THE MISSION OF ISRAEL
Think of the meaning of that simple ceremony in our service when the Minister takes his stand before the Ark, and clasping the sacred scroll in his arms, proclaims the שמע, belief in the unity of One Eternal, Almighty God. This rite symbolizes the mission of Israel to the world: With the Law of God folded in his arms and its words engraved upon his heart, he has gone up and down the earth proclaiming his belief in the One Supreme Being—a Being whose spirit fills all time and all space, a Being never embodied, but made manifest to man in the glory of the creation and in His all-wise behests, which teach mercy, love, and justice....
HERMANN ADLER, 1895.
A CLEAR and concise definition of Judaism[7] is very difficult to give, for the reason that it is not a religion pure and simple based upon accepted creeds, but is one inseparably connected with the Jewish nation as the depositary and guardian of the truths held by it for mankind.
Far from having become 1,900 years ago a stagnant religion, Judaism has ever remained ‘a river of God full of living waters’, which, while running within the river-bed of a single nation, has continued to feed anew the great streams of human civilization.
K. KOHLER, 1904.
TOLERANCE
I
THOU art the Lord, and all beings are Thy servants, Thy domain;
And through those who serve idols vain
Thine honour is not detracted from,
For they all aim to Thee to come;
But they are as the blind,
That seeking the royal road could not find;
The one sank in destruction’s well;
Another into a cavity fell,
And all thought they had reached what they sought
Yet toiled for naught.
SOLOMON IBN GABIROL, 1050.
(Trans. M. Jastrow.)
I CALL heaven and earth to witness that whether it be Jew or heathen, man or woman, free or bondman—only according to their acts does the Divine spirit rest upon them.
MIDRASH.
SALVATION is attained not by subscription to metaphysical dogmas, but solely by love of God that fulfils itself in action. This is a cardinal truth in Judaism.
CHASDAI CRESCAS, 1410.
II
YOUR question, why I do not try to make converts, has, I must say, somewhat surprised me. The duty to proselytize springs clearly from the idea that outside a certain belief there is no salvation. I, as a Jew, am not bound to accept that dogma, because, according to the teachings of the Rabbis, the righteous of all nations shall have part in the rewards of the future world. Your motive, therefore, is foreign to me; nay, as a Jew, I am not allowed publicly to attack any religion which is sound in its moral teachings.
MOSES MENDELSSOHN, 1770.
To a non-Jewish correspondent.
I AM the creature of God, and so is my fellow-man; my calling is in the town, and his in the fields; I go early to my work, and he to his; he does not boast of his labour nor I of mine, and if thou wouldst say, ‘I accomplish great things and he little things’, we have learnt that whether a man accomplish great things or small, his reward is the same if only his heart be set upon Heaven.
TALMUD.