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THE JEWISH CHRONICLE

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE

PAGE THREE

itself is fairly childish, for to ask the Jew to be other than lie is is to

issued Every Friday by The Jewish Chronicle Publishing Company
ANTON KAUFMAN
ask him to overcome by the mere desire to do so, the psychological
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influences of those forces that have played and interplayed upon his

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soul through fifty centuries. The Jew, more perhaps than any other
people that has ever lived, is child of his past and he can no more

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overcome that past than the flower can change its nature which bids
it turn its face to the sun or than the apple can overcome the forces
that draw it to the center of the earth. The Jew is what he is because

dates? I lave Christian singers yet sung so divine a song as the Psalm-
ists brought to birth? Has the church of the new dispensation found

a substitute for that Old Testament Bible, given to it by the

Jew ?

Whose law is basic to the law of every land ? Whose ethics are the

foundation-stone of all morality.? Whose Bible has been the inspiration

of men in all the ages? If these questions can be answered to the
disparagement of the Jew, then let the Jew' give up his faith; but they
cannot Ill` SII answered and the Jew of tomorrow will be faithful even

fifty centuries of heroic history have worked to shape his soul, and
as the Jew of yesterday.
they who prate of willing assimilation on the part of the Jew simply
And so in all modesty the Jew may claim to have in his religion
All correspondence to insure publication must be sent In so us to reach this have no CODcepI1011 of the means
by NVIIICI1 history works upon the
office Tuesday evening of each week.
and to have given to others the very elements that make for. breadth
souls of men.
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and brotherhood. 'The Koran and the Ness' Testament arc alike the
The Jewish Chronicle invites correspondence on subjects of nterest to the
But, granting for the sake of argument, that this psychology. of
transcript of the Jew's Bible. Not more forcibly or more insistently
Jewish people, but disclaims responsibility for an indoryement of the views history might be overcome by the Jew, and that accordingly it were
has any fact been enunciated by Modern leaders of religious thought
expressed by the writers.
possible for him to answer the world's challenge that he give up his
than this: that students of the New 'Testament must forever fail in
fathers' faith and thus become one with the peoples of the faith th;it,
their task until they have saturated themselves with a knowledge of
Entered as second class :natter March 3, 1916, at the Postoffice at Detroit,
in virtue of numbers, is dominant among us, would ((111(1 considerations
Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879.
the old. The Sermon on the Mount, that magnificent compilation, is
justify him in doing so? Our answer to this question must base itself Jewish to the
very core. The tiold•n Rule, that gem of moral sentiment,
in a consideration of the contrasted philosophies of the two great faiths was ill th e la w
of Moses before it was incorporated in the Gospels.
of our country and our century, as well Os in their histories and ill
Now, we believe it is a privilege to be of a faith that has always
the theories of salvation which they propound. The philosophy of
given to the world and seldom gotten from it. Judaism gave the church
So frequently in these days is the charge launched at the head of
Judasim is a very simple philosophy. It holds that 111(11, creats:d in the
its ethics, its ritual and its saviour, and wheresoever you go to worship,
the Reform Jew that he is an assitnilationist flirting with conceptions of
image of God, has in himself th power, through holiness, to become I ltkl-
the Psalms of David, Israel's bard, greet you as though they were the
life that are un-Jewish, that we deem it worth while to devote our edi-
like ; but gifted with that power there rests upon hint the responsibility to
torial space this week to a statement of the position of the Reform
embodiment of a universal creed. He gave the world the thought of
lift himself until indeed he becomes, in the measure of his power, God and the
Jew as it was placed by the writer before a non-Jewish organization.
ideal of brotherhood. Not yet had Moor kneeled down
divine. On the first page of our Scripture, it is written, "Sin lieth at
in desert sand to pray to Allah; not yet had Christian lips lisped their
The time has come when Jews, Orthodox and Reform, must know
the door, and unto thee is its desire, but thou shalt rule over it,'' and
first prayer when Israel's prophets called across the waste of ages,
where thcy stand. We must cease calling names. That gains us nothing
somewhat later, "I holy shall ye be. even as I, the Lord your God am
"1 lave we not all one Father, bath not one God created all of us?"
and gets us nowhere. \\e must arrange a constructive program and
holy." Man, creature of God, is not a worm crushed by. the almighty
Judaism then is the mother faith, at whose willing breasts others
stand by it. From the standpoint of the Reform Jew we hold what
power that sways the universe, but man is part of God's ((5511 51(111 atol
drew their nourishment. Yet she is young in spirit and touches the
follows to Ike an :Imple justification for our claim that, while we would
God needs man as man needs God. Yet man is free to seek the go(
world at every isoint. Whatever concerns life, concerns the religion
break the chains of outworn formalism, there is nothing that is worth
or the evil. Blessing and curse lie before him and he may take whir
of the Jew. Nothing that touches the world is too high or too low to
while in the splendid heritage of the Jew which Reform Judaism would
he will out of life. Vet because man is free, he is rest)onsible. Because
not maintain at its highest.
be the care of Judaism. With the dignity of age she combines the
he is free, upon him lies the burden of blame if instead of rising to the virility and the glory of eternal youth.
In the midst of these bloody times, we represent a people that, heights of holiness, Ile sinks into the depths of degradation. Ilecause
The relation of Judaism to the world, therefore, is at once rational,
claiming victory, yet boasts no martial triumphs; a people for whom he is free, he must give answer if lie make himself a brute rather than
consistent and sympathetic. To other faiths she is not less so. All have
triumph has spelled itself out in the overcoming of injustice, of untruth a God. In Christianity there is other philosophy than this. There,
the right to do their God-appointed work. So faith eventuate in deed,
and the oppression of men; in the exaltation of the principle of justice while indeed man must foliose righteousness, it is not because of the
and creed in bettered life, there is room and need for all.
where injustice held sway, and of righteousness where wrong had sat endowment of his OW11 soul, bUI rather to win the grace Of a God
To the individual comes, through Judaism, a message of hope, that
enthroned. His triumph it has been to light the torch of truth by which offended by unrighteousness. Nor is the doctrine of free will a part
other religions have not given. It emphasizes that man risen through
the darkness of superstition, of bigotry and of ignorance shall be dis- of fundamental Christian plassophy. Quite the reverse. Man in that
the ages from ignorance to knowledge, and from the hapless creature
sipated. His triumph it has been to sound unto the hearts of men the system is chained and fettered by the trammels of an original sin, from
of fate to the intelligent artificer of his own destiny, has gained through
message of manhood's dignity and of the God in man and to drive out which he may be redeemed, not by
the uprising of his own soul above struggle the right to think for himself and to work out his religious
the despair which weighs upon the spirits of those who hal . .. oeen taught lie gross and the base but on by
the redemptive spirit of the man- destiny according to the laws of his own conscience. Dogmas do not
to live day by day under the burden of the thought that man is, through God ten'(( died that humanity'
We pat side by side in fetter the Jew, no ceremonies bind like chains of iron. Immorality
original sin, a fallen creature. And out of this triumph is born the harp contrast, as they should be, hese two philos,,,
_lift., who and seltishness—but never heresy—may damn the Jew as Jew
- Jew's challenge to the world.
hall ask that the Jew shall give up his teaching for that of the
The Jew looks upon life as a blessing, not a curse, and regards only
It is not the challenge of the physically strung against the physically t would be to give up the doctrine of a God-endowed humanity for a
.,.,„as accursed who fails or refuses to recognize and use the powers
weak, nor the challenge of the multitude against the handful, nor the h umanity fallen from grace. It would be to give up the doctrine of
wlm.,, !food God has given him. Death he regards not with terror
challenge of the proud against the humble, nor the challenge of the p ersonal responsibility for the teaching of a vicarious atonement. It
and trentln,,,;;. but rather as the sacred portal through which man may
tyrant against the dependent, but it is the challenge of a people dedicated could be to give up the teaching of salvation from within for the pass to
immortal... —ye. to the immortal consciousness of blessing in
as teachers of religious truth against those who would enwrap religion (I octrine of salvation from without. The philosophy of Judaism, there
the knowledge that the world i: hitter because he hats been a part of it
is the darkening mantle of superstition, bigotry and unbrotherliness. f ore, holds its own against the philosophy of the dominant faith. \\I).
or of suffering because he realizes R' , at lie has brought darkness and
That the Jew needs to sound this challenge at this time becomes apparent hould the Jew give it up?
not light to other men.
especially to those who are in touch with the modern religious situation.
Nor does an examination of the history of the two faiths urge
But Judaism lays its stress upon the hie of this world. It C'f2P.:
The religious world is in the midst of a transition period. The radicalism S itch yielding on the part of th
e Jew. 'Through fifty centuries the j(\( upon us to rejoice in the opportunities that life affords; to rejoice in
of yesterday is the orthodoxy of today. The dogmatic teachings of
as fought for his faith. and through twenty centuries the Christian the fact that by God's word our manhood and our womanhood has
two generations ago, which were regarded as unchangeable as the laws as fought for his! But when the Jew has fought he leis fought with
made man the crown If the universe; to rejoice ill our hunan powers
of the Medes and the Persians, have been swept away by the tl tC weapons of the intellect am
! of the heart and not with weapons of and destinies. But amid the very joy of life there is a solemn mandate
scientific discoveries that have given us a new starting point in all our it On and of steel. Happy the c
omparison that might be made between spoken by the Jew to all the world, that is fundamental to his life's
speculations about the universe. Foundations upon which credal sys- tl
to spirit in which the Jew and Christian have fought their battles, philosophy: "Holy shall ye be, for I, the I.ord your God, am holy."
tems were budded have been shown to rest upon intellectual quicksand. se ith the spirit in which the steel lad David and the Philistine giant
Man has God-like capacities, and it is his duty to realize them in the
The whole structure of theology has crumbled before the onslaughts G oliath fought theirs. You rem
ember the incident as it is narrated in measure of his powers. lie ye like God, each, so far as you may be
of science and philosophy. Religiously we are living in a different tl ie first book of Samuel, how th
e Philistim•s, the hereditary enemies of make earth a Paradise and home a temple and every human heart a
world than did our fathers.
Is rael, had sent into the arena this mighty Goliath who was to contest shrine and life the priest that ministers thereat. Thus speaks the Jew

RABBI LEO M. FRANKLIN,

Editorial Contributor

Why the Reform Jew Is Not An. Assimilationist.

Now in the very van of this new epoch of enlightenment—as in

fact he always has been in the forefront of religious progress—has been

the Jew. In the 'Jutting aside of religious forms that no longer hold

meaning for this generation, he has been the foremost. In the interpre-

tation of religion, he, before others, has exalted deed over creed. In

the great movements that have made for the breaking down of denom-
inational barriers and the linking into a great fraternal circle of the

men and women of every credal name, he has been uniformly the

ith Israel for the victory. Armed to the teeth this giant came, to be to men, 110• Oft, tilts, almost alone!
et by the simple DavidwithII() weapon but a stone. (1. Saw. 17 :1 2.)
And because the Jess' believes that man may become like his Maker,
'And when the Philistine to
he
teaches
that the world is safe. Men may turn aside, but manhood
about and saw David, lie disdained
hi in, for he was but a youth al b! ruddy. and of fair countenance, and shall not fail. Vice may be mighty, but wrong shall never vanquish
th c Philistine said unto David, '. \ I a dog that thou contest to me right. Darkness may be dense, but the glittering stars shall twinkle

w ith sticks?' and the Philistine cursed 1./avid by his gods. And the beneath it ; and birds shall sing and hearts shall love and daylight shall
hilistine said unto David, 'Com IC to me and I will give thy flesh unto prevail. 'There is hope for the individual and hope for the race and
th c fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field.' Then David said the world shall not be lost.

inspiring force. Others have trailed in his wake. Ile has been the to Goliath, 'Thou coolest to me with a sword
111111 a spear and with
ith a
voice, others have been the echo. Ile has blazed the trail, others have
sh ield, but I come to thee in th e name of the God of hosts,
the God
slowly and even laboriously followed hint. To be sure, for the Jew of the armies of Israel, whom th
ou !last defied. 'Ibis day will Ills' Lori!
this task of leadership was not difficult, because in religion the Jew is .de liver thee into my hand and
I will smite thee and thy carcas, shall
the leader divinely ordained, if I may phrase it so. If he has been the go to the fowls of the air, and all the earth shall know that
there is
"chos e n people" in a meaningful sense, it has been that he seas the
a God in Israel.' "
designated instrument of God to lead the peoples of the earth to the
The Jew has always battled in the name of the God of hosts not
waters of faith and righteousness. They who would interpret the
fo r territorial conquest, for material treasures, nor for earthly power,
Jew's destiny in national or racial terms misread his history. His the
hu t his has been the battle for faith and for truth and for righteousness.
destiny to nourish, as a mother nourishes her child, the great world
If in religious wars rivers have 11111 red with blood, it was the Jew's
faiths that have brought light to the souls and peace to the hearts of men.
bl tod with which they ran, because he has been the persecuted and not
Now comes the question—and in these days it is frequently asked:
c persecutor, because he nas been the pursued and not the pursuer,
If it be indeed the destiny of the Jew to lead all men of all faiths to `se
cause he has been the ,,ppre:.,1 and not the oppressor. Foolish it
the unity of religious brotherho o d, why shall not the Jew, who avowedly we
re to recount the unnumbered chapters in his marvelous history to
has been the leader and pathfinder in religious history, startle the souls or
eve this fact. You have them where you choose to open the story
of men into gladness by putting aside altogether the signs of his dis- of
his career from the beginning up to the present thill•.
tinctiveness; by shaking off his peculiar forms, as men put off an out-
But were it a fact that Christianity armed to the teeth like the
scorn garment ; by giving up once and for all his particular beliefs and
pa nt Goliath had attacked only the Jew, then this argument of history
being at one—at one in every true sense—with the multitudes around
•ni ght perhaps fall to the ground, because it would be claimed that the
him? Why, for the sake of his distinctiveness, continue to inherit
he w being ditTerent, the Christian has felt himself dedicated to a cam-
suffering and privation and hardship and the malediction of men, when
pa ign against him in behalf of his saviour. But how will the Christian
by the simple ceremony of conversion he may become free front personal
an s•er the argument that the bitterness which has turned him into the
suffering and free his children from the fate that has been his?
pe rsecutor of the Jew. has held through centuries and holds today
Nor is this challenge of the world to the Jew addressed to hint in bet wcen the sects of
Christianity itself, all of them followers of Jestts
an unkind spirit, for there arc those who really believe that the assimila- of
Nazareth, and that not more bitter is the hate of the anti-Semite
tion of the Jew is purely a voluntary matter with him, and one NVIliCh for
the Jew than the hate of the average PrI0estant for the average
if acceded to would solve his problems and perplexities. And indeed, Ca tholic and of the average
Catholic for the average Protest ant ? 1 fas
it would solve them! It would solve them as the problems of the mouse the
ideal of the divine 111;111 realized itself in history while this is true:
are solved when it is caught in the trap; or as the problems of the slave In
the ordinary life of man, has Christianity greater victories to count
are solved, who, chained and fettered, bends his back to the blood- tha
n Judaism? Is the home ideal of the Christian higher than that of
bringing lashes of his taskmaster. It would solve the problems of the the
Jew ? Is the business honor of the Christian surer than that of
Jew at the cost of the Jew's life and of his spirit. It would solve his the Jew:' Is the social standard
Of the Christian more exalted than that
problems at the cost of the ideal for which he has lived through fifty of
the Jew? Are the charities of the Christian more widespread and
centuries and of that faith for which in the face of untold suffering his mo
re generous than those of the Jew? Are the sacrifices which the
fathers dared to live and die. The challenge of the world must, there- Ch
ristian makes to educate his children larger than those of the Jew ?
fore, be answered in other ways than by merely yielding to it. And Is
the tone of his citizenship higher? Is his life cleaner ? Are his
so, before the world the Jew must justify his continued existence. • han
ds purer? Why should they be? Are his teachings grander and
But can he do it ? Let us see. The very question assumes that bett er? Is the Sermon on the Mount nobler than the teachings of the

this change of attitude on the part of the Jew is a matter purely within Dec alogue? Are the utterances of Jesus and of l'aul ethically superior
his own volition, and not one determined by forces beyond his control. to t he Golden Rule of Fentateuchal records? Are the Gospel utterances
They who read history aright must know, however, that the question on the relation of man to man more sublime than the prophetic man-

.1nd finally the Jew answers the challenge of the world by his
theory of salvation—of salvation through righteousness. Others preach

the divine Messiah as instrument to save men from the curse of eternal

condemnation, but the Jew knows no intercessor between God and

man save a life of righteousness. Yet the Jew, larger in outlook than

others, does not hold that all the world must call itself by the name of

Jew in oilier that universal salvation may come. No missionary agents

does he send into the field to convert the world to his faith, but his

rather the conviction that so men be true to the best that is in them ;
so they hear the voice of God within their souls; so they lift themselves

above the brutish and the base, they will save themselves with an eternal
salvation. Day by slay, year by year, age by age, the light of truth

shall increasingly shine forth, and under its guidance, radiant and
resplendent, man shall reach the truth absolute. And when truth abso-
lute is reached, whether it be approached from one angle or another,

man shall stand enraptured before it, and together, united not by the
artificial breaking down of sectarian barriers, but united by a COMM011

love of a common truth, they shall worship God the universal Father.
And then the Jest's religious separateness shall be justified, for in that
tint(- men, whether converted to his name or not, shall have been led

to the acceptance of his ideals. :1nd that is enough. Such is the Jew's

challenge to the world. and that is why the Jew does not assimilate.
The Jew is needed in the world until his spiritual mission be fulfilled.

ANNOUNCEMENT

On account of the sudden order of the Na.
tional Fuel Administration this week which
caused a temporary interruption in our normal
procedure of publication, we were compelled
to go to press earlier than usual and to limit
the size of this issue of The Jewish Chronicle.

THE PUBLISHERS.