[Illustration: _CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (born in Boston, 1834),
preëminent as educator and publicist; for forty years President of
Harvard University; revered not only by Harvard men but by all
Americans as a great leader of thought and opinion. Dr. Eliot warmly
welcomed the organization of the first Menorah Society at Harvard, in
1906; and to his encouragement is due in large measure the growth of
the Menorah movement. At a time when the problems and lessons of the
war are absorbing his attention, Dr. Eliot has generously shown his
continued sympathy with the Menorah aims and his interest in the
Menorah Journal by preparing this article._]
For many centuries the Jews have had no country of their own or even
national headquarters. They have been scattered among many nations,
all more or less unfriendly, and some cruelly oppressive; yet they
have retained, under the most adverse circumstances, the capacity to
earn their livelihood, to bring up families, and to maintain the great
traditions of their race. The main reason for the indestructibility of
the Jews is that they early embraced certain invaluable ideals, and
have struggled towards them indomitably for thousands of years.
_Races and Ideals_
The principal difference between races is difference of ideals.
Whenever several distinct races come to live side by side on the same
territory in the bonds of a peaceful and coöperative fellowship for
all common public purposes, it will be found that they have all
reached common political and social ideals, although in regard to many
racial attributes and even in regard to religious beliefs they remain
distinct.
The assimilation of different races can be brought about only by a
gradual acceptance of the same ideals and aspirations. For several
centuries this process of assimilation has been going on in many
parts of the earth, and is now going on at an accelerated pace,
resulting in larger conceptions of nationality and larger political or
governmental units.
_The Influence of Lofty Ideals on the Jewish Race_
The Jewish race affords the strongest instance of the influence on a
human stock of lofty ideals, persistently held wherever on the face of
the earth a fragment of the race has planted itself. In all
generations and in all environments the Jews have succeeded in
competition with other races to a remarkable degree. Among a poor
population they are less poor than their neighbors; among a free and
prosperous population the Jews become richer and more prosperous than
the average. Confined in unwholesome Ghettos, they retain to an
astonishing degree their health and vitality, helped doubtless by the
dietary and sanitary directions given in their ancient Scriptures.
Deprived of the right to bear arms in many countries, and, therefore,
unable to resist savage attack, they remain inextinguishable. Wherever
they become prosperous they develop an extraordinary community
feeling, and take care of their own poor or unfortunate. In short, in
all generations and in all their various environments they have
exhibited, and still exhibit, a remarkable racial tenacity and vigor.
It is manifest that this normal success of the race is not due to any
especially favorable material conditions, but to the rare strength and
significance of its ideals.
_"The Noblest of Human Ideals": Jewish Monotheism_
What are these ideals? What have they been for thousands of years? The
first of the Jewish ideals has been that of one God--the noblest of
all human ideals--early attained, and persistently clung to by the
whole race. Mohammedan monotheism is noble, and is the main source of
the strength of those races which have embraced the religion of
Mahomet; but the Mohammedan doctrine of One God arrived thousands of
years after the Jewish, and never was so pure. The most significant
sentence in the English speech is the first sentence of the Hebrew
Bible--"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That
is the first of the Jewish ideals, to which the race has been true in
all environments, in weal and in woe; and that belief has delivered it
from many sorts of enfeebling and degrading terrors and superstitions.
_The Ideal of the Family_
Another Jewish ideal which has counted for much in the history of the
race is the ideal of the family--pure, honorable, and sacred. The
veneration of ancestors, which has been an important part of the
religion of China and Japan, is only an undue exaggeration of the
Hebrew commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother." The Jewish race
has seen fulfilled the promise which is the last phrase of that
commandment, "that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy
God giveth thee," although in many lands and not in any land of their
own. The organized human society most likely to prove durable or
permanent is that which possesses and maintains in theory and practise
a lofty ideal of the family. The reverence shown by children toward
their parents and the devotion of parents to their children, which
prevail in Jewish families, are both more intense than is usual in
Christian families. These sentiments yield infinite good in any human
society; they produce, and pass on from generation to generation,
purity of life, family honor, and a real consecration of the best
human affections. That is the second potent Jewish ideal.
_The Ethical Ideal of the Ten Commandments_
The third effective ideal is the ethical teaching contained in the Ten
Commandments, the most compact and yet comprehensive code of morals
ever written. These ethical principles have been held before the
Jewish race for thousands of years wherever it has lived, in good
times and bad, an ideal toward which the race has always struggled,
though with frequent lapses. This code contains the institution of the
Sabbath Day, which by itself accounts for much of the extraordinary
endurance of the race.
The Jews have always been distinguished for their respect for learning
and their zeal for education. In the Ghettos of Europe, under the most
discouraging conditions, their Rabbis kept alive the ancient learning,
and through many centuries gave the elite of the rising generation
some mental training, when no instruction was to be had by the masses
of mankind. A persecuted race, provided it retains its vitality and
elasticity, receives admirable training in loyalty to its ideals. In
the case of the Jews this was a loyalty not only to race, but to
religion; and religious loyalty is the finest and most sustaining of
all loyalties. The religion of the Jews emphasizes an ideal to which
the Jewish mind and heart have responded ardently from the earliest
times--the ideal of righteousness. Loyalty to this ideal includes
loyalty to race, family, religion, and all righteous persons. The Jews
believe that righteousness alone exalteth a nation, a family, or a
man.
_Will the Jewish Race Meet the Test of Liberty?_
For two thousand years the Jews have led their daily lives under
exposure to bodily harm, injustice, and all sorts of disaster, and
under such grievous trials have preserved their ideals. The race is
now to be put to another and severer test. In the free countries of
Europe and America the Jews enjoy complete political and industrial
liberty. They were for centuries excluded from most professions, arts,
and industries, and were driven into trade and money-lending. Now all
callings are open to them. In the Middle Ages there were only a few
directions in which a successful Jew could safely spend his money. Now
he can spend it in any direction--wisely and beneficently, or
foolishly and ostentatiously. Will the race bear liberty as well as it
has borne oppression? The liberty, which is the only atmosphere in
which the strongest men and women can develop, often causes the
downfall of weak-willed human beings. Rich Jews, like other rich
people, are in danger of becoming luxurious--the more so because the
race has been cut off from military service, and has not been addicted
to out-of-door sports. The worst destroyer of sound family and
national life is luxury. If the race is to meet successfully the test
of liberty, it will get over its apparent tendency of the moment
towards materialism and reliance on the power of money, hold fast to
its social and artistic idealism, and press steadily towards its
intellectual and religious ideals.
[Illustration: Signature: Charles W. Eliot]