"YOM KIPPUR."
THE morning after the first meeting of the Hebrew class at Rabbi
Barthold's, Frank Marion came into the office.
"Herschel," he said, "when do you have your Day of Atonement services?
Is it this week or next? Rabbi Barthold invited us to attend, but I am
not sure about the date. He is going to preach a series of sermons that
are to set forth the views now held by the Reform school, and Cragmore
and I are anxious to hear them."
"It is the week after this," said David, consulting the calendar.
"Then I can arrange to get in from my trip in time for the Friday night
service."
"What do you think of Rabbi Barthold?" asked David. "Isn't he a
magnificent old fellow?"
Marion stroked his mustache thoughtfully. "Well," he said after some
deliberation, "I hardly know where to place him. He doesn't belong to
this age. If I believed in the transmigration of souls, I should say
that some old Levite, whose life-work had been to keep the Temple lamps
perpetually burning, had strayed back to earth again.
"That seems to be his mission now. He is trying to rekindle the pride
and zeal and hope of an ancient day. Excuse me for saying it, Herschel,
but there are few in his congregation who understand him. Their vision
is so obscured by this dense fog of modern indifference that they fail
to appreciate his aims. They are still in the outer courts, among the
tables of the money-changers, and those who sell doves. They have never
entered the inner sanctuary of a spiritual life. Their religion stops
with the altar and the censer--the material things. Understand me," he
said hastily, as David interrupted him, "I know there are a number you
have in mind, who are loyally true to the spirit of Judaism, but they
are few and far between. I am not speaking of them, but of the great
mass of the congregation. I believe the services of the synagogue, and
their religion itself, is only a form observed from a cold sense of
duty, merely to avert the evil decree."
David drew himself up rather stiffly.
"And you are the disciple of the man who said, 'Let him that is without
sin among you cast the first stone!' What do you suppose the Jew has to
say about the dead-heads in your Churches? What proportion of your
membership has passed beyond the tables of the money-changers? How many
in your pews, who mumble the creed and wear the label 'Christian,' will
be able at the passages of God's Jordan to meet the challenge of his
Shibboleth?"
Marion laid his hand on David's shoulder. "You misunderstand me, my
boy," he said. "I have no harsher denunciation for the indifferent Jew
than for the indifferent Christian. God pity them both! I was simply
drawing a contrast between Rabbi Barthold and his people, as it appears
to me--a shepherd who longs to lead his flock up to the source of all
living water; but they prefer to dispense with climbing the spiritual
heights, jostle each other for the richest herbage of the lowlands, and
are satisfied. You know that is so, David."
"Yes," admitted David, with a sigh. "He can not even arouse them to the
necessity of teaching their children Hebrew, if they would perpetuate
loyalty to its traditions."
David was about to repeat what the Rabbi had said the night he consented
to take the Hebrew class, but his pride checked him: "What are we coming
to, my son? Protestantism is having a wonderful awakening in regard to
the study of the Bible. Never has there been such a widespread interest
in it as now. But among our people, how many of the younger generation
make it a text-book of daily study? Such negligence will surely write
its 'Ichabod' upon the future of our beloved Israel."
"What a discussion we have drifted into!" exclaimed Mr. Marion. "I had
only intended dropping in here to ask you a simple question. Come to
think, I believe I have not answered yours. You asked me my opinion of
Rabbi Barthold. Well, I think he is a sincere, noble soul, a true seeker
of the truth, and a man whose friendship I would value very highly."
Herschel looked much pleased.
"I hope you may be able to hear him on 'Yom Kippur,'" he said.
"I shall certainly try to be there," Marion answered.
As his footsteps died away in the hall, David said to himself: "If every
Gentile were like that man, and every Jew like Uncle Ezra, what an
ideal state of society there would be! But then," he added as an
after-thought, "what would become of the lawyers? We would starve."
* * * * *
In the waning light of the afternoon, that Day of the Atonement, there
was no more devout worshiper in all the temple than George Cragmore. He
had just finished reading a book of M. Leroy Beaulieu's, "Israel Among
the Nations," and as he turned the leaves of the prayer-book some one
handed him, he was impressed with the truth of this sentence which
recurred to him:
"The Hebrew genius was confined to a narrow bed between two rocky walls,
whence only the sky could be seen; but it channeled there a well so deep
that the ages have not dried it up, and the nations of the four corners
of the earth have come to slake their thirst at its waters."
It seemed to him that all that was purest, most heart-searching and
sublime in the Old Covenant; all that time has proven most precious and
comforting of its promises; all therein that best satisfies the human
yearnings toward the Infinite, and gives wings to the God-instinct in
man, might be found somewhere in the exquisite mosaic of this day's
ritual.
Marion, concentrating his attention chiefly on the sermons, admired
their scholarly style, and indorsed most of their substance, but he came
away with a feeling of sadness.
It seemed so pitiful to him to see these people with their backs turned
on the sacrifice a divine love had already provided, trying to make
their own empty-handed atonement, simply by their penitent pleadings and
good deeds.
Herschel's devotions were interfered with by a spirit of criticism
heretofore unknown to him. His thoughts were so full of doubts that had
been having an almost imperceptible growth that he could not enter into
the service with his usual abandon. He was continually contrasting those
around him with that never-to-be-forgotten gathering on Lookout, and the
congregation in the tent.
What made them to differ? He could not tell, but he felt that something
was lacking here that had made the other such a force.
Cragmore had not been able to attend the Friday night service, nor the
one on the following morning. He came in just after the noon recess, and
was ushered to a pew near the center of the room, where he immediately
became absorbed in the ritual. He followed devoutly through the
meditations and the silent devotions, and when they came to the
responsive readings, his voice joined in as earnestly as any son of
Abraham there.
The synagogue, with its modern trappings and fashionably-dressed
congregation, seemed to disappear. He saw the old Temple take its place,
with its solemn ceremonials of scapegoat and burnt-offering. Through the
chanting of the choir in the gallery back of him he heard the
thousand-voiced song of the Levites. He seemed to see the clouds of
incense, and the smoke arising from the high brazen altar. He bowed his
head on the seat in front of him. His whole soul seemed to go out in
reverent adoration to this great Jehovah, worshiped by both Hebrew and
Christian.
The memorial service to the dead followed the sermon.
Cragmore's music-loving nature responded like a quivering harp-string as
the choir began a minor chant:
"Oh what is man, the child of dust?
What is man, O Lord?"
The low, moaning tones of the great organ rose and fell like the beat of
a far-off tide, as all heads bowed in silent devotion, recalling in that
moment the lives that had passed out into the great beyond.
Cragmore whispered a fervent prayer of thankfulness for the unbroken
family circle across the wide Atlantic.
As he did so, a breath of blossoming hawthorn hedges, a faint chiming of
the Shandon bells, and the blue mists of the Kerry hills seemed to
mingle a moment with his prayer.
The sun had set, when in the concluding service his eyes fell on the
words the Rabbi was reading--The Mission of Israel--"It's a pity," he
thought, "that every mentally cross-eyed Christian, who, between
ignorance and bigotry, can get only a distorted impression of the Jews,
couldn't have heard this service to-day, especially that prayer for all
mankind, and this one he is reading now:
"'This twilight hour reminds us also of the eventide, when, according to
Thy gracious promise, Thy light will arise over all the children of men,
and Israel's spiritual descendants will be as numerous as the stars in
the heaven. Endow us, our Guardian, with strength and patience for our
holy mission. Grant that all the children of Thy people may recognize
the goal of our changeful career, so that they may exemplify, by their
zeal and love for mankind, the truth of Israel's watchword: One humanity
on earth, even as there is but one God in heaven. Enlighten all that
call themselves by Thy name with the knowledge that the sanctuary of
wood and stone, that erst crowned Zion's hill, was but a gate, through
which Israel should step out into the world, to reconcile all mankind
unto Thee! Thou alone knowest when this work of atonement shall be
completed; when the day shall dawn in which the light of Thy truth,
brighter than that of the visible sun, shall encircle the whole earth.
But surely that great day of universal reconciliation, so fervently
prayed for, shall come, as surely as none of Thy words return empty,
unless they have done that for which Thou didst send them. Then joy
shall thrill all hearts, and from one end of the earth to the other
shall echo the gladsome cry: Hear, O Israel, hear all mankind, the
Eternal our God, the Eternal is One. Then myriads will make pilgrimage
to Thy house, which shall be called a house of prayer for all nations,
and from their lips shall sound in spiritual joy: Lord, open for us the
gates of thy truth. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up,
ye everlasting doors, for the King of glory shall come in.'"
And the choir chanting, replied:
"Who is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts--He is the King of glory."
There was a short prayer, then a benediction that made Cragmore and
Marion look across the congregation at each other and smile. It was the
Epworth benediction, with which the League was always dismissed:
"May the Lord bless thee, and keep thee. May the Lord let his
countenance shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee! The Lord lift up
his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."
The two men met each other at the door, and walked homeward together
through the twilight.
Cragmore had found a boarding place. It was not far from the temple.
"Come up to my room," he said to Marion. "I see you still have
Herschel's prayer-book with you. I want to compare the mission of Israel
as given there with the one I was reading to-day of Leroy-Beaulieu's. I
have never known before to-day what special hope they clung to. Come in
and I will find the paragraph."
He lighted the gas in his room, pushed a chair over towards his guest,
and, seating himself, began rapidly turning the leaves of the book.
"Here it is," he said, and he read as follows:
"Then at last Jewish faith, freed from all tribal spirit and purified of
all national dross, will become the law of humanity. The world that
jeered at the long suffering of Israel, will witness the fulfillment of
prophecies delayed for twenty centuries by the blindness of the scribes,
and the stubbornness of the rabbis. According to the words of the
prophets, the nations will come to learn of Israel, and the people will
hang to the skirts of her garments, crying, 'Let us go up together to
the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the Lord of Israel, that he may
teach us to walk in his ways.' The true spiritual religion, for which
the world has been sighing since Luther and Voltaire, will be imparted
to it through Israel. To accomplish this, Israel needs but to discard
her old practices, as in spring the oak shakes off the dead leaves of
winter. The divine trust, the legacy of her prophets, which has been
preserved intact beneath her heavy ritual, will be transmitted to the
Gentiles by an Israel emancipated from all enslavement to form. Then
only, after having infused the spirit of the Thora into the souls of all
men, will Israel, her mission accomplished, be able to merge herself in
the nations."
"See what a hopeless hope," said Cragmore, as he closed the book. "And
yet do you know, Frank, I am becoming more and more sure that Israel has
some great part to play in the conversion of humanity? Any one must see
that nothing short of Divine power could have kept them intact as a
race, and Divine power is never aimlessly exerted. There must be some
great reason for such a miraculous preservation. What missionaries of
the cross these people would make! What torch-bearers they have been!
They have carried the altar-fires of Jehovah to every alien shore they
have touched."
Cragmore stood up in his earnestness, his eyes alight with something
akin to prophetic fire.
"The old thorny stem of Judaism shall yet bud and blossom into the
perfect flower of Christianity!" he cried. "And when it does, O when it
does, the 'chosen people' will become a veritable tree of life, whose
leaves will be 'for the healing of the nations.'"