PURELY COMMENTARY

`Isaiah' Brandeis . . . Compassion For Reagan

Continued from Page 2

Brandeis in the light of his un-
wavering moral vision.
I believe that he would in-
stead have echoed with satisfac-
tion the words of Franklin D.
Roosevelt in his first Inaugural:
"The moneychangers have fled
from their high seats in the
temple of our civilization."

The late Rabbi Solomon Goldman,
who was one of Justice Brandeis' inti-
mate friends, compiled a volume, The
Words of Justice Brandeis, published in
1953. It contains the following under
the title "Money-Making and Service":
Think of the great work that
has been done in the world by
men who had no thought of
money reward. No; money is not
worth a great man's time. It is
unworthy of greatness to strive
for that alone. What then? Po-
wer? That isn't much better, if
you mean the kind of power
that springs from money. Is it
the game? You hear that nowa-
days — the game! It sounds too
frivolous.
To me the word is Service.
Money-making will become in-
cidental to Service. The man of
the future will think more of
giving Service than of making
money, no matter what pa-
rticular kind of Service it hap-
pens to be. It will become a dis-
tinction worth striving for to
give the best Service, whether
you are conducting a retail shop
or a great railroad. It naturally
follows that those who give the
best Service will make money,
because success must be profit-
able, yet Service, and not money
making, will be the end.
Though the work of the
greatest artists may command
the highest prices, their incen-
tive has not been money. It has
been the desire to achieve pr-
ofessional success. That will be
the spirit of business in the fu-
ture.
Such are the prophetic guidelines
provided for all generations by the
"Isaiah" of the law profession and also
to treat with respect another "Isaiah"
role of Mr. Justice Brandeis — the de-
votion he gave to the Zionist cause and
the share he had striving for justice for
the Jewish people. He is rightly treated
as a "Prophet" in his admonitions to
youth to strive for "Service," thereby
attaining "Money" most admirably.

Psalms For Reagan

In the matter involving the White
House and its chief resident, it is vital
that the involvements be treated with
great respect. Here is a recommenda-
tion that compassion is a duty. It can
be treated as a sanctity.
Surely, the respect for the
Presidency is major in the discussion.
That is why the comments of the ordi-
nary folks have significance. That is
why one citizen's resort to a Yiddishism
should not be neglected. The Yiddishist
expressed compassion for the President
with the comment: Ich hob rachmones
oif him — "I have compassion for him."
Rachmones also means "pity."
It is in the kindest sense that the
Yiddishism is utilized. It is in the as-

32

Friday, March 13, 1987

pect of compassion that has a scriptural
connotation. The eminent scholar Dr.
Philip Birnbaum devotes a chapter to
"Mercy" in his "Jewish Concepts." It is
the Hebrew rachamim and utilizes
Psalms devoted to "Compassion." The
rachamim definition thus draws upon
the lessons in Psalms:

According to a talmudic
statement, anyone who shows
no mercy to his fellow man can
expect none from God (Shab-
bath 151b). Throughout the He-
brew Bible, devine mercy in-
cludes compassion, lovingkind-
ness, forbearance, grace, pa-
tience, and providential deliv-
erance. Psalm 23 portrays God's
loving care under the figure of a
shepherd's solicitude for his
sheep ("Only goodness and
kindness follow me all the days
of my life"). The kindness and
generosity of God are praised in
Psalm 145: "The Lord lifts up all
who are falling, and raises up
all who are bowed down ... The
Lord is near to all who call
upon him; he hears their cry
and saves them."
The divine justice is inevit-
ably linked with the devine
mercy. According to the Mid-
rash, God said: "Sin will abound
if I create the world by mercy
alone; but how can the world
endure, if I create it by justice
alone? I will therefore create it
by both." The qualities of jus-
tice and mercy are frequently
spoken of as the two primary
standards of God's dealing with
men. Since man depends on the
mercy of God, he is expected to
extend mercy to his fellow men.
"You have been told, 0 man,
what is good, and what the
Lord requires of you: Only to do
the right, to love goodness, and
to walk humbly with your God"
(Micah 6:8).

Therefore, psalms for the
President with the blessings impl-
icit in them. Therefore Mr. Reagan,
in his piety should welcome the
best wishes of his fellow citizens
for years steeped in justice, with a
compassion that will be cherished
in benefiting from the wisdom of
the ages.

`Shlemiel'

Continued from Page 2

the writings of Leo Rosten. It gained
recognition from Heinrich Heine.
In one of his famous poetic works,
Jehuda Ben Halevy, which he wrote
when he practically resumed .a
Jewish-dedicated role, Heinrich Heine
wrote:
Phineas, blind with fury,
In the sinner's place, by ill-luck
Chanced to kill a guiltless
person,
Named Schlemihl ben Zuri
Shaddai.
He, then, this Schlemihl the
First,
Was the ancestor of all the
Race Schlemihls.

Heine was referring to the Biblical
account of "Shelumiel, son of Zurishad-
dai" who is listed in Numbers (Bamid-
bar) 1:6. There Shlemiel is listed in the

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

record that included his eventual death
and the part played by the High Priest
Phineas.
As Heine indicated in his study of
Phineas' aim to "stay a plague,"
Shelumiel was an innocent victim.
The horror that was aroused in
1840 by the Damascus Blood Libel so
infuriated Heine that it virtually
marked his return to Judaism. He had
stated that he never abandoned his ori-
gin and the biographical sketch of him
in Encyclopedia Judaica states:

The Damascus Affair (1840),
involving a ritual murder libel
against the Jews, marks the start-
ing point of Heine's change of
mind. In his Damascus Letters
(Lutetia) he fiercely condemned

both French diplomatic in-
trigues in Syria and the
passivity of many French Jews.
Heine began to reread the Bible
and works on Jewish history.
More than ever he was im-
pressed by Israel's poets,

Heinrich Heine

heroes, and martyrs and by the
age-old Jewish panorama. From
Ludwig Boerne (1840) to his Ges-
taendnisse ("Confessions," 1854),
Heine constantly referred to the
Bible as an "imperishable trea-
sure" with which the Jews
"trudged around throughout the
Middle Ages, as with a portable
fatherland."
The revealing facts about Heine,
his reactions to the Damascus outrage,
the resort to the Shlemiel Bible story
and related historic events are outlined
authoritatively in one of the most im-
portant works about the eminent Ger-
man poet, in Heine's Jewish Comedies
by S. S. Prawer, published by Oxford
University Press in 1984. This excerpt
from this great story of Heine merits
quoting:
If the story of Darius' pearls
represents a Heinesque canter
through history from ancient to
modern times, the mock enquiry
into the origin of the word
schlemihl furnishes an excuse
for a number of fanciful leaps
from the Middle Ages to ancient
Greek, thence to modern, thence

to Biblical, thence back to mod-
ern, thence back to medieval
times. In three of the ages
covered by these leaps Jews
come clearly into focus.
The fate of the Spanish-
Jewish triumvirate makes Heine
speculate that poets, beginning
with their ancestor Apollo, are
all schlemihle — a contraction of
the Biblical name Shelumiel
which had become, by virtue of
some complicated rabbinical
exegeses of the first chapter of
Numbers, a synonym for 'simp-
leton' or 'unlucky bungler.'
The word had recently been
naturalized in Germany by
Chamisso's famous tale of the
man who sold his shadow, Peter
Schlemihl. When the narrator
asks Chamisso about the origins
of this word, the latter confesses
that he does not know; he had
learnt it from his friend Julius
Hitzig, who might have further
information. This gives Heine
his cue for another high-spirited
sally into satiric caricature of
Jewish adaptation to Christian
society.
There is much in Prawer's Heine
that reveals the depth of the poet's
study of Bible and Jewish history and
Christian-Jewish confrontations. The
poetry in which Shelumiel is portrayed
by Heine suggests revival of the entire
subject of Heine the satirist who, with
all his Jewish criticism, emerges a pa-
triot who more than many scholars
gave validity to the legendary in
Jewish chronicles. This is especially
true of the manner in which Prawer
traced the Heinesque devotion to a
theme that might otherwise have been
lost.
It is well to recognize that all the
Shelumiel recollections referred to, and
their revival in the Shelimiel stories by
Miriam Chaikin, published by
Shapolsky, invite deeper interest in
Jewish humor.
In the folklore of Jewish terms
there are other characterizations that
are often judged as similarities to
Shlemiel. They include shmegegge, buf-
foon, idiot, shmendrik (nincompoop),
shlimazel (hard luck fellow), really re-
lates to shlemiel.
The entire study is entertaining,
often historically revealing. It always
encourages an attachment to the
legendary and it provides the Jewish
media with the lighter vein touch in
every era in which the newsworthy is
saddening.

Hallah

Continued from Page 2

Moroccan, Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian,
Yemenite and other communities
worldwide.
The recipes fulfill a need and are
certain to create appreciation. All these
are enriched by parables.
The illustration — Raphael B. Re-
ider photographs and the drawings by
David H. Reider — lend class to this
unique work. Intended for young
readers, every housewife with an inter-
est in the Sabbath and its special diet-
ary interests will be thrilled to read
and learn from it.