1. Judaism has one specific term for religion, representing the moral
relation between God and man, namely, _Berith_, covenant. The covenant was
concluded by God with the patriarchs and with Israel by means of
sacrificial blood, according to the primitive custom by which tribes or
individuals became “blood brothers,” when they were both sprinkled with
the sacrificial blood or both drank of it.(108) The first covenant of God
was made after the flood, with Noah as the representative of mankind; it
was intended to assure him and all coming generations of the perpetual
maintenance of the natural order without interruption by flood, and at the
same time to demand of all mankind the observance of certain laws, such as
not to shed, or eat, blood. Here at the very beginning of history religion
is taken as the universal basis of human morality, so developing at the
outset the fundamental principle of Judaism that it rests upon a religion
of humanity, which it desires to establish in all purity. As the universal
idea of man forms thus its beginning, so Judaism will attain its final
goal only in a divine covenant comprising all humanity. Both the rabbis
and the Hellenistic writers consider the covenant of Noah with its
so-called Noahitic commandments as unwritten laws of humanity. In fact,
they are referred to Adam also, so that religion appears in its essence as
nothing else than a covenant of God with all mankind.(109)
2. Accordingly, Judaism is a special basis of relationship between God and
Israel. Far from superseding the universal covenant with Noah, or
confining it to the Jewish people, this covenant aims to reclaim all
members of the human family for the wider covenant from which they have
relapsed. God chose for this purpose Abraham as the one who was faithful
to His moral law, and made a special covenant with him for all his
descendants, that they might foster justice and righteousness, at first
within the narrow sphere of the nation, and then in ever-widening circles
of humanity.(110) Yet the covenant with Abraham was only the precursor of
the covenant concluded with Israel through Moses on Mt. Sinai, by which
the Jewish people were consecrated to be the eternal guardians of the
divine covenant with mankind, until the time when it shall encompass all
the nations.(111)
3. In this covenant of Sinai, referred to by the prophet Elijah, and
afterward by many others, the free moral relationship of man to God is
brought out; this forms the characteristic feature of a revealed religion
in contradistinction to natural religion. In paganism the Deity formed an
inseparable part of the nation itself; but through the covenant God became
a free moral power, appealing for allegiance to the spiritual nature of
man. This idea of the covenant suggested to the prophet Hosea the analogy
with the conjugal relation,(112) a conception of love and loyalty which
became typical of the tender relation of God to Israel through the
centuries. In days of direst woe Jeremiah and the book of Deuteronomy
invested this covenant with the character of indestructibility and
inviolability.(113) God’s covenant with Israel is everlasting like that
with the heaven and the earth; it is ever to be renewed in the hearts of
the people, but never to be replaced by a new covenant. Upon this eternal
renewal of the covenant with God rests the unique history of Judaism, its
wondrous preservation and regeneration throughout the ages. Paul’s
doctrine of a new covenant to replace the old(114) conflicts with the very
idea of the covenant, and even with the words of Jeremiah.
4. The Israelitish nation inherited from Abraham, according to the
priestly Code, the rite of _circumcision_ as a “sign of the
covenant,”(115) but under the prophetic influence, with its loathing of
all sacrificial blood, the _Sabbath_ was placed in the foreground as “the
sign between God and Israel.”(116) In ancient Israel and in the Judean
commonwealth the Abrahamitic rite formed the initiation into the
nationality for aliens and slaves, by which they were made full-fledged
Jews. With the dispersion of the Jewish people over the globe, and the
influence of Hellenism, Judaism created a propaganda in favor of a
world-wide religion of “God-fearing” men pledged to the observance of the
Noahitic or humanitarian laws. Rabbinism in Palestine called such a one
_Ger Toshab_—sojourner, or semi-proselyte; while the full proselyte who
accepted the Abrahamitic rite was called _Ger Zedek_, or proselyte of
righteousness.(117) Not only the Hellenistic writings, but also the
Psalms, the liturgy, and the older Rabbinical literature give evidence of
such a propaganda,(118) but it may be traced back as far as
Deutero-Isaiah, during the reign of Cyrus. His outlook toward a Jewish
religion which should be at the same time a religion of all the world, is
evident when he calls Israel “a mediator of the covenant between God and
the nations,” a “light to the peoples,”—a regenerator of humanity.(119)
5. This hope of a universal religion, which rings through the Psalms, the
Wisdom books and the Hellenistic literature, was soon destined to grow
faint. The perils of Judaism in its great struggles with the Syrian and
Roman empires made for intense nationalism, and the Jewish covenant shared
this tendency. The early Christian Church, the successor of the missionary
activity of Hellenistic Judaism, labored also at first for the Noahitic
covenant.(120) Pauline Christianity, however, with a view to tearing down
the barrier between Jew and Gentile, proclaimed a new covenant, whose
central idea is belief in the atoning power of the crucified son of
God.(121) Indeed, one medieval Rabbinical authority holds that we are to
regard Christians as semi-proselytes, as they practically observe the
Noahitic laws of humanity.(122)
6. Progressive Judaism of our own time has the great task of
re-emphasizing Israel’s world-mission and of reclaiming for Judaism its
place as the priesthood of humanity. It is to proclaim anew the prophetic
idea of God’s covenant with humanity, whose force had been lost, owing to
inner and outer obstacles. Israel, as the people of the covenant, aims to
unite all nations and classes of men in the divine covenant. It must
outlast all other religions in its certainty that ultimately there can be
but the one religion, uniting God and man by a single bond.(123)
B. The Idea Of God In Judaism