A Book of Jewish Thoughts

IV THE VOICE OF PRAYER (THE JEWISH YEAR)

Reading edition

HOW precious is Thy loving-kindness, O God, and the children of men take refuge under the shadow of Thy wings. For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light do we see light.

PSALM 36. 8, 10.

ON PRAYER AND PRAISE

THERE is an old story, invented by the sages and handed down by memory from age to age. They say, when God had finished the world, He asked one of the angels if aught were wanting on land or on sea, in air or in heaven. The angel answered that all was perfect; one thing only he desired—speech, to praise God’s works, or recount them, which would be their praise. And the Father approved the angel’s words, and not long afterwards appeared the race, gifted with the muses and with song. This is the ancient story, and in consonance with its spirit I say: ‘It is God’s peculiar work to benefit, and His creatures’ work to give Him thanks’.

PHILO JUDAEUS, 1st cent.

THERE are halls in the heavens above that open but to the voice of song.

ZOHAR.

ON MORNING SERVICE

LET man strengthen himself like a lion and arise in the early morn to render service to his Creator; as David said, ‘I will awake the dawn’ (Psalm 57. 9).

COMMENTARY: Strengthen himself.—The root-idea of such strengthening is to prepare himself to resist temptations and evil desires which during this day may assail him: as it is said, ‘Who is strong? He that subdues his passions.’ Like a lion.—As a lion is the most fearless of animals, so shall he likewise, in the performance of his duties, fear nothing, but rely firmly on his God.

GLOSS: ‘I have set the Lord always before me’ (Psalm 16. 8): This is a leading principle in Religion, and in the upward strivings of the righteous who walk ever in the presence of God. For a man’s mode of life, his demeanour and his deeds, his speech and his movements, when alone in the house or in the intimate circle of his family and friends, are unlike those which he would exhibit when in the presence of a great king. And how much more considered will his demeanour be, if he reflect that there stands over him the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory fills the whole earth, watching his conduct and surveying his deeds; even as it is written: ‘Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?’ saith the Lord (Jeremiah 23. 24). Such contemplation must perforce imbue him with a true sense of reverence and humility, prompted by a feeling of unworthiness, before the Holy Name; and he will be heedless of whoever may mock at him because of his devotions.

SHULCHAN ARUCH, 1, § 1. (Trans. A. Feldman.)

שַׁחַר אֲבַקֶּשְׁךָ AT THE DAWN I SEEK THEE

AT the dawn I seek Thee,

Refuge, Rock sublime;

Set my prayer before Thee in the morning,

And my prayer at eventime.

I before Thy greatness

Stand and am afraid:

All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth

Deep within my bosom laid.

And, withal, what is it

Heart and tongue can do?

What is this my strength, and what is even

This, the spirit in me, too?

But, indeed, man’s singing

May seem good to Thee;

So I praise Thee, singing, while there dwelleth

Yet the breath of God in me.

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL, 1050. (Trans. Nina Salaman.)

MORNING PRAYERS

MAY it be Thy will, O God, that I walk in Thy law, and cleave to Thy commandments. Lead me not into sin or temptation or contempt. Let not evil desire rule over me. Bend my will to Thine. Keep me from sinful men and worthless companions. Help me to cling to the good, and give me grace in Thy sight and in the sight of those about me. Amen.

DAILY PRAYER BOOK.

O GOD, I stand before Thee, knowing all my deficiencies, and overwhelmed by Thy greatness and majesty. But Thou hast commanded me to pray to Thee, and hast suffered me to offer homage to Thine exalted Name according to the measure of my knowledge, and to lay my supplication before Thee. Thou knowest best what is for my good. If I recite my wants, it is not to remind Thee of them, but only so that I may understand better how great is my dependence upon Thee. If, then, I ask Thee for the things that make not for my well-being, it is because I am ignorant; Thy choice is better than mine, and I submit myself to Thine unalterable decrees and Thy supreme direction. ‘O Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too wonderful for me. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a child with his mother, my soul is with me like a weaned child’ (Psalm 131).

BACHYA IBN PAKUDAH, 1040.

ADON OLAM63 I

THE charm of the Adon Olam consists in the subtle manner in which Jewish dogmatics are associated with the simplest spiritual thoughts. In the first four lines we have a picture of God, the eternal Lord, existing before the creation of the world, existing still when the world shall cease to be. Between the eternal past and the eternal future comes the world of time. This is purely Jewish dogmatics. Aristotle held that the world was eternal; Judaism, that it was created. It is God alone who is eternal. Further, Judaism conceives of God as Something apart from, outside of, His world. He transcends man and the universe. Yet God is also immanent; He dwells within the human soul as well as within the world. God is not one with man, but akin to man; He is high above the world, yet nigh unto them that call upon Him. The God who exists for ever is proclaimed King when men acknowledge His Kingship and show Him the allegiance of worship and obedience. The God who stands high above creation is the One into whose hand man commits himself without fear. The Majestic King is also the Redeemer. The transcendent God is a Refuge in man’s distress. He does not merely raise a banner, He is the Banner; He does not only hold out the cup of salvation, He is the consummate Cup.

I. ABRAHAMS, 1906.

II

BEFORE the glorious orbs of light

Had shed one blissful ray,

In awful power, the Lord of might

Reign’d in eternal day.

At His creative, holy word

The voice of nature spoke,

Unnumber’d worlds with one accord

To living joys awoke.

Then was proclaim’d the mighty King

In majesty on high!

Then did the holy creatures sing

His praises through the sky.

All-merciful in strength He reigns

Immutable! supreme!

His hand the universe sustains,

He only can redeem.

Almighty, powerful and just!

Thou art my God, my Friend,

My rock, my refuge and my trust,

On Thee my hopes depend.

O! be my guardian whilst I sleep,

For Thou didst lend me breath:

And when I wake, my spirit keep,

And save my soul in death.

D. N. CARVALHO, 1830.

ADON OLAM AND MODERN SCIENCE

ALONE of all religious and philosophic conceptions of man, the faith which binds together the Jews has not been harmed by the advance of research, but, on the contrary, has been vindicated in its profoundest tenets. Slowly and by degrees Science is being brought to recognize in the universe the existence of One Power, which is of no beginning and no end; which has existed before all things were formed, and will remain in its integrity when all is gone; the Source and Origin of all, in Itself beyond any conception or image that man can form and set up before his eye or mind; whereas all things perceivable as matter and force are subjected to his inquiry and designs. This sum total of the scientific discoveries of all lands and times is an approach of the world’s thought to our Adon Olam, the sublime chant, by means of which the Jew has wrought and will further work the most momentous changes in the world.

W. M. HAFFKINE, 1916.

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל THE SHEMA

‘HEAR, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.’ That is at once the quintessential embodiment of all our philosophy, as well as chief among Israel’s contributions to the everlasting truths of religion. The first prayer of innocent child-lips, the last confession of the dying, the Shema has been the watchword and the rallying-cry of a hundred generations in Israel. By it were they welded into one Brotherhood to do the will of their Father who is in heaven. The reading of the Shema has—in rabbinic phrase—clothed Israel with invincible lion-strength, and endowed him with the double-edged sword of the spirit against the unutterable terrors of his long night of exile.

J. H. HERTZ, 1912.

WHEN men in prayer declare the Unity of the Holy Name in love and reverence, the walls of earth’s darkness are cleft in twain, and the Face of the Heavenly King is revealed, lighting up the universe.

ZOHAR.

אֱלֹהָי נְשָׁמָה ‘THE SOUL THOU HAST GIVEN ME IS PURE’

NEXT to God’s unity, the most essential and characteristic doctrine of Judaism is that concerning God’s relation to man. Heathenism degraded man by making him kneel before brutes and the works of his hand: Judaism declared man to be made in the image of God, the crown and culmination of God’s creation, the appointed ruler of the earth. In him, as the end of Creation, the earthly and the divine are singularly blended.

Judaism rejects the idea of an inherent impurity in the flesh or in matter as opposed to the spirit. Nor does Judaism accept the doctrine of Original Sin. In the words of the daily morning prayer, ‘The soul that Thou hast given me is pure, Thou hast created it, Thou hast fashioned it, and Thou hast breathed it into me, and Thou preservest it within me, and at the appointed time Thou wilt take it from me to return it within me in the future’.

K. KOHLER, 1904, in Jewish Encyclopedia.

זְכוּת אָבוֹת THE ‘MERIT OF THE FATHERS’

JUDAISM insists that man has an inborn impulse to virtue (‘Original Virtue’) which can overcome all temptation to sin; an impulse immeasurably strengthened through the merit of the fathers (Zechuth Aboth) which is accounted unto their children as righteousness. That man is best able to advance on the road to moral perfection who starts with the accumulated spiritual heritage of righteous ancestors.

S. LEVY, 1905.

THE old Jewish doctrine of the ‘merit of the fathers’ has a counterpart—the idea that the righteousness of the living child favourably affects the fate of the dead father. This might be called the doctrine of the ‘merit of the children’. In this way the living and the dead hold converse. The real message of the dead is—their virtue. The real response of the living is again—their virtue. Thus is a bridge built over the chasm of the tomb. Thus do the hearts of fathers and children beat in eternal unison.

I. ABRAHAMS, 1919.

THE KADDISH

ITS origin is mysterious; angels are said to have brought it down from heaven and taught it to men. About this prayer the tenderest threads of filial feeling and human recollection are entwined; for it is the prayer of the orphans! When the father or the mother dies, the surviving sons are to recite it twice daily, morning and evening, throughout the year of mourning, and then also on each recurring anniversary of the death—on the Yahrzeit.

It possesses wonderful power. Truly, if there is any bond strong and indissoluble enough to chain heaven to earth, it is this prayer. It keeps the living together, and forms the bridge to the mysterious realm of the dead. One might almost say that this prayer is the watchman and the guardian of the people by whom alone it is uttered; therein lies the warrant of its continuance. Can a people disappear and be annihilated so long as a child remembers its parents? It may sound strange: in the midst of the wildest dissipation has this prayer recalled to his better self many a dissolute character, so that he has bethought himself and for a time at least purified himself by honouring the memory of his parents.

Because this prayer is a resurrection in the spirit of the perishable in man, because it does not acknowledge death, because it permits the blossom which, withered, has fallen from the tree of mankind to flower and develop again in the human heart, therefore it possesses sanctifying power. To know that when thou diest, the earth falling on thy head will not cover thee entirely; to know that there remain behind, those who, wherever they may be on this wide earth, whether they may be poor or rich, will send this prayer after thee; to know that thou leavest them no house, no estate, no field by which they must remember thee, and that yet they will cherish thy memory as their dearest inheritance—what more satisfying knowledge canst thou ever hope for? And such is the knowledge bequeathed to us all by the Kaddish.

L. KOMPERT.

THE souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They are in peace. Their hope is full of immortality.

WISDOM OF SOLOMON 3. 1, 3, 4.

AND they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

DANIEL 12. 3.

THE HOLINESS OF HOME

IT is impossible to describe to those who have not experienced it, the feeling of holy joy which is diffused throughout the humblest Hebrew home by the solemn repetition of acts which in themselves may be regarded as mere customs, without vital connexion with the souls of men. And the particular institution in which it is embodied most characteristically is that of the Sabbath. I do not know how it has come about that a ‘Judaic Sabbath’ means a day of austere gloom. As a matter of fact, it is the one bright spot in the Jewish life. All is joy and good-humour in the Jewish home on the Friday night, when Sabbath ‘comes in’. I would attribute a good deal of the difference between the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath to the seemingly mechanical difference that the former begins and ends at an hour when its advent or exit can be solemnized by ceremonial. It is, indeed, to the Sabbath primarily, and the other home ceremonials which embody the Hebraic conception of the Holiness of the Home, that we can trace the remarkable persistence of the Jewish race through the ages.

JOSEPH JACOBS, 1889.

THE patriarchal feeling still lingers about his hearth. A man, however fallen, who loves his home, is not wholly lost. The trumpet of Sinai still sounds in the Hebrew ear.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI.

KINDLING THE SABBATH LIGHT

FROM memory’s spring flows a vision to-night,

My mother is kindling and blessing the light;

The light of Queen Sabbath, the heavenly flame,

That one day in seven quells hunger and shame.

My mother is praying and screening her face,

Too bashful to gaze at the Sabbath light’s grace.

She murmurs devoutly, ‘Almighty, be blessed,

For sending Thy angel of joy and of rest.

‘And may as the candles of Sabbath divine

The eyes of my son in Thy Law ever shine.’

Of childhood, fair childhood, the years are long fled:

Youth’s candles are quenched, and my mother is dead.

And yet ev’ry Friday, when twilight arrives,

The face of my mother within me revives;

A prayer on her lips, ‘O Almighty, be blessed,

For sending us Sabbath, the angel of rest.’

And some hidden feeling I cannot control

A Sabbath light kindles deep, deep in my soul.

P. M. RASKIN.

לְכָה דוֹדִי

COME, my beloved, with chorusing praise,

Welcome the Sabbath Bride, Queen of the days.

Sabbath, to welcome thee, joyous we haste;

Fountain of blessing from ever thou wast,

First in God’s planning, though fashioned the last—

Crown of His handiwork, chiefest of days.

City of holiness, filled are the years;

Up from thine overthrow! Forth from thy fears!

Long hast thou dwelt in the valley of tears,

Now shall God’s tenderness shepherd thy ways.

Wake and bestir thee, for come is thy light!

Up! With thy shining the world shall be bright.

Sing! For thy Lord is revealed in His might—

Thine is the splendour His glory displays!

SOLOMON HALEVI ALKABETZ, 16th cent. (Trans. S. Solis-Cohen.)

FAR more than Israel has kept the Sabbath, it is the Sabbath that has kept Israel.

ACHAD HA’AM, 1898.

SABBATH PRAYER

BLESSED be the name of the Sovereign of the universe. Blessed be Thy crown and Thy abiding-place. Let Thy favour rest with Thy people Israel for ever: show them the redemption of Thy right hand in Thy holy temple. Vouchsafe unto us the benign gift of Thy light, and in mercy accept our supplications. May it be Thy will to prolong our life in well-being. Let me also be numbered among the righteous, so that Thou mayest be merciful unto me, and have me in Thy keeping, with all that belong to me and to Thy people Israel. Thou art He that feedeth and sustaineth all; Thou art He that ruleth over all; Thou art He that ruleth over kings, for dominion is Thine. I am the servant of the Holy One, blessed be He, before whom and before whose glorious Law I prostrate myself at all times; not in man do I put my trust, nor upon any angel do I rely, but upon the God of Heaven, who is the God of truth, and whose Law is truth, and whose prophets are prophets of truth, and who aboundeth in deeds of goodness and truth. In Him I put my trust, and unto His holy and glorious name I utter praises. May it be Thy will to open my heart unto Thy Law, and to fulfil the wishes of my heart and of the hearts of all Thy people Israel for good, for life, and for peace.

ZOHAR.

THE SABBATH

NOT for us the Sabbath of the quiet streets,

Sabbath, peaceful o’er the world outspread,

Felt where every man his neighbour greets,

Heard in hush of many a slowly passing tread.

Not the robe of silence for our holy day:

Noisy run the worker and the player;

Toil and stir and laughter of the way

Surge around the steps that seek a place of prayer.

Silent we, while through the thronging street and mart

Work-day clamour of the city rolls:

Cloistered inly, from the world apart,

Ours it is to bear the Sabbath in our souls.

NINA SALAMAN, 1918.

PRAYER BEFORE THE NEW MOON

MAY it be Thy will, O Lord our God and the God of our fathers, to renew unto us this coming month for good and for blessing. O grant us long life, a life of blessing, of sustenance, of bodily vigour, a life marked by the fear of Heaven and the dread of sin, a life free from shame and reproach; a life in which the desires of our heart shall be fulfilled for good.

May the Holy One, blessed be He, renew it unto us and unto all His people, the house of Israel, for life and peace, for gladness and joy, for salvation and consolation; and let us say, Amen.

DAILY PRAYER BOOK.

THE SEDER64

FAIR is the twilight,

And fragrant and still:

Little by little

The synagogues fill.

One by one kindle

The night’s gleaming eyes;

Candles in windows

And stars in the skies.

Ended in Shool is

The service divine;

Seder is started

With legends and wine.

Father is blessing

The night of all nights;

All who are hungry

To feast he invites.

‘All who are homeless

Yet masters shall be,

Slaves who are this year—

The next shall be free!’

Children ask ‘questions’,

And father replies;

Playfully sparkle

The wine and the eyes.

Hymns of redemption

All merrily sing;

Queen is each mother,

Each father a king.

Midnight. The Seder

Is come to an end;

Guardian angels

From heaven descend.

Each one a message

Of liberty brings;

Scattering blessings

Of peace from his wings.

P. M. RASKIN.

לֵיל שִׁמּוּרִים ISRAEL’S WATCH-NIGHT

ISRAEL’S great watch-night dates its origin from the very Deliverance it was to commemorate through all the coming years. Ah! With what a delirious impatience did Pharaoh’s slaves await the midnight hour that was to be at once the knell of Egypt’s tyranny and the joy-note that announced their own freedom! God Himself had singled it out as the time for fulfilling His ancient promise—singled it out, as the Rabbins tell us in hyperbolical language, from the days of creation itself. Too long had unrighteousness flourished. Too long had God seemed to slumber in His Heaven; but now He was to show that the cry of the oppressed had never failed to reach Him, for accumulated wrongs were to be redressed by a complete and unparalleled deliverance. It was for so signal a vindication of the Divine justice that this night was reserved. It was as though the Supreme had set His finger upon this night, in the almanac of Heaven, and declared: This shall witness the long-deferred triumph of Right over Might; this shall tell for all time that I am the Lord, that I reign, and that righteousness and justice are the foundation of My throne, the principles on which I govern My world. This night shall show to all coming generations that it is only the fool who says in his heart ‘There is no God’; that the earthly despot who pursues his career of cruelty, thinking that he has only his victims’ tears to reckon with, is deluding himself to his own ruin.

And is this truth not worth treasuring in these latter days? Often does God seem to hide Himself, to have deserted earth and shut Himself up in Heaven. It is the souls of the meek and the faithful from which humanity’s tears are distilled, from which the painful chorus of a world’s lament goes up, and seemingly up in vain. But the lesson taught to Pharaoh and to Israel on that awful, that joyous night of deliverance, is still a living lesson; not one jot of its force is abated. God neither slumbers nor sleeps. He watches ever. Not one sigh passes unrecorded in the Heavenly Volume.

MORRIS JOSEPH, 1893.

PASSOVER AND FREEDOM

PASSOVER is the Festival of Spring. Its human appeal, therefore, is as old as humanity, and as perennial as Spring. But it is as an historical festival,—Israel’s birthday—as the annual commemoration of an event which has changed the destinies of mankind, that it proclaims the man-redeeming truth, God is the God of Freedom. Even as in Egypt He espoused the cause of brick-making helots against the mighty royal oppressor, He for ever judgeth the world in righteousness, and the peoples with equity. There is an overruling Providence that exalts righteousness and freedom and humbles the Dominion of iniquity and oppression. This teaching has been as a light unto the nations of the Western world in their weary, age-long warfare for liberty.

J. H. HERTZ, 1918.

THE Passover affirms the great truth that liberty is the inalienable right of every human being. The Feast of Israel’s freedom, its celebration is Israel’s homage to the great principle of human freedom.

MORRIS JOSEPH, 1903.

‘ADDIR HU’

GOD of Might,

God of Right,

Thee we give all glory.

Thine the praise

In our days

As in ages hoary.

When we hear,

Year by year,

Our redemption’s story,

Now as erst,

When Thou first

Mad’st the proclamation,

Warning loud

Ev’ry proud,

Ev’ry tyrant nation,

We Thy fame

Still proclaim,

God of our salvation.

G. GOTTHEIL.

WHEN the Egyptian hosts were drowning in the Red Sea, the angels in heaven were about to break forth in songs of jubilation. But the Holy One, blessed be He, silenced them with the words: ‘My creatures are perishing, and ye are ready to sing!’

TALMUD.

שָׁבֻעוֹת THE FEAST OF WEEKS

FOR ever, O Lord,

Thy word is settled in heaven.

Thy faithfulness is unto all generations:

Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.

They abide this day according to Thine ordinances;

For all things are Thy servants.

Unless Thy law had been my delight,

I should then have perished in mine affliction.

I have seen an end of all perfection;

But Thy commandment is exceeding broad.

Thy commandments make me wiser than mine enemies;

For they are ever with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers;

For Thy testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged,

Because I have kept Thy precepts.

I have refrained my feet from every evil way,

That I might observe Thy word.

I have not turned aside from Thy judgements;

For Thou hast taught me.

PSALM 119. 90‒2; 96; 98‒102.

A SELF-DENYING GUILD

IS there not something spiritually attractive in the idea of the Jew of this age voluntarily submitting to restrictions on his appetites for the sake of duty—forming one of a religious guild whose special characteristic is self-control? It ought to be the pride of the modern Jew—and every child should be taught to feel it—that his religion demands from him a self-abnegation from which other religionists are absolved; that the price to be paid for the privilege of belonging to the hierarchy of Israel is continuous and conscious self-sacrifice.

The Dietary Laws foster this spirit of self-surrender. Respect for them teaches and helps the Jew, in Rabbinic language, to abase his desires before the will of his Father in Heaven.

MORRIS JOSEPH, 1893.

WITH everlasting love Thou hast loved the house of Israel, Thy people; a Law and commandments, statutes and judgements, hast Thou taught us. Therefore, O Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up we will meditate on Thy statutes; yea, we will rejoice in the words of Thy Law and in Thy commandments for ever; for they are our life and the length of our days.

DAILY PRAYER BOOK.

אַקְדָמוּת

COULD we with ink the ocean fill,

Were every blade of grass a quill,

Were the world of parchment made,

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love

Of God above

Would drain that ocean dry;

Nor would the scroll

Contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky!

MEIR BEN ISAAC NEHORAÏ, 1050.

THE BIBLE

IS it a book, a world, a heaven?

Are those words, or flames, or shining stars,

Or burning torches, or clouds of fire

What is it, I ask ye—the Bible?

Who inspired those infinite truths?

Who spoke through the mouth of the prophet?

Who mapped out the highways of ages,

The glorious lines of the Scriptures?

Who planted the flowers of wisdom

In this sacred soil of the angels?

O dream of eternity—Bible—

O Light that is all and for ever.

MORRIS ROSENFELD, 1918.

THE SEPHER TORAH65

FOR any community of people to be, and to remain, Jewish, they must be brought up from their tenderest childhood to regard the Sepher Torah as the title-deed of their birthright and pedigree, which they are religiously to hand down unaltered from generation to generation. For is there a Jewish community anywhere, however safely domiciled, which has relinquished the Torah for even one generation and has survived that separation? The Jewish masses, though dispersed to the four winds of the world and mostly destitute of mere shelter—because tenacious of their creed, endure, true to themselves and to their past.

The Torah, therefore, is a fountain of life. In it is protection greater than in fortresses. Those who forsake the Torah, bringing it into disrepute and weakening the hold it has on us, are working at the destruction of the brotherhood that cradled and sheltered their fathers and forefathers through all the vicissitudes of the bygone ages, to whom they owe their own life and presence on earth.

W. M. HAFFKINE, 1917.

RELIGION AND MORALITY

‘I AM the Lord thy God’—the pronouncement that forms the introduction to the Decalogue—is rightly regarded as the indispensable basis for all the Commandments, upon whose conscientious fulfilment the well-being of humanity depends. The identification of moral laws with religious precepts, which has been so fully accomplished for the first time in the Law of Moses, gives to the Bible its exceptional importance as a regulator of the conduct of men and of nations. Those who are convinced that by wronging their fellow-men, or transgressing any of the established laws, they violate a command that comes from God, and defy the will of their Maker as expressed in His law, are much less liable to wrongdoing than those who create their own ethical theories and set up their own standards of right and wrong, relying upon their conscience and sense of honour as infallible guides. To some it seems a kind of humiliation if a super-human authority is pointed to as the indispensable guide of human conduct. But man ought never to have assumed such pride as to feel humiliated by the idea of his imperfection and his need of guidance and restraint. History does not justify this pride.

SALIS DAICHES, 1910.

SYMBOLS AND CEREMONIES

YOU have heard that in Egypt the waters of the Nile overflowing its banks, take the place of rain; and that these fructifying waters are led by various channels into the remote fields to irrigate them. Now, the Nile with its precious floods would be of no benefit to the fields without these channels. Thus it is with the Torah and the Mitzvoth.66 The Torah is the mighty stream of spirituality flowing since ancient times through Israel. It would have caused no useful fruits to grow, and would have produced no spiritual progress, no moral advancement, had the Mitzvah not been there to lead its divine floods into the houses, the hearts, and the minds of the individual members of the people, by connecting practical life in all its variety and its activities with the spiritual truths of religion.

It is the greatest mistake, based on an entire misunderstanding of human nature, to assume that men are capable of living in a world of ideas only, and can dispense with symbols that should embody these ideas and give them tangibility and visible form. Only the Mitzvah is the ladder connecting heaven and earth. The Tefillin, containing among others the commandment: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might’, are laid on the head, the seat of thought, and on the arm, the instrument of action, opposite to the heart, the seat of feeling; thus teaching that all our thoughts, feelings, and actions must conform to the will of God. This Mitzvah, performed daily, has contributed more effectively to preserve and to further the morality of our people than have all the learned books on ethics written by our religious philosophers.

M. JUNG, 1917.

CUSTOM IN RELIGION

RELIGION, they say, is only custom. I might agree with this if the ‘only’ were left out. Customs are the flowers of civilization. You can tell a man’s education, yea, even much of his character, by his habits. Morality, ethics, are words derived from roots denoting that which is acknowledged and adopted by the people as right and proper. Manners and usages are the silent compact, the unwritten law which preserve the proprieties of civilized society.

Religion will not come to our aid the moment we call for her; she must be loved and cherished at all times if she is to prove our true friend in need. Much of the present indifference of our young people is directly traceable to the absence of all religious observances in their homes. Piety is the fruit of religious customs.

G. GOTTHEIL, 1896.

‘IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TIMES’

WAS Judaism ever ‘in accordance with the times’? Did Judaism ever correspond with the views of dominant contemporaries? Was it ever convenient to be a Jew or a Jewess?

Was the Judaism of our ancestors in accordance with the times, when compelled by the Egyptians to bend their necks during centuries under the yoke of slavery and to suffer their babes to be buried in the waves of the Nile? Was the Judaism of the Maccabees in accordance with their times, when they resisted to the utmost the introduction of Grecian manners prevailing in their days? When the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans and the sons of Judah were slaughtered, sold in slave markets, cast before wild beasts or scattered through every country then known; when Worldly Wisdom would have taught, ‘Now it is certainly impossible for us to remain Jews’—did not the Hillels67 and the son of Zakkai68 teach yet more earnestly the holiness of our laws and our customs, and so order and regulate things that not a fibre might be lost from the ancestral sanctuary? Was that Judaism in accordance with the times, for which, during the centuries following the Dispersion, our fathers suffered in all lands, through all the various periods, the most degrading oppression, the most biting contempt, and a thousand-fold death and persecution?

And yet we would make it the aim and scope of Judaism to be always ‘in accordance with the times’!

SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH, 1854. (Trans. Isaac Leeser.)

FAITH

WHILE faith and reason are blended in the religion of Israel as perhaps in no other, it is not the second place that must be assigned to faith. From the foot of Sinai there is wafted to us the voice declaring with the most perfect childlike faith, ‘All that the Lord hath spoken we will do and we will hear’. It is not surprising that a people who, in their infancy, could give utterance to an expression of trust so childlike, yet so sublime, should produce a prophet who summed up the whole of Israel’s law in the words, ‘The just shall live by his faith’.

SIMEON SINGER, 1906.

צִיּוֹן הֲלֹא תִשְׁאֲלִי ODE TO ZION (HYMN FOR THE FAST OF AB)

ART thou not, Zion, fain

To send forth greetings from thy sacred rock

Unto thy captive train,

Who greet thee as the remnants of thy flock?

Take Thou on every side,

East, west and south and north, their greetings multiplied.

Sadly he greets thee still,

The prisoner of hope who, day and night,

Sheds ceaseless tears, like dew on Hermon’s hill.

Would that they fell upon thy mountain’s height!

Harsh is my voice when I bewail thy woes,

But when in fancy’s dreams

I see thy freedom, forth its cadence flows,

Sweet as the harps that hung by Babel’s streams.

The glory of the Lord will ever be

Thy sole and perfect light;

No need hast thou then, to illumine thee

Of sun by day, or moon and stars by night.

I would that, where God’s spirit was of yore

Poured out unto thy holy ones, I might

There too my soul outpour.

Oh, who will lead me on

To seek the spots where, in far distant years,

The angels in their glory dawned upon

Thy messengers and seers!

Oh, who will give me wings

That I may fly away,

And there, at rest from all my wanderings,

The ruins of my heart among thy ruins lay?

I’ll bend my face unto thy soil, and hold

Thy stones as special gold.

And when in Hebron I have stood beside

My fathers’ tombs, then will I pass in turn

Thy plains and forest wide,

Until I stand on Gilead and discern

Mount Hor and Mount Abarim, ’neath whose crest

Thy luminaries twain, thy guides and beacons rest.

Thy air is life unto my soul, thy grains

Of dust are myrrh, thy streams with honey flow

Naked and barefoot to thy ruined fanes

How gladly would I go!

To where the ark was treasured, and in dim

Recesses dwelt the holy cherubim.

Perfect in beauty, Zion, how in thee

Do love and grace unite!

The souls of thy companions tenderly

Turn unto thee; thy joy was their delight,

And weeping they lament thy ruin now.

In distant exile, for thy sacred height

They long, and towards thy gates in prayer they bow.

Shinar and Pathros! come they near to thee?

Naught are they by thy light and right divine.

To what can be compared the majesty

Of thy anointed line?

To what the singers, seers, and Levites thine?

The rule of idols fails and is cast down;

Thy power eternal is, from age to age thy crown.

The Lord desires thee for His dwelling-place

Eternally, and bless’d

Is he whom God has chosen for the grace

Within thy courts to rest.

Happy is he that watches, drawing near,

Until he sees thy glorious lights arise,

And over whom thy dawn breaks full and clear,

Set in the Orient skies.

But happiest he, who, with exultant eyes,

The bliss of thy redeemed ones shall behold,

And see thy youth renewed as in the days of old.

YEHUDAH HALEVI, 1145. (Trans. Alice Lucas.)

THE ETERNAL CITY OF THE ETERNAL PEOPLE

JERUSALEM, the hearth of pure religion, the home of prophecy, the sacred fountain of the word of God, is the very emblem of the deathlessness of the spirit. With its 4,000 years’ history it is coeval with the Jew, and is as unique among cities as is Israel among the nations. Like the Jew, this Holy City of Israel—the spiritual capital of humanity that has for ages been the magnetic pole of the love and reverence of mankind—is deathless; fire and sword and all the engines of destruction have been hurled against it in vain. A score of conquerors have held it as their choicest prize; and more than a dozen times has it been utterly destroyed. The Assyrians burnt it and deported its population; the Romans slew a million of its inhabitants, razed it to the ground, passed the ploughshare over it, and strewed its furrows with salt; Hadrian banished its very name from the lips of men, changed it to ‘Aelia Capitolina’, and prohibited any Jew from entering its precincts on pain of death. Persians and Arabs, Barbarians and Crusaders and Turks, took it and retook it, ravaged it and burnt it; and yet, marvellous to relate, it ever rises from its ashes to renewed life and glory. And now, on the very day that 2,080 years ago Judah Maccabee rescued it from the heathens, the Holy City has passed into British occupation! What a privilege it is to have lived to see such a world-historic event! A new future, with undreamt-of possibilities, opens before this eternal city of the eternal people. But in the future, as in the past, it will proclaim the prophetic teaching of the Maccabean festival: ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts’.

J. H. HERTZ, at the Thanksgiving Service for the Taking of Jerusalem by H. M. Forces, 1917.

ARISE, shine, for thy light is come

And the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

Lift up thine eyes round about, and see:

They all are gathered together, and come to thee;

Thy sons come from far,

And thy daughters are borne on the side.

Then thou shalt see and be radiant,

And thy heart shall throb and be enlarged.

Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated,

So that no man passed through thee,

I will make thee an eternal excellency,

A joy of many generations.

Thy sun shall no more go down,

Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself,

For the Lord shall be thine everlasting light,

And the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

ISAIAH 60. 1, 4‒5, 15, 20.

רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה NEW YEAR

INTO the tomb of ages past

Another year hath now been cast;

Shall time unheeded take its flight,

Nor leave one ray of higher light

That on man’s pilgrimage may shine

And lead his soul to spheres divine?

Ah! which of us, if self-reviewed,

Can boast unfailing rectitude?

Who can declare his wayward will

More prone to righteous deed than ill?

Or, in his retrospect of life,

No traces find of passion’s strife?

With firm resolve your bosoms nerve

The God of right alone to serve;

Speech, thought, and act to regulate

By what His perfect laws dictate;

Nor from His holy precepts stray,

By worldly idols lured away.

Peace to the house of Israel:

May joy within it ever dwell!

PENINA MOÏSE, 1838.

WRITTEN AND SEALED

‘TO be inscribed in the Book of Life.’ This must be understood in a spiritual sense. When a man clings to the love of God, and, putting his trust in His infinite mercy, takes upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of heaven—he therewith inscribes himself in the Book of Life. Whereas the man, a slave to his passions, who so loses his belief in the all-embracing love of God that he fails to repent and return to his Father in heaven, this despairing of the love of God is equivalent to his being inscribed—God forbid—in the Book of Death.

ISRAEL BAALSHEM, 1700.

IN a higher than their literal sense the words of the liturgy are true. Our destiny—our spiritual destiny—is written down on New Year’s Day and sealed on the Day of Atonement. We write it down in the penitence with which we greet the dawn of the year, we seal it with the amendment which we solemnly vow on the Fast of Kippur. The time for penitence is with us; the Fast with its supreme task awaits us. Let our endeavours to see ourselves as we really are, our sorrow for our shortcomings, the unrest of our unshriven soul, prepare us for the final act of atonement. The Day of Atonement shall lead us, with hearts bowed in submission, to the Divine throne; and God will lovingly lift us up, absolved, forgiven, filled with the spirit of faith and loving obedience. We shall begin to live at last, to live before Him, to live the true life which is inspired by the constant thought of His presence.

MORRIS JOSEPH.

THE SHOFAR

THE Scriptural injunction of the Shofar for the New Year’s Day has a profound meaning. It says: Awake, ye sleepers, and ponder your deeds; remember your Creator, and go back to Him in penitence. Be not of those that miss realities in their hunt after shadows, and waste their years in seeking after vain things which cannot profit or deliver. Look well to your souls and consider your acts; forsake each of you his evil ways and thoughts, and return to God, so that He may have mercy upon you.

MOSES MAIMONIDES, 1180.

FOR this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say: ‘Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldst say: ‘Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

DEUTERONOMY 30. 11‒14.

THE Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

PSALM 27. 1.

MY KING

ERE time began, ere age to age had thrilled,

I waited in His storehouse, as He willed.

He gave me being; but, my years fulfilled,

I shall be summoned back before the King.

Thou gavest me a light my path to guide,

To prove my heart’s recesses still untried;

And as I went, Thy voice in warning cried:

‘Child! fear thou Him who is thy God and King!’

Erring, I wandered in the wilderness,

In passion’s grave nigh sinking, powerless;

Now deeply I repent, in sore distress,

That I kept not the statutes of the King!

Thine is the love, O God, and Thine the grace

That folds the sinner in its mild embrace;

Thine the forgiveness bridging o’er the space

’Twixt man’s works and the task set by the King.

Unheeding all my sins, I cling to Thee!

I know that mercy will Thy footstool be;

Before I call, oh! do Thou answer me,

For nothing dare I claim of Thee, my King.

MOSES BEN NACHMAN, 1300. (Trans. Alice Lucas.)

THE LORD IS KING, THE LORD WAS KING, THE LORD SHALL BE KING FOR EVER AND EVER69

THY people in passionate worship cry

One to another the Lord is King.

In awe of the marvels beneath the sky

Each explains that the Lord was King.

One sound from Thy pastures ascends on high:

The chant that the Lord shall be King for ever.

The Lord is King, the Lord was King, the Lord shall be King for ever and ever.

The universe throbs with Thy pauseless praise,

Chorus eternal, the Lord is King.

Thy glory is cried from the dawn of days,

Worshippers calling the Lord was King.

And ever the Saints who shall witness Thy ways

Shall cry that the Lord shall be King for ever.

The Lord is King, the Lord was King, the Lord shall be King for ever and ever.

ELEAZAR KALIR, 8th cent. (Trans. I. Zangwill.)

IF NOT HIGHER

AND the Rebbe70 of Nemirov, every Friday Morning early at Sliches71-time, disappeared, melted into thin air! He was not to be found anywhere, either in the synagogue or in the two houses-of-study, or worshipping in some Minyan,72 and most certainly not at home. His door stood open, people went in and out as they pleased—no one ever stole anything from the Rebbe—but there was not a soul in the house.

Where can the Rebbe be?

Where should he be, with the Solemn Days so near, if not in heaven? Jews need a livelihood, peace, health; they wish to be good and pious, and their sins are great, and Satan with his thousand eyes spies out the world from one end to the other, and he sees, and accuses, and tells tales—and who shall help if not the Rebbe? So thought the people.

Once, however, there came a Lithuanian—and he laughed! You know the Lithuanian Jews—they rather despise books of devotion, but stuff themselves with the Talmud and the Codes. And who, I ask you, is going to argue with a Litvack?

What becomes of the Rebbe?

‘I don’t know, and I don’t care’, says he, shrugging his shoulders, and all the while (what it is to be a Lithuanian!) determined to find out!

The very same evening, soon after prayers, the Lithuanian steals into the Rebbe’s room, lays himself down under the Rebbe’s bed, and lies low. He intends to stay there all night, to find out where the Rebbe goes, and what he does at Sliches-time.

Day has not broken when he hears the call to prayer. The Rebbe has been awake some time. The Lithuanian has heard him sighing and groaning for a whole hour. Whoever has heard the groaning of the Nemirover Rebbe knows what sorrow for All-Israel, what distress of mind, found voice in every groan.

After that the Lithuanian hears the people rise and leave the house. Once more it is quiet and dark, only a very little moonlight comes in through the shutter. He confessed afterwards, did the Lithuanian, that when he found himself alone with the Rebbe, terror took hold of him. But a Lithuanian is dogged. He quivers and quakes like a fish, but he does not budge.

At last the Rebbe (long life to him!) rises in his turn. He goes to the wardrobe, and takes out a packet which proves to be the dress of a peasant: linen trousers, high boots, a pelisse, a wide felt hat, and a long and broad leather belt studded with brass nails. The Rebbe puts them on.

Out of the pockets of the pelisse dangles the end of a thick cord, a peasant’s cord.

On his way out, the Rebbe steps aside into the kitchen, stoops, takes a hatchet from under the bed, puts it into his belt, and leaves the house. The Lithuanian trembles, but he persists.

A fearful Solemn Day hush broods over the dark streets, broken not infrequently by a cry of supplication from some little Minyan, or the moan of some sick person behind a window. The Rebbe keeps to the street side, and walks in the shadow of the houses. He glides from one to the other, the Lithuanian after him. And the Lithuanian hears the sound of his own heart-beats mingle with the heavy footfall of the Rebbe; but he follows on, and together they emerge from the town.

Behind the town stands a little wood. The Rebbe (long life to him!) enters it. He walks on thirty or forty paces, and then he stops beside a small tree. And the Lithuanian, with amazement, sees the Rebbe take his hatchet and strike the tree. He sees the Rebbe strike blow after blow, he hears the tree creak and snap. And the little tree falls, and the Rebbe splits it up into logs, and the logs into splinters. Then he makes a bundle, binds it round with the cord, throws it on his shoulder, replaces the hatchet in his belt, leaves the wood, and goes back into the town.

In one of the back streets he stops beside a poor, tumble-down little house, and taps at the window.

‘Who is there?’ cries a frightened voice within.

The Lithuanian knows it to be the voice of a Jewess, a sick Jewess.

‘I’, answers the Rebbe, in the peasant tongue.

‘Who is I?’ inquires the voice, further.

And the Rebbe answers again in the Little-Russian speech:

‘Vassil.’

‘Which Vassil? And what do you want, Vassil?’

‘I have wood to sell’, says the sham peasant, ‘very cheap, for next to nothing.’ And without further ado he goes in. The Lithuanian steals in behind him, and sees, in the grey light of dawn, a poor room with poor, broken furniture. In the bed lies a sick Jewess huddled up in rags, who says bitterly:

‘Wood to sell—and where am I, a poor widow, to get money to buy it?’

‘I will give you a six-groschen worth on credit.’

‘And how am I ever to repay you?’ groans the poor woman.

‘Foolish creature!’ the Rebbe upbraids her. ‘See here: you are a poor sick Jewess, and I am willing to trust you with the little bundle of wood; I believe that in time you will repay me. And you, you have such a great, mighty God, and you do not trust Him! Not even to the amount of a miserable six groschen for a bundle of wood!’

‘And who is to light the stove?’ groans the widow. ‘Do I look like getting up to do it, and my son away at work?’

‘I will also light the stove for you’, said the Rebbe. And the Rebbe, while he laid the wood in the stove, repeated, groaning, the first part of the Sliches. Then, when the stove was alight and the wood crackled cheerily, he repeated, more gaily, the second part of the Sliches. He repeated the third part when the fire had burnt itself out, and he shut the stove doors.

The Lithuanian, who saw all this, remained with the Rebbe as one of his followers.

And, later, when any one told how the Rebbe early every morning at Sliches-time raised himself and flew up into heaven, the Lithuanian, instead of laughing, added quietly:

‘If not higher.’

J. L. PERETZ. (Trans. Helena Frank.)

יוֹם כִּפּוּר DAY OF ATONEMENT

TO Thee we give ourselves to-day,

Forgetful of the world outside;

We tarry in Thy house, O Lord,

From eventide to eventide.

From Thy all-searching, righteous eye

Our deepest heart can nothing hide;

It crieth up to Thee for peace

From eventide to eventide.

Who could endure, shouldst Thou, O God,

As we deserve, for ever chide?

We therefore seek Thy pardoning grace

From eventide to eventide.

O may we lay to heart how swift

The years of life do onward glide;

So learn to live that we may see

Thy light at our life’s eventide.

G. GOTTHEIL.

FORGIVE thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done thee;

And then thy sins shall be pardoned when thou prayest.

Man cherisheth anger against man;

And doth he seek healing from the Lord?

Upon a man like himself he hath no mercy;

And doth he make supplication for his own sins?

ECCLESIASTICUS 28. 2‒4.

THE MESSAGE OF YOM KIPPUR

IN large letters, so that even he that runs may read, does Yom Kippur spell forth the fundamentals of Judaism, of religion, of the higher life of man. Sin is not an evil power whose chains the children of flesh must helplessly drag towards a weary tomb. We can always shake off its yoke; and what is more, we need never assume its yoke. An ancient fable tells us of distant oceans with mountainous rocks of magnet of such terrific power that wreck and ruin befell any ship venturing near them. Instantly the iron nails would fly out of the ship, bolts and fastenings would be torn away by that magnetic force; the vessel would become nothing more than so many planks of wood, and all on board fall a prey to the hungry waters. Sins there are that, likewise, unhinge all our stays of character, rob us of the restraints of past habits and education, and leave us helpless playthings on the billows of temptation and passion. Yet a man is the pilot of his life’s barque, and can at all times steer it so as never to come near those mountains of destruction and death.

And, secondly, there is an atonement for man’s sins. We may repair the ravages of sin, rebuild the shifting foundations of character, and join again the sundered strands of our spiritual fabric. We spurn the old pagan fatalism which declares that there is no forgiveness for sin. Nature provides some escape from physical disease; shall the soul, injured by temptation’s fire, scarred by sin, not be able to recover its pristine strength and beauty? No matter how harsh nature and man may seem, the God of Eternal Right holds a deep pity that can atone and save, bury not only sin, but its grave and graveyard with it!

As clear as a bell resounds the third and greatest teaching of Yom Kippur: man himself must prepare himself for atonement, and no priest or mediator can prepare or work atonement for him. Virtue is victory by the individual himself over temptation that assails him. The battle cannot be fought nor the victory won by another. The human soul, wandering on the devious labyrinthine paths of sin, must itself essay to forsake the Way of Sorrow and proceed on the Way of Salvation. This is the most splendid, the most momentous fact in human life: that though man cannot always even half control his destiny, God has given the reins of man’s conduct altogether into his hands.

No wonder that the Synagogue has ever looked upon this day of prayer, fasting, and humiliation as a festival. A generation or two ago our forefathers stood robed in white in the Synagogue, during the entire Atonement Day. Originally these white garments were not worn as reminders of the grave; they were an outward sign of the festal character of this Day, appointed for life’s spiritual renewal. ‘When men are summoned before an earthly ruler’, says the Jerusalem Talmud, ‘to defend themselves against some charge, they appear downcast and dressed in black like mourners. Israel appears before God on the Atonement Day attired in white as if going to a feast, because he is confident that as soon as he returns penitently to his Maker, He will not condemn, but will abundantly pardon.’

J. H. HERTZ, 1900.

אָמְנָם כֵּן־סָלַחְתִּי ‘FORGIVEN’73

RAISE to Thee this my plea, take my pray’r,

Sin unmake for Thy sake and declare,

‘Forgiven!’

Tears, regret, witness set in sin’s place;

Uplift trust from the dust to Thy face—

‘Forgiven!’

Voice that sighs, tear-filled eyes, do not spurn;

Weigh and pause, plead my cause, and return

‘Forgiven!’

Yea, off-rolled—as foretold—clouds impure,

Zion’s folk, free of yoke, O assure

‘Forgiven!’

YOMTOB OF YORK, 1190. (Trans. I. Zangwill.)

תֶר מַלְכוּת CONFESSION

SHAME-STRICKEN, bending low,

My God, I come before Thee, for I know

That even as Thou on high

Exalted art in power and majesty,

So weak and frail am I:

That perfect as Thou art,

So I deficient am in every part.

Thou art all-wise, all-good, all-great, divine,

Yea, Thou art God: eternity is Thine;

While I, a thing of clay,

The creature of a day,

Pass shadow-like, a breath, that comes and flees away.

My God, I know my sins are numberless,

More than I can recall to memory

Or tell their tale: yet some will I confess,

Even a few, though as a drop it be

In all the sea.

I will declare my trespasses and sin,

And peradventure silence then may fall

Upon their waves and billows’ raging din,

And Thou wilt hear from heaven, when I call,

And pardon all.

My God, if mine iniquity

Too great for all endurance be,

Yet for Thy name’s sake pardon me.

For if in Thee I may not dare

To hope, who else will hear my prayer?

Therefore, although Thou slay me, yet

In Thee my faith and trust is set:

And though Thou seekest out my sin,

From Thee to Thee I fly to win

A place of refuge, and within

Thy shadow from Thy anger hide,

Until Thy wrath be turned aside.

Unto Thy mercy I will cling

Until Thou hearken, pitying:

Nor will I quit my hold of Thee

Until Thy blessing light on me.

Remember, O my God, I pray,

How Thou hast formed me out of clay,

What troubles set upon my way.

Do Thou not, then, my deeds requite

According to my sins aright,

But with Thy mercy infinite.

For well I know, through good and ill,

That Thou in love hast chastened still,

Afflicting me in faithfulness,

That Thou my latter end may’st bless.

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL, 1050. (Trans. Alice Lucas.)

YOM KIPPUR MEDITATIONS I

MY soul, be not senseless, like a beast, deeply sunk;—be not drowsy, with passion drunk.—Hewn from reason’s mind thou art;—from wisdom’s well thy waters start,—from the Lord’s heavenly realm!

My soul, let not the body’s wanton pleasures capture thee,—its showy treasures not enrapture thee;—they melt away—like the dew before the day,—they avail naught when they begin,—and their end is shame and sin.

My soul, look carefully back—on thy pilgrim’s track;—all cometh from the dust,—and thither return it must.—Whatever has been moulded and built,—when its time is fulfilled,—must go back to the ground—where its material was found.—Death is life’s brother.—They keep fast to one another,—each taking hold of one end of their plunder,—and none can tear them asunder.—Soon thou wilt come—to thine eternal home,—where thou must show thy work and receive thy wages—on rightful scales and gauges,—or good or bad, according to the worth—of thy deeds on earth.

Therefore get thee up, and to thy Master pray—by night and day;—bow down before Him, be meek,—and let thy tears bedew thy cheek.—Seek the Lord, thy Light,—with all thy might;—walk in meekness, pursue the right;—so that with His mercy-screen the Master—hide thee in the day of disaster.—Then thou shalt shine like the heavens bright,—and like the sun when going forth in might;—and o’er thy head—shall be spread—the rays—of the sun of grace—that brings—healing and joy in his wings.

BACHYA IBN PAKUDAH, 1040. (Trans. M. Jastrow.)

II

FORGET thine anguish,

Vexed heart, again.

Why shouldst thou languish,

With earthly pain?

The husk shall slumber,

Bedded in clay,

Silent and sombre,

Oblivion’s prey.

But, Spirit immortal,

Thou at Death’s portal

Tremblest with fear.

If he caress thee,

Curse thee, or bless thee,

Thou must draw near,

From him the worth of thy works to hear.

Why, full of terror,

Compassed with error,

Trouble thy heart

For thy mortal part?

The soul flies home—

The corpse is dumb.

Of all thou didst have

Follows naught to the grave.

Thou fliest thy nest,

Swift as a bird to thy place of rest.

Life is a vine-branch;

A vintager, Death.

He threatens and lowers

More near with each breath.

Then hasten, arise!

Seek God, O my soul!

For time quickly flies,

Still far is the goal.

Vain heart praying dumbly,

Learn to prize humbly

The meanest of fare.

Forget all thy sorrow,

Behold, death is there!

Dove-like lamenting,

Be full of repenting;

Lift vision supernal

To raptures eternal;

On every occasion

Seek lasting salvation.

Pour thy heart out in weeping

While others are sleeping.

Pray to Him when all’s still,

Performing His will.

And so shall the Angel of Peace be thy warden,

And guide thee at last to the heavenly garden.

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL, 1050. (Trans. Emma Lazarus).

THE INFINITE MERCIES OF GOD

THE Lord, the Lord is a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

EXODUS 34. 6, 7.

MAY it be Thy will, O God, that we return to Thee in perfect penitence, so that we may not be ashamed to meet our fathers in the life to come.

Unite our hearts, O God, to fear Thy name; keep us far from what Thou hatest; bring us near to what Thou lovest; and deal mercifully with us for Thy name’s sake.

May it be Thy will, O God, that love and peace and brotherliness dwell among us! May our hopes of Heaven be fulfilled! Grant that the good inclination may uphold us. Fill us with the desire to fear Thy name, and do Thou give us our soul’s peace. Amen.

TALMUD.

BROTHERHOOD

AT the beginning of the Atonement service the most venerable men in the congregation solemnly repeat from the Almemor74: ‘With the permission of the Court on High, and with the permission of the Congregation below, we declare it permitted to pray with hardened transgressors’. Why this custom? In some communities of the Middle Ages there were persons who, by their conduct, had placed themselves outside the pale of Judaism; cowardly apostates, for example, who sold their souls; informers, who spread broadcast false accusations against their brethren; insubordinates, outcasts, criminals. Throughout the year these never sought spiritual fellowship with their brethren. On Yom Kippur, however, they would steal into some corner of the synagogue and join the worshippers in prayer. The Rabbis thereupon instituted this solemn declaration, in order to proclaim in most unmistakable terms that, no matter what is a man’s mode of life—slanderer, apostate, outcast—he is still a brother. ‘We have transgressed, we have dealt treacherously, we have robbed,’ do we pray. We associate ourselves with the most forlorn souls that sin in darkness, because we recognize that society—we ourselves—are largely responsible for their actions. Many a time has our evil example misled others, and become a stumbling-block in the way of the blind. And all our Yom Kippur vows to rise to a higher life are useless, unless we endeavour to raise others who have fallen. A traveller was crossing mountain heights of untrodden snow alone. He struggled bravely against the sense of sleep which weighed down his eyelids, but it was fast stealing over him, and he knew that if he fell asleep death would inevitably follow. At this crisis his foot struck against a heap lying across his path. Stooping down, he found it to be a human body half buried in the snow. The next moment he held him in his arms, and was rubbing and chafing the frozen man’s limbs. The effort to restore another unto life brought back to himself warmth and energy, and was the means of saving both. The same law obtains in the realm of the soul. In order that our spiritual vitality may quicken into new life, we must help others in highest matters of faith and hope.

‘Heaven’s gate is shut

To him who comes alone;

Save thou a soul,

And it shall save thine own.’

J. H. HERTZ, 1898.

I WILL seek that which is lost, and will bring again that which is driven away, and will bind up that which is broken, and will strengthen that which is sick.

EZEKIEL 34. 16.

ATONEMENT PROMISE AND ADMONITION I

SEEK ye the Lord while He may be found,

Call ye upon Him while He is near;

Let the wicked forsake his way,

And the man of iniquity his thoughts;

And let him return unto the Lord,

And He will have compassion upon him,

And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven,

And returneth not thither,

Except it water the earth,

And make it bring forth and bud,

And give seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth:

It shall not return unto Me void,

Except it accomplish that which I please,

And make the thing whereto I sent it prosper.

ISAIAH 55. 6‒11.

II

THEN shall thy light break forth as the morning,

And thy healing shall spring forth speedily;

And thy righteousness shall go before thee,

The glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.

Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer;

Thou shalt cry, and He will say: ‘Here I am.’

If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke,

The putting forth of the finger, and speaking wickedness;

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry,

And satisfy the afflicted soul;

Then shall thy light rise in darkness,

And thy gloom be as the noonday;

And the Lord will guide thee continually,

And satisfy thy soul in drought,

And make strong thy bones;

And thou shalt be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places,

Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations;

And thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

ISAIAH 58. 8‒12.

LORD, THINE HUMBLE SERVANTS HEAR

LORD, thine humble servants hear,

Suppliant now before Thee;

Our Father, from Thy children’s plea

Turn not, we implore Thee!

Lord, blot out our evil pride,

All our sins before Thee;

Our Father, for Thy Mercy’s sake,

Pardon, we implore Thee.

Lord, no sacrifice we bring,

Prayers and tears implore Thee;

Our Father, take the gift we lay,

Contrite hearts before Thee.

Lord, Thy sheep have wandered far,

Gather them before Thee;

Our Father, let Thy shepherd’s love

Guide us, we implore Thee.

Lord, forgive and comfort all

That in truth implore Thee;

Our Father, let our evening prayer

Thus find grace before Thee.

R. YEHUDAH. (Trans. S. Solis-Cohen.)