doesn't? He therefore will not run away from Judaism; he will try to
modify it, of course, to fit in with American progress, but, for the
sake of his people, he will stay a Jew, or better an American of
Jewish ancestry. This type is the son of the big-hearted givers among
Israel. His father subscribes generously to charitable organizations,
is a member of a Reform Temple, and owes much indeed to the
opportunities of the American republic. The son, therefore, is an
American patriot, and what though it seem at times overtaxed, his
patriotism, unlike that of the individual under our first type, is
genuine, for it is not primarily self-seeking. When he speaks of
ideals, it is not to say we have no need of religions at all, but
rather that we all in America have more or less the same belief only
that we choose to express it differently, each according to his
ancestral traditions. The three rings, says Nathan der Weise, may all
be true or all be false according to the conduct of those that wear
them. "But are there no peculiar values of conduct," we ask him,
"bequeathed by the peculiar traditions of the Jew?" "Yes," he answers,
"but those values may now be found in the cosmopolitan civilization of
America." "We are getting away from peculiar things," he further adds;
"we must learn to break down barriers and distinctions and work all
together, not as Jews or Americans or anything else, but simply as
men. Our only problem is to get the Jews treated everywhere as men."
"But aside from that," we go on to ask, "isn't there a something that
binds together certain groups of people that have had a common
history, a common religion or any such thing in common?" "Yes," he
replies, "but that something is the common intellect. The accident of
birth does not make us friends; though I must help the Jew in far-off
Russia, yet I am more closely identified with my Anglo-Saxon
classmate. For me to co-operate with the Jew simply because he is a
Jew is as logical as for me to co-operate with a man simply because he
has the same shade of brown hair that I have." Words that command our
thought--but yet it seems to us the speaker feels better than he
knows. Why then did his heart quicken when one Friday night we passed
the window of that Galician Jew, the erstwhile butt of many a jest
between us, our college second-hand clothes man, and saw the flicker
of his Sabbath candles? No flicker within the home of a brown-haired
man would move him so. And even while he is speaking to us, though the
length of our acquaintanceship is short, we detect an unwonted
relaxation in his manner, a confidence that has found understanding
and seeks to lay itself bare. Is it not because both of us are Jews?

Be that as it may, the words of this type are sincere. If he forgets
his ancestry it is because he thinks of posterity. By blending his
thoughts and aspirations with those of free and generous America, he
will bequeath to his children a happier heritage than was left him by
his forefathers. As for ideals, why call them Jewish rather than
American; what though they originated in Judea, cannot they be
distributed from America? His Zion therefore will be in Washington.
The Jewish soul and the American soul will become as one. He does not
deny the soul, then--the raiment has not been put above the body, the
flesh above the spirit; and the adaptation of this type to the
American environment can therefore make for strength, for a better
humanity.

_The Third Type: "More, Not Less, of a Jew"_

WHAT room have we now for a third type? But there does appear one
among his brethren, an extremist, who is not to be satisfied with the
promised strength of his fellows of this last type. There may be
strength among them, he thinks, but strength not enough. Greater
strength is there in becoming not a non-Jew, nor less of a Jew, but
simply more of a Jew. Judaism to him is not a mere peculiar thing, but
a peculiar great thing, and only by keeping it peculiar can he enhance
its greatness. The Jewish genius cannot blend with that of America
without loss to its individuality; however much it may borrow from
America in outer accoutrement, in "wholesome ruddiness," "fair play,"
"polite address," and so forth--(and it should borrow what it can to
improve its appearance), yet the accoutrement must remain but
raiment,--and the body is more than raiment. Apparently he is a very
narrow-minded person--and he is; yet he believes with Ahad Ha-'Am that
"greatness is not a matter of breadth only, but of depth."

We have found this extremist in the dark-eyed dreamer who came to us
but recently from a Russian university, but also in the glad-eyed
youth who wears his Americanism most gracefully, it being handed down
to him for several generations. Judaism in this case, at any rate, to
use a homely expression, does not vary with the length of the nose.
This type is small in numbers, but the Jews have never made much of
numbers, and even as we observe him we are minded of the words of
Joel, "--and in the remnant shall be deliverance." Does he shun the
American garment then? No, on the contrary, he evermore seeks it and
strives to make it attire him more gracefully. He loves the American
tradition; he has much to gather from its sunniness--his fathers had
been kept in the dark so long. But, at the breaking of day, when the
angel who wrestled with him through the night would let him go, he
will say, as did Jacob of old, "I will not let thee go, except thou
bless me"; America must bless him so that in the light of modern day
his people may once again be called "no more Jacob but Israel."

"Many and great are the gifts of the gentile world," he tells us, "but
that peculiar greatness within the character of the Jews as a people,
it has not. Some have called it religion, some morality; perhaps it is
the devotion they have evolved to the unity of things, the אחד חוחי;
perhaps it is only a certain sadness of suffering, a certain depth of
sympathy they have evolved for all suffering and sorrow, but at any
rate it is a racial momentum which our ancestors for four thousand
years have been forging and refining in the hottest fires;" and
whether it be conceit or inspiration, he adds, "and think not that we,
to-day, in the comfortable lassitude of American life, can destroy
it." The spirit is greater than the man; the Jew may be lost or be
assimilated, but the Jewish race, not yet.

_A Spiritual Vision and Aspiration_

"BUT consider," we say very plainly to him, "the great bulk of the
Jews who seem to have lost that old spirit of religion; they pray in a
language they scarce understand as though 'they shall be heard for
their much speaking'; when you want the Hebrew Bible, moreover, it
seems you must go to the gentiles, and have not these added thereto
the sublime teachings of Christ?"

"Yes," replies our Jewish friend, with more of grief than of censure
in his voice, "and to-day the Christian world is awarding the Iron
Cross for excellence in killing. And our people it has made to loathe
the name of Christ, because it was his image that was in the hand of
the priest who led the mob to massacre at the Inquisition and at
Kishineff; though all the time it was that very persecuted people that
was itself living the principles and the martyrdom of its greatest
prophet." And he continues, and tells us brusquely how he went once to
church with a Methodist young lady and how when he was rapt in the
music of a Psalm that was being sung, she whispered giddily to him:
"Don't that remind you somewhat of the one-step music?" "No," he tells
us he replied, "it reminds me that I am the only Christian in this
audience."

And we understand in his reply he was not thinking of himself alone
(for extremist though he was, he must have known there was many
another devout listener in that audience) but rather of his race, of
those very Jews of the bended backs, "wily, unkempt," who were
elsewhere chanting that same Psalm in a language, 'tis true, they
scarce understood, yet with a spiritual zeal and forgetfulness of the
"treasures upon earth" which was the very soul of the teachings of
Christ. Could his Methodist friend, could even he, with all his
university training and American ruddiness, but have the noble spirit
of his unlettered grandmother he remembered weeping so bitterly in the
old synagogue on Yom Kippur, as though weeping for the sins of all
humanity,--Rachel weeping for her children. No, it was not the
religion put on and off with the phylacteries that distinguished his
fathers; it was never the raiment, but the body. Even in the darkness
of the Middle Ages it was the _Malkuth Shaddai_, the kingdom of
righteousness, that the old Jew prayed for on his sacred days.

Narrow-minded, indeed, is this last type of Jew; but yet when rays are
concentrated to a narrow radius, the outlook through the lens may be
wide and far-reaching. We understand that he, too, thinks of posterity
as does his cousin, but only as mistress within its own household does
he believe the Jewish race can bequeath great strength to its
posterity and the posterity of the world,--not as intruder into the
home of others, nor even as their welcome guest. The Bible was the
work of a narrow, provincial Israel; the Talmud their work when
scattered among the nations.

_"To Make Strong the Spirit of the Prophets"_

"WE have made too much," concludes our young friend, "of the
cosmopolitan likenesses among nations and men; we must promote their
differences, and respect for those differences. That is in the path of
peace; it is war, as you know, that levels distinctions. The harmony
of an autumn sunset is in its many colors. Our own little handful of
people does not wish to make itself great in possessions or strong in
arms. We have ever been the meekest among men; while many a Christian
nation was taking an eye for an eve, it is we that were turning the
other cheek. Yes, we think we have outgrown that boyish fascination
for brutal brawn a little more than they. Today, Israel wishes but to
express its pent-up soul, to make strong the spirit of its prophets
and teachers, its Moses, its Isaiah, its Hillel, so that it may be
'for a light to the Gentiles, (and bear) salvation unto the end of the
earth.'"

[Illustration: Signature: Morris J. Escoll]

The Romance of Rabbi Akiba

BY GEORGE J. HOROWITZ

[Illustration: _GEORGE JACOB HOROWITZ (born in New York, 1894),
educated in the Public Schools of New York, College of the City of New
York (A. B. 1915), Talmud Torah, and Teachers' Institute of Jewish
Theological Seminary; President (1915) of Menorah Society of City
College of New York; now a graduate student in Romance Languages at
Columbia._]

AKIBA ben Joseph, deservedly called the father of Rabbinical Judaism,
was one of the most original and the most talented of all the great
galaxy of ancient Rabbis. In him was typified the great ideal of a
Jewish Rabbi--a man of heart, of hand, and of head. But Akiba is still
more remarkable for the charm and romance of his life. He is indeed
the one Rabbi with a great romance. The story of his life, stripped of
all exaggeration or literary artifice, reads more like a tale of
"knight and lady" than like the simple facts of a scholar's life. His
great love, his sudden rise from the humblest obscurity, his brilliant
intellectual and spiritual achievements, and his glorious death, make
up the successive scenes of one of the most inspiring chapters in
Jewish history.

_His Youth and Romantic Marriage_

AKIBA was born about the year 50, at a time when the Roman Empire at
its height was about to turn all its mighty forces against his people,
the little state of Judea; and he died a martyr to his faith, in about
the year 132, on the eve of the last great rebellion against Roman
domination. His origin and early years are shrouded in darkness. We
know that he was an unlettered shepherd in his youth and mistrustful
of Rabbis and their learning. His master, Kalba Sabua--so the story
goes--was one of the richest men in Jerusalem, one of the three
wealthy philanthropists who offered to prevent the famine occasioned
by the last great siege of Jerusalem.

While in the service of Kalba Sabua, young Akiba made the acquaintance
of his daughter Rachel. They were immediately drawn to one another, he
attracted by her great beauty, and she by his innate refinement and
superiority. A deep attachment soon sprang up between them. Akiba was
still an illiterate man, however, and Rachel made him promise that if
she were betrothed unto him he would go to the Beth Hamidrash to
study. In those days this was equivalent to acquiring education and
culture. To this Akiba assented and there followed a secret marriage.
When her father learned of what she had done, he became furious. He
disinherited her, and cast her off, leaving her without a roof over
her head and absolutely penniless, and he swore that as long as Akiba
remained her husband she would receive no help from her father. Then
set in a period of bitter poverty for the young pair. Akiba's heart
was rent with pain to see his young wife, who had been accustomed from
earliest youth to a home of luxury, pass her days in a miserable
hovel, with the barest necessities and sometimes even lacking bread to
eat. In winter they slept on a pallet and Akiba would pick the straws
out of her wonderfully long and beautiful hair. She was beautiful even
in her rags and tatters, and once Akiba was moved to exclaim: "Oh,
that I had a fitting ornament for thee: a golden image of Jerusalem
the Holy City!" Both indeed were nearest his heart. Once a man came to
the door of their hut and asked for some straw, saying that his wife
was confined to child-bed and he had no couch for her. "Ah, see," said
Akiba to his wife, "there are those even poorer than we. This man has
not even straw to lie on." This seeming poor man, the Rabbis say, was
none other than Elijah, who had come to comfort them in their misery.

_Struggles and Sacrifices for an Education_

THE incident did indeed give them new heart, for until then Akiba
could not summon enough resolution to go off and study while his wife
remained behind in such abject circumstances. Nor could she insist.
But now her old strength came back to her, and she reminded Akiba of
his promise: "Go thou, and study in the Beth-Hamidrash." She must have
felt undoubtedly that there were great possibilities in him, and in
truth she was not mistaken. Akiba, however, in his modesty, had no
confidence that he could master the intricate subtleties of Rabbinic
law. How could he, who had now reached forty years of age without once
attending even an elementary school, hope to make any progress at all
so late in life? One day, musing thus, as he stood by the village
well, his interest was suddenly roused by observing that one of the
stones had a deep hollow, caused probably by the drippings of the
buckets. "Who hollowed out this stone?" he asked; and he was answered:
"Canst thou not read Scripture, Akiba? 'The waters wear the
stones,'--the water, that falls on it continually day after day, has
hollowed out the stone." Immediately Akiba argued _a fortiori_ (Kal
Vahomer) with respect to himself. "If what is soft can cut what is
hard, then the words of the Torah, which are as hard as iron, will
surely impress themselves upon my heart, which is only flesh and
blood." So Akiba repaired forthwith to a _Melammed Tinokoth_, a
teacher of children, and, seated beside his own little son, he began
learning his letters. Akiba held one end of the A. B. C. board and his
son the other.

The elements once mastered, the next step was the Rabbinical academy.
Bitter poverty, however, would not permit Akiba to leave home, and he
would probably have remained in his little village for the rest of his
life, an obscure and unknown man, if it were not for his wife. It was
her noble self-sacrifice that enabled him to become the greatest Rabbi
of his time and perhaps of all time. Unknown to him, she stole out
into the market-place and sold all that beautiful hair of hers, so
that he might continue his studies. Indeed no sacrifice, no
self-abnegation, was too great for her. She sent Akiba away and for
twelve long years dwelt alone in sorrow and in want, a "living widow,"
and at the end of that period she crowned it with a renewal of the
same great sacrifice. As Akiba was crossing the threshold, home again
after twelve years of study, he overheard Rachel talking with a
neighbor. "It served thee right," said the neighbor, "for marrying a
man so far beneath thee. Now he has gone off and forsaken thee." "If
he hearkened to me," was Rachel's reply, "he would stay away another
twelve years." At these words Akiba exclaimed: "Since she gives me
permission, I will go back to my studies,"--and he went and stayed
away another twelve years. Such was the noble renunciation of Rachel,
wife of Rabbi Akiba, for his sake and for the sake of the Torah.

_Akiba's Rise to Recognition and Fame_

AKIBA studied assiduously at the schools of R. Nahum of Geniso and of
R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, both renowned teachers, who in their youth
had been favorite pupils of Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai. It is
illuminating to consider Akiba's general method of study. He had the
habit, the Talmud tells us, of going alone to meditate over every
Halakah (law) that he learned. After this bit of hard thinking, as we
would call it, he usually came back with some very difficult
questions. Only when these questions were answered did he feel
satisfied that he knew the Halakah. That this thorough method of study
bore fruitful results Akiba's subsequent achievements showed. At
first, however, his genius was not evident and R. Eliezer paid no
attention to him. But one day Akiba gave him his first answer and R.
Eliezer was astounded at its profundity. Said R. Joshua then to R.
Eliezer, in a slightly modified Scriptural phrase, "Is not this he
whom thou hast despised? Go thou now and contend with him." From that
time on Akiba was acknowledged a master of Rabbinic law.

All that confused mass of traditional rules, precepts, laws,
discussions and opinions which composed the Oral Law, and which it
usually took a lifetime to master, Akiba made his own within the space
of a few years, and at an age when the mind is no longer fresh and
impressionable. Akiba's genius showed itself even more brilliantly in
his subsequent labors in the same field, which were marked by three
great achievements. These were his arrangement of the Oral Law into a
systematic code, the Mishnah (substantially as later edited by R.
Judah Ha-Nasi), his establishment of a logical foundation for each
Halakah, and his discovery and formulation of new and original methods
of hermeneutics and exegesis. To appreciate the magnitude of these
achievements, we must remember that up to and for some time after
Akiba's day, instruction in the rabbinical academies was oral. Each
teacher taught, as well as he could recall, exactly what he had heard
from the lips of his master, and his pupils in their turn did
likewise. Every great Rabbi therefore had his own set of Halakic
traditions, his own Mishnah.

The results of this system or rather lack of system were mainly two:
the reasons for many of the Halakoth were forgotten, and of the laws
that were taught an immense number were uncoordinated, confused and
often contradictory. The greatest fault, however, of these early
Mishnayoth (Mishnayoth Rishonoth) was their general lack of
arrangement. The Halakoth were usually strung together without
connection and without any logical grouping. It was Akiba who first
organized them into an orderly system. He put all the Halakoth dealing
with one particular subject in one group, and then he divided the
groups into the six general divisions that our Mishnah has today.
Besides this he introduced number mneumonics wherever possible, in
order to facilitate memorization. The second work that we owe to
Akiba's influence is the Tosephta or Supplement to the Mishnah, as
later edited by his pupil R. Nehemiah. Akiba's purpose in this
Supplement was to give explanatory matter on the Halakoth of the
Mishnah in the form of citations of cases, discussions, and opinions.
Here there was more room for originality than in the first work, for
when the reason for any law had been forgotten Akiba discovered it
again.

_"The Third Founder of Judaism after Moses and Ezra"_

THE achievement, however, in which Akiba's mind revealed itself in all
its brilliant originality, and which more than anything else delighted
and astonished his colleagues, was his new system of Biblical, or
rather Pentateuchal, interpretation, his Midrash ha-Torah. The
importance of these new methods cannot be overestimated. The Oral Law
is nothing more than the Jewish interpretation of the Torah, and
consequently new methods of Pentateuchal exegesis meant the further
growth and development of the Oral Law. Akiba thus gave Judaism the
capacity for vigorous further development. He was indeed a firm
believer in the principle that the Oral Law, even as life itself, is
always in process of evolution--"immer in Werden," as the Germans put
it--but never completed. His main exegetical principle is quite
simple. The language of the Torah is not like the language of an
ordinary book. In the Torah every syllable, every letter is fraught
with meaning. It is all essence. Hence every detail in the Torah must
be interpreted. There is absolutely nothing superfluous. It was these
exegetical methods that excited the unbounded admiration of his
fellow-rabbis. They said of him that things that were not even
revealed to Moses were revealed unto Akiba. By his preservation of the
old Halakoth in the Mishnah and by his stimulation of newer
developments with his exegesis, Akiba laid the foundations of Talmudic
and Rabbinic learning, and truly earned for himself the title of third
founder of Judaism after Moses and Ezra.

Akiba's method of teaching also was extraordinary. The order and
system that he had brought into the Rabbinic curriculum coupled with
his novel methods of exegesis rendered his lectures clear, simple and
most interesting. Multitudes flocked to hear him. With hardly an
exception all the prominent Rabbis of the following generation
attended Akiba's academy. Notable amongst them was R. Meir, who handed
down Akiba's Mishnah to R. Judah Ha-Nasi and through him to posterity.

_Happiness and Affluence_

TOWARDS the end of the twenty-four years thus devoted to study, Akiba
turned his steps homewards, accompanied by a large band of disciples,
which tradition numbers in the thousands. At the rumor that a great
Rabbi was coming, Rachel's heart was all aflutter with hope and
expectation. Perhaps it was he at last! The whole village went out to
meet him, she with the rest. When she saw that it was indeed he, she
fell on her knees before him sobbing and began kissing his feet. The
pupils surrounding Akiba wanted to push her aside, but he said, "Let
her be. What knowledge I possess and what knowledge you possess
belongs to her." When Kalba Sabua heard that a great Rabbi had come to
town, not dreaming that it was his son-in-law, he made up his mind to
go to him and have his vow absolved, for at the sight of his
daughter's misery his heart had softened, and but for his vow he would
long since have taken her back. He came to the Rabbi and the Rabbi
said to him, "If thou hadst known that her husband would one day be a
great scholar, wouldst thou have vowed?" "If he knew even one chapter
or even one Halakah, I would not have vowed," was the reply. "I am
he," said Akiba simply. At these words Kalba Sabua stared in
amazement, and then fell at his feet and begged pardon for all his
past unkindness towards both Akiba and Rachel. To make more
substantial amends he gave them half his fortune and they lived in
comfort ever after. The affluence in which Akiba henceforth lived,
contrasted with the poverty of his student days when he used to cut
wood for a living, is thus quaintly described in the Talmud: "When he
was a student Akiba used to fetch a bundle of wood every day. Half he
sold for food and half for clothing. But before Akiba departed from
this world, he had tables of silver and of gold, and he climbed into
his bed on golden ladders." His wife too had the satisfaction of
receiving from him and wearing the "Golden Jerusalem," that Akiba had
wished he could give her in the days of their poverty. Indeed the
magnificence of Rachel's jewels called forth a protest on the part of
the students of Akiba's academy. "Thou hast put us to shame before our
wives," they said, "for our wives do not possess any such precious
ornaments." "Ah, yes," said Akiba, "but she has suffered much with me
in the Torah."

_Akiba's Virile Ethics and Philosophy_

AKIBA'S philosophical speculations were no less famous than his
Halakic activities. Just about this time all sorts of hybrid religions
made up of decadent Greek philosophy and of dying Pagan creeds were in
vogue--the various forms of Gnosticism. Christianity--Jewish
Gnosticism, that is--was only one of the many perversions that Judaism
had to combat. These religions exercised a particular fascination
because they dealt largely in esoteric doctrines and in theosophic
speculation. There was great danger that Jewish minds might be led
astray, as in fact some were. Of the four great Rabbis, who the Talmud
says entered upon theosophic studies, only Akiba came through safely.
Upon ben Azzai and ben Zoma, both brilliant young students, and upon
Aher (Elisha ben Abuya) it had disastrous effects. Ben Azzai died
young. Ben Zoma went mad and Elisha ben Abuyah repudiated Judaism.
Wherefore the Rabbis never mentioned his name but always spoke of him
as "_Aher_" ("the Other").

Akiba's philosophy and ethics are revealed in the following sayings:

"Labor is honorable to man."

"They err who say I will sin now and repent after. The day of
atonement brings no forgiveness to the insincere." This saying is
strikingly similar to Dante's famous line in the Inferno: "No one can
repent and will at once."

The eternal problem why the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper is
answered by Akiba in this way. The righteous are punished in this
world for their few sins, so that in the next world they may receive
only reward. The wicked on the other hand are rewarded here for what
little good they do, so that in the next world they may receive only
punishment.

"Beloved are Israel, for they are called children of the All-present,
as it is said, 'Ye are children unto the Lord your God.' Beloved are
Israel for unto them was given the desirable instrument by which the
world was created, as it is written 'For I give you good doctrine,
forsake ye not my Torah.'" Israel is therefore the Chosen People. Nay
more. In another place Akiba says, "Even the poorest of Israel are
looked upon as nobles," and even R. Ishmael agreed with him that
"Every Jew is a royal prince." Our motto to-day of "noblesse oblige"
is the same thought in a strange tongue. "By which the world was
created" means that Akiba identified the Torah with "Wisdom," which is
described in Proverbs, in that famous chapter beginning "Doth not
wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice?" as having been "set
up from everlasting, from the beginning before the earth was."
Adapting the opening verse of John, Akiba could very well have said,
"In the beginning was the Torah and the Torah was with God," but he
certainly would not have said, "and the Torah was God."

"Everything is foreseen," Akiba goes on to say, "yet freedom of choice
is given; and the world is judged by grace, yet all is according to
the amount of work." His doctrine of "grace" and "works" was that
"grace" is acquired through works, or in non-theological language,
God's favor goes to the man of good deeds. This was in opposition to
the Christian teaching that "grace" came through faith alone. God's
justice is tempered with mercy; yet even divine mercy is dealt out
fairly, says Akiba. He had such a strong sense of right that he even
condemned the action of the Israelites in despoiling the Egyptians.
"It is equally wrong to deceive a heathen as to deceive an Israelite,"
he said. Akiba agreed with Hillel that the chief commandment of the
Torah is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev. XIX, 18),
which again is nothing more than an application of the principle of
justice in our dealings with our fellow-men.

_A Man of the People_

IN spite of his great fame Akiba was the most modest of men. While
still a student at Jamnia Akiba was noted for his humility. R.
Jochanan ben Nuri told how he had occasion several times to complain
of Akiba to the Patriarch and how each time Akiba took his reprimand
meekly. Nay more. Despite these reproofs Akiba was all the more
affectionate towards R. Jochanan, so that the latter was moved to
exclaim in admiration, "Reprove a wise man and he will love thee!"
(Prov. IX, 8.) Another notable example of Akiba's modesty is his
speech at the funeral of his son, which was attended by a great
gathering of men, women, and children from all parts of Palestine.
"Brethren of Israel," said Akiba, "listen to me. Not because I am a
learned man have ye appeared here so numerously. There are those here
more learned than I. Nor because I am a rich man. There are those here
far richer than I. The people of the South know Akiba; but whence
should the people of Galilee know him? The men know him; but whence
should the women and children that I see here know him? But I know
full well that ye have not given yourselves the trouble to come but
for the sake of fulfilling a religious precept and to do honor to the
Torah, and your reward will indeed be great." Practising it as he did,
Akiba did not fail likewise to preach modesty. "He who esteems himself
highly on account of his knowledge," said he, "is like a corpse lying
at the wayside; the traveler turns his head away in disgust and walks
quickly by." Again, in words almost identical with Luke (XIV, 8-11),
Akiba says: "Take thou a seat a few places below thy rank until thou
art bidden to take a higher place, for it is better that they should
say to thee: 'Come up higher' than that they should bid thee 'Go down
lower.'"

Akiba was likewise famous for his kindness and charity. He was a man
of the people. His heart was full of charity and affection for the
multitude. His interest in their welfare was so deep and genuine that
he ultimately came to be called the "Hand of the Poor." As overseer of
the poor, Akiba made many long and arduous journeys to collect funds
for their relief. It was his opinion that the funds of charity ought
not to be invested, in order that ready money might always be at hand,
should a poor man present himself. Once Akiba received some money from
R. Tarphon, for the purpose of buying some land. But instead Akiba
distributed the money to the poor. When Tarphon asked him where the
property was, Akiba showed him the verse in Psalms, "He hath
scattered, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth
forever; his horn shall be exalted with honor." Thereupon Tarphon
kissed Akiba on the forehead and exclaimed, "My master and my guide!"

_His Fervent Patriotism_

FOR us to-day, however, the most striking thing about Akiba is his
nationalism. Other Rabbis were men of great intellect, other Rabbis
were learned, modest, and benevolent, other Rabbis lived, worked and
died for Judaism, but no other Rabbi was conspicuously and so
zealously a nationalist. Akiba loved "Eretz Yisrael" passionately, not
only with the visionary fervor of the pious Jew, but with the
practical idealism of a patriot. In all his extended journeys for the
collection of alms, he took care to spread and keep alive in the
breast of his fellow-Jews the desire for the rebuilding of Zion as a
practical and immediate reality.

It was Akiba's spirit that inspired and animated the last great
rebellion against Rome. This "final polemos," as the Talmud calls it,
was preparing for a number of years. Akiba openly acknowledged Bar
Kochba, who was to be the leader of the revolt, as the promised
Messiah, as "the star that would come out of Jacob." All the great
influence, therefore, of Akiba's moral support was behind Bar Kochba's
military preparations. The Jews had indeed much to complain of.
Hadrian had broken faith with them; he had failed to rebuild their
Temple as he had promised, and now (about the year 130), to make
matters worse, he was beginning a systematic persecution of their
religion. He forbade circumcision, the study of the Torah, the keeping
of the Sabbath, the ordination of disciples, in short everything that
went to express the Jewish religion. The Jews determined upon war. But
even before the outbreak of hostilities their greatest loss occurred.
Akiba and several other great Rabbis were captured by the Romans,
imprisoned, condemned to death, and executed. Their crime was simply
that they had continued teaching the Torah in spite of the Imperial
decree.

_"Even Unto Death"_

THIS was the manner of Akiba's death. When he heard that the renowned
R. Ishmael and a certain Simon were captured, he was stirred all the
more to persevere in his teaching. "Prepare ye for death, for terrible
days are awaiting us," said Akiba to his pupils. A certain Pappos ben
Judah met Akiba assembling the people and teaching the Torah in
public. "Dost thou not fear the Government?" said Pappos. "Thou art
considered a wise man, Pappos," answered Akiba, "but verily thou art
but a fool. I shall give thee a parable to the matter. Once a fox was
walking along the edge of a stream. He saw the fishes in commotion,
hurrying hither and thither. 'Before what do ye flee?' said he to
them. 'We are fleeing before the nets of the fishermen that are cast
out to catch us.' 'Would ye be willing to come up on dry land and live
with me, even as your fathers and my fathers were wont to live?' 'Art
thou he who is called the most discerning among beasts? Verily thou
art but a fool. If even in the element that means life to us, we are
fearful of death, how much more so in the element that means our
death.' Even so are we. If even in the time that we are occupied with
the Torah, of which it is said, 'For it is thy life and the length of
thy days,' we are fearful of death, how much more so if even for a
moment we cease its study." Not many days later Akiba was captured and
thrown into prison. Pappos ben Judah also found himself imprisoned
with Akiba. "How camest thou here?" asked Akiba. "Happy art thou,"
replied Pappos, "that thou hast been taken prisoner for the sake of
the Torah; woe is me, Pappos, that I have been taken prisoner for vain
things."

When they led Akiba out to execution it was the hour of the reading of
the "Shema." Tinnius Rufus, the governor, caused his skin to be torn
off with hot irons; but Akiba was directing his heart towards
accepting the yoke of God's kingdom, that he might accept it with
love. He recited the "Shema" with a peaceful smile on his face. Rufus,
astounded at his insensibility to pain, asked him whether he was a
sorcerer. "I am no sorcerer," replied Akiba. "All the days of my life
have I grieved that I could not carry out the commandment, 'Thou
shalt love thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all
thy might,'--even unto death. But now that I am able to fulfill it
shall I not rejoice?" And with the last syllable of the "Shema"--Hear,
Oh Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One--Akiba expired.

[Illustration: Signature: George J. Horowitz]

        EDITORS' NOTE.--_This is the third in a series of
        sketches of "Jewish Worthies," of which the fourth
        will have "Judah the Prince" for its subject._

        _HEBREWS willingly neglectful of their own inheritance
        cannot hope to be of much value as Americans. Nor is
        the republic interested in suppressing this or any
        other valuable legacy from the past. Our "assimilative
        process" is far off from being the terrible thing
        which European critics sometimes charge against us. We
        do reshape peoples who come to us from the old world,
        but not at the cost of the things they cherish or of
        the gifts they bring. Our civilization is enriched,
        not impoverished, by these diverse race traits,
        loyalty to which helps to make a loyalty worth having.
        If the future world order is to be founded on the
        harmonization of ethnic differences, there should be
        place enough for such differences in our own
        peace-aspiring republic._--_From an Editorial in The
        Boston Herald._

Aspects of Jewish Life and Letters

_As Revealed in Four Noteworthy Books_

A SYMPATHETIC STUDY OF PHARISAISM[B]

AS a rule, Jewish readers approach the works of Christian writers upon
Jewish subjects with distrust. They are accustomed to find in them
either the misrepresentations of Anti-Semitic hatred or the
misrepresentations of conversionist love. The present book, based upon
lectures delivered at Oxford upon the Hibbert foundation, is a
representative of the rare group of studies belonging to neither
class. It embodies an earnest and surprisingly successful attempt to
depict justly the religious life of the Jews in the time of the
Talmud. The writer is well prepared for his task by thirty years'
devoted study of Rabbinical literature; he is known as the author of a
careful and scholarly work on "Christianity in Talmud and Midrash."

The book includes a preliminary historical sketch, a study of what the
Rabbis meant by Torah, indicating the true nature of Pharisaic
legalism, chapters on the attitude of Jesus and of Paul toward the
Pharisees, and two final chapters on the Pharisaic theology. The book
is valuable as a Christian reply to Weber, the German author of a
learned, widely-used, and thoroughly unfair presentation of Jewish
theology. Mr. Herford frankly confesses that he is an apologist of the
Pharisees, but his book is in no sense an iconoclastic attack upon the
ideas received among Christians as to the character of the Pharisees.
He freely admits, as any fair-minded Jew would, the dangers of the
Pharisaic system, but he is likewise careful to point out that these
dangers were by no means destructive of true spiritual life. It is
most refreshing to find a book of this sort included in the Crown
Theological Library, along with the erudite but anti-Jewish works of
Bousset and Harnack.

_The Truth About the Pharisees_

MR. HERFORD aims to set forth the truth about the Pharisees rather
than to present new ideas or conclusions. Nevertheless, his book
contains here and there new suggestions. His theory that the men of
the Great Synagogue were identical with the Soferim, though it has a
certain plausibility, is hardly supported by any great weight of
historical evidence. It is interesting to learn that the Synagogue
represents the oldest form of congregational worship, and is the
oldest human institution that has survived without interruption. The
parallel between the Hassidim and the Saints of Cromwell's time (p.
38) is curious. Mr. Herford has the somewhat strange notion (pp. 44-5)
that there is a sign of "mutual distrust" in the weeping of the High
Priest and the representatives of the Beth Din after the former had
taken the oath to observe the regulations concerning the Day of
Atonement. To the ordinary reader of the Mishnah the tears seem a
perfectly natural expression of the emotional strain under which all
the people labored on the great day.

It is hard to part from Mr. Herford's admirable book without quoting a
very fine tribute which he pays to the Jewish people. In speaking of
the influence of Ezra's ideals, he says (p. 55): "The Talmud is the
witness to show how some of his countrymen, some of the bravest, some
of the ablest, some of the most pious and saintly, and a host of
unnamed faithful, were true to those ideals and clung to those hopes;
and how, through good report and ill report, through shocks of
disaster and the ruin of their state, ground down by persecution, or
torn by faction, steadily facing enemies within, they held on to the
religion of the Torah."

[Illustration: Signature: D.S. Blonsheim]

        _University of Illinois_

II

JUDAISM AND PHILANTHROPY[C]

SOME years ago I met a certain Russian Jew at a conference called to
discuss various problems of education. He was an immigrant who had
made his fortune through speculation in real estate, and with his rise
in fortune he had, it was evident, thrown off, one after another, the
social habits, the religious outlook, and the organization of the
daily life which were the heritage he had brought with him from
Russia. He was at that time, he told me, president of a large Jewish
congregation, whose pillars of support were men like himself. He
complained bitterly of their backwardness and illiberality. They would
not introduce an organ and refused to change the prayer book or to
secure an "advanced" rabbi. For himself, he did not care whether they
had a synagogue--I mean temple--at all. He retained no longer any of
the superstitions or narrowness of his colleagues, and if it were not
for the fact that he felt himself out of place among members of the
radically reformed temple he would have attended that long ago. He was
a member of it, of course. His wife had made him join some years ago.
It was a double expense, to be sure, but his wife wanted to be active
in the Women's Council, and the children met other nice children in
the Sunday School. He did not think anyhow that synagogal affiliation
made any difference.

"I am," he said, "a good Jew. I give charity."

The remark took me aback, yet the logical development to the point of
view that he expressed was inevitable. In an environment where the
call of ambition is generally a call toward de-Judaization, the
connection between Jews who prosper and the great masses of the
Jewish people becomes, perforce, an external and artificial one. It is
notorious that the temple has thus far had no appeal to and no message
for the Jewish masses, that its membership is recruited from the
well-to-do and the successful, and that its relation to the great
groups which are destined never to be well-to-do or successful becomes
purely a relation of philanthropy. The elements of brotherhood, of a
common consciousness and a common purpose, fade or get submerged.
Where the masses are concerned the whole corporate essence of reformed
Judaism becomes concentrated in the word "charity."

_Justice vs. Charity in the Jewish Ideal_

YET it is significant that in Hebrew there is no special word for
charity. The term צדקה (Zedakah) meant originally righteousness, and
the righteousness which the prophets advocated was the substance of
social justice. It was incorporated into the fundamental law of the
Jewish state, which differed from that of other ancient states in the
fact that its intention was to secure freedom and "life" for each
individual man. Charity, as we now understand the word, had no place
in the social conceptions of the prophets and was not acknowledged in
the Law. The three codes which are preserved to us in the Bible from
the covenant in Exodus to the extraordinarily profound legislation of
Leviticus express an evolution of the social sense founded on a right
appreciation of social justice and democracy. "Life," and its
sustenance food, and shelter were regarded as the rights of each and
every man and not as gifts from one man to another. The law concerning
the tenure of land is particularly significant for its insight into
the economic basis of social justice, and the laws concerning
indebtedness and slavery only less so. Charity appears only when the
state disintegrates. It is coincident with the decay of the social
organization and the consequent failings of the sense of corporate
responsibility, and consists substantially of the conversion of a
right into a gift. This change is registered in the new meaning which
the word "Zedakah" receives. For a state in which social justice
prevails there is no room for charity, while a social order which
involves charity is not one which maintains justice. Thus it may be
said that the prophets, because they operated in terms of the
reorganization of the whole of society and not of the incidental
correction of piecemeal evils, were humanists. Their program was
constructive and aimed at the enfranchisement of manhood. The rabbis,
on the other hand, were (relatively only) philanthropists. Their
program was remedial, and they aimed rather at the relief of suffering
than the realization and perfection of human potentialities.

To-day the term "charity" has given way to a new equivalent, with a
somewhat different connotation. This new equivalent is "social
service." That it should be urged, as Mr. Lewis urges it, upon liberal
Judaism is simply another indication of the evanescing adherence of
that sect to the corporate life of the Jewish people. Although "social
service" carries with it more of the sense of justice than the term
charity, it is still, in intention, a charitable thing. It is not a
thing done through the inevitable forms of right social organization,
but through the gracious good will of a kindly individual. It still
maintains the Christian quality of "grace" which is a condescension, a
going down, a philanthropy. It stands in contrast to _law_, which
knows no such qualities, and the call which Mr. Lewis makes to liberal
Judaists for a special kind of social service is itself a
demonstration that "liberal Judaism" thus far has little in common
with the substance of Jewish life. Indeed his whole book is a
demonstration of this fact, for of the six chapters that it contains
only one has anything to say of social service as such in the present
day, while four are analyses, not of charity, but of the law of
righteousness as it operated in the Jewish polity, both in Palestine
and in the Diaspora. Even the actual charity of the Middle Ages
carries a quality of obligation and socially ordained necessity which
is derived from the basic law of the Jewish people.

_The Hope of Liberal Judaism_

BUT to-day, while the great Jewish masses still live, more or less
adequately under the basic law and exercise such righteousness as they
may in the division of obligation which the laws of the Galuth lands
compel, the classes are divorced from its rule altogether. The call
with which Mr. Lewis closes his book,--

        "We must teach the masses of our people, upon whom the
        Judaism of yesterday has lost hold, that their
        salvation lies in liberal Judaism, which is beginning
        to find itself to-day and which will become the
        Judaism of to-morrow,"

--is the best indication of this. Liberal Judaism has not touched the
minds or hearts of the masses. The radicals despise it as a
capitalistic system of compromise with the social environment. To the
rest of the working classes, it makes thus far no appeal whatever. It
is only upon the radicals that the "Judaism of yesterday" has lost its
hold, and to them liberal Judaism can have no appeal. To the rest of
the Jewish people it can be significant and really developed into the
"Judaism of to-morrow" only in so far as it can succeed in
reincorporating itself into the common life. I am an old social
service person, and I am prepared to deny categorically that such a
reincorporation is possible through social service. What is needed is
sympathetic intelligence, insight into the life and aspirations of the
masses, return of the classes to the masses, participation in their
ideals, their traditions, and their common life. It is not by a
cutting off from the past, but by a development out of it that such a
reincorporation can be consummated.

If liberal Judaism is to be a living and growing force at all, it can
become so only by accepting the inevitable conditions which govern all
life. Life is organic; religion is only one of the many organs of
human society, even Jewish society. Its health and vitality are
dependent upon the health and vitality of the social residuum. The
hope of liberal Judaism lies in a reincorporated national life for the
Jews. That alone can preserve the Jewish religion, either from
petrifying as orthodoxy through resistance against environmental
pressure, or from evaporating as reform through submission to
environmental pressure.

        _University of Wisconsin_

[Illustration: Signature: H. M. Kallen]

THE HEBREW GENIUS[D]

THIS little volume is five years old, but its review is always timely;
and for THE MENORAH JOURNAL very appropriate. The English language is
extremely poor in popular, yet scholarly and well-written books and
essays on Jewish literature. A great many of those who are thoroughly
versed in Hebrew literature, who regard the study of the original
Rabbinic sources as a work of love if not a profession and a life
work, have not a sufficient command of English or of systematic
exposition to be able to present the spirit of these writings in
acceptable form to the lay reader. The few scientific scholars in our
seminaries and colleges who could if they chose write authoritatively
and withal in an interesting manner concerning the course of Jewish
thought during the past two or three millenia, prefer to devote their
time and energy to the more technical aspects of the subject, which
are not designed for the uninitiated reader. And the men of
journalistic calibre and inclination, even if we had them, are not the
most desirable purveyors of Jewish knowledge. The truth of the matter
is, in the words of Nietzsche, that ears are still growing for the
intelligent American Jewish people so far as Jewish literature--Hebrew
classical literature--is concerned.

The cause of the paucity of works in English on Jewish literary
subjects is really economic. There is no lack of young men among the
people of the Book whose ideal of a well-spent life is one of complete
devotion to a scholarly career in the service of our ancient and
medieval classics. But unfortunately the very young men who give
promise of presenting in a creditable manner our intellectual heritage
for the benefit of the majority otherwise occupied, have no means of
their own, and yet are not ready (as it should not be expected of them
that they should be) to take the vow of poverty and celibacy and form
a Jewish monastic order of St. Haninah. Accordingly not a few of these
choose the Rabbinic career as the most likely profession to enable
them to keep in touch with Jewish learning--more or less a
disappointed hope to the real scholar who has no other fitness for the
modern Rabbinate except his scholarship. Others are completely
side-tracked and lost to Jewish scholarship.

Thus the lack of interest in Jewish learning and scholarship keeps
promising young men away from these unpromising studies. The result is
that the field in English remains uncultivated, which reacts again
unfavorably in a diminution of interest, and the vicious circle is
complete.

_The Need of Encouragement to Jewish Learning_

I HAVE used my text in good old fashion as a pretext for a little
sermon to the intelligent lay reader of THE MENORAH JOURNAL who may be
an influential member of the American Jewish community, pointing out
that we are sorely in need of a great many such books as the present
one, treating various "aspects of the Hebrew Genius"; and they are
sure to come just as soon as there is a real demand for them. The
Jewish students in our colleges and universities whose number is
rapidly increasing have in their midst a great many talented young men
who only need encouragement to devote their best energies to Jewish
learning. These will serve as a leaven to raise the entire Jewish
community of America to a more intelligent Jewish level. What we need
is liberal endowments for Jewish chairs in our universities and for
the promotion of Jewish education generally.

And now to proceed to my proper topic: _Aspects of Hebrew Genius_ is a
very creditable volume consisting of eight well-written essays on
several topics of Jewish history and thought. Norman Bentwich
contributes an article in which he gives an interesting sketch of the
Jewish Alexandrian period of the first two centuries B. C., whose
thought activities culminated in the works of Philo, the first man in
history who attempted an amalgamation of Hebraism and Hellenism. It
was not a success so far as Judaism is concerned, as is evidenced by
the fact that he was neglected and forgotten by his Jewish successors.
He was made use of, however, by the early Christian writers in the
formulation of the Trinitarian dogma, and by early Christian
apologists and theologians in presenting the doctrines of the new
religion in a form likely to appeal to the Græco-Roman world, which
trained as it was in philosophical thought would have been repelled by
the simple narratives of Scripture and the Gospels.

_Representative Men and Tendencies in Jewish Thought_

THE next essay by M. Simon deals with the second and more successful
attempt to enrich Jewish literature by infusing into it the spirit of
rationalistic inquiry originally derived from Greece. This time, in
the ninth and tenth centuries, the scene is placed in Babylonia. The
place of the Greeks is now taken by their medieval successors, the
Mohammedan Arabs, upon whom fell a part of the Hellenic mantle, that
represented by Greek science and philosophy. The æsthetic and literary
aspects of the Greek genius were left severely alone by the Arabs. The
man about whom this sketch centers is the famous Gaon of Sura,
Saadiah. And Mr. Simon lays great stress upon his achievements in
Biblical exegesis. As the Septuagint was the first Jewish translation
of the Bible, so Saadiah's Arabic translation was the second, and it
was enriched by introductions and a commentary in which Saadiah leads
his co-religionists, the Rabbanite Jews, from the Talmud back to an
appreciation of the Bible.

The period of systematic and rationalistic effort culminated in the
legal and philosophical works of Maimonides, the greatest Jew of the
middle ages. The Rev. H. S. Lewis gives a readable and sympathetic
sketch of this pre-eminent Jewish systematizer and rationalist. He
defends him against the strictures of Luzzatto and Graetz and points
out the great influence his thinking had on Judaism and Jews of his
own and subsequent ages, and even on the Christian scholastics.

The following four essays are devoted not to representative men but to
brief and interesting sketches of tendencies in Jewish thought and
departments of Jewish literature. The Rabbinic legalistic lore of the
Mishnah and Talmud, which finds no general treatment in the volume, is
partly represented by the article of Dr. S. Daiches, who gives a
popular account of the post-Talmudic attempts to codify the immense
legal material scattered in Mishnah and Talmud and in later additions.
Maimonides' code naturally occupies an important place in this sketch,
and a novel feature is the important place assigned to Jacob ben Asher
(1280-1340), the author of the _Turim_, who superseded Maimonides and
is popularized by Joseph Caro in his _Shulchan Aruch_.

_Jewish Rationalism and Mysticism_

THE title of the next paper, written by the competent hand of Dr. A.
Wolf, versed in philosophy as well as in Jewish literature, sounds
novel; and as the author says, is the first effort of the kind so far
made. It is well known that the philosophic movement in medieval Jewry
is characterized with few exceptions by the more or less faithful
adaptation of Aristotelian thought as represented in the Arabic
translations of his works and in the compendia and expositions made by
such ardent disciples of the Stagirite as Al Farabi, Avicenna, and
Averroes. Dr. Wolf undertakes briefly and readably to indicate how
much the Jewish medieval philosophers owed to the Greek sage and what
their attitude to him was, and interestingly summarizes the
Aristotelian point of view by the one word rationalism, as
distinguished from dogmatism and mysticism. He rightly points out that
while the specific doctrines borrowed from Aristotle and read into the
Bible by his ardent Jewish disciples are for the most part obsolete,
the spirit of systematic inquiry, the use of the reason in elucidating
disputed problems, "the exalted conception of the place and function
of human thought, the hallowing of intellectual effort," which was the
product of this philosophical activity, is a gain of inestimable value
for all time.

Rationalism and dogmatism, however, do not exhaust the aspects of
Jewish thought and literary endeavor. Parallel with the development of
Mishnah and Talmud and philosophy, there is visible, at first feebly
and in the background, and later, as circumstances favored it, more
aggressively and in full view, the mystic outlook upon life and
religion in its various phases. H. Sperling in a very interesting and
sympathetic manner traces this mystic element in Jewish literature
from the Prophets of the Bible, through the "Maase Bereshit" and
"Maase Merkaba" of the Haggadah down to the Sefer Yezira and the Zohar
and its successors.

There is no treatment of Jewish medieval poetry, and the volume closes
with a brief account of the more critical and historical treatment of
Jewish literature created in the nineteenth century by such men as
Krochmal, Rapaport, Luzzatto, Zunz, Geiger and others. Rev. M. H.
Segal gives a brief but illuminating account of this latest phase of
Jewish writing, which is not yet closed, and is likely to stay with us
for a long while.

E. M. Adler contributes an eloquent introduction by way of connecting
the necessarily independent essays and emphasizing the unity which the
collection in a great measure possesses.

The volume, as we are told in the Preface, "owes its appearance to the
Union of Jewish Literary Societies" in London, and it does credit to
their earnestness and loyalty to the cause of Jewish learning. Let us
hope it may serve as an example and incentive to the revival of Jewish
interests in this country. It is well that all should read this
useful little book and many others of the kind which we hope will
follow. But it is more important that such reading shall inspire the
student with a desire to study at first hand the original depositories
of Jewish thought. For this purpose a serious study of Hebrew is
imperative. And let us cherish the hope that we may witness a revival
of, and a wide-spread interest in, Jewish literature in this country
where next to Russia the greatest number of Jews are found and where,
moreover, they enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

        _University of Pennsylvania_

[Illustration: Signature: Isaac Husik]

IV

A GENERAL SURVEY OF JEWISH LIFE[E]

THROUGH his _Jewish Life in Modern Times_ Israel Cohen has made a
notable contribution to the literature of Jewish life and thought. In
a single volume of scarce 350 pages of text there is presented a
description and estimate of the Jewish position in the modern world
which may well be considered among the most comprehensive and the most
authoritative now available in the English language.

Taken as a whole, the volume is noteworthy because of three
commendable characteristics. It deals with Jewish life as it appears
in modern times, not as it should be in the light of the literature of
the ancient Hebrews. It presents Jewish life in all its important
aspects and complexities, not on the basis of the theory so widely
prevalent that religion, of all human activities, constitutes the sole
binding force and the only distinguishing characteristic of the
separate Jewish existence. Finally, it aims to picture the life of the
Jews in all corners of the Diaspora, and not their problems and
activities in a single country or section of the globe.

_Jewish Life Not Synonymous With Jewish Religion_

AN exposition of Jewish life as it is actually lived in modern times
helps to clarify a much-beclouded situation. It enables the Jew the
better to know himself; it presents to the outside world a clearer
outline of a figure who must ever, to some extent, remain "strange"
and "unknowable." Moreover, the reader's sense of proportion is
adjusted by a work which does not make Jewish life synonymous with
Jewish religion. Whether there is sufficient evidence of a biological
and anthropological character to support the claim of those who look
upon the Jews as a separate race, whether the Jewish people in their
dispersion may properly be considered as a distinct national group in
spite of the absence of a government and a territory of their own, it
is certainly difficult, in all intellectual honesty, to maintain that
the Jews are merely a religious community. One of our brilliant young
philosophers has strikingly said that a Jew can change his religion,
but that he cannot change his grandfather; nor, he might have added
can he destroy his more general antecedents, that complex of customs,
traditions and ideals which have manifested themselves in the course
of thirty-five centuries of recorded history and which create within
him an ineradicable historic consciousness. Jewish solidarity is not
grounded in religion alone, and the distinctiveness of the Jewish
people manifests itself in activities other than religion.

A work which like the present aims to present the Jew in every
important phase of life, which describes the social, political,
economic, and intellectual aspects of Jewish life, as well as the
religious, deserves commendation because of its mere scope and
completeness. But Mr. Cohen has gone further. He has not fallen into
the error of many of the spokesmen for the cultural or historical
unity of Jewry of denying or even minimizing the potency of religion
as a factor in Jewish survival. Indeed, he everywhere recognizes that
the primary or motor force in the organization of the Jewish
community, which is the concrete expression of Jewish solidarity, is
religious, springing from the desire for public worship. But while
religion is the underlying factor, it is not the only factor. There is
a sane coordination of the leading aspects of Jewish life, a clear
grasp of the relationship between them.

Finally, the work is significant because it seeks to represent the Jew
in all lands, to paint Jewish life in all its diversity. Mr. Cohen, an
Englishman intimately acquainted with conditions in his own country,
travelled extensively on the continent in preparation for his task.
But his knowledge of American conditions was derived from study of
American books and newspapers, and from correspondence, instead of
from personal experience. This accounts for such minor lapses, with
regard to American conditions, as the statement that the Jews are
"excluded from . . . the principal hotels on the east coast of the
United States" and hence "take their holiday in the well-known resorts
of central and southern Europe" (p. 110). On the whole, however, the
attempt to describe Jewish life in all its diversity, as it is lived
by Jews in all lands, is crowned with marked success, and the author
has ample justification for his claim that he has brought "within the
covers of a single book the fullest description yet attempted of all
the main aspects and problems of Jewish life in the present day."

_The Various Aspects of Jewish Life_

A MORE detailed statement of the scope and plan of the work may best
be given in the author's own words. "First, a General Survey is
presented, showing the dispersion and distribution of Jewry in its
countless manifestations, its diversity of composition in political
and spiritual respects, and the solidarity that unifies its disparate
elements. Then follow five main sections, in each of which a leading
aspect of life is investigated--the social, the political, the
economic, the intellectual, and the religious. Under the Social Aspect
are set forth the growth and constitution of the community, the
characteristics and customs of the home, social life and amenities,
morality and philanthropy, and racial and physical conditions. Under
the Political Aspect are related how one-half of the people acquired
civil equality, how the other half is still suffering in bondage, and
what services Israel has rendered to so many countries in both their
government and their defence. Under the Economic Aspect are reviewed
the different spheres of commercial, industrial and professional
activity in which Jews are engaged, the contrasts of material welfare
and predominance of poverty, and the ceaseless currents of migration
from the lands of bondage to the havens of refuge. Under the
Intellectual Aspect are considered the advance made by secular
education among the Jews, the nature of their national intellectual
products in modern times, and the contributions they have rendered to
the progress and culture of humanity. Under the Religious Aspect are
described their ecclesiastical organization and administration, their
traditional faith and observance and the growing divergences
therefrom, and then the drift and apostasy that are assuming ever more
alarming proportions. Finally, the resultant tendency of all the
foregoing manifestations is examined under the National Aspect, the
strength of the forces of assimilation and absorption is contrasted
with the inherent force of conservation, and the realization of the
Zionist ideal is urged as the most effective means of ensuring the
perpetuation of Israel" (pp. viii-ix).

The purpose of the author is thus seen to be, first, to present the
facts of Jewish life, and secondly, to offer an interpretation of
them--"to depict the variegated life of the Jewish people at the
present day in all its intimacy and intensity, and to trace the
evolution that is being produced by modern forces" (p. viii). He is
more successful in the first of these objects than he is in the
second.

His shortcomings in interpretation, however, are negative rather than
positive; they are due to omission rather than to commission. There is
inadequate consideration of the philosophy of Jewish life; external
description has crowded out internal analysis; the point of view is
too largely objective. While, for example, the conclusion is reached
that Zionism is the only permanent and adequate solution of the Jewish
problem--with which we do not disagree--insufficient stress is laid
upon the distinctive Jewish obligation in the Diaspora; the Jewish
contributions to general culture and progress which the author
enumerates with such concreteness and detail are not distinctively
Jewish contributions. Even if Zion is the ultimate destiny of the Jew,
he must, in the meantime, justify his separate existence among the
nations; if he is to remain a Jew as well as a citizen of the world,
his contribution must be that of a Jewish citizen; in addition to the
general obligation of his citizenship, he must fulfil the special
obligation of his Jewishness. But these deficiencies of
interpretation, like the inadequacies of description arising from the
impossibility of treating exhaustively so large a field within so
narrow a compass, but reflect the inherent limitations of the task set
himself by our author.

        _University of Michigan._

[Illustration: Signature: I. Leo Sharfman]

JEWISH STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

_An Excerpt from Israel Cohen's Book, "Jewish Life in Modern Times,"
pages 105-106:_

"It was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the
Jewish students at any of the principal seats of learning were
numerous enough to form a society of their own. The first
organization was founded in 1882 in Vienna by Jewish students from
Russia, Rumania, and Galicia, who entitled their society _Kadimah_,
which means both 'Eastward' and 'Forward,' as an indication of the
ideal of a resettlement in Palestine which they advocated. Since then,
partly as a result of the advance of Zionism and partly as a result of
the anti-Semitic attitude of the general students' corps on the
Continent, separate societies have been formed by the Jewish students
at almost every university at which they number at least a dozen, and
are now found in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Switzerland,
France, and Holland. Some of these societies owe their existence
simply to the exclusion of Jews from the general corporation, and they
adopt a passive attitude on Jewish questions, but the majority are
animated by the ideal of Jewish nationalism and actively foster the
Zionist cause. The Jewish nationalist societies in Germany are grouped
into two organizations, the 'Bund Jüdischer Corporationen,' founded in
1901, with a membership of over 600 (graduates and undergraduates),
and the smaller, 'Kartell Zionistischer Verbindungen,' founded five
years later, with a membership of 250. The Zionist students' societies
in Holland were federated in 1908, but those in other Continental
countries pursue an unattached existence. Established to assert and
promote the principle of Jewish nationalism, these corporations have
nevertheless adopted all the methods and conventions of German
corporations; they each have their distinctive colors, and they hold
'beer evenings' at which the students sing spirited songs in swelling
chorus around tables which they bang with their beer-mugs, presided
over by officers who are accoutred in a gorgeous uniform and armed
with a sword that does duty alternately as chairman's hammer and
conductor's baton. But their songs tell not of Teuton valor but of
Jewish hope, breathing the spirit of a rejuvenated people. Besides
these convivial gatherings the members cultivate the study of Jewish
history, literature, and modern problems, and also practice fencing so
as to be prepared for any duel in which they might be involved in
vindication of the Jewish name. The Jewish societies at the
universities in English-speaking countries are not, like the
Continental corps, the inevitable product of an unfriendly
environment, but voluntary associations for the study of Jewish
questions and for social intercourse. The Jewish students in England,
and to a less extent in the United States, join the societies of their
university; but their racial sympathies prompt them also to fraternize
with one another. Thus, Oxford has its Adler Society and Cambridge its
Schechter Society, whilst at both universities there is also a Zionist
Society. Moreover, in the United States, 'Menorah' societies for the
study of Jewish history and the discussion of Jewish questions have
been formed at twenty-five Universities and organized into an
Intercollegiate 'Menorah' Association with over 1000 members."

        [There are now 37 Menorah Societies, with an
        approximate membership of 3,000.--ED.]

FOOTNOTES:

[B] R. TRAVERS HERFORD: _Pharisaism, Its Aim and Method_. London,
Williams and Norgate; New York, Putnam. $1.50. (Any of the books
reviewed in this article may be ordered through THE MENORAH JOURNAL.)

[C] HARRY S. LEWIS, M.A.: _Liberal Judaism and Social Service_. New
York, Bloch Publishing Co. (The Lewisohn Lectures.) $1.00.

[D] LEON SIMON, Editor: _Aspects of the Hebrew Genius_. Essays by
Elkan Adler, Norman Bentwich, H. S. Lewis, S. Daiches, A. Wolf, H.
Sperling, M. Simon, M. H. Segal. London, Routledge. $1.00.

[E] ISRAEL COHEN: _Jewish Life in Modern Times_. New York: Dodd, Mead
& Co. $3.00.

The Symbolism of the Menorah[F]

BY HYMAN ASKOWITH

AFTER the severe and constantly-expanding test of nearly a decade, the
founders of the first Menorah Society may be permitted to felicitate
themselves on their choice of the name. For it was far truer of the
Menorah than it is of most organizations that the choice of a name was
of vital moment, and the founders were impressed by a number of
considerations which we can all fully appreciate even today. They were
bent upon choosing a name which would not deter any Jewish student
from enrolling under it with avidity; which would not excite
opposition from any source; which would command respect and reverence,
increasing respect and reverence, both from the University public and
the general public; which would be voluntarily adopted by similar
societies in other Universities in preference to any other that might
be suggested; and finally, a name with enough charm and euphony and
significant symbolism to stand constant repetition, to bear living
with day by day, and all the while grow in our imaginations and yield
new beauteous meaning through the years.

From a descriptive standpoint, it would be difficult to find a more
appropriate name for a University society devoted to Hebraic culture
than the name Menorah. For there is hardly another available word in
the entire range of Hebraic history and learning which is so freighted
with sentiment and so symbolic of all that Israel stands for.

_The Most Expressive of All Hebraic Symbols_

TAKEN in a general sense, it is evident that the Menorah or
seven-branched candelabrum, being the distinctive lamp or light of the
ancient Hebrews, serves more distinctively than would the classic
torch or the conventional oil lamp to represent Hebrew enlightenment.
Our aim being to spread the light of Hebraic culture, it is clearly
fitting that we should employ the Hebraic lamp. It should be more
effective, too, inasmuch as its light is sevenfold, and our efforts
are illuminated with a sevenfold splendor.

The word Menorah, it is worth noting, is among exclusively Hebrew
words the only one which would be readily understood by any
considerable number of people aside from students or readers of
Hebrew. It has been made familiar to all by the representation of the
captured Menorah on the Arch of Titus (see _Frontispiece_).

According to the Bible, the original Menorah was of divine pattern. It
was ordained by God in his instructions to Moses for the sacred
paraphernalia of the Holy Tabernacle (_Exodus_ XXV, 31 _et seq._). The
Menorah was thus among the first instruments or tokens of the Hebrew
religion, and the only one which in any sense is in our possession
today--the only one which can be perpetuated. The divine pattern is
still with us and we are repeatedly modeling new copies from it. The
Menorah is today, therefore, the most expressive of all concrete
symbols of the Hebrew race and religion.

_A Favorite Object of Metaphor and Poetic Sentiment_

A HALO of symbolism--almost kaleidoscopic in its manifold
beauty--surrounds the Menorah in Hebraic literature and tradition.
Both the single light or candle, and the distinctive combination of
seven, are the favorite objects of metaphor, interpretation, and
poetic sentiment. In the Bible the word "ner" (נר)--candle or
light, embodied, of course, in the word Menorah (מנורה)--is
used metaphorically in many significant senses. God is a
light--enlightening, comforting and honoring his people. The rational
understanding and conscience are lights which search, inform, direct
and judge us. A profession of faith is called a lamp, which renders
men shining and useful and instructors of others. The last two
interpretations certainly cast an appropriate reflection on our choice
of Menorah.

For the number 7, as we all know, the ancient Hebrews had a singular
fondness, attributing to it a magic potency. This may have arisen from
the traditional story of the seven days of Creation, and the
institution of the Sabbath--without a doubt the most important of
Hebrew institutions. This certainly enhanced the reverence for the
number 7, which soon became the most sacred Hebrew number, bearing
nearly always the connotation of holiness and sanctity or mystic
perfection. The acts of atonement and purification were accompanied by
a sevenfold sprinkling. There were seven trumpets, seven priests that
sounded them seven days around Jericho, seven lamps, seven seals, etc.
The seventh day was the Sabbath, the seventh year was the Sabbatical
(still observed to the well-earned emolument of our professors in the
Universities), and seven times seven years brought on the Jubilee. The
seventh month was the holiest month of the year (which we appreciate
now by regarding September as an auspicious month in which to return
to college studies). The number seven soon came to be used also
conventionally as an indefinite or round number, indicating
abundance, completeness, perfection.[1] Cicero calls seven the knot
and cement of all things, as being that by which the natural and
spiritual world are comprehended in one idea.

_The Manifold Symbolism of the Seven Lamps_

BE that as it may, our ancestral learned men seem to have found no end
of significant meanings in the seven lamps of the Menorah. Generally
it was held to represent the creation of the universe in seven days,
the center light symbolizing the Sabbath. Again, the seven branches
are the seven continents of the earth and the seven heavens, guided by
the light of God. According to Philo and others, the seven lights
represent the seven planets which, regarded as the eyes of God, behold
everything.[2] The light in the center, which is especially
distinguished, would signify the sun, as the chief of the planets.
With this was combined the mystic conception of a celestial tree, with
leaves reaching to the sky and fruit typifying the planets.

There would be little difficulty, of course, in extending this
symbolistic catalogue ad infinitum. We could easily and perhaps
profitably select Seven Wonders of Hebraic history or achievement,
seven great epochs in the development of Hebraic culture, seven great
leaders of the race, etc. We might also say that the seven lights
represent the seven chief studies which make up a liberal
education--the Trivium and Quadrivium of the Middle Ages,
substantially the foundation of the university curriculum of today[3].

The words יהי אור, "Let there be light," just above the Menorah on our
seal, are not only reminiscent of the first great word of God,
pregnant in meaning for humanity, but stand also for the purpose of
this Society--the relighting of the Menorah in order that it may shed
its ancient lustre and once again illumine the minds of men with the
glory and uplift of Hebraic ideals.

[Illustration: REPRODUCTION (ONE-FOURTH THE SIZE OF THE ORIGINAL) OF
THE MEMBERSHIP SHINGLE OF THE HARVARD MENORAH SOCIETY, ADOPTED IN ITS
FIRST YEAR

(1906-07)]

_The Symbolism of Palm and Olive Branch_

THE seal as originally drawn for the Harvard Menorah Society (see
accompanying illustration of membership shingle) bears two or three
other symbols which deserve a word of interpretation. Below the
Menorah appears the so-called Star of David--lately revived by the
Zionist movement as the only exclusively Jewish figure or geometric
symbol of any national meaning. Entwined below the seal proper are an
olive branch and a date palm, both of which are intimately associated
with the history of the race in Palestine. They are the two most
characteristic trees of the promised land, and provided the chief
staple foods of the Hebrews during their occupation of the country.
The olive, moreover, gave the oil with which the Menorah was lit.
There is also much fascinating symbolism in the olive tree and the
palm. Both are evergreens--standing for the persistency of the Hebrew
race. The date palm, we are told, has a slender and very yielding
stem, so that in a storm it sways back and forth but does not break;
and throughout its length it bears scars showing where leaves have
fallen off. Could anything be more beautifully expressive of the
career of the Jewish nation? Finally, the olive branch has always
stood for peace--one of the most cherished and distinctive
Hebraic ideals; and the palm has always stood for intellectual
achievement--and who would deny the palm to the race that
gave the world its Bible and all that it stands for?

[Illustration: Signature: Hyman Askowith]

FOOTNOTES:

[F] This article is based upon a paper delivered at the Seventh Annual
Banquet of the Harvard Menorah Society last May.

[1] _Cf._ Gen. vii, 2; xxi, 28-30; I Kings xviii, 43; Deut. xvi, 9;
Ezek. xl, 22; xli, 3.

[2] _Cf._ Zech. iv, 10.

[3] In the form in which this paper was read before the Harvard
Menorah Society, the following paragraphs of a more local interest
were added at this point:

"And it certainly adds to the eternal fitness of things that there
should be just seven letters in the word MENORAH, just seven letters
in the word HARVARD, and just seven letters in the word SOCIETY;--the
whole name of the society thus forming three times seven, or a
majority.

"That there is something much more Hebraic in Harvard than the mere
mechanical coincidence of seven letters in the name, is well known to
every one who is at all aware of the part played by Hebrew ideals in
the founding, organization and early history of Harvard. The fact that
Harvard took root in Hebraic culture and traditions is a welcome and
gratifying encouragement to this effort to replant the Hebraic
influence on Harvard ground."

The Decennial of the Menorah Movement

THE Menorah movement enters upon its decennial with the beginning of
the present academic year, the first Menorah Society having been
organized at Harvard University in 1906.[G] From this Society with an
original membership of sixteen, the Menorah movement has grown
throughout the country so that at the close of the last academic year
there were Societies at thirty-seven colleges and universities with a
membership of some three thousand. Every Society has arisen upon the
initiative of the students themselves, inspired by a desire to pursue
the objects embodied in the Menorah. In January, 1913, the
Intercollegiate Menorah Association was formed for the purpose of
mutual encouragement and co-operation among the several Societies, and
also to carry out enterprises beyond the scope and power of any
individual Society--such as the publication of THE MENORAH JOURNAL.

On the threshold of the decennial, and especially since the present
number of the JOURNAL will come into the hands of many new students
and readers, it may not be amiss again, in brief terms, to review the
purposes of the movement.

_The Three-Fold Purpose of the Menorah Organization_

THE Menorah Societies have been organized by the students in response
to their desire first of all to know more about the history,
literature, religion--in a word, the culture and ideals of the Jewish
people, and the conditions and problems which confront the Jews in the
world today. Being thus educational in primary purpose, every Menorah
Society is open to all the members of its university who have an
interest in Jewish life and thought. And inasmuch as the great
majority, if not all, of the students who have such an interest in
Jewish knowledge and Jewish aspirations are themselves Jews, the
Menorah organization cherishes the second purpose of strengthening the
Jewish idealism and _noblesse oblige_ of the Jewish students, so that
by understanding and carrying forward their Jewish inheritance they
may become better men and women by becoming better Jews. And from this
moral aim there flows still a third purpose, that of patriotic
service to the Republic; for by enriching the common treasury of
American culture and ideals with the spiritual resources of the Jewish
people, the educated Jews of the country may serve America to the
profoundest degree. Animated thus with the spirit and broad purposes
of our universities, the Menorah Societies have been warmly welcomed
and generously assisted by the university authorities.

_The Distinction Between Menorah and Other Student Societies_

THE purposes of the Menorah movement will appear in greater relief
by comparison with the objects of other types of Jewish
organization--social, political, religious--that have arisen at our
colleges and universities. The Menorah Societies are all-inclusive,
non-partisan, non-sectarian. Hence they are to be distinguished in the
first place from the exclusive social organizations, such as the Greek
letter or Hebrew letter fraternities. Being rather educational in
spirit and purpose, the Menorah Societies make no social test for
membership, nor do they pursue any convivial activities except such as
are deemed desirable for the most agreeable and efficient pursuit of
the Menorah objects. Again, the Menorah Societies are clearly
distinguishable from the Zionist Societies, which were united last
June in the Intercollegiate Zionist Association of America; whereas
the Zionist Societies are devoted to a specific political program in
confronting the so-called Jewish Question, the Menorah Societies,
being non-partisan, are neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist, but
perfectly free and open forums for the discussion of all points of
view. The Menorah membership consists of men and women of divers
convictions, as well as of those who have not yet made up their minds
but come to the Menorah for enlightenment and inspiration. Finally,
just because the Menorah appeals to every student who has a liberal
interest in Jewish life and thought--to every Jewish student
particularly, whatever his present beliefs and ideas--the Menorah
Societies are not to be regarded as specifically religious
organizations. Therefore the observance of religious services and
practices is left to those students who desire them, individually or
in appropriate organizations, such as the Jewish Students'
Congregation organized recently under reform auspices at the
University of Michigan. The Menorah Societies are neither reform,
conservative nor orthodox but broadly inclusive of all elements.

_The Catholicity and Comradeship of the Menorah_

INDEED, next to the Menorah idea--the sum of Menorah purposes--the
peculiar strength of the Menorah Societies lies in this catholic
spirit which determines the Menorah "open door." Thereby the Menorah
Societies are enabled to perform more and more an incidental but most
important service apart from the objects to which they are formally
dedicated. With the growth of various Jewish organizations in our
universities--which, whatever the opinion as to their value and
propriety, tend to divide the Jewish students rather than to unite
them--a most important service performed by the all-inclusive Menorah
Societies is to bring the students together, in spite of their various
differences, on a common high plane. As stated over a year ago in the
Association's book on _The Menorah Movement_: "Where, as in almost all
large universities, there are Jewish students of diverse antecedents,
it is one of the most important functions of a non-partisan
organization like the Menorah Society to bring all classes and parties
together upon an academic plane, in order that they may learn each
other's points of view, in order that their prejudices against one
another which are founded on misunderstanding and snobbishness may
wither away, and in order that they may pursue in generous comradeship
the knowledge of their common tradition and the hope of their common
future."

_The Graduate Phase of the Menorah Movement_

IT is becoming increasingly evident, moreover, that such a unifying
force is called for outside of the universities among the graduates
and other educated Jews; and it is hoped that through the graduate
phase of the Menorah movement, this need may be subserved by graduate
Menorah groups in various communities. To quote once more from _The
Menorah Movement_: "Such graduate Menorah organizations, while
academic and non-partisan in their nature, like the university Menorah
Societies, might yet, if properly constituted and conducted, be of
practical as well as of ideal service to their communities. They could
bring together, upon the lofty basis of Jewish idealism, men of
different views in the community, who approach practical Jewish
problems in different, sometimes in mutually antagonistic, ways.
Devoid itself of any sectarian or fraternal or political bias, a
graduate Menorah organization should be ideally fitted to serve as a
kind of intellectual clearing house of the Jewish community, and thus
promote on all sides a deeper understanding of one another, a clearer
vision of the common problems, a greater concord in Jewish life."

In any event, it is hoped during the present year to bring the
graduates and other public-spirited Jewish citizens into closer touch
with the activities and aspirations of the students. At the fourth
annual Convention of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association to be
held during the coming midwinter recess, the idea of graduate Menorah
committees and other forms of possible graduate association with the
Menorah movement will be carefully considered.

_The Year Ahead_

IT may be added that at this Convention, which promises to be the most
important thus far held by the Menorah Societies, there will also be
given a full review of the activities of the Menorah organization
since its inception and a survey of the present opportunities and
demands for Menorah work throughout the country. More and more
emphasis will be laid upon the quality of accomplishment of every
Menorah Society; upon the active participation by all Menorah members
in one phase or another of Jewish study and labor; and, in general,
upon an even greater utilization of the lectures, libraries, study
courses, and other means provided for the accomplishment of Menorah
ends.

In this terrible time for Jewry, amid the general catastrophe, when
hundreds of thousands of Jewish young men are offering their lives
heroically in the contending armies, the members of the Menorah
Societies in this favored country cannot but enter upon the new year
with a solemn sense of added responsibility. More than ever in this
decennial year of the Menorah movement is intellectual and moral
consecration to Jewish ideals demanded of Jewish students in America.

                                         Henry Hurwitz, _Chancellor_
                                        I. Leo Sharfman, _President_

FOOTNOTE:

[G] It should be noted that in 1903 a Jewish literary society was
founded at the University of Minnesota which was later changed to a
Menorah Society and is now one of the constituents of the
Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

Menorah Notes and News

=The International Students' Reunion=

THE Intercollegiate Menorah Association was represented at the
International Students' Reunion, which was held in connection with the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, the
University of California, and Leland Stanford University, under the
auspices of Corda Fratres Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, from
August 16th to 21st, 1915. Intercollegiate Vice-President Milton D.
Sapiro read a paper at the session in the Civic Auditorium, San
Francisco, on "The Purposes of the Menorah Movement," submitted by the
Chancellor. Dr. Horace M. Kallen, of the University of Wisconsin,
delivered a discourse at the session at Stanford University on "The
Hebraic Spirit." The following is an abstract of his address:

_Dr. Kallen on "The Hebraic Spirit"_

"A people's spirit is its character, considered not as a cluster of
qualities, but as a spring and form of action--action that expresses
itself in social institutions, in political and economic organization,
in art, in religion and in philosophy; in short, in all that
expressive part of human life we call culture. A people's culture is
organic. However varied its form and media, the varieties springing
from a single source possess an identical and unique quality which is
the quality of that source. They express and reveal it, as generative
power, a force of creation, having good or evil bearing upon the
residual civilization. The process of such revelation is a people's
total history; just as the process of revelation of an individual's
character is his total biography. To find the Hebraic spirit we must
seek its substantial development in the culture and ideals of the
Jewish people--in the unfoldment, in the history of their common
attitude toward the world and toward man, in their theory of life.

"The Jewish theory of life involves three fundamental conceptions,
interdependent, and forming a unit which has no near parallel in
civilization.

"The first of these conceptions defines the nature of God. What is
significant about it is the fact that it makes no distinction between
God and Nature. God is Nature and Nature is God. The two are related
to each other as a force and its operation, and what difference there
exists between them is a difference in completeness and
self-sufficiency, not in kind. God reveals himself thus in and as the
cause of Nature, the whirlwind, the process of life and decay, the
development of history. His essence is Change, Force, Time. There is
hence no Hebrew word for eternal; God's attitude is everlasting. That
is, that which changes yet retains its identity, as a man changes from
infancy to manhood, yet retains his identity.

"God is one, all-inclusive, everlastingly creative. In consequence,
there exists a real distinction between God and man, such that the one
cannot be defined in analogy with anything human. Neither wisdom, nor
goodness, nor justice apply to him; yet the goodness, wisdom and
justice of man depend upon him. Man is a finite speck set over against
divine infinitude. His life is a constant struggle for survival with
forces which have each an equal claim on divine regard with man. Man's
salvation, herein, consists in knowing these facts, in understanding,
using them, and guarding against them. The fear of the Lord, sings the
chorus in Job, is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is
understanding.

"To depart from evil is to act as a social being, to be righteous.
Righteousness is acknowledgment of the value and integrity of other
persons. It is the application of justice in all fields of human
endeavor, particularly in fundamental economics. Thus the three
historic constitutions of the Jewish state, the Covenant, Deuteronomy
and the Levitical code, are all directed toward making impossible
other than natural inequalities within the state. Their intention is a
social democracy; and all Jewish law, departing from this fundamental
intention, aims, under various conditions, to realize it. The
prophets, from Amos to Isaiah, preach it; and men like Ferdinand
Lassalle, Karl Marx, Jean de Bloch, simply enhance their tradition.

"The Hebraic spirit carries the principle of democracy beyond the
individual to the group. Men having a common ancestry, history,
culture and ideals, living a common life, have definite contribution
to make to civilization as a group. They constitute a nationality and
the principles of justice that apply among individuals must apply
equally among nationalities. Hence Hebraism, through its prophets,
formulates the conception of an internationalism, consisting of a
co-operative democracy of nationalities, under conditions of universal
peace. The great Isaiah, who flourished in the fifth century B. C., is
the first to formulate this national vision. His people have never
departed from it. In terms of it, they have been the foremost
protagonists of a constructive internationalism, in every land and at
all times. Recently, as they have begun to find that their service to
civilization as a people grows more and more impaired by the Diaspora,
they have formulated a program of national reconcentration in
Palestine, and of the free development there of Hebraic culture and
ideals such as all European peoples carry out in their own homelands
of their culture and ideals. This program is called Zionism. It is the
practical and most expressive incarnation of the Hebraic Spirit."

=California Menorah Society=

THE California Menorah Society met on Monday evening, August 30th, for
its first meeting of the college year. There was an attendance of 125.
Mr. Louis I. Newman gave a short talk on the aims of the Menorah
movement. Milton D. Sapiro, first President of the California Menorah
and now the second Vice-President of the Intercollegiate Menorah
Association, spoke on the history of the movement, tracing the
development of the Menorah idea and the formation of the
Intercollegiate body; and in closing he presented Stanley Arndt, now
President of the Society, with a bronze Menorah, which is to be handed
down from President to President each year. President Arndt, in
accepting the Menorah, said that it suggested the great problem that
the Jews are now facing. The great question at the present time is
whether this Menorah will be a mere symbol of the past glories, the
past achievements of the Jews, whether it is to be a mere monument of
a dying race, or the living emblem of a living race, the soul of a
living people. As an exponent of the latter doctrine, he introduced
Dr. Horace M. Kallen of the University of Wisconsin, Intercollegiate
Menorah Lecturer.

Dr. Kallen spoke on "The Jews and the Great War." He pointed out that
democracy in its essence was the liberation of individuality; that by
being most one's self, a person or a nation does the most for his
neighbors. First of all, therefore, we should know ourselves. Dr.
Kallen then took up the condition of the Jews in Russia. He discussed
the frightful persecutions there as the result of a great anti-Jewish
conspiracy to cover up the graft, the corruption and the inefficiency
of the government. He spoke on the great drive of the Jews from the
Pale by the military authorities and then the drive back again by the
civil authorities. This, he pointed out, involved not only a Jewish
problem, but a great international one besides. The second phase of
the Jewish question was that of a free Jewish life in Palestine. There
the Jewish colonists have practically an autonomy of their own; they
have established a Jewish stage, Jewish art, Jewish music; and the
colonies were founded upon a social democratic basis, upon the same
fundamental conceptions of social democracy that the Hebrew Prophets
had preached. Dr. Kallen concluded with a plea for the Jew's double
responsibility. The Jew commits a crime hot only as a citizen but as a
Jew. The Jews who in length of service to the world are surely an
aristocracy must carry this responsibility.

In the discussion which followed, Professor Simon Litman of Illinois,
who was present, took part.

A Menorah prize of $50. was announced at this meeting. The judges will
be Professor William Popper and Dr. Martin A. Meyer of the Semitics
Department of the University, and Judge Max Sloss of the Supreme Court
of California.

A musical program, followed by an informal reception to the new
members, completed the evening.

N. M. Lyon, the Treasurer of the Intercollegiate, formerly of
Cincinnati, is now a student at California and a member of the
California Menorah.

=Dr. Kallen on the Pacific Coast=

BESIDES his address at the opening meeting of the California Menorah
Society and other informal talks with the students, Dr. Kallen
delivered a series of three addresses at the University of California,
under the auspices of the Department of Philosophy, on the general
subject: "The Hebraic Tradition in Europe." On August 31st, he
lectured upon "The Rise and Significance of the Hebraic Tradition"; on
September 1st, "Hebraism and Democracy"; and September 2nd, "Hebraism
and Art."

On August 30th, Dr. Kallen met a company of graduates and other
public-spirited Jewish citizens in San Francisco at luncheon and
explained the purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah
Association.

Dr. Kallen addressed the Menorah Society of the University of
Washington in Seattle on August 14th, on "The Jewish Question and the
Great War." He also met at a dinner a company of graduates and other
public-spirited Jewish citizens in Seattle, and explained to them the
purposes and activities of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association.

=Dr. Harry Wolfson of Harvard=

HARRY AUSTRYN WOLFSON, the author of the articles on "Jewish Students
in European Universities," published in the first two numbers of the
Journal, has been appointed Instructor in Jewish Literature and
Philosophy at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard
last June in the field of Semitic Philology, his thesis subject being
"Crescas on the Problems of Infinity and Divine Attributes."

During the ensuing year he will give the following courses:
Post-Biblical Hebrew, Jewish Aramaic, Jewish Literature and Life From
the Second to the End of the Seventeenth Century, and An Introduction
to Medieval Jewish Philosophy.

=Cornell Summer Meeting=

ON August 8, 1915, the Cornell Menorah Society held a meeting for the
summer students. There was an attendance of about 50, both Jews and
non-Jews. Rev. Dr. H. P. Mendes, of New York, gave an address on
"Bible Ideals in Modern Times," and Professor Frank Carney of Denison
University, Professor of Industrial Geography in the Cornell Summer
School, spoke on "The Inorganic Basis of the Hebrew Contribution to
the World." Professor W.A. Hurwitz of Cornell spoke briefly on the
scope of the Menorah movement, and Dr. L. L. Silverman played Kol
Nidre on the violin.

=Hunter Menorah Society=

THE Menorah Society of Hunter College, in New York City, begins its
third year with a marked increase in the enthusiasm and the number of
its members. A program dealing with various phases of Hebrew culture
has been planned for the regular monthly meetings, comprising lectures
on the Bible, the Talmud, Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Modern Hebrew
Literature, Hebrew Music, and Hebrew Art. In addition, the Society
hopes to present a pageant and a reception to freshmen in February
(for Hunter College admits two classes during the year). The lectures
will be preceded by refreshments, and the singing of Hebrew songs by
the Menorah Glee Club.

Besides the regular monthly meetings, the Society is organizing
courses in conversational Hebrew, Bible Study, and Zionism--the first
to meet weekly, the others on alternate weeks.

It is also hoped to have a general informal meeting every week to
discuss modern Jewish problems in connection with the reading of
various newspapers and periodicals.

=College of the City of New York=

THE Menorah Society of the College of the City of New York closed its
activities during the past year with a very interesting meeting held
on May 20, 1915. Rev. Dr. H. Pereira Mendes spoke on "Jewish Ideals of
Peace," and he was introduced by the new President of the College, Dr.
Sidney Edward Mezes, who presided. Dr. Mezes has come to City College
from the University of Texas, and it is gratifying to note that he had
already been made familiar with the Menorah work through the Texas
Menorah Society.

The new year was opened with a forum meeting on September 21st, in the
Menorah alcove, when the Chancellor addressed a number of new men as
well as old, upon the significance and the increasing scope of the
Menorah movement. The week beginning October 3rd will be known as
"Menorah Week" at the College. On Monday, October 4th, the study
circles will meet for the first time; on Tuesday there will be another
meeting of the Menorah forum; on Wednesday a semi-annual smoker will
be held in the City College Club; and on Thursday, Mr. Marcus M.
Marks, President of the Borough of Manhattan, will deliver a lecture
to the student body under the auspices of the Menorah Society.

=Fourth Annual Convention=

IMPORTANT matters touching the development of Intercollegiate
activities, the work and membership of the constituent Societies, the
association of graduates with the Intercollegiate body, the problems
and plans of THE MENORAH JOURNAL, will be among the subjects presented
for discussion and decision at the Fourth Menorah Convention, to be
held during the coming mid-winter recess. The precise days and place
of the Convention will shortly be decided by the Administrative
Council, in accordance with Article II, Section 4, of the
Intercollegiate Constitution. In addition to the business sessions
there will also be a formal dinner and an academic session devoted to
the reading of papers by eminent scholars. It is hoped that a large
number of Menorah men and women from all parts of the country will be
able to attend. Further details will be published in the next number
of the JOURNAL.

=Informal Gathering of Menorah Officers=

ON June 21, 1915, there was an informal gathering at the headquarters
of the Intercollegiate Association, 600 Madison Avenue, New York City,
of Menorah officers who happened to be in New York. There were
present, besides the Chancellor, President I. Leo Sharfman,
Vice-President Abraham J. Feldman, and Secretary Charles K. Feinberg
of the Association, President Stanley Arndt of California, President
Jacob Rubinoff of Pennsylvania, ex-President Leon J. Rosenthal of
Cornell, ex-President George J. Horowitz, President Moses H. Gitelson,
Treasurer Herman I. Trachman of College of the City of New York,
President Bernard J. Reis of New York University (Washington Square),
ex-President Samuel Sussman of Columbia, President Sarah Berenson,
Vice-President Babette Reinhardt, Treasurer Minnie Weiss, and
Secretary Ernestine P. Franklin and ex-Secretary Julia Mitchell of
Hunter, and Dr. H. M. Kallen of Wisconsin.

There was informal discussion of the activities of the various
Societies, the progress of THE MENORAH JOURNAL, the program of the
next Intercollegiate Convention, and the development of the graduate
phase of the Menorah movement.

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

This text uses both today and to-day. Also used were Roumania and
Rumania.

THE MENORAH JOURNAL

        VOLUME I                 December
        No. 5                    1915

        Frontispiece: Theodor Herzl        Etching by Hermann Struck

        The Menorah                                    THEODOR HERZL

        The Present Crisis in American Jewry     ISRAEL FRIEDLAENDER

        Our Spiritual Inheritance                     IRVING LEHMAN

        Adam Prometheus, and Other Lyrics        LOUIS K. ANSPACHER

        Sholom Asch: The Jewish Maupassant         PERCY B. SHOSTAC
            A Menorah Prize Essay

        Liberalism and the Jews                       JOSEPH JACOBS

        What Is Judaism?                         MORDECAI M. KAPLAN

        University Menorah Addresses

        Activities of Menorah Societies

        =PUBLISHED BY THE INTERCOLLEGIATE MENORAH ASSOCIATION=
        =600 MADISON AVENUE NEW YORK  -:- -:- -:-  25 CTS. A COPY=

INTERCOLLEGIATE MENORAH ASSOCIATION

For the Study and Advancement of Jewish Culture and Ideals

OFFICERS

        Chancellor
        HENRY HURWITZ
        600 Madison Ave., New York

        President
        I. LEO SHARFMAN
        University of Michigan

        First Vice-President
        ISADORE LEVIN
        Harvard University

        Second Vice-President
        MILTON D. SAPIRO
        University of California

        Third Vice-President
        ABRAHAM J. FELDMAN
        University of Cincinnati

        Treasurer
        N. MORAIS LYON
        University of California

        Secretary
        CHARLES K. FEINBERG
        New York University

THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL

        Boston University: Maurice Horblit
        Brown University: Ismar Baruch
        Clark University: Max Smelensky
        College of the City of New York: G. J. Horowitz
        Columbia University: M. D. Hoffman
        Cornell University: Leon J. Rosenthal
        Harvard University: Ralph A. Newman
        Hunter College: Sarah R. Friedman
        Johns Hopkins University: Millard Eiseman
        New York University: Charles K. Feinberg
        Ohio State University: Samuel Lesser
        Penn State College: J. K. Miller
        Radcliffe College: Anna Rogovin
        Rutgers College: Louis B. Gittleman
        Tufts College: Philip Marzynski
        University of California: Louis I. Newman
        University of Chicago: David Levy
        University of Cincinnati: Abraham J. Feldman
        University of Colorado: Morris Baskin
        University of Denver: Jacob Butcher
        University of Illinois: Sidney Casner
        University of Maine: Lewis H. Kriger
        University of Michigan: Jacob Levin
        University of Minnesota: Moses Barron
        University of Missouri: J. L. Ellman
        University of North Carolina: Albert Oettinger
        University of Omaha: Jacques Rieur
        University of Pennsylvania: Jacob Rubinoff
        University of Pittsburgh: A. Jerome Levy
        University of Texas: H. J. Ettlinger
        University of Washington: Roy Rosenthal
        University of Wisconsin: H. M. Kallen
        Valparaiso University: Florence Turner
        Western Reserve University: Benjamin Roth
        Yale University: Reuben Horchow
        AND THE OFFICERS

        Office of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association
        600 Madison Avenue, New York

THE MENORAH JOURNAL

        _Published Bi-monthly During the Academic Year By_
        _The Intercollegiate Menorah Association_
        _"For the Study and Advancement of Jewish Culture and Ideals"
        600 Madison Avenue, New York_

        _Editor-in-Chief_
        HENRY HURWITZ

        _Associate Editor_
        I. LEO SHARFMAN

        _Managing Editor_
        H. ASKOWITH

        _Business Manager_
        B. S. POUZZNER

_Board of Consulting Editors_

        DR. CYRUS ADLER
        LOUIS D. BRANDEIS
        DR. LEE K. FRANKEL
        PROF. FELIX FRANKFURTER
        PROF. ISRAEL FRIEDLAENDER
        PROF. RICHARD GOTTHEIL
        DR. MAX HELLER
        DR. JOSEPH JACOBS
        DR. KAUFMANN KOHLER
        JUSTICE IRVING LEHMAN
        JUDGE JULIAN W. MACK
        DR. J. L. MAGNES
        PROF. MAX L. MARGOLIS
        DR. H. PEREIRA MENDES
        DR. MARTIN A. MEYER
        DR. DAVID PHILIPSON
        DR. SOLOMON SCHECHTER
        HON. OSCAR S. STRAUS
        SAMUEL STRAUSS
        JUDGE MAYER SULZBERGER
        MISS HENRIETTA SZOLD
        FELIX M. WARBURG
        DR. STEPHEN S. WISE

        VOLUME I       DECEMBER, 1915      NUMBER 5

=CONTENTS=

                                                                PAGE

  _Frontispiece_: THEODOR HERZL   _From an Etching by Hermann Struck_

  THE MENORAH                             _Theodor Herzl_         261
        _Translation by Bessie London Pouzzner_

  THE PRESENT CRISIS IN AMERICAN JEWRY    _Israel Friedlaender_   265

  OUR SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE               _Irving Lehman_         277

  ADAM PROMETHEUS, and OTHER LYRICS       _Louis K. Anspacher_    282

  SHOLOM ASCH: THE JEWISH MAUPASSANT      _Percy B. Shostac_      285
        _A Menorah Prize Essay_

  LIBERALISM AND THE JEWS                 _Joseph Jacobs_         298

  WHAT IS JUDAISM? _Second Paper_         _Mordecai M. Kaplan_    309

  UNIVERSITY MENORAH ADDRESSES                                    319

  INTERCOLLEGIATE MENORAH NOTES                                   322

  ACTIVITIES OF MENORAH SOCIETIES                                 324

  INDEX _to Volume I of THE MENORAH JOURNAL_                      333

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        Chippendale, Sheraton, Heppelwhite, Adams,
        Jacobean Furniture, Works of Art and
        Decorations, Sheffield Plate,
        Bric-a-Brac

        Pewter Historical Plates, Door Knockers and
        Curiosities

        _=Jewish Domestic and Ceremonial Objects=_

        INTERIOR DECORATOR
        AND UPHOLSTERER
        FINE CABINET WORK

        =728 Lexington Ave.    New York=
        =Telephone--Plaza 854=

Kindly mention The Menorah Journal when writing to advertisers

        =Hotel Cumberland=    New
                                      York

S. W. CORNER BROADWAY AT 54TH STREET

"Broadway" Cars from Grand Central Depot

=Kept by a College Man=

=Headquarters for College Men=

Ten minutes' walk to forty theatres.

Rooms, with bath, $2.50 and up. New, modern and fireproof.

=Special Rates for College Teams and Students=

    H A R R Y  P.  S T I M S O N,  M a n a g e r

=The Cumberland does more college business than any other New York
Hotel=

HEADQUARTERS FOR STUDENTS

="THE MENORAH MOVEMENT"=

A book of 180 pages (paper bound) giving a full account of the origin
and development of the Menorah movement which has now extended to 35
colleges and universities throughout the country. The book contains
also addresses by many university heads and leaders in American Jewry.

Only a limited number of copies remain from an edition of 5,000. While
they last copies may be procured on request by those who send in their
subscriptions to The Menorah Journal directly to the office of the
Journal, 600 Madison Avenue, New York.

HOTEL LENOX

=Corner Boylston and Exeter Sts., Boston, Mass.=