme values of mankind, for freedom and justice, [pg 375] truth and humanity; the man of woe and grief, whose blood is to fertilize the soil with the seeds of righteousness and love for mankind. From the days of Pharaoh to the present day, every oppressor of the Jews has become the means of bringing greater liberty to a wider circle; for the God of Israel, the Hater of bondage, has been appealed to in behalf of freedom in the old world and the new. Every hardship that made life unbearable to the Jew became a road to humanity's triumph over barbarism. All the injustice and malice which hurled their bitter shafts against Israel, the Pariah of the nations, led ultimately to the greater victory of right and love. So all the dark waves of hatred and fanaticism that beat against the Jewish people served only to impress the truth of monotheism, coupled with sincere love of God and man, more deeply upon all hearts and to consign hypocrisy and falsehood to eternal contempt. Such is the belief confidently held by the people of God, and ever confirmed anew by the history of the ages. “He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand up together; who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help me; who is he that shall condemn me?”1193 Thus speaks the Servant of the Lord, certain that he will finally triumph, because he defends God's cause, and is bound indissolubly to Him.1194 Indeed, God says of him: “Surely, he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Mine (his) eye.”1195

8. The great importance which the rabbis attached to Israel's martyrdom is shown by the following remarks in connection with the laws of sacrifice: “Behold, how the Torah selects for the sacrificial altar only such animals as belong to the pursued, not the pursuers: the ox which is pursued by the lion; the lamb which is pursued by the wolf; the goat which is pursued by the panther, but none of those [pg 376] which feed on prey. In like manner God chose for His own the persecuted ones: Abel, who was persecuted by his brother Cain; Noah, who was derided by the generation of the flood; Abraham, who had to flee before the tyrant Nimrod; and Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, who met with unkindness from their own brothers. In the same way God has chosen Israel from among the seventy nations, as the lamb hunted, as it were, by seventy wolves, that it should bear His law to mankind.”1196 This idea is expressed also in the Haggadic saying: “Those shall be privileged to see the majesty of God in full splendor who meet humiliation, but do not humiliate others; who bear insult, but do not inflict it on others; and who endure a life of martyrdom in pure love of God.”1197

Indeed, the medieval Jew accepted his sad lot in this spirit of resignation. But the modern Jew is in a different situation. In the mighty effort of our age for higher truth, broader love and larger justice, he beholds the nearing of the prophetic goal of a united humanity, based on the belief in God, the King and Father of all. Accordingly, modern Judaism proclaims more insistently than ever that the Jewish people is the Servant of the Lord, the suffering Messiah of the nations, who offered his life as an atoning sacrifice for humanity and furnished his blood as the cement with which to build the divine kingdom of truth and justice. Indeed, the cosmopolitan spirit of the Jew is the one element needed for the universality of culture. On the other hand, the world at large is to-day learning more and more to regard the superb loyalty of the Jew to his ancestral faith with greater fairness and admiration and to accord larger appreciation to him and his religion. Once the flood of hatred, dissension, and prejudice that brought such untold havoc shall have disappeared from the earth; once religion emerges from the nebulous [pg 377] atmosphere of other-worldliness, and directs its longing for God toward a life of godliness on earth in the spirit of the ancient prophets, then the historic mission of the Jew will also be better understood. Israel, the hunted dove, which found no resting-place for the sole of its foot during the flood of sin and persecution, will then appear with the olive-branch of peace for all humanity, to open the hearts of men that all may enter the covenant with the universal Father. Then, and not till then, will the shame of those thousands of years be rolled away, when the world will recognize that not a Jew, but the Jew has been the suffering Messiah, and that he was sent forth to be the savior of the nations.

Chapter LIII. The Messianic Hope

1. Recent investigators have brought to light many a vision of an era of heavenly bliss brought about by some powerful ruler, voiced in hoary antiquity by seer or singer in addressing the royal masters of Babylon or Egypt.1198 But no word in the entire vocabulary of ancient poetry or prose can so touch the deeper chords of the heart, and so voice the highest hopes of mankind, as does the name Messiah (“God's anointed”). From a simple title for any of the kings of Israel, it grew in meaning until it comprised the highest hopes of the nation. The Jewish vision of the future was not the twilight of the gods, which meant the end of the world with its deities, but the dawn of a new world, bright with the knowledge of God and blessed by the brotherhood of man. This, the Messianic ideal, is the creation of the prophetic genius of Israel, and in turn it influenced man's conception of God, lifting Him out of the national bounds, and making Him the God of humanity, Ruler of history. Israel's Messianic hope has become the motive power of civilization. In the time of deepest national humiliation it gave the prophets their power to surmount the present and soar to heights of vision; through it the Jewish people attained their strength to resist oppression, buoyed up by perfect confidence and sublime hope. At the same time its magic luster captivated the non-Jewish nations, spurring them on to mighty deeds. Thus it has actually conquered [pg 379] the whole world of man. With every step in culture it points forward to higher aims, still unattained; it promises to lead mankind, united in God, the Only One, to truth and justice, righteousness and love. As the banner of Israel, the Messiah of the nations, it is destined to become the lode-star of all nations and all religions. This is the kernel of the Jewish doctrine concerning the Messiah.

2. This Messianic hope, on closer analysis, reveals two elements, both of prophetic origin: one national, the other religious and universal. The latter is the logical outcome of the monotheism of the great exilic seer, who based his stirring pictures of the glorious future of Israel upon the all-encompassing knowledge of God possessed by the Chosen People. The classic expression of this hope appears in Isaiah II, 1-4, and Micah IV, 1-14: “And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say: ‘Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths,’ for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” We note, indeed, that no reference to the Messiah or a king of the house of David appears either in this passage or any of the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah. Justice and peace for all humanity are expected through the reign of God alone. The specific Messianic character of this prophecy took shape only in its association with the older national hope, voiced by the prophet Isaiah.

[pg 380]

3. The real Messianic hope involved the reëstablishment of the throne of David, and was expressed most perfectly in the words of Isaiah: “And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a twig shall grow forth out of his roots. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the land; and he shall smite the land with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”1199

This pattern of the ideal ruler may have been modeled after some ancient Babylonian formula for the adoration of kings, as has been asserted of late; and the same may be true of the mystic titles given by Isaiah to the royal heir: “Wonderful counselor, divine hero, father of spoil, prince of peace.”1200 When the little kingdom of Judæa fell, the prospect of a realization of the great prophetic vision seemed gone forever. Therefore the exiles in Babylon fastened their hopes so much more firmly on the “Shoot,” particularly on Zerubabel (“the seed born in Babylon”), the object of the [pg 381] fondest hopes of the later prophets.1201 When he, too, disappointed their expectations, probably due to Persian interference, they transferred the advent of the Messiah more and more into the realm of miracle, and popular fancy dwelt fondly on his appearance as God's champion against the hosts of heathendom (Gog and Magog).1202

4. The conception of the priest-prophet Ezekiel is very significant in this connection; for him the kingdom of Israel's God could only be established by the restoration of the throne of David, the servant of the Lord, and by the utter destruction of the hosts of heathendom, who were hostile to both God and Israel. In accordance with this hope the author of the second Psalm presents a dramatic picture of the Messiah triumphing over the heathen nations, a picture which became typical for all the future. “Why are the nations in an uproar? And why do the peoples mutter in vain? The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed: ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ He that sitteth in heaven laugheth, the Lord hath them in derision. Then will He speak unto them in His wrath, and affright them in His sore displeasure: ‘Truly it is I that have established My king upon Zion, My holy mountain.’ I will tell of the decree: The Lord said unto me: ‘Thou art My son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of Me, and I will give the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.’ ” Henceforth the conception of the Messiah alternated between Isaiah's prince of peace [pg 382] and the world-conqueror of the Psalmist.1203 The name Messiah does not occur in Scripture in the absolute form, but always occurs in the construct with JHVH or a pronoun, signifying “the Anointed of the Lord.” Accordingly, it expresses the relation of the Anointed to God, his sovereign, in striking contrast to the heathen kings who themselves claimed adoration as gods. The very name Messiah excludes the possibility of deification. The term Messiah was used with the article only in much later times, ha Meshiah, or in the Aramaic, Meshiha, from which we derive the name, Messiah.

5. In the course of time, however, as the people waited in vain for a redeemer, the expected Messiah was lifted more and more into the realm of the ideal. The belief took hold especially in the inner circle of the pious (Hasidim) that the Messiah was hidden somewhere, protected by God, to appear miraculously after having vanquished the hostile powers. The Essenes, the representatives of the secret lore, developed this conception in the Apocalyptic writings, thus giving the Messiah a certain cosmic or supernatural character. They probably modeled their thoughts upon the Zoroastrian system, where Soshiosh, the world savior, would appear in the last millennium as the messenger of Ormuzd to destroy forever the kingdom of evil and establish the dominion of the good.1204 Thus, when Isaiah says of the Messiah that “by the breath of his mouth he shall slay the wicked,” this is referred to the principle of evil, Satan or Belial, who was sometimes actually identified with the Persian Ahriman.1205 Moreover, after the Persian system, the whole process of history was divided into six millenniums of strife between the principle of good and evil, represented by the Torah [pg 383] and the ungodliness of the world, and a seventh millennium, the kingdom of God or the Messianic age. The dates of these were calculated upon the basis of the book of Daniel, with its four world-kingdoms and mysterious numbers.1206

6. The Biblical passages which refer to “the end of days” were also connected with the advent of the Messianic age, and the so-called eschatological writings speak of fixed periods following one another. In accordance with certain prophetic hints, they expected first the “birth-throes”1207 or “vestiges” of the Messianic age, a great physical and moral crisis with the turmoil of nature, plagues, and moral degeneracy. Before the Messiah would suddenly appear from his hiding place, the prophet Elijah was to return from heaven, whither he had ascended in a fiery chariot. But, while he had lived in implacable wrath against idolaters, he was now to come as a messenger of peace, reconciling the hearts of Israel with God and with one another, preparing the way to repentance, and thus to the redemption and reunion of Israel.1208 The next stage is the gathering together of Israel from all corners of the earth to the holy land under the leadership of the Messiah, summoned by the blast of the heavenly trumpet.1209 Then begins that gigantic warfare on the holy soil between the hosts of Israel and the vast forces of heathendom led by the half-mystic powers of Gog and Magog, a conflict which, according to Ezekiel, is to last for seven years and to end with the annihilation of the powers of evil. Before the real Messiah, the son of David, appears in victory, another Messiah of the tribe of Ephraim is to fall in battle, according to a belief dating from the second century and possibly connected [pg 384] with the Bar Kochba war.1210 In another tradition, probably older, the true Messiah himself is to suffer and die.1211 At all events, he must destroy Rome, the fourth world-kingdom. But he is also to slay the arch-fiend Ahriman, afterwards known as Armillus. Moreover, he will redeem the dead from Sheol, as he possesses the key to open all the graves of the holy land, and thus all the sons of Israel will partake in the glory of his kingdom. Then at last the city of Jerusalem will arise in splendor, built of gold and precious stones, the marvel of the world, and in its midst the Temple, a structure of surpassing magnificence. The holy vessels of the tabernacle, hidden for ages in the wilderness, will appear, and the nations will offer the wealth of the whole earth as their tribute to the Messiah. All will practice righteousness and piety, and will be rewarded by bliss and numerous posterity.1212

Opinions differ widely as to the duration of the Messianic age. They range from forty to four hundred years, and again from three generations to a full millennium.1213 This difference is partly caused by the distinction between the national hope, with the temporary welfare of the people of Israel, and the religious hope concerning the divine kingdom, which is to last forever. A very late rabbinic belief holds that the Messiah will be able to give a new law and even to abrogate Mosaic prohibitions.1214

7. At any rate, no complete system of eschatology existed during the Talmudic age, as the views of the various apocalyptic writers were influenced by the changing events of the time and the new environments, with their constant influence upon popular belief. A certain uniformity, indeed, existed in the fundamental ideas. The Messianic hope in [pg 385] its national character includes always the reunion of all Israel under a victorious ruler of the house of David, who shall destroy all hostile powers and bring an era of supreme prosperity and happiness as well as of peace and good-will among men. The Haggadists indulged also in dreams of the marvelous fertility of the soil of Palestine in the Messianic time,1215 and of the resurrection of the dead in the holy land. But in Judaism such views could never become dogmas, as they did in the Church, even though they were common in both the older and younger Haggadah. These national expectations were expressed in the liturgy by the Eighteen Benedictions, composed by the founders of the Synagogue, the so-called Men of the Great Synagogue; here the prayers for “the gathering of the dispersed” and the “destruction of the kingdom of Insolence” precede those for the “rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of the throne of David.” But the mystic speculations on the origin, activity, and sojourn of the Messiah, which were a favorite theme of the apocalyptic writers and the Haggadists during the pre-Christian and the first Christian centuries, gave way to a more sober mode of thought, in the disappointment that followed the collapse of the great Messianic movements. On the one hand, the Church deified its Messiah and thus relapsed into paganism; on the other, Bar Kochba, “the son of the star,” whom the leading Jewish masters of the law actually considered the Messiah who would free them from Rome, proved to be a “star of ill-luck” to the Jewish people.1216 “Like one who wanders in the dark night, now and then kindling a light to brighten up his path, only to have it again and again extinguished by the wind, until at last he resolves to wait patiently for the break of day when he will no longer require a light,” so were the people of Israel [pg 386] with their would-be deliverers, who appeared from time to time to delude their hopes, until they exclaimed at last: “In Thy light alone, O Lord, we behold light.”1217 Samuel the Babylonian, of the third century, in opposition to the Messianic visionaries of his time, declared: “The Messianic age differs from the present in nothing except that Israel will throw off the yoke of the nations and regain its political independence.”1218 Another sage said: “May the curse of heaven fall upon those who calculate the date of the advent of the Messiah and thus create political and social unrest among the people!”1219 A third declared: “The Messiah will appear when nobody expects him.”1220 Most remarkable of all is the bold utterance of Rabbi Hillel of the fourth century, a lineal descendant of the great master Hillel and the originator of the present Jewish calendar system. In all likelihood many of his contemporaries were busy calculating the advent of the Messianic time according to the number of Jubilees in the world-eras, whereupon he said: “Israel need not await the advent of the Messiah, as Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled by the appearance of King Hezekiah.”1221

8. Throughout the Middle Ages, when the political or national hopes rose high, we find various Messianic movements in both East and West revived by religious aspirations. But Maimonides, the great rationalist, in his commentary on the Mishnah and in his Code, formulated a Messianic belief which was quite free from mystical and supernatural elements. His twelfth article of faith declares that “the Jew, unless he wishes to forfeit his claim to eternal life by denial of his faith, must, in acceptance of the teachings of Moses and the prophets down to Malachi, believe that the Messiah will issue forth from the house of David in the person of a descendant of Solomon, the only legitimate king; [pg 387] and he shall far excel all rulers in history by his reign, glorious in justice and peace. Neither impatience nor deceptive calculation of the time of the advent of the Messiah should shatter this belief. Still, notwithstanding the majesty and wisdom of the Messiah, he must be regarded as a mortal being like any other and only as the restorer of the Davidic dynasty. He will die and leave a son as his successor, who will in his turn die and leave the throne to his heir. Nor will there be any material change in the order of things in the whole system of nature and human life; accordingly Isaiah's picture of the living together of lamb and wolf cannot be taken literally, nor any of the Haggadic sayings with reference to the Messianic time. We are only to believe in the coming of Elijah as a messenger of peace and the forerunner of the Messiah, and also in the great decisive battle with the hosts of heathendom embodied in Gog and Magog, through whose defeat the dominion of the Messiah will be permanently established.” “The Messianic kingdom itself,” continues Maimonides with reference to the utterance of Samuel quoted above, “is to bring the Jewish nation its political independence, but not the subjection of all the heathen nations, nor merely material prosperity and sensual pleasure, but an era of general affluence and peace, enabling the Jewish people to devote their lives without care or anxiety to the study of the Torah and universal wisdom, so that by their teachings they may lead all mankind to the knowledge of God and make them also share in the eternal bliss of the world to come.”1222

9. Against this rationalized hope for the Messiah, which merges the national expectation into the universal hope for the kingdom of God, strong objections were raised by Abraham ben David of Posquieres, the mystic, a fierce opponent [pg 388] of Maimonides, who referred to various Biblical and Talmudical passages in contradiction to this view.1223 On the other hand, Joseph Albo, the popular philosopher, who was trained by his public debates against the representatives of the Church, emphasized especially the rational character of the Jewish theology, and declared that the Messianic hope cannot be counted among the fundamental doctrines of Judaism, or else Rabbi Hillel could never have rejected it so boldly.1224

On this point we must consider the fine observation of Rashi that Hillel denied only a personal Messiah, but not the coming of a Messianic age, assuming that God himself will redeem Israel and be acknowledged everywhere as Ruler of the world. As a matter of fact, too much difference of opinion existed among the Tanaim and Amoraim on the personality of the Messiah and the duration of his reign to admit of a definite article of faith on the question. The expected Messiah, the heir of the Davidic throne, naturally embodied the national hope of the Jewish people in their dispersion, when all looked to Palestine as their land and to Jerusalem as their political center and rallying point in days to come. Traditional Judaism, awaiting the restoration of the Mosaic sacrificial cult as the condition for the return of the Shekinah to Zion, was bound to persist in its belief in a personal Messiah who would restore the Temple and its service.

10. A complete change in the religious aspiration of the Jew was brought about by the transformation of his political status and hopes in the nineteenth century. The new era witnessed his admission in many lands to full citizenship on an equality with his fellow-citizens of other faiths. He was no longer distinguished from them in his manner of speech and dress, nor in his mode of education and thought; he therefore [pg 389] necessarily identified himself completely with the nation whose language and literature had nurtured his mind, and whose political and social destinies he shared with true patriotic fervor. He stood apart from the rest only by virtue of his religion, the great spiritual heritage of his hoary past. Consequently the hope voiced in the Synagogal liturgy for a return to Palestine, the formation of a Jewish State under a king of the house of David, and the restoration of the sacrificial cult, no longer expressed the views of the Jew in Western civilization. The prayer for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of the Temple with its priestly cult could no longer voice his religious hope. Thus the leaders of Reform Judaism in the middle of the nineteenth century declared themselves unanimously opposed to retaining the belief in a personal Messiah and the political restoration of Israel, either in doctrine or in their liturgy.1225 They accentuated all the more strongly Israel's hope for a Messianic age, a time of universal knowledge of God and love of man, so intimately interwoven with the religious mission of the Jewish people. Harking back to the suffering Servant of the Lord in Deutero-Isaiah, they transferred the title of Messiah to the Jewish nation. Reform Judaism has thus accepted the belief that Israel, the suffering Messiah of the centuries, shall at the end of days become the triumphant Messiah of the nations.1226

11. This view taken by reform Judaism is the logical outcome of the political and social emancipation of the Jew in western Europe and America. Naturally, it had no appeal to the Jew in the Eastern lands, where he was kept apart by mental training, social habits and the discrimination of the [pg 390] law, so that he regarded himself as a member of a different nationality in every sense. Palestine remained the object of his hope and longing in both his social and religious life. When modern ideas of life began to transform the religious views and habits in many a quarter, and terrible persecutions again aroused the longing of the unfortunate sufferers for a return to the land of their fathers, the term Zionism was coined, and the movement rapidly spread. It expressed the purely national aims of the Jewish people, disregarding the religious aspirations always heretofore connected with the Messianic hope. This term has since become the watchword of all those who hope for a political restoration of the Jewish people on Palestinian soil, as well as of others whose longings are of a more cultural nature. Both regard the Jewish people as a nation like any other, denying to it the specific character of a priest-people and a holy nation with a religious mission for humanity, which has been assigned to it at the very beginning of its history and has served to preserve it through the centuries. On this account Zionism, whether political or cultural, can have no place in Jewish theology. Quite different is the attitude of religious Zionism which emphasizes the ancient hopes and longings for the restoration of the Jewish Temple and State in connection with the nationalistic movement.

12. Political Zionism owes its origin to the wave of Anti-Semitism which rose as a counter-movement to the emancipation of the Jew, that alienated many of the household of Israel from their religion. Thus it has the merit of awakening many Jews upon whom the ancestral faith had lost its hold to a sense of love and loyalty to the Jewish past. In many it has aroused a laudable zeal for the study of Jewish history and literature, which should bring them a deeper insight into, and closer identification with, the historic character of Israel, the suffering Messiah of the nations, and [pg 391] thus in time transform the national Jew into a religious Jew. The study of Israel's mighty past will, it is hoped, bring to them the conviction that the power, the hope and the refuge of Israel is in its God, and not in any territorial possession. We require a regeneration, not of the nation, but of the faith of Israel, which is its soul.

Chapter LIV. Resurrection, a National Hope

1. The Jewish belief in resurrection is intimately bound up with the hope for the restoration of the Israelitish nation on its own soil, and consequently rather national; indeed, originally purely local and territorial.1227 True, the rabbis justified their belief in resurrection by such Scriptural verses as: “I kill and I make alive”1228 and “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.”1229 Founded on such passages, the belief would have to include all men, and could be confined neither to the Jewish people nor to the land of Judea. However, we find no trace of such a belief in the entire Bible save for two late post-exilic passages1230 which are in fact apocalyptic, being based upon earlier prophecies, and themselves, in turn, basic to the later dogma of the Pharisees.

2. The picture of a resurrection was first drawn by the prophet Hosea, who applied it to Israel. In his distress over the destiny of his people he says: “Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for He hath torn, and He will heal us, He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us, on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence.”1231 Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones which rose to a new life under the mighty sway of the spirit of God,1232 gave more definite shape to the picture, [pg 393] although in the form of allegory. As the prophet himself says, he aimed to describe the resurrection of Judah and Israel from their grave of exile. The obscure Messianic prophecy in Isaiah, chapters XXIV to XXVII, strikes a new note. First the author deals with the terrible slaughter which God will inflict upon the heathen, after which “He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of His people will He take away from off all the earth.”1233 Finally, when the oppressors of Israel are completely annihilated, exclaims the seer: “Thy dead shall live, thy dead bodies shall arise—awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust—for thy dew is a fructifying dew, and the earth shall bring to life the shades.”1234 Daniel speaks in a similar vein: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence.”1235

3. In this hope for resurrection at the end of days the leading thought is that the prophecies which have been unfulfilled during the lifetime of the pious, and particularly the martyrs, shall be realized in the world to come.1236 In the oldest apocalyptic writings this life of the future is still conceived as earthly bliss, inasmuch as the writers think only of the Messianic time of national glory, depicted in such glowing colors by the prophets. Unbounded richness of the soil and numerous offspring, abundant treasures brought by remote nations and their rulers, peace and happiness far and wide—such are the characteristics of the Messianic [pg 394] age. In order that the dead may share in all this, it is to be preceded by the resurrection and the great Day of Judgment in the valley of Jehoshaphat or Gehinnom (Gehenna), where the righteous are to be singled out to participate in the realm of the Messiah.1237 As a national prospect the Messianic hope was based upon the passage in Deutero-Isaiah: “Thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever.”1238 Consequently an ancient Mishnah taught that “All Israel shall have a share in the world to come.”1239 In fact, the term “inherit the land” was used as late as the Mishnah to express the idea of sharing in the future life; so also in the New Testament, where the resurrection was expected before the coming of the kingdom of the Messiah.1240

4. The logical assumption was, accordingly, that only the dead of the holy land should enjoy the resurrection. The prophetic verses were cited: “I will set glory in the land of the living,”1241 and “He that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein,”1242 and were interpreted in the sense that God would restore the breath of life only to those buried in the holy land.1243 Likewise the verse of the Psalmist, “I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living,” was referred to Palestine, as the land where the dead shall awaken to a new life.1244 Hence the rabbis held the strange belief that when the great heavenly trumpet is sounded to summon all the tribes of Israel from the ends of the earth to the holy land,1245 those who have been buried outside of Palestine must pass through cavities under the earth, until they reach the soil where the miracle of the [pg 395] resurrection will be performed.1246 It has, therefore, become a custom of the pious among the Orthodox to this very day, in case they could not bury the dead in Palestine, to put dust of the holy land beneath their head, that they might arise wherever they were buried.

5. We may take it for granted that this naïve conception of the resurrection could not be permanent, and so was modified to include a double resurrection: the first, national, to usher in the Messianic kingdom, and the other, universal, to usher in the everlasting life of the future. The former offered scant room for the heathen world, at best only for those who had actually joined the ranks of Judaism; the latter, however, included the last judgment for all souls and thus opened the way for the salvation of the righteous among the nations as well as the people of Israel. At this point the conception of resurrection led to higher and more spiritual ideas, as has been shown in Chapter XLIII.

6. However, the belief in the resurrection of the body, though expressed in the ancient liturgy, is in such utter contradiction to our entire attitude toward both science and religion, that it may be considered obsolete for the modern Jew. Orthodoxy, which clings to it in formal loyalty to tradition, regards it as a miracle which God will perform in the future, exactly like the many Biblical miracles which defy reason.

7. The Zionist movement has given many Jews a new attitude toward the national resurrection of Israel. The nationalists expect the Jewish nation to awaken from a sleep of eighteen hundred years to new greatness in its ancient home, not as a religious, but as a political body, and in renouncing all allegiance to the priestly mission of Israel and its ancestral faith they are as remote from genuine Orthodoxy as from Reform Judaism. They assert that the soul of the [pg 396] Jewish people requires a national body rooted in its ancient soil in order that it may fulfill its appointed task among the nations; they even go so far as to declare all the achievements brought about by the assimilation of the culture of the surrounding nations to be a deterioration of the genuine character of the Jewish nation. The fact is that, as in nature there is nowhere a resurrection of the dead but an ever renewed regeneration of life, so is the history of the Jew and of Judaism a continuous process of regeneration manifested at every great turning-point of history, when the ideas and cultural elements of a new civilization exert their powerful influence on life and thought. There never was, nor will be an exclusively Jewish culture. It is the wondrous power of assimilation of the Jew which ever created and fashioned his culture anew. That which constitutes the peculiarity of the Jew and his life force is his religion fostered through the ages, preserved amidst the most antagonistic influences and hostile environments, and ever rejuvenated by its unique universalistic spirit when revived by contact with kindred movements. To maintain and propagate this, his religion in all lands and amidst all civilizations, is the task assigned to him by Providence, until God's Kingdom has been established all over the globe.

Chapter LV. Israel and the Heathen Nations

1. As there is but one Creator and Ruler of the universe, so there is before Him but one humanity. All the nations are under His guidance, while Israel, His chosen people, points to the kingdom of God which is to embrace them all. Israel was called the “first-born son” of God1247 at the very moment of his election, implying that all the sons of men are His children. All of them are links in the divine plan of salvation. In the same sense God spoke through Isaiah: “Blessed be Egypt, My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.”1248 As the first page of Scripture assigns a common origin to them all in the first man, so, the prophets tell us, at the end of time they shall all be filled with longing for the one God and form with Israel one community on earth, a great brotherhood of man serving the common Father above.1249 Still, the actual world began, not with the unity, but with the wide diversity and dispersion of mankind. The idea of the unity of man came as a corollary to the kindred conception of the unity of God, after a long historical process.

Just as the creation of the world opens with the separation of light from darkness, so the process of the spiritual and moral development of mankind begins, according to the divine plan of salvation, with the separation of Israel from the heathen nations.1250 The sharper the contrast became [pg 398] between the spiritual God of Israel and the crude sensual gods of heathendom, the wider grew the chasm between Judaism and heathenism, between Israel and the nations. As light is opposed to darkness, so Israel's truth stood opposed to the idolatry of the nations, until Christianity and Islam, its daughter-religions, arose between the two extremes. Henceforth Israel waits with still more confidence for the age whose dawning will bring the full knowledge of God to all mankind, leading the world from the night of error and discord to the noon-day brightness of truth and unity, when a universal monotheism will make all humanity one.

2. Nothing was more remote from ancient Israel than the hatred of the stranger or hostility to other nations, so often attributed to it.1251 In the time of the patriarchs and under the monarchy, the Hebrews fostered a spirit of friendly intercourse with their neighbors, which was often confirmed by peaceful alliances.1252 Of course, during war time the spirit of hostility had full sway, particularly as ancient warfare imposed a relentless ban upon both booty and human life among the vanquished. But even then the kings of Israel were called compassionate also toward their enemies when compared with other rulers.1253 Indeed, the code of Israel is distinguished from all other codes of antiquity by mildness and tender compassion. On the other hand, the God of justice, revealed through Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk, punishes Israel and the nations impartially on account of their moral transgressions.1254 He avenges acts of treachery, even when committed against pagan tyrants. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justly?”1255 Such is the recurrent thought that governs Israel, demanding the same standard of judgment for Israelite and stranger.

[pg 399]

3. The simple sense of justice inherent in the Jewish people admits so little difference between our own God-consciousness and that of others, that Scripture represents the Philistine King Abimelech as receiving a warning from Abraham's God JHVH.1256 As the Bible holds up Job, the Bedouin Sheik, as the pattern of a blameless servant of God and true lover of mankind,1257 so the Talmud cites the Philistine Dama ben Nethina as an example of filial piety.1258 Altogether, the merits of the heathen receive their full measure of appreciation throughout Jewish literature,1259 even though a narrow dissenting view occurs now and then.1260

4. Still from the very beginning a tendency to relentless harshness existed in one direction, when the pure worship of Israel's one and only God was endangered. The early Book of the Covenant forbade every alliance with idolatrous nations,1261 and the Deuteronomic Code made this more stringent by prohibiting intermarriage and even the toleration of idolaters in the land, lest they seduce the people of God to turn away from Him.1262 The Pharisean leaders, the founders of Rabbinism, went still further by placing an interdict upon eating with the heathen or using food and wine prepared by them, thus aiming at a complete separation from the non-Jewish world.1263

The contrast between Judaism and heathenism was further heightened by the view of the prophets and psalmists, showing that the great nations were the very embodiment of idolatrous iniquity, murderous violence and sexual impurity, a world of arrogance and pride, defying God and doomed to perdition, because they opposed the kingdom of God proclaimed by Israel.1264 Henceforth the term “the nations” [pg 400] (goyim) was taken by the religious as meaning the wicked ones, who would not be able to stand the divine judgment in the future life, but would go down to Sheol, or Gehenna, to fall a prey to everlasting corruption, to the fire that is never quenched.1265

5. Yet such a wholesale condemnation could not long be maintained; it was too strongly contradicted in principle by the prophets and Psalmists, and quite as much by the apocalyptic writers and Haggadists of later times. The book of Jonah testifies that Israel's God sent His prophet to the heathen of Nineveh to exhort them to repentance, that they might obtain forgiveness and salvation like repentant Israel.1266 Heathenism is doomed to perish, not the heathen; they are to acknowledge the heavenly Judge in their very punishments and return to Him. Such is the conclusion of all the exhortations of the prophets predicting punishment to the nations. Moreover, those heathen who escape the doom of the world-powers are to proclaim the mighty deeds of the Lord to the utmost lands. Nay, according to the grand vision of the exilic seer, among the many nations that shall assemble at the end of days to worship the Lord in Zion, select ones will be admitted to the priesthood with the sons of Aaron.1267 The name Hadrak, understood as “he who bringeth back,” suggested itself to the rabbis as a title of the Messiah, the converter of the heathen nations.1268 So in both the Talmud and the Sibylline books1269 Noah is represented as a preacher of repentance to the nations before the flood, and accordingly the latter book adjures the Hellenic world to repent of their sinful lives before they would be overwhelmed by the flood of fire at the great judgment day. In the same spirit the Haggadists tell that God sent Balaam, Job, and other pious men as [pg 401] prophets of the heathen to teach them the way of repentance.1270 And the rabbis actually say that, if the heathen nations had not refused the Torah when the Lord offered it to them at Sinai, it would have been the common property of all mankind.1271

6. The leading minds of Judaism felt only pity for the blind obstinacy of the great mass of heathen, who worshiped the creatures instead of the Creator, or the stars of heaven instead of Him who is enthroned above the skies. They regarded heathenism either as evidence of spiritual want and weakness, or as the result of destiny. Indeed, the words of the Deuteronomist sound like an echo of Babylonian fatalism when he asserts that God himself assigned to the nations the worship of the stars as their inheritance.1272 Later the opinion gained ground that the heathen deities were real demons, holding dominion over the nations and leading them astray.1273 The exilic seer attacked idolatry most vigorously as folly and falsehood, and thus the note of derision and irony is struck by Deutero-Isaiah, the Psalms, and in many of the propaganda writings of the Hellenistic age, in their references to heathenism.

On the other hand, it is very significant that the Palestinian sages and their successors condemned heathenism as a moral plague, conducing to depravity, lewdness, and bloodshed. They regarded the powers of the world, especially Edom (Rome), as being under the dominion of the Evil One, and therefore doomed to perish in the flames of Gehenna. As they rejected the Ten Commandments out of love for bloodshed, lust, and robbery, so, according to the Haggadists, they will be unable to withstand the last judgment and will [pg 402] suffer eternal punishment. Since their one desire was to enjoy the life of this world, their lot in the future will be Gehenna; while the gates of the Garden of Eden will be open for Israel, the people oppressed and sorely tried, yet ever faithful to the covenant of Abraham.1274 Of course, this view implied both comfort and vengeance, but we must not forget that the harsh statements contained in the Talmud owe their origin to bitter distress and cannot be considered Jewish doctrines, as unfriendly critics frequently do.1275

7. As has been shown above, the dominant view of the Synagogue is that eternal salvation belongs to the righteous among the nations as well as those of Israel. In this sense, Psalm IX, 18, is understood to the effect that “all those heathens who have forgotten God will go down to the nether world.”1276 One of the sages expresses a still broader view: “When judging the nations, God determines their standard by their best representatives.”1277 Many rabbis held the belief that circumcision secured for the Jew a place in “Abraham's bosom” while the uncircumcised are consigned to Gehenna, thus assigning to circumcision a corresponding place to that of baptism in the Christian Church. This belief seems to be based upon a passage in Ezekiel, where the prophet speaks of the arelim, or “uncircumcised,” as dwelling in the nether world.1278 But a number of passages in the Talmud, especially in the Tosefta,1279 show that circumcision was not believed to have the power to save a sinner from [pg 403] Gehenna, On the other hand, we have the great teaching of R. Johanan ben Zakkai in opposing his disciple Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, telling that the sacrifices which atoned for the sins of Israel are paralleled by deeds of benevolence, which can atone for the sins of the heathen.1280 Both the Talmud and Philo state that the seventy bullocks which were offered up during the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles were brought by Israel as sacrifices for the seventy nations of the world.1281

8. Where no cause existed to fear the influence of idolatry, friendly relations with non-Jews were always recommended and cultivated. A non-Jew who devotes his life to the study and practice of the law, said Rabbi Meir, is equal to the high priest; for Scripture says: “The laws which, if a man do, he shall live by them,” implying that pure humanity is the one essential required by God.1282 Indeed, Rabbi Meir enjoyed a close friendship with Œnomaos of Gadara,1283 a heathen philosopher spoken of admiringly in Talmudic sources and placed on a par with Balaam as noble representatives of heathendom. Obviously this good opinion was held, because both spoke favorably of Judaism, whose “synagogues and schoolhouses formed the strongest bulwark against the attacks of Jew-haters.” Other friendships which were described in popular legends and held up as examples for emulation are those between Jehuda ha Nasi and the Emperor Antoninus (Severus)1284 and that of Samuel of Babylonia with Ablat, a Persian sage.1285

9. The Mosaic and Talmudic law prescribed quite different treatment for those heathen who persisted in idolatrous [pg 404] practices and refused to observe the laws of humanity, called the seven Noahitic laws, as will be explained more fully in the next chapter. No toleration could be granted them within the ancient jurisdiction; “Thou shall show them no mercy” was the phrase of the law for the seven tribes of Canaan, and this was applied to all idolaters.1286 Hence Maimonides lays down the rule in his Code that “wherever and whenever the Mosaic law is in force, the people must be compelled to abjure heathenism and accept the seven laws of Noah in the name of God, or else they are doomed to die.”1287

On the other hand, in the very same Code, Maimonides writes in the spirit of Rabbi Meir: “Not only the Jewish tribe is sanctified by the highest degree of human holiness, but every human being, without difference of birth, in whom is the spirit of love and the power of knowledge to devote his life exclusively to the service of God and the dissemination of His knowledge, and who, walking uprightly before Him, has cast off the yoke of the many earthly desires pursued by the rest of men. God is his portion and his eternal inheritance, and God will provide for his needs, as He did for the priest and the Levite of yore.”1288

10. To be sure, a statement of this nature presents a different judgment of heathenism from that of the ancient national law. But the historical and comparative study of religions has caused us to entertain altogether different views of the various heathen religions, both those representing primitive stages of childlike imagination and superstition, and those more developed faiths which inculcate genuine ideals of a more or less lofty character. Certainly the laws of Deuteronomy, written when the nation had dwindled down to the little kingdom of Judæa, and those further expounded in the Mishnah enjoining the most rigorous intolerance toward [pg 405] every vestige of paganism, had only a theoretical value for the powerless Jewish nation; while both the Church and the rulers of Islam were largely guided by them in practical measures. The higher view of Judaism was expressed by the last of the prophets: “ ‘For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My name is great among the nations; and in every place offerings are presented unto My name, even pure oblations, for My name is great among the nations,’ saith the Lord of hosts.”1289 The fact is that heathenism seeks the God whom Israel by its revelation has found. In this spirit both Philo and Josephus took the Scriptural passage, “Thou shalt not curse God,” taking the Hebrew Elohim in the plural sense, “the gods”; thus they said a Jew must not offend the religious sense of the heathen by scorn or ridicule, however careful he must be to avoid the imitation of their practices and superstitions.1290

As a matter of fact, the Code of Law aimed to separate Israel and the nations in order to avoid the crude worship of idols, animals and stars practiced by the heathen of antiquity. It was not framed for masters like Socrates, Buddha, and Confucius, with their lofty moral views and their claims upon humanity. The God who revealed himself to Abraham, Job, Enoch, and Balaam, as well as to Moses and Isaiah, spoke to them also, and the wise ones of Israel have ever hearkened to their inspiring lessons. Their words are echoed in Jewish literature together with Solomon's words of wisdom. Plato, Plotinus, and Aristotle received the most friendly hospitality from the rabbinic philosophers and mystic writers of Jewry, and so Buddhist sayings and views penetrated into Jewish ethics and popular teachings. Both the [pg 406] Jew and his literature are cosmopolitan, and Judaism never withholds its appreciation of the merits of the heathen world.1291

11. We must especially emphasize one claim of the Jewish people above other nations which the rabbis call zekuth aboth, “the merit of the fathers,” and which we may term “hereditary virtue.” The election of Israel, in spite of its own lack of merit, is declared in Deuteronomy and elsewhere to be due to the merit of the fathers, with whom God concluded His covenant in love.1292 The promise is often repeated that God will ever remember His covenant with the fathers and not let the people perish, even though their sins were great; therefore the rabbis assumed that the patriarchs had accumulated a store of merit by their virtues which would redound before God to the benefit of their descendants, supplementing their own weaknesses.1293 This merit or righteousness of the fathers formed a prominent part of the hope and prayer, nay, of the whole theological system of the Jewish people. They regarded the patriarchs and all the great leaders of the past as patterns of loyalty and love for God, so that, according to the Midrash, Israel might say in the words of the Shulamite: “Black am I” considering my own merit, “but comely” when considering the merit of the fathers.1294 Whether this store of merit would ever be exhausted is a matter of controversy among the rabbis. Some referred to God's own words that He will ever remember His covenant with the fathers; others pointed to the verse in Deutero-Isaiah: “For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from [pg 407] thee, neither shall My covenant of peace be removed,” which they interpreted symbolically to mean: when the merit of the patriarchs and matriarchs of Israel is exhausted, God's mercy and compassion for Israel will be there never to depart.1295 Translated into our own mode of thinking, this merit of the fathers claimed for Israel signifies the unique treasure of a spiritual inheritance which belongs to the Jew. This inheritance of thousands of years provides such rare examples and such high inspiration that it incites to the highest virtue, the firmest loyalty, and the greatest love for truth and justice. Judaism, knowing no such thing as original sin, points with pride instead to hereditary virtue, deriving an inexhaustible source of blessing from its historical continuity of four thousand years.