' 6

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE

THE•JEWISH CHRONICLE

Issued Every Friday by The Jewish Chronicle Publishing Company
ANTON KAUFMAN
-
-
-
General Manager

holydays. In so far as the Feast of Conclusion marks the beginning
of a life spiritualized, idealized and exalted, it may be regarded as a
potent influence in Jewish life, and well worthy of preservation and
perpetuation.

Michigan's Only Jewish Publication.

Subscription in Advance

-

-

-

-

-

$1.50 per year

Offices 314 Peter Smith Bldg.

Phones: Cherry 3381 and 1526

RABBI LEO M. FRANKLIN,

- Editorial Contributor

The Jewish Chronicle invites correspondence on subjects of inter-
est to the Jewish people, but disclaims responsibility for an indorse-
ment of the views expressed by the writers.

All correspondence to insure publication must be sent in so as to
reach this office Tuesday morning of each week.

Entered as second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post Office at Detroit,
Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879

FRIDAY, OCT. 5, 1917

The Feast of Conclusion

, The season of feasting and fasting approaches its end, and on
Sunday evening next will be ushered in the concluding festival of the
religious cycle of Tishri. If it be true, as the ancient writer phrases
it, that "the end of a thing is better than the beginning thereof," it can
only be because in truth every end represents a new beginning. No
work stands complete in itself. If the task of today has been well
done, it serves as the foundation upon which to build something better
and greater for the morrow. Thus day leans upon day, age upon age
and generation upon generation.
If the great religious celebrations of the month have had any real
inspiring power in them, the spiritual life of the people will show it
throughout the coming year. If, on the other \ hand, the people have
expended all their spiritual energies during the great holydays for the
celebration of which they crowded synagogue and temple, the results
of these celebrations are scarcely, such as to be commended. Indeed,
those who are wont in their ignorance to compare the renewal of
Israel's religious life during the Tishri holydays to the momentary
awakening brought about by evangelists of the Billy Sunday type are
prone to hold to this opinion. They claim that the religious stimulus
of this period is the result of a sort of spiritual strychnine which
stimulates for a moment, but inevitably produces a reaction that
leaves the subject weaker in resistance power than before. Anyone,
however, who knows the true influence exerted by the great holydays
of Tishri, must realize that such a diagnosis is entirely wrong. Were
the spiritual stimulus of the time produced by artificial means or by
sensational methods, the result might be deleterious to the great body
of Jews. But, on the contrary, it is a thoroughly healthy emotion
that arouses the Jew to worship and to reverence. A sentiment born
of an heroic history wakes in him at this time and stirs the deepest
chords of his being in such fashion that his spiritual life is whole-
somely renewed. The fasting and the feasting of Tishri really pre-
pare the Jew for the assumption of the religious duties of the whole
year. And to this end the calendar is well arranged. The year's
religious activities reach their climax in Shabuoth, which, it may be
frankly, admitted, has been revivified if not altogether saved by the
association with it of the Confirmation services in the Reform tem-
ples. After Shabuoth there is to a very marked degree, a cessation
of all religious activities. In some places, though never justifiably,
temples and synagogues close their doors altogether throughout the
summer months. The splendid spiritual stimulus which should be
inherent in the Shabuoth celebration is thus lost. When activities are
resumed in the Fall, it needs some high emotional impulse to arouse
the Jew again to that enthusiasm which shall carry him, through the
year. This is furnished in the great holydays which have just been
celebrated.
Succoth as a feast of joy stands insharp contrast to Yom Kippur,
which strikes the solemn note of atonement. Except in so far as it
has been revivified by means of children's services and other artificial
means, Succoth, it must be confessed, represents an anti-cliimax to
the marvelously effective emotional appeals of Rosh Hashono and
Yom Kippur. Still, it is not a festival to be too lightly regarded.
Even though we are no longer an agricultural people, its symbolism is
suggestive, and a reminder of God's providence is certainly in place
after the days of self-examination and of self-judgment have put the
Jew into a receptive mood for spiritual outreaching. The conclusion
of the Succoth is especially fitted as a final step in the Jew's process of
preparation for the assumption of his religious duties. It marks the
end of days of special celebration, but by that token it marks also the
beginning of a daily routine which must have in it the element of
consecration and of sanctification. It is a time for summing up the
influences that have been exerted by the more important preceding

'

The Jewish Religious School

With the resumption of congregational activities throughout the
land, the religious school will also resume its work. Nothing in the
life of American Israel is more worthy of serious thought and pains-
taking supervision than the religious school. It is trite to repeat the
Biblical injunction that if a child is trained in the way he should go,
he will not depart from it when old age overtakes him. We have been
too prone to disregard this fact. And yet much of the indifference of
theltsuodern Jew to his religion may be directly traced to the ineffi-
ciency of the school in which he received his religious education. In
latter times the religious schools connected with most Jewish congre-
gations have been greatly improved, because of better preparation for
their work on the part of teachers as well as a standardization of the
courses of study. Moreover, though there is still a woeful lack of
text books for the Jewish religious school, a few have appeared in
recent years that have made the task of the teacher somewhat easier,
and more and better books are now in course of preparation tinder the
auspices of the Synagogue and School Extension Department of the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations. An attempt is being
made almost everywhere to co-ordinate the work of the religious
school with that of the public school. Our Sabbath Schools too are
being better equipped than they were, and it is only in the rarest in-
stances that during the few hours devoted to religious instruction,
the child must spend its time in a dark, damp basement as was the
general rule only a few years ago.
Still, despite all these things, the influence of the religious school
is even now surprisingly small. This is due to several conditions.
In the first place the time given to religious study is out of all pro-
tion with the importance of the subject. A careful survey will show
that the average child is under the direct influence of the religious
school less than thirty-six hours during the entire year. The mere
statement of this fact should be sufficient to convince the critic that
the wonder is not that the school accomplishes so little, but rather
that it achieves as much as it does.
But there is another and a more serious reason for the prevailing
failure of the modern religious school. It roots in the attitude of the
parent toward the school. Very often parents who are enthusiastic
and loyal supporters of the public school seem to feel no sense of
obligation toward the institution in which their children receive their
religious education. Scrupulously careful in the supervision not
only of the secular education of their children, but as well of their
artistic culture, they are utterly indifferent to the regularity of the
child's attendance at Sabbath School, and they give the teachers no
sort of honest co-operation. Under such circumstances, the task of
the teacher is made immeasurably hard.
But the most deleterious effects are upon the child itself. The
child whose spiritual nature has not been properly touched during its
earliest years, is likely to develop a nature that is thoroughly unre-
sponsive to the better things. It will be coldly intellectual or harshly
materialistic in its view of -life. The parent then who does not give
to the religious school a full measure of co-operation is cheating his
own child. This consideration, selfish as it is, should be a spur to
parents at this time to do their little part for the religious culture of
their children. The least that parents can do is to see that they are
registered in the religious school and that they attend with that same
regularity and conscientiousness that marks their attendance at the
public school. This they owe to their child as well as to their
fathers' faith.

An Honor Well Bestowed

The appointment by .Governor Sleeper of Mr. Fred M. Butzel as
a member of the Michigan Child Welfare Commission, which was
authorized by the last legislature, is one that will meet with universal
approbation. There is no man, in Michigan who is better equipped
by sympathy and knowledge to serve on this Commission than Mr.
Butzel. The appointment proves the Governor to be a man of real
discrimination in social matters, a quality that is eminently desirable
but only rarely found in the chief executive of a great state. The
rights of dependent and delinquent children in Michigan will be the
better conserved through Mr. Butzel's acceptance of the post that has
been tendered him. The entire state is to be congratulated upon the
splendid choice that has been made by the Governor.