The mirthful feast of Purim, with its half-serious, half-jovial use of the scroll of Esther and its popular rejoicing, assumed in the course of time a more earnest character, because the plot of Haman and the rescue of the Jews became typical in Jewish history. Therefore the story of Amalek, the arch-foe of Israel, is read in the Synagogue on the preceding Sabbath as a reminder of the constant battle which Israel must wage for its supreme religious task.[1508]
15. Through the entire history of Judaism since the Exile, the Synagogue brought its religious truth home to the people each Sabbath and holy day through the reading and expounding of the Torah and the prophets. These words of consolation and admonition struck a deep chord in the hearts of the people, so that learning was the coveted prize of all and ignorance of the law became a mark of inferiority. Beside these stated occasions, all times of joy or sadness such as weddings and funerals were given some attention in the Synagogue, as linking the individual to the communal life, and linking his personal joy and sorrow with the past sadness and future glory of Jerusalem, as if they but mirrored the greater events of the people. Thus the whole life was to be placed in the service of the social body, and could not be torn asunder or divided into things holy and things profane. Religion must send forth its rays like the sun, illumining and warming all of man's deeds and thoughts.
16. The weakness of the Synagogue was its Orientalism. Amid all the changes of time and environment, it remained separated from the surrounding world to such an extent that it could no longer exert an influence to win outsiders for its great truths. Until recently the Hebrew language was retained [pg 471] for the entire liturgy, although it had become unintelligible to the majority of the Jews in western lands, and even though the rabbis had declared in Talmudic times that the verse: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” indicates that the words should be spoken in a language which can be heard and understood by the people.[1509] The Torah likewise was, and in the ancient Synagogue is still read exclusively in the Hebrew original, in spite of the fact that the original reading under Ezra was accompanied by a translation and interpretation in the Aramaic vernacular. Thus only could the Torah become “the heritage of the whole congregation of Jacob,” which fact gave rise to both the Aramaic and Greek translations of the Bible which carried the truths of Judaism to the wider circle of the world. These plain facts were ignored through the centuries to the detriment of the Jewish faith, and this neglect, in turn, engendered a false conception of Judaism, making it seem ever more exclusive and narrow. Instead of becoming “our wisdom and understanding before all the nations,”[1510] knowledge of the Torah dwindled to a possession of the few, while the ceremonial laws, observed by the many, were performed without any understanding of their origin or purpose. But in the last century under the banner of Reform Judaism many of these points were altered. The vernacular was introduced into the Synagogue, so that the modern Jew might pray in the same tongue in which he feels and thinks, thus turning the prayers from mechanical recitations into true offerings of the soul, and bringing the Scriptural readings nearer to the consciousness of the congregation. Likewise the reintroduction of the sermon in the vernacular as part of the divine service for Sabbath and holy days became the vehicle to awaken religious sentiments in the hearts of the people, and thereby to revive the spirit of the ancient prophets and Haggadists.[1511]
17. This Orientalism is especially marked in the attitude of the older Synagogue to women. True enough, woman was honored as the mistress of the home. She kindled the Sabbath light, provided for the joy and comfort of domestic life, especially on the holy days, observed strictly the laws of diet and purity, and awakened the spirit of piety in her children. Still she was excluded from the regular divine service in the Synagogue. She did not count as a member of the religious community, which consisted exclusively of men. She had to sit in the gallery behind a trellis during the service and could not even join the men in saying grace at table. A few rare women were privileged to study Hebrew, such as the daughter of Rashi, but as a rule woman's education was neglected as if “she had no claim on any other wisdom than the distaff.”[1512] More and more Judaism lost sight of its noble types of women in antiquity; it forgot the Biblical heroines such as Miriam and Deborah, Hannah and Hulda, and Talmudic ones such as Beruria the wife of Rabbi Meir. Such women as these might have repeated the words: “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Hath He not also spoken through us?”[1513] Aside from the sphere of religion, in which woman always manifests a splendid wealth of sentiment, she was held in subjection by Oriental laws in both marital and social relations,[1514] and her natural vocation as religious teacher of the children in the home failed to receive full recognition also.
The first attempt to liberate the Jewish woman from the yoke of Orientalism was made in the eleventh century by Rabbi Gershon ben Jehudah of Mayence, at that time the leading rabbi of Germany. Under the influence of Occidental ideas he secured equal rights for men and women in marriage.[1515] But only in our own time were full rights accorded her in the [pg 473] Synagogue, owing to the reform movement in Germany and Austria. As a matter of fact, the confirmation of children of both sexes, which was gradually introduced in many conservative congregations also, was the virtual recognition of woman as the equal of man in Synagogue and school.[1516] Finally, upon the initiative of Isaac M. Wise, then Rabbi in Albany, N. Y., family pews were introduced in the American Synagogue and woman was seated beside her husband, son, father, and brother as their equal. With her greater emotional powers she is able to lend a new solemnity and dignity to the religious and educational efforts of the Synagogue, wherever she is admitted as a full participant in the service.
18. Another shortcoming of the Synagogue and of Rabbinical Judaism in general was its formalism. Too much stress was laid upon the perfunctory “discharge of duty,” the outward performance of the letter of the law, and not enough upon the spiritual basis of the Jewish religion. The form obscured the spirit, even though it never quite succeeded in throttling it. This formalism of the ignorant, but observant multitude was censured as early as the eleventh century by Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakudah in his “Duties of the Heart,” a philosophical work in which he emphatically urges the need of inwardness for the Jewish faith.[1517] Later the mystics of Germany and Palestine, while strong supporters of the law, opposed the one-sidedness of legalism and intellectualism, and endeavored to instill elements of deeper devotion into the Jewish soul through the introduction of their secret lore, Cabbalah, or “esoteric tradition.”[1518] Their offering, however, was anything but beneficial to the soul of Judaism. A mysticism which attempts to fathom the unfathomable depth of the divine accords but ill with the teaching of Judaism, which says: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but [pg 474] the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”[1519] The Cabbalah was but the reaction to the excessive rationalism of the Spanish-Arabic period. As the ultimate source of religion is not reason but the heart, so the cultivation of the intellect at the expense of the emotions can be only harmful to the faith. The legalism and casuistry of the Talmud and the Codes appealed too much to the intellect, disregarding the deeper emotional sources of religion and morality; on the other hand, the mysticism of the Cabbalists overemphasized the emotional element, and eliminated much of the rational basis of Judaism. True religion grasps the whole of man and shows God's world as a harmonious whole, reflecting in both mind and heart the greatness and majesty of God on high. In order to open the flood-gates of the soul and render religion again the deepest and strongest force of life, the Synagogue must revitalize its time-honored institutions and ceremonies. Thus only will they become real powers of the Jewish spirit, testimonies to the living God, witnessing to the truth of the Biblical words: “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it too far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”[1520]
19. The Synagogue need no longer restrict itself to the ancient forms of worship in its appeal to the Jewish soul. It must point to the loftiest ideals for the future of all humanity, if it is to be true to its prophetic spirit of yore. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” exclaimed [pg 475] the seer of the exile.[1521] “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” must be echoed in all lands and languages, by all God-seeking minds and hearts, to realize the prophetic vision: “And the Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day the Lord shall be One, and His name One.”[1522] Just as there is but one truth, one justice, and one love, however differently the various races and classes of men may conceive them, so Israel shall uphold God, the only One, as the bond of unity for all men, despite their diversity of ideas and cultures, and His truth will be the beacon-light for all humanity. As the Psalms, prophets, and the opening chapters of the Pentateuch speak a language appealing to the common sense of mankind, so the divine worship of the Synagogue must again strike the deeper chords of humanity, in its weal and woe, its hope and fear, its aspirations and ideals. Therefore it is not enough that the institutions and ceremonies of the Synagogue are testimonies to the great past of Israel. They must also become eloquent heralds and monitors of the glorious future, when all mankind will have learned the lessons of the Jewish festivals, the ideals of liberty, law, and peace, the thoughts of the divine judgment and the divine mercy. They must help also to bring about the time when the ideal of social justice, which the Mosaic Code holds forth for the Israelitish nation, will have become the motive-power and incentive to the reëstablishment of human society upon new foundations.
Jehudah ha Levi, the lofty poet of medieval Jewry,[1523] speaks of Israel as the “heart of humanity,” because it has supplied the spiritual and moral life-blood of the civilized world. Israel provides continually the rejuvenating influence of society. Israel's history is the history of the world in miniature. As the Midrash says,[1524] the confession of God's unity imposes [pg 476] upon us the obligation to lead all God's children to love Him with heart and soul and might, thus working toward the time when “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”[1525] All the social, political, and intellectual movements of our restless, heaven-storming age, notwithstanding temporary lapses into barbarism and hatred, point unerringly to the final goal, the unity of all human and cosmic life under the supreme leadership of God on high. In the midst of all these movements of the day stands the Jew, God's witness from of old, yet vigorous and youthful still, surveying the experiences of the past and voicing the hope of the future, exclaiming in the words of his traditional prayers: “Happy are we; how goodly is our portion! how pleasant our lot! how beautiful our inheritance!”[1526] Our faith is the faith of the coming humanity; our hope of Zion is the kingdom of God, which will include all the ideals of mankind.