The Essentials of Spirituality

by Felix Adler

But it is, in the last analysis, the moral qualities upon which our respect for human nature rests, and in this respect how often are we astonished, yes and abashed, when we observe the extent to which the moral virtues express themselves in the life of those who, in point of so-called culture, are infinitely our inferiors! What power of self-sacrifice is displayed by these poor people, whom sometimes in our wicked moods we are disposed to despise; what readiness to share the last crust with those who are, I will not say hungry, but hungrier! Who of us would take into his own house, his own bedchamber, a dying consumptive, a mere acquaintance, in order that the last days of the sufferer might be soothed by friendly nursing? Who of us would make provision in our will to share our grave with a worthy stranger, in order to avert from him the dreaded fate of being buried in the Potter's Field? Which of our young men would be willing to refuse the proffered opportunity of an education in one of the foremost colleges in the land, in order to stay with the old folks at home and work at a menial occupation for their support? Who of us would give up the joys of youth to devote his whole life to the care of a bed-ridden, half-demented parent? Yet all of these things and many others like them I have known to be done by people who live in the tenement houses of this great city. It sometimes seems as if the angelic aspect of human nature displayed itself by preference in the house of poverty, as if those who possessed no other treasure, no other jewels with which to adorn themselves, were compensated for their penury in other ways by these priceless gems of the most unselfish virtue. Such conduct, of course, is not universal. There are abundant instances of the opposite. But the truth remains that it is the worth which those who seem to lead the least desirable lives display toward others that assures us of their own worth. This, too, is the lesson of the oft-quoted and oft-misunderstood parable of the Good Samaritan, upon which here, for the moment, I should like to dwell.

The Jewish State in the time of Jesus was substantially an ecclesiastical aristocracy. The highest rank was occupied by the priests and their assessors, the Levites; after them, sometimes disputing the first place, came the doctors learned in the sacred law; below them the commonalty; and still lower in the social scale were the people of Samaria, who accepted the current Jewish religion only in part, and who were regarded by the blue-blood ecclesiastical aristocrats with contempt, indeed almost as outcasts. This fact it is necessary to remember in order to understand the parable. The designation Good Samaritan has become so associated with the idea of mercifulness, that I doubt not there are many persons who have the impression that Samaritans in the ancient Hebrew days were people specially noted for their benevolent disposition. Nothing of the kind, of course, is true. The Samaritans were a despised lower stratum of the population of Palestine. Read the parable in this light, and you will perceive that the moral of it is not as commonly stated—every one who has need of me is my neighbor; but that there is a far deeper meaning in it.

There came to Jesus one day a man versed in the sacred law, and asked him what he must do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus replied: The substance of right conduct is plain enough. Why do you ask as if it were a thing very recondite and difficult? Love thy God and thy neighbor. But the doctor of the sacred law, wishing to justify himself (wishing to show that the way of the upright life is not so plain, that it may be difficult to decide whom one should regard as one's equal, to whom one should ascribe worth), asked: Who is my neighbor? And Jesus replied in the words of the well-known parable concerning a certain man who had fallen among thieves, and these stripped him of his raiment and left him for dead on the public road that runs between Jerusalem and Jericho. Presently a member of the high aristocracy, a priest, passed by, but paid no attention to the sufferer; then another, a Levite, came that way, looked at the man who was lying there helpless, and turned and went on his journey. Then there came one of those low-caste despised Samaritans; and he acted like a tender human brother, bound up the man's wounds, poured oil and wine into them, etc. And Jesus said: Which one of these three showed himself to be a neighbor to the man that had fallen among thieves? In which of the social classes did there appear to be the truest understanding of the conduct which moral duty requires of us toward our fellow-men—in the upper classes or in the lowest? And the answer evidently is—in the lowest. The point of the parable is that the Samaritan himself, whom priest and Levite and doctor of the law refused to regard as a neighbor, was worthy to be treated as a neighbor, because he understood, as they did not, how to treat others as neighbors. The lesson of the parable is a twofold one: not only that the wounded man lying untended on the road was a neighbor because of his need, but more especially that the Samaritan was a neighbor because he responded to the need, and set an example of truly human behavior to those who had doubted whether, because of his extreme social degradation, he was himself to be regarded as human.

The moral qualities in men, then, constitute their most universal title to respect, and these qualities we find in all social grades and among all races and nationalities. We find them among the Chinese, as their devoted family life, the honesty of their merchants, and the ethics of Confucius indicate. We find them among the negroes, not only in the case of exceptional persons like Booker Washington or Dubois or Atkinson, but also in the undistinguished life of many an obscure man and woman, whom to know more intimately is to learn to respect as a neighbor and a moral equal. What we need to build up our faith in human goodness is the clairvoyance that discerns the hidden treasures of character in others. And one other quality is indispensable for the moral appreciation of our neighbors, namely, the quality of humility. Strange as it may seem, the less we plume ourselves on our own goodness, the more we shall be ready to believe in the goodness of other people; the more we realize the infinite nature of the moral ideal and our own distance from it, the more we shall esteem as of relatively small importance the distance that separates us from others, the slight extent to which we may morally surpass them. The more we are aware of our own frequent and serious shortcomings, the more, when we perceive the moral delinquencies of others, shall we recognize in their nature the same recuperative agency which we believe to be in ourselves, namely, the power of divine regeneration that can make all things new. If we regard ourselves as morally little and yet as never lost, we shall regard no one else as lost, however morally little he may seem to be.

Respect, then, for the indefeasible worth of every human being must be based not on theological systems which are fast decaying, nor on the fancied self-evidence of Jefferson's Declaration, but solely on the moral law which commands us to ascribe such worth to others whether we perceive it or not, nay, to create it in others by ascribing it to them.

Such is the spiritual attitude toward our fellow-men. And though our confidence may not always be demonstrably justified by the result, though we not always succeed in uplifting others, yet by pursuing this line of conduct we ourselves at all events shall be uplifted, our own life will be touched to finer issues.

III. THE SPIRITUAL ATTITUDE TOWARD OPPRESSORS.

Sunday, Dec. 4, 1904.

The problem of our spiritual attitude toward positive badness, social and individual wrongdoing, cruelty and oppression, is far more difficult of solution than the problem of our attitude toward worth really existent but concealed. The thorny question, how we are to deal with wicked persons, whether we are to observe the spiritual attitude toward them, and in what that attitude consists, requires the most sincere and straightforward treatment.

Should we cultivate an attitude of indifference in such cases? A ruffian cruelly beats his horse, the poor beast that has rendered him faithful service for many a day, but is feeble now and sinks beneath its load. With curses and the sharp persuasion of the lash, the merciless driver seeks to force the animal to efforts of which it is plainly incapable. Can we stand by and witness such a scene in philosophic calm? Shall we say that the wretch is the product of circumstances, and cannot be expected to act otherwise than he does? Shall we liken evildoers generally, as at present is customary in certain quarters, to the sick? Shall we say that such men are the outcome of their heredity, their education, their environment? I have known of a husband who in a state of intoxication brutally struck and injured his wife, while she was holding in her arms a babe not eight days old. Shall we say that that man was morally sick, that he could not help becoming intoxicated, and therefore was not responsible for the havoc he wrought when the demon of drink had gained possession of him? Shall we say of the syndicate of traders who hunt the natives on the Congo like rabbits, massacre and mutilate them, that they are sick? A bad deed done with intention argues badness in the doer. We impute to the man the act and its consequences. We cannot separate the sin from the sinner, and merely condemn sin in the abstract. There is no such thing as sin in the abstract. Sin is sin only when it is incorporated in the will of a human individual. We condemn the sinner because he has wedded himself to the sin. If this were not the case, we might as well close our courts of justice. We hold men accountable, then, for their misdeeds, whatever speculative philosophy may urge to the contrary. How could we revere virtue if we did not stigmatize its opposite; how could we believe in human worth if we did not condemn unworth where it appears?