We want all that is worthy in the Jewish past to be made a potent
force in the American life of the present. You men and women who are
students at our universities cannot perform your full duty to your
universities unless you add to the richness of the university life, to
the variety of its content, to its genuineness and versatility. And in
the larger American community we Jews cannot perform our full duty
unless we place at the disposal of our country the best fruits of the
Jewish spirit. Our Menorah allegiance, then, rests on the foundation
of Americanism. And insofar as, through the Menorah movement, we are
succeeding in uniting by a common bond men and women who have been
brought up under a great variety of circumstances and conditions, we
are increasing the democratic spirit of our universities and of the
larger life beyond the academic gates. Within the universities, too,
the broadening effect of the Menorah idea is not limited to the
student body. I can bear witness from personal experience that the
university authorities, both faculty members and administrative
officers, are not merely tolerating, or even mildly accepting, the
work of our Menorah Societies in their midst, but are themselves being
led to a better understanding of the place which the Jewish problem
occupies in the larger problem of their universities and of the
American community for whose service they are training the youth of
the land.
_Menorah and Religion_
I have said that the aim of the Menorah movement is the study and
advancement of Hebraic culture and ideals. The culture of a people is
but the permanent expression of its ideals in the various activities
of life. Religion constitutes one of the most important of human
activities, and we in the Menorah Societies are fully cognizant of its
fundamental importance. Indeed, we recognize that the ideals of the
Jewish people are perhaps expressed more truly, more profoundly, more
eloquently in our religious literature than in any other manifestation
of the Jewish genius. We should not be charged with excluding
religion, merely because we aim to include more than religion in our
purposes and activities.
I happen at the present time to be teaching at the University of
Michigan, at Ann Arbor. We have there a Menorah Society, devoted to
the general object to which all our Menorah Societies are devoted. We
listen to speakers and engage in discussions on Jewish history, Jewish
literature, Jewish religion, and current Jewish social, economic and
political problems. Side by side with the Menorah Society there exists
a Jewish Student Congregation, a body of men and women of which I feel
it a privilege to have been one of the organizers and to be a member
at the present time, which devotes itself entirely to religious
activity, to regular weekly worship. The two organizations do not
conflict in any way. It is significant that about ninety-five per
cent, if not more, of the members of the Michigan Menorah Society
attend regularly the services of the Jewish Student Congregation.
Unfortunately, not so large a percentage of the members of the
congregation attend the meetings or are members of the Michigan
Menorah Society. In the course of time, the relationship between the
two organizations will doubtless be adjusted more satisfactorily. But
in the experience at Michigan we have a concrete illustration of the
spur to religion which Menorah men derive from their participation in
Menorah work.
The ideal of the Menorah Societies is a non-partisan ideal. We do not
stand for Zionism or anti-Zionism; we do not urge the acceptance of
reform Judaism or conservative Judaism or orthodox Judaism; we do not
favor the German Jew as against the Russian Jew, or vice versa, nor do
we appeal to one social class as against another. We want the Menorah
ideal to be broad enough to include every Jew. We do not exclude
religion as such from the scope of our interests; we but exclude any
insistence upon a particular sect or branch or kind of Judaism. We
avoid all partisan activity which may tend to disorganize our Jewish
students, which may tend to divide them. That is all.
_A Plea for Tolerance_
I believe that what we need in our universities, what we need in the
Jewish community, is more insistence upon Judaism and more light upon
the inspiration which Judaism can bring us, and less insistence upon
the particular kind of Judaism which you or I or some one else may
consider the acme of truth. Indifference to religion and not error in
religion is the great danger of these modern times. If we really want
religion, if we want to stir again the Jew's traditional passion for
religion, if we want to inspire once more the Jew's genius for
religion, let us try to understand all aspects and all manifestations
of it, let us bend our efforts to a renaissance of religious
influence. The future of the Jew in this country will not be
determined by the theories or the practices of any one group or sect
of Jews. The result will be a composite result, to which the reform
Jew and the Zionist, the orthodox Jew and the anti-Zionist, will alike
contribute. Let us leave it to the growing generation to determine for
itself the content of the theory of life best suited to the future
destiny of the Jew. At least, within our university walls let us be
tolerant, let us be liberal-minded, let us listen to and understand
every man's point of view.