may endeavor to estimate the value of a Reformation of Judaism such as
Luther accomplished for Christianity. In the first place, it is, I
conceive, the sole chance for the permanent continuance of the Jewish
religion that it should undergo some such regeneration. If the proposed
Reform perish in the bud, Orthodox Judaism will doubtless survive for
some generations, but, according to the laws which govern human
institutions, its days must be numbered. In former times, when every
nation in Europe held aloof from its neighbors in fear and jealousy, it
was possible for alien tribes, like the Jews and gypsies, to move among
all, holding rigidly to their own tribal alliances and observances;
hated and mistrusted, indeed, but scarcely more so than their Christian
next-door neighbors. But now that Christian nations are all blending
together under the influence of perpetual intercourse, and their
differences of belief, governments, costumes, habits, and ideas are
effacing themselves year by year, the presence of a non-fusing,
non-intermarrying, separatist race—a race brought by commerce into
perpetual friction with all the rest—becomes an intolerable anomaly.
For once Mr. Goldwin Smith was in the right in this controversy, when he
remarked that “the _least_ sacred of all races would be that which
should persistently refuse to come into the allegiance of humanity.”
The Jews have shown themselves the sturdiest of mankind, but the
influences brought to bear on them now are wholly different from those
which they met with such stubborn courage of old. Political ambition, so
long utterly closed to them, but to which Lord Beaconsfield’s career
must evermore prove a spur; pleasure and self-indulgence, to which their
wealth is an ever ready key; the scepticism and materialism of the time,
to which their acute and positive minds seem to render them even more
liable than their contemporaries,—these are not the elements out of
which martyrs and confessors are made. A reformed, enlightened,
world-wide creed, which a cultivated gentleman may frankly avow and
defend in the _salons_ of London, Paris, Berlin, or New York, and in the
progress of which he may feel some enthusiasm,—a creed which will make
him free to adopt from Christianity all that he recognizes in it of
spiritually lofty and morally beautiful,—such a creed may have a future
before it of which no end need be foreseen. But for unreformed Judaism
there can be nothing in store but the gradual dropping away of the
ablest, the most cultured, the wealthiest, the men of the world and the
men of the study,—the Spinozas, the Heines, the Disraelis—and the
persistence only for a few generations of the more ignorant, fanatical,
obscure, and poor.
Again, besides giving to Judaism a new lease of life, the Reform
projected would undoubtedly do much to extinguish that passion of
_Judenhasse_ which is the disgrace of Eastern Christendom, and the
source of such manifold woes to both races. The root of that passion is
the newly awakened sense (to which I have just referred) of impatience
at the existence of a nation within every nation, having separate
interests of its own and a solidarity between its members, ramifying
into every trade, profession, and concern of civil life. Were this
solidarity to be relinquished, and the mutual secret co-operation of
Jews[18] reduced to such natural and fitting friendliness as exists
between Scotchmen in England, and were it to become common for Jews to
marry Christians and discuss freely with Christians their respective
views,—were this to happen, mutual respect and sympathy would very
quickly supersede mutual prejudice and mistrust. After two generations
of such Reformed Judaism, the memory of the difference of race would, I
am persuaded, be reduced to that pleasant interest wherewith we trace
the ancestry of some of our eminent statesmen to “fine old Quaker
families,” or remark that some of our most brilliant men of letters have
in their veins the marvellous Huguenot blood.[19]
It is superfluous to add that the Jewish people, thus thoroughly adopted
into the comity of European nations, and Judaism recognized as the great
and enlightened religion of that powerful and ubiquitous race, the true
mission of Judaism, as taught by Bible and Talmud—that of holding up the
torch of monotheistic truth to the world—would begin its practical
accomplishment. The Latin nations in particular, to whom religion has
presented itself hitherto in the guise of ecclesiasticism and
hagiolatry, and who are fast verging into blank materialism as the sole
alternative they know, would behold at last, with inevitable respect, a
simple and noble worship, at once historical and philosophic, without
priestly claims, and utterly at war with every form of monasticism and
superstition. The impression on these, and even on the Northern nations,
of such a spectacle could not be otherwise than elevating, and possibly,
in the Divine order of the world, might be the means whereby the tide of
faith, so long ebbing out in dismal scepticism, should flow once more up
the rejoicing shores.
Even if this be too much to hope, I cannot doubt that many Christian
Churches would draw valuable lessons from the presence among them of a
truly reformed Judaism. Especially in these days of irreverence, of
finikin Ritualism on one side and Salvation Army rowdyism on the other,
it would be a measureless advantage to be summoned to revert in thought
to the solemn and awe-inspired tone of Hebrew devotion which still
breathes in the services of the synagogue. It has been a loss to
Christians as well as to Jews that these services have hitherto been
conducted in Hebrew.[20] Had the synagogue services in London been
conducted in the English language, I believe that many of the popular
misapprehensions concerning Judaism would never have existed, while the
impression of profound reverence which the prayers convey would have
reacted advantageously on Christian worship, too liable to oscillate
between formalism and familiarity.[21]
I am bound to add, on the other side, that it appears to me there are
some very great advantages on the side of Christianity of which it
behooves reforming Jews to take account. These are not matters of dogma,
but of sentiment; and not only may they be appropriated by Jews without
departing by a hair’s breadth from their own religious platform, but
they may every one be sanctioned (if any sanction be needed for them) by
citations from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. The great difference
between Judaism and Christianity on their moral and spiritual sides, in
my humble judgment, lies in this: that the piety and charity, scattered
like grains of gold through the rock of Judaism, were by Christ’s
burning spirit fused together, and cast into golden coin to pass from
hand to hand. Jews have continually challenged Christians to point to a
single precept in the Gospel which has not its counterpart in the Old
Testament. They are perhaps in the right, and possibly no such isolated
precept can be found differentiating the two creeds; but, both by that
which is left aside and by that which it chose out and emphasized,
Christianity is, practically, a new system of ethics and religion.
To these three things in Christianity I would direct the attention of
Jewish reformers:—
The Christian idea of love to God.
The Christian idea of love to Man.
The Christian sentiment concerning Immortality.
For the first, far be it from me to wrong the martyr race by a doubt
that thousands of Jews have nobly obeyed the First Great Commandment of
the Law (given in Deuteronomy vi. 4, as well as repeated by Christ) and
“loved the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and strength,”
even to the willing sacrifice of their lives through fidelity to Him.
The feelings of loyalty entertained by a Jew in the old days of
persecution to the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” must have been
often a master-passion as fervid as it was deep-rooted. But alongside of
this hereditary loyalty to the God and King of Israel there might well
grow somewhat of that tender personal piety which springs from the
Evangelical idea of God as holding personal relations with each devout
and forgiven soul.
Of the two theories of religion,—that which starts with the idea of a
Tribe or Church, and that which starts with the unit of the individual
soul,—Judaism has hitherto held the former. It has been essentially a
corporate religion; and to be “cut off from the congregation,” like
Spinoza, has been deemed tantamount to spiritual destruction. It is
surely time that Reformed Judaism should now adopt the far higher theory
of religious individualism, and teach men to seek those sacred private
and personal relations with the Lord of Spirits which, when once
enjoyed, cause the notions of any mere corporate privileges to appear
childish. Had the deep experiences which belong to such personal piety
been often felt by modern Jews (as they certainly were by many of the
old Psalmists), it could not have happened that modern Jewish literature
should have been so barren as it is of devotional works and of spiritual
poetry. To a serious reverential spirit (a sentiment far above the level
of that of the majority of Christians), Jews too rarely join those more
ardent religious affections and aspirations which it is the glory of
Christianity to inspire in the hearts of her saints. Had they known
these feelings vividly and often, we must have had a Jewish Thomas à
Kempis, a Jewish Saint Theresa, a Jewish Tauler, Fénelon, Taylor,
Wesley. It will not suffice to say in answer that Jews did not need such
treatises of devotion and such hymns of ecstatic piety, having always
possessed the noblest of the world in their own Scriptures. Feelings
which really rise to the flood do not keep in the river-bed for a
thousand years.
Again, the Christian idea of Love to Man possesses an element of
tenderness not perceptible in Jewish philanthropy. Jews are splendidly
charitable not alone to their own poor, but also to Christians. Their
management of their public and private charities has long been
recognized as wiser and more liberal than that of Christians at home or
abroad. They are faithful and affectionate husbands and wives;
peculiarly tender parents; pious children; kindly neighbors. The cruel
wrongs of eighteen centuries have neither brutalized nor imbittered
them. Well would it be if whole classes of drunken, wife-beating
Englishmen would take example in these respects from them! But of
certain claims beyond these, claims always recognized by Christian
teachers, and not seldom practically fulfilled by Christian men and
women,—the claims of the erring to be forgiven, of the fallen to be
lifted out of the mire,—Jews have hitherto taken little account. The
parable of the Lost Sheep is emphatically Christian; and among
Christians only, till quite recently, have there been active agencies at
work to seek and save ruined women, drunkards, criminals, the “perishing
and dangerous classes.”[22] Mary Magdalene did well to weep over the
feet of Jesus Christ. It was Christ who brought into the world
compassion for her and for those like her. And for the forgiveness of
enemies, also, the Christian spirit, if not absolutely unique, is yet
supreme. The very core of the Christian idea fitly found its expression
on the Cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
That divinest kind of charity, which renounces all contests for rights,
and asks not what it is _bound_ to do, but what it may be _permitted_ to
do, to bless and serve a child of God,—that charity may, I think, justly
be historically named Christian. Of course, every pure Theism is called
on to teach it likewise.
With regard to women, the attitude of Judaism is peculiar. It has always
recognized some “Rights of Women,” and has never fallen into the
absurdity of cherishing mental or physical weakness in them as honorable
or attractive. As Mrs. Cyril Flower (then Miss Constance de Rothschild)
showed in an interesting article published some years ago, the “Hebrew
Woman,” so magnificently described in the last chapter of Proverbs, has
always been the Jewish ideal: “Strength and honor are her clothing. She
openeth her mouth with wisdom.” No jealousy, but, on the contrary,
joyful recognition, awaited in each age the vigorous actions of Miriam
and Deborah, of Judith and Esther, and of the mother of the seven
martyrs in the Book of Maccabees. Jewish marriages (till quite recently
formed always on the Eastern rather than on the Western system) are
proverbially faithful and affectionate; and the resolution of Jews never
to permit their wives to undertake labor outside their homes (such as
factory work and the like) has undoubtedly vastly contributed to the
health and welfare of the nation. Yet, notwithstanding all this,
something appears to be lacking in Jewish feeling concerning women. Too
much of Oriental materialism still lingers. Too little of Occidental
chivalry and romance has yet arisen. In this respect, strange to say,
the East is prose, the West poetry. The relations of men and women,
above all of husband and wife, cannot be ranked as perfect till some
halo of tender reverence be added to sturdy good-will and fidelity.[23]
And, beyond their human brethren and sisters, Christians have found (it
is one of those late developments of the fertile Christian idea of which
I have spoken) that the humbler races of living creatures have also
claims upon us,—moral claims founded on the broad basis of the right of
simple sentiency to be spared needless pain; religious claims founded on
the touching relation which we, the often forgiven children of God, bear
to “the unoffending creatures which he loves.” This tender development
of Christianity, and the discovery consequent on it, that “he prayeth
well who loveth well both man and bird and beast,” is assuredly worthy
of the regard of those Reformers who would make Judaism a universal
religion. Semitic literature has hitherto betrayed a hardness and
poverty on this side which it is needful should now be remedied, if
Judaism is to ride on the full tide of Aryan sympathies.
And, lastly, the Christian sentiment concerning Immortality deserves
special attention from Reforming Jews. The adoption of the dogma of a
Future Life has scarcely even yet, after some fifty generations,
imprinted on the Jewish mind the full consciousness of
“That great world of light which lies
Behind all human destinies.”
Jews have, it would appear, essentially the _esprit positif_. They are
content to let the impenetrable veil hang between their eyes and the
future world,—that veil which the Aryan soul strives impatiently, age
after age, to tear away, or on which it throws a thousand phantasms from
the magic-lanthorn of fancy. Millions of Christians have lived with
their “treasures” truly placed in that world where moth and rust do not
corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. Especially have the
bereaved among us dwelt on earth with their hearts already in heaven
where their beloved ones await them. To too great an extent, no doubt,
has this “other-worldliness” been carried, especially among ascetics;
but, on the whole, the firm anchorage of Christian souls beyond the tomb
has been the source of infinite comfort and infinite elevation. Of this
sort of projection of the spirit into the darkness, this rocket-throwing
of ropes of faith over the deeps of destruction, whereby the mourner’s
shipwrecked soul is saved and reinstated, the Jewish consciousness seems
yet scarcely cognizant. Perhaps these days of pessimism and mental fog
are not those wherein any one is likely to find his faith in immortality
quickened. As Dr. Johnson complained that he was “injured” by every man
who did not believe all that he believed, so each of us finds his hope
of another life chilled by the doubts which, like icebergs, float in the
sea of thought we are traversing. But, for those Jews who thoroughly
accept the dogma of immortality, it would surely be both a happiness and
a source of moral elevation to give to such a stupendous fact its place
in the perspective of existence. There is infinite difference between
the molelike vision which sees nothing beyond the grassroots and the
worms of earth, though dimly aware of a world of sunlight above, and the
eagle glance which can measure alike things near and afar; between the
man who counts his beloved dead as lost to him because he beholds and
hears and touches them no more, and the man who can say calmly amid his
sorrow,—
“Take them, thou great Eternity!
Our little life is but a gust,
Which bends the branches of thy tree,
And trails its blossoms in the dust.”
Turning now from the results on Judaism itself and on Christianity at
large of a great Jewish Reformation, we may indulge in some reflections
on the possible bearings of such an event on that not inconsiderable
number of persons who, all over Europe, are hanging loosely upon or
dropping silently away from the Christian Churches. I am not speaking of
those who become Atheists or Agnostics and renounce all interest in
religion, but of those who, like Robert Elsmere, pass into phases of
belief which may be broadly classed under the head of Theism. These
persons believe still in God and in the life to come, and hold
tenaciously by the moral and spiritual part of Christianity, perhaps
sometimes feeling its beauty and truth more vividly than some orthodox
Christians who deem the startling, miraculous, and “apocalyptic” part to
constitute the essence of their faith. But this “apocalyptic part,” and
all which Dr. Martineau has called the “Messianic mythology,” they have
abandoned. Of the number of these persons, it is hard to form an
estimate. Some believe that the Churches are all honeycombed by them,
and that a panic would follow could a census of England be taken in a
Palace of Truth. Not a few in the beginning and middle of this century
quitted their old folds, and under the names of “Unitarians,” “Free
Christians,” and “Theists” have thenceforth stood confessedly apart.[24]
But of late years the disposition to make any external schism has
apparently died away. The instinct, once universal, to build a new nest
for each brood of faith seems perishing among us. The Church-forming
spirit, so vigorous of old in Christianity and in Buddhism, is visibly
failing, and making way for new phases of development, of which the
Salvation Army may possibly afford us a sample. Among cultivated people
subtle discrimination of differences and fastidiousness as regards
questions of taste are indefinitely stronger than that desire for a
common worship which, in the breasts of our forefathers, who “rolled the
psalm to wintry skies,” and dared death merely to pray together, must
have mounted to a passion. Englishmen generally still cling to public
worship, but it is chiefly where an ancient liturgy supplies by old and
holy words a dreamy music of devotion, into which each feels at liberty
to weave his own thoughts. Wherever the demand is made for prayers which
shall definitely express the faith and aspirations of the modern-minded
worshipper, there the subtleties and the fastidiousness come into play,
and, instead of being drawn together, men sorrowfully discover that they
are made conscious by common worship of a hundred discrepancies of
opinion, a thousand disharmonies of taste and feeling. In all things, we
men and women of the modern Athens are not “too superstitious,” but too
critical; and in religion, which necessarily touches us most vitally,
our critical spirit threatens to paralyze us with shyness. The typical
English gentleman and lady of to-day are at the opposite pole of
sentiment in this respect from the Arab who kneels on his carpet on the
crowded deck for his evening orison, or from the Italian _contadina_ who
tells her beads before the wayside Madonna. Doubtless, here is one
reason among many why such multitudes remain without any definite place
in the religions of the land. They hang languidly about the old hive,
feebly humming now and then, but feeling no impulse to swarm, and
finding no queen-spirit to lead them to another home where they might
build their proper cells and make their own honey.
But, whether embodied in any religious sect or Church, or hanging
loosely upon one, the persons of whom we have been speaking, as
believers in God and in the spiritual, but not the apocalyptic side of
Christianity,—_Christian Theists_, as we may best call them,—are of
course nearer in a theological point of view than any others to those
Reformed Jews whom we may call _Jewish Theists_. The intellectual creeds
of each, in fact, might, without much concession on either side, be
reduced to identical formulæ. Now, Christian Theists have hitherto
wanted a rallying point, and have been taunted with the lack of any
historic basis for their religion. Why (it will be asked by many) should
not this Reformed Judaism afford such a rallying point, and the old
rocky foundations laid by Moses support a common temple of Christian and
Jewish Theism?
It may prove that such a consummation may be among the happy reunitings
and reconstructions of the far future. But for the present hour, and for
the reasons I have given in the beginning of this paper, I do not
believe it can be near at hand. I am also quite sure that it would be
the extreme of unwisdom to hamper and disturb the progress of Reformed
Judaism along its own lines by any hasty efforts at amalgamation with
outsiders, who would bring with them another order of religious habits
and endless divergencies of opinion.
Let Reformed Judaism relight the old golden candlestick, and set it
aloft, and it will give light unto all which are in the house,—not only
the House of Israel, but in the House of Humanity. A glorious future may
in God’s Providence await such purified, emancipated Judaism. It is
true, it may not exhibit the special form of religion which one party or
another among us altogether desires to see extended in the world. Some
radical reformers who sympathize in its general scope would wish to find
it stripping off altogether its Jewish character, and torn up from the
root of Mosaism. Many more orthodox Christians will undervalue it
because it shows no indication of a tendency to adopt from Christianity
such doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, or the Atonement, even
while, on the spiritual side, it is imbued with the essential ideas of
him whom it will doubtless recognize as the great Jewish Rabbi and
Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. But it is not for us to seek to modify,
scarcely even to criticise, such a movement as this. A respectful
interest and a hopeful sympathy seem to me the only sentiments wherewith
Christians and Christian Theists should stand aside and watch this last
march forward of that wondrous patriarchal faith, whereof Christianity
itself is the firstborn son, and Islam the younger; and which now in the
end of the ages prepares to cross a new Jordan, and take possession of a
new Holy Land.
⁂ NOTE.—It is proper to mention, in republishing this essay at the
desire of Jewish friends, that it was received on its first
appearance with the utmost possible disfavor by the Jewish press.
ESSAY IV.
THOUGHTS ABOUT THINKING.