Thursday, September 22, 1949
Jewish Life
Needs Vigor
(Continued from Page 24)
the first question in the affirma- '
five.
These private conversations at
Jewish gatherings, this refusal
to pay respectful attention to
the thinge that people still claim
to respect is a symptom of the de-
cline of the Jewish spirit here in
the United States which, if some-
thing isn't done to halt it, will
eventually so atrophy Jewisl , life
here that only a skeleton will
remain of what was formerly
a living body with flesh and
blood and soul.
But it is only one symptom.
Another is a thing like the ad-
vertisement of a reform con-
gregation in a small city in
Michigan for an "aggressive"
Rabbi—as if it were desirable
that a Rabbi in America should
have the same qualities as cos-
metics salesman.
Another is the complaint of
a Rabbi in Texas that at marriage
and funeral services—the most
t serious, the most solemn, mo-
ments in life—people are al-
, ways telling him to "make the
service short," if not "snappy."
I Those are attitudes which are
•, just not taken by American
Christian congregations who, no
matter how hypocritical many of
their members may be about
their faith, have not surrendered
entirely the principles and ideals
of the Christian religion to the
"principles" and "ideals" of the
religion of private profit.
• • •
. STAGE OF DECLINE
HYPOCRISY, ONCE SAID the
wise Frenchman Le Rouchefou-
cauld, is the homage that vice
pays to virtue. The honest cyni-
ism that one hears all too often
nowadays from the lips of many
American Jews about religion
and culture—as if the only things
worth striving for were money
and material pleasures—are a
worse stage in the degeneration
of the human spirit than is
hypocrisy, since the hypocrite at
least knows that he is doing
wrong while the honest cynic is
unaware of it.
There is such a thing as being
too clever and it doesn't make
friends for us Jews among really
sincere Christians who would
like to be our friends.
What can be done to halt this
shriveling up of Jewish spiritual
values in American Jewry, to
! reverse the process, to reanimate
1 American Jewry with a new
soul, with the feeling that there
. is more to human life than eco-
nomic well-being, material plea-
. sures—and even contributing
money to charitable institutions?
Merely asking people to behave
themselves, to sit quietly through
Jewish gatherings and give re-
spectful attention to what is
being said from the platform,
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
Herzog in Warsaw
Page 33
honest discussion and searching
TOM KIPPUR DATES
of one's heart. We shall learn
Yom Kippur never falls ow
much from one another, even if Sunday, Tuesday or Friday.
we remain in disagreement.
We shall thus clarify our own
thoughts, unravel the complexity
of our own feelings, learn de-
finitely where we stand and learn
Rosh Ilashonn ►
to respect those spiritual values,
• of whose the truth and impor-
tance we are now fully convinced.
Greetings
Is there enough spiritual
stamina left In American Jewry
for such gatherings of our in-
, tellectual and spiritual cream,
• as I suggest here?
Only time will tell. But if there
is, the matter is too urgent to
be delayed much longer. Take it
from one who has observed and
studied American Jewry from
coast to cosat,
Falls Spring
Rabbi David Kahane, Chief Rabbi of Poland, has denied reports
of alleged "pogroms" on Jews in Poland. Official anti-Semitism
is gone, he said, and such tendencies are being strongly com-
batted. Even the army is devoid of bigotry, he added. Above
is Chief Rabbi Herzog of Israel who was the guest of the army
while on a visit to Warsaw earlier in the year.
even if people will pledge them-
selves to do it, will obviously
not remedy the situation if people
haven't their hearts and souls
in Judaism and Jewish culture.
By applying superficial plas-
ters to a disease that goes deep
we shall only be fooling our-
selves, we shall not attack the
disease itself.
• • •
SUGGESTED REMEDY
I HAVE FOR A long time been
maintaining that the first thing
that must be done in this truly
dangerous situation which has
arisen in American Jewry, drunk
with material prosperity which
threatens to leave it spiritually
destitute. is to get together our
American Jewish intelligentsia
all over the country to discust
over many months the two
vitally important problem s:
What do we believe, as of the
moment, and what can we be-
lieve as a result of an exchange
among ourselves of facts, opi-
nions, and, not least, feelings?
Let us meet, as many of our
- - —
.1■■■••■■••■■•■■•■••■••■■•■•■•••■
more intelligent Jews and Jew-
esses as possible, our doctors,
lawyers, teachers, writers and
businessmen, too, who are in-
telligent enough to realize that
there are some precious values
in life that money cannot buy.
Let those who are more Jew-
ish, those who are less Jewish
and those who profess to have
no Jewish ideals at all—the Jew-
ish atheists and the Jewish radi-
cals as well—go in for some
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