Mendel, too, was at the table and could not take his eyes from the handsome stranger whose praises every mouth proclaimed. The boy regarded him as a superior being.
Tales of adventure, stories of travel, were the topics of conversation during the evening. After the dessert the talk took a more serious turn. The liberty enjoyed by the Jews in America was a fruitful theme for discussion and many were the questions asked by the interested group. That Israelites were politically and socially placed upon the same footing with their Christian neighbors was a source of gratification, but that some religious observances were in many cases neglected or totally abolished, appeared to these pious listeners as very reprehensible.
"You see," said Philip, in explanation, "where a number of Jewish families reside in one place it is still possible to obey the dietary laws, but in inland towns, where the number of Israelite families is limited, it becomes an impossibility to observe them. Nor do they deem it necessary that all the ceremonies that time has collected around the Jewish religion should be strictly observed. Those Israelites who soonest adopt the customs of their new country soonest enjoy the benefits which a free and liberty-loving nation offers."
Hirsch Bensef shook his head, doubtingly.
"Then you mean to imply that it becomes necessary to abolish those usages in which one's heart and soul are wrapped!" he said.
"Not at all," answered the American. "There are thousands of Jews in America as observant of the ordinances as the most pious in Kief. Yet it seems to me that a Jew can remain a Jew even if he neglect some of those ceremonials which have very little to do with Judaism pure and simple. Some are remnants of an oriental symbolism, others comparatively recent additions to the creed, which ought to give way before civilization. What possible harm can it do you or your religion if you shave your beard or abandon your jargon for the language of the people among whom you live?"
"It would make us undistinguishable from the goyim," answered Bensef.
"The sooner such a distinction falls the better," said Philip. "You may recollect reading in history that in the time of Peter the Great the Russian nobility wore beards and the Czar's efforts to make them shave their faces provoked more animosity than did all the massacres of Ivan the Terrible. Now a nobleman would sooner go to prison than wear a beard."
"We never read history," interposed the childish treble of Mendel. "If we did we should know more about the great world."
"That is indeed a misfortune," said Philip, sadly. "Every effort to develop the Jewish mind is checked, not by the gentiles, but by the Jews themselves. Had I been allowed full liberty to study what and how I pleased, I should never have been guilty of the excesses which drove me from home. A knowledge of the history of the world, an insight into modern science, will teach us why and wherefore all our laws were given and how we can best obey, not the letter but the spirit of God's commands."