Orthodoxy in Judaism is the attempt to maintain the Jewish group by means of the religious and customary behavior which has operated successfully for that end since the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth in 70 A. D. It is conservative; it finds its chief values, not in the national, but in the religious life; and it endeavors to hold its group intact by a traditional ritual which possesses a profound emotional appeal and establishes certain habits of life. It is the appeal to loyalty and to group stability, and parallels similar conservative movements in many Christian denominations, though with the stronger urge of a longer and more bitter history of persecution.
Finally, there is a theory of group adaptation, best developed institutionally by the reform and conservative synagogs, but also in many non-religious organizations—social clubs, Young Men’s Hebrew Associations (the very name an imitation), labor unions, and the like. Not that these various parties are identical; as a matter of fact, they have practically nothing in common except the incorporation in their philosophies of the two elements—Jewish tradition and modern adaptation; but the conservative and reform statements—of adaptation, of tradition, and of the relation between the two—present profound differences both in theory and in practical details of application. This adjustment is not as yet entirely successful, but has developed a number of useful responses, by which Jews are managing to preserve their group identity and at the same time to enter as constituent members into the American group mind. It is still in a transition period, but the synthesis is being worked out clearly enough for our purposes. In the synagog it involves the reading of part of the prayers in English, as well as Hebrew, the beautification of the service by modern music, both vocal and instrumental, the incorporation of a sermon in English, a modern system of religious education, and a development of the social life of the young people by clubs, classes and recreational means. Without the synagog, it involves a type of “Modernism,” intellectual and moral. Even in the group which endeavors to be most orthodox, it is finding its way in the form of social surveys, modern methods in Hebrew education, and some sort of working compromise with the community custom of Sunday observance, the English language and the eating of non-kosher food. The nature of this adjustment is clear from the fact that every separate item has a different solution. The great majority of Jews work on the traditional Sabbath, due to the combined social and economic pressure; they universally are adopting English as their daily speech, but the majority of them have not yet admitted English into the ritual of the synagog; all those who really care to do so maintain the Jewish dietary laws in their own homes, though very few (comparatively) go so far as to refuse to enter a restaurant where the dishes are washed with soap, or to refuse to drink wine made by gentiles of which a libation might have been made to idols. At the same time, the Hebrew education, so long an integral part of Jewish life, has been completely revolutionized from the unsystematic private or charity instruction of Russia to the large, well organized schools for daily Hebrew instruction at the close of the public school day, whose method is largely copied from that of the American public school.[121]
We are witnessing before our eyes a group adjustment on a large scale to modern thought, to American customs, to the non-Jewish group. Some of this adjustment is systematic, based on a theory of Jewish life as a distinct religion among Americans of other religions. Some of it is economic and social, either without theory or directly against the orthodox theory of the adjusters themselves. At the same time, we are witnessing orthodoxy fighting for group solidarity; Zionism establishing a Jewish group in a distant land; the assimilationists who escape as individuals from the burden and the odium of being Jews. Each theory is today being tried out in practice, and the results of each will in time be demonstrated. At the same time, each theory of Jewish life implies a corresponding conception of America and of human groups as a whole.
CHAPTER IX.
THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN MIND
1.
The ideal of most social thinkers has been that of uniformity, absence of parties and swallowing of groups in a common loyalty.
Then none was for a party;
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great;