JULIA M. COHEN, 1907.
THE thread on which the different good qualities of human beings are strung as pearls, is the fear of God. When the fastenings of this fear are unloosed, the pearls roll in all directions and are lost one by one.
BOOK OF MORALS, 15th cent.
THE knowledge of Hebrew is the golden hinge upon which our national and religious existence turns. Flowing down from the hills of eternity, the Hebrew language has been set apart by God as the receptacle of truths destined to sway mankind and humanize the world.
SABATO MORAIS, 1876.
THE SACRED TONGUE[1]
THE Synagogue service is essentially the expression of the soul of collective Israel. In the Synagogue we meet as Jews, there in prayer, in aspiration, in confession of faith, to carry on the stream of spiritual effort which has flowed unbroken through the ages ever since Israel became conscious of himself. Therefore the prayers will not merely voice private needs and modern ideas, but will chiefly speak of Israel. And so they will largely be in Hebrew, Israel’s historic language. You may get rid of Hebrew, but with it you will get rid of the Synagogue too, of the Synagogue as a living organism, as the well-spring of Jewish feeling and the inspiration of Jewish life. Nor is this all. The claim of Hebrew, though bound up with the interests of public worship, yet transcends them. It will meet you whenever you open your Jewish history, whenever you open your Bible. As long as we remain Jews and call the Bible our own, the Tongue in which it is written must be inestimably sacred to us.