I cannot but wonder, therefore, whether, in view of these new conceptions, Jew and Gentile are not going to meet in this country and even agree about Jesus. It is difficult at least to see which of us would change most if there were this rapprochement. We must neither of us abandon our birthright. We must be the very best Puritan Anglo-Saxons we possibly can, and you must be the best Jews possible, for out of these component elements American citizenship is made up. This country stands for the dropping of old prejudices, such as those that are inflaming Europe now with war. If we can satisfy each other's ideals and meet half way the thing is done, and the melting pot which America stands for has got in its work. I want the Menorah Society to feel that it is in the van of this movement.
"Golden Rule" Hillel
By Moses Hyamson
MOSES HYAMSON (born in Suwalki, Russia, in 1863, came to England in childhood). Rabbi and jurist; educated at Jews' College and University College of London; for thirteen years Senior Dayan of the London Beth-Din (Jewish Court of Arbitration), in which capacity, because of his erudition in both the Jewish and the common law, he rendered notable service to the British community. In 1913 he accepted a call from the Congregation Orach Chayim of New York. Besides being a contributor to the Jewish Quarterly Review and other learned publications, Dr. Hyamson has published "The Oral Law and Other Sermons" (1901), and an annotated edition of the medieval "Collatio Romanorum et Mosaicarum Legum" (1912).
AS the students and teachers in the famous school of Shemaya and Abtalion assembled for worship one wintry Sabbath morning, they were astonished to find their lecture-hall exceptionally dark. On looking up they descried what seemed to be a human form lying prone across the skylight. Willing feet ascended the roof and willing hands swept away the snow from a young lad's half-frozen form. They brought him down, and although it was the holy Sabbath, kindled a fire to revive the chilled body. "Worthy is Hillel," they exclaimed, "that the Sabbath should be desecrated for his sake!"
So runs the Talmudic tale. The incident happened in Palestine in the century before the common era. The boy Hillel had come from his obscure home in Babylon, bent upon study at the most famous school in Palestine, whose teachers, Shemaya and Abtalion, were heads of the Synhedrion, the Supreme Court of Jurisdiction. Poor and proud, Hillel supported himself by manual labor while he was securing his education. Like Abraham Lincoln, he was a woodchopper. One half of the small amount he earned daily served for his meals, and the other half he paid to the porter at the college for his admission in the evening. On this short Friday in mid-winter he had been able to earn nothing, and in his keen anxiety not to miss the lecture and discussion, he clambered to the roof of the college hall, braving snow and cold for the words of the living God as expounded by his teachers.