THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND JUDAISM
During the war we were so stunned by its suddenness and vastness that we
felt it would shatter all former systems of philosophy, that men would
need a new philosophy of life after the war, just as they did after the
Renaissance or the epoch-making discoveries of Darwin. This opinion,
natural enough at the time, was certainly exaggerated. The war did not
shatter all ideals; it did not create any new ones except the wave of
spiritualism at present so wide-spread. But it did shift emphases,
exposed the hollowness of many easy beliefs, and implanted new ideas in
minds which otherwise might not have been ready for them. The soldier
really presents the typical reaction to the war, while the civilian
shows a milder type of influence and a smaller degree of change. The
revaluation of values which is really demanded to-day is nothing so
fundamental as we thought at the time. It is chiefly psychological, that
we shall understand what is in the mind of the soldier, and by that
means reach an understanding of the effect of the war on society as a
whole. The world contains in diluted form those same influences which
show so distinctly on these young men. The problem of evil is neither
greater nor less than it was before the war; the problem of life and
death is no different; the problem of conduct has not changed. But
certain phases of each of these problems have come very strongly to the
attention of the world; some of them have been branded into the
consciousness of the soldier. Just as the soldier has a viewpoint toward
American ideals, which America would do well to heed in working out her
programs for the era after the war, so the Jewish soldier has his own
viewpoint toward Judaism, which all who are interested in our people and
our religion need to understand and utilize for the best development of
our religious programs in the days that are just ahead.
It is hard to call the soldier a progressive in religion when he had so
few theories about the matter. But he was certainly not a
traditionalist. Religious ideas and practices had to satisfy his
immediate needs or they had no meaning to him at all. This covered all
cant words, all ready-made formulas, whether as ancient as the Talmud or
as comparatively recent as reform Judaism. The answer of a twelfth
century Jew of Spain or a nineteenth century Jew of Germany were on an
equality to him; if either solved the problems of a young American at
war it was acceptable. The soldier was willing to accept old answers to
new questions if they were cogent; on the other hand, he was quite as
willing to consider a new and revolutionary theory. He possessed that
rare attribute, the open mind; on the narrow but keen basis of his own
mental experience he grasped and estimated soundly the new ideas and the
old.
The soldier enjoyed ceremonies that reminded him of home and childhood,
but he regarded them largely as pleasant memories. However deep a
meaning the symbols might possess, the soldier had not the background to
grasp it. The symbols did not stand for enough to solve the problems of
his immediate life. In the same way, theological concepts, however
liberal, meant nothing to him practically. The liberal theology of
reform Judaism might have appealed to the mass of the Jewish soldiers if
they had been interested in it and had made an effort to understand it.
As it was, liberalism in theology meant exactly nothing to them. They
were not interested in theological problems; they did not care what
one's opinion might be about the literal inspiration of the Bible or
about the coming of the Messiah. The liberalism which expressed itself
constantly among the soldiers, and which they brought back with them
into civil life, was different from all this. Granting your liberalism
or your conservatism in regard to beliefs and ceremonies, the soldier
wanted to know your attitude toward other human beings. The liberalism
he wanted was social and humanitarian. On this plane he had his being.
This was the type of problem which interested him and which he could
understand. The soldier felt too often that the churches and synagogues
were dominated by capital, by a narrow social class which discriminated
against him. Among Jewish soldiers, many felt that the religious ideas
they might accept were expressed in rich reform temples, where they
themselves would not be acceptable or would not feel at home. On the
other hand, they did not feel at home in the little orthodox synagogues
where their fathers offered up their daily prayers. They did not
understand the Hebrew ritual uttered there, nor the devotional attitude
which was there expressed.
But all this is not reaching directly the synagogue itself. The young
men, the former soldiers, are not the trustees of our temples and
synagogues; they are not a majority of our members; they are not often
to be found in the pews, where we might see their response to a
particular service or a particular sermon. If we are not very careful,
the churches and synagogues will lose entirely the inspiration of their
youthful vigor and find themselves tied entirely to the generation which
has passed into middle age and is becoming old. We must call to the
young men in the voice of youth, with the viewpoint and on the plane
which they understand and on which they may respond. That means that we
must be willing to accept new conclusions to new problems if these
conclusions seem to fit the new times. That means also that we must have
an aggressive attitude toward social and economic problems. This alone
can make liberalism religious and make religion concrete, applicable to
the needs of the latest era, the era after the world war. Without it,
religion will remain moribund, liberalism irreligious. Religious bodies
must give an equal hearing to both the conservative and the radical,
must show a definite platform of religious and moral work on which the
two can unite. That was done during the war. All groups in American
Jewry, orthodox, conservative and reform, were associated in the Jewish
Welfare Board and still work together on the Joint Distribution
Committee for the relief of Jewish war sufferers. All groups in American
life, Jew and non-Jew alike, met and worked together in the United War
Work campaign, to care for the soldiers in our emergency. But the young
men, no longer soldiers, need us as badly now, while we, the churches
and the synagogues, need them more than ever, with their new experience
and their new-found manhood. What they need and what we need, too, is
that we learn to cooperate on a common platform of action for their
benefit now. If we want them, if we want to be at one with them, we must
have a social program, a liberal attitude to life and especially to its
most immediate economic problems, a willingness to sink differences of
opinion that we may meet for practical effort and genuine progress.
The boys in the service became largely socialized through the
tremendous, constant work of the welfare agencies. They felt the value
of the Y. M. C. A. or other welfare hut, not only for the
entertainments, dances and canteen, but just as much as a center for the
soldier community, a place to write, to read, to play games, to meet
their friends. Since their return they have turned to such institutions
as the Y. M. C. A., the Y. M. H. A. and the rest, to find the club life,
the community spirit, which they had in the welfare hut in camp or city
at home and abroad. This need of the young men for a social center and a
social life is a common need of all America. Every village needs a
social center to further its growth into a finer culture and a more
united citizenship. Every Jewish community large enough to have a little
social life of its own needs a community center where that life can
flourish and be guided in desirable and constructive channels. The
expansion of the Jewish Welfare Board to join and assist the activities
of the National Council of Young Men's Hebrew and Kindred Associations
is a logical one, growing out of the similar needs of the same young men
in war and peace. The furtherance of social centers for Jewish
communities, for other groups of citizens who possess a common heritage
or common background, and for a whole town where the town is not too
large, is a piece of work in which the soldiers will participate and
which their very existence among us should suggest to the rest of the
community. The return of the soldier may assist us more than we expect
in socializing the Jewish community. The social spirit we once showed in
his behalf, the social education we gave him while in the service, will
return to benefit us all if we convert the two into Jewish social life.
Such a socializing will cut across congregational or sectional lines,
across lines of birth and wealth, and unite the Jewish community in
America, just as the same process will eventually, if carried far
enough, weld together all the divergent social forces of America itself.
The need for personal religion at the front was a temporary need, or
rather a temporary expression of a universal human yearning. It is now
almost forgotten by the boys themselves, certainly by the church and the
synagogue. Beside the liberal and the social demands of the day, there
exists this mystical longing to be sure of God, to know for a certainty
that He will protect His dear ones. This universal and eternal need was
felt for the time by our men in immediate danger, in thankfulness, in
mourning. Having discovered it once, they still feel it when the
occasion comes. Here, however, there seems little likelihood of their
contribution being accepted. The union of the social and mystical
elements, even at different times and for different occasions, seems
more than any human institution can accomplish. If the soldier, in tune
with the urge of the age, demands a social and a liberal response from
the synagogue, he may get it in a large number of cases. The mystical
element he will not ask for, and his inarticulate mood, now hardly
evident, will certainly evoke no response.
One thing certainly the young men feel, which American Judaism is
accepting from them. While the young Jew is wholly sympathetic to
Zionism, he hardly ever feels that Zionism is the center or the
conclusion of the Jewish problem. Zionism, as a movement, has brought to
fruition much of the latent love of the young Jew for his people and his
religion. But the Jewish soldier, or the same boy as a civilian, is not
interested chiefly in solving the economic or the cultural problems of
Palestine. He responds also to the similar problems among the Jews of
America. Zionism is not enough for him; he must have Judaism as well. He
and all of us are compelled to confront the spiritual and moral problems
of the new world after the war.
The young man does not know, and the synagogue does not always show him,
that the very things he demands most urgently are inherent in Judaism,
especially in those great prophets whose words still ring forth with a
youthful fervor. The unfaltering search for new truth, the recognition
of the poor and the weak, the unity of all groups in the community, the
triumphant search for God and finding of God--all these the young Jew
wants and the prophets have given us. This aspect of the problem, then,
becomes one of leadership, to interpret our Judaism in terms which
express the life of the new day and to show the young men that their
dearest longings are part of the ancient Jewish heritage. The antiquity
of the prophetic summons is no disadvantage to the young men if it
answers their personal need. It is of the greatest advantage to the
synagogue in responding to the call of the great days after the war.
Those ancient responses to the errors and crimes of mobs and despots in
the Orient contain principles whose vitality is not impaired by the
passage of time. It needs but the skill and the courage to apply them
again, as in prophetic times, to the western world in the twentieth
century.
War gave the world a new angle of vision on life and death, on good and
bad. The deepest impress of this new viewpoint is on those men who were
themselves at the front, who underwent the most extreme phase of it in
their own persons, but some traces have spread throughout the entire
western civilization. America must realize it as Europe does; Judaism
and Christianity alike are entering, for good or bad, a new period. The
world has changed in some respects; we who see the world have changed
far more. In facing the future, with its political, its social, its
moral problems, we need a new fullness of insight into the young men
whose lives have changed and whose souls expanded overnight, even though
they remain in externals the boys they were. We need a new intellectual
content, covering not only the new map of Europe and Asia, but also the
new ideas and ideals which swept the world for a time, as though they
were to be eternal. Above all, we must have complete honesty in facing
the thrilling challenge of the immediate future. We do not need a new
form of Judaism any more than we need a new type of government in
America. We are confronted by the demand to adapt Americanism and
Judaism to the changing demands of a changing era, to find among the
temporary and evanescent elements in both those things which have
permanent usefulness for any demand and any era. We need ideals of the
past, indeed, but only such ideals as have survived the past, as apply
fully to the present, as will aid in building up a future of promise and
achievement for the Jew. Judaism is on trial to-day. If we answer the
need of the young man, he will be the loyal, active Jew for to-day and
to-morrow. If we ignore him, whether through uncertainty, ignorance or
pride, he will not come to us and we shall not be going after him.
Judaism needs the young man; it needs equally his great ideals, social
and mystical as well. The test will result in a finer and more effective
faith only if we respond to it bravely and honestly, in the very spirit
of the soldier himself.