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A Sermon, by Isaac Leeser
Lord of all existence, in whose hand is the spirit of all living,
remember
us in mercy unto a peaceful and happy life, when Thou comest to judge thy
children at the dread hour, when all pass before thy judgment seat, to
receive their doom for weal or wo, as thou mayest decree in thy unerring
wisdom. Look not, O Father! unto the greatness of our transgressions; mete
not out unto us the recompense which our misdeeds have deserved; but let
thy goodness prevail, and forgive and pardon, as Thou hast borne with our
iniquities from our first being until this day. And thus shall thy name be
glorified, when they, whom Thou halt redeemed from perdition, shall chaunt
thy glory, and rehearse unto generations yet to come the goodness Thou
hast manifested; inasmuch as Thou art our God and Saviour, the Holy One
of Israel, now and for ever. Amen.
Brethren:
Among the many consolations which are recorded
concerning the future of Israel, we discover the following:
כי לא
בחפזון תצאו
ובמנוסה לא
תלכון כי הלך
לפניכם ה'
ומאספכם
אלהי ישראל:
ישע' נ"ב י"א:
“For not in haste shall you go out, and not in
flight shall ye go; for before you goeth the Lord, and your rearward is
the God of Israel.”—Isaiah 52:12.
If one were merely to look at the singular changes
which have within our recollection come over the nature of religious
observance amongst Israelites, and carefully to note the agitation in
opinion which now sways many minds, he would be apt to come to the hasty
conclusion, that Judaism had seen its best days; that what is left is
merely a shadow of its former self; and the signs of life which it
exhibits are but the spasmodic actions of the last remnant of vital
strength yet inherent in the severed limbs, which, nevertheless, must soon
cease, since their separation from the living trunk must soon deprive
themselves and it of every vestige of life. Some, therefore, in fear, and
others in ill-suppressed joy, look forward to the speedy dissolution of
the Jewish community; and already, in anticipation, they see it mixed up
with other societies; so that its existence will become a matter of
history, as a thing that has been. We cannot deny that there are many
events constantly passing before our eyes which are greatly calculated to
alarm those anxious for the welfare of their religion; the bonds of our
union have become greatly loosened, and many have fallen away from our
household, and now profess to love the strangers and their idols; others
have thrown off the yoke of the law, retaining merely the name of Jews,
whilst violating, in the disregard of the Sabbath, and the laws of
personal sanctity, the obligations which the divine code imposes on them;
and, at the same time, others, in numbers scarcely ever before known, seek
the alliance of the gentiles, and rear up their children in the customs
and laws of the various nations; and teach them to inquire of those not
belonging
to Jacob, “Which is the way of salvation?” as though there were no God
in Israel of whom we could inquire. But not alone this; for there are many
who, whilst they profess to be pious, and to venerate the Lord and his
word, endeavour to search out new ways, of which our fathers had no
knowledge, and to open wide the door of dissension, by withdrawing the
confidence of the people from their righteous teachers, who have so long
and so faithfully expounded to them the will of their heavenly Father, and
have shown them the way they should go, and the deeds they should do. And
thus we have seen many departing from our communion; some by the force of
ignorance, not knowing how to defend themselves against the assaults of
those who make it their business to deprive Jews of their faith; some
because they could not withstand, from an indolence of disposition, the
temptations which the world at large offered to their acceptance; and
others, again, because they wickedly chose their portion with the many,
and despised the union with the handful of Israelites, with those who have
not earthly distinctions to bestow, nor offices to confer. And thus have
we also seen the strict conformity to our laws gradually decaying, till
instead, that formerly a transgressor was an object of contempt from his
violation of public opinion, no less than his disregard of the divine
precepts, a strict conformist now excites in many taunts and ridicule,
from his strange adherence to ancestral customs. Is it not so? or say,
when in any epoch of our history has there been a greater defection from
the ranks of truth? Can you point out a single period, during the times of
the bitterest persecutions, when so many have left the Synagogue under one
pretext or the other, as report speaks of what takes place in our own day?
How is this? Is the air of liberty, the new atmosphere in which we have
been permitted to breathe of late, so fatal to Judaism? so much more
destructive than banishment, confiscation, public exposure at the
pillory, and death by the hand of the common executioner? Could we stand
all those dangers; could we wander forth shoeless in the burning sand, or
over frozen rivers; could we sell our houses for a little bread, and our
vineyard for an ass, a mean beast of burden to carry us and our children
away from our native land; could we stand exposed to the taunts of a base,
heartless crowd, and disregard their coarse jests and their ribald abuse;
could we stretch out our neck to the headsman, and joyfully meet the
stroke of death; could we behold, unmoved, tigers in the shape of men
kindle the fires which were to consume us; could we attest with
unfaltering lips our love to our God, whilst the burning flesh quivered on
our bones, when our latest breath was to be drawn in unendurable
agony;—and has it come to this, that a little freedom, the boon which
the savage enjoys in his wide-spread prairie, or his forest fastness, is
to stifle all aspirations for religious purity, as trough, with the
removal of political thraldom, all use of faith, all necessity for
godliness, had fled for ever? Is God less merciful in times of prosperity
than in those of affliction? or is his power more limited now, to punish
the transgressor, than in the days that are past? Ay, there is now fearful
sinning, and terrible will be the retribution which will overtake the
evil-doers; the vengeance sleeps not, the vigilance of eternal justice
is not diminished, and before we heed it, the house of the wicked will be
struck by the four winds of heaven, and bury in its ruins the sinful
father, the sharer of his iniquity, and the offspring who have not been
taught the worship of the Lord. This, in truth, must we confidently
expect, from the well-known laws of justice which govern the world, that
the present apostacy from the path of religion will draw after it the same
consequences as in former days; but in the mean time it is truly
deplorable that so much wickedness should force itself upon our attention;
that with all the disposition, so natural to men, to think well of
themselves, we cannot gainsay the lamentable fact, that we have been
retrograding instead of advancing in religious improvement, and that thus
far the experiment of loosening the bonds of our captivity has far from
corresponded with the wishes and hopes of those who, in a greater state of
freedom, hoped, nay, confidently expected, that the attachment of Jews to
their religion would become closer and dearer day by day.
Indeed during many years, when for being Israelites
we had to endure sorrows almost incredible, which we could have avoided by
outwardly conforming to the customs of our oppressors, (since it was
ostensibly our religion, not ourselves, they wished to injure,) our
longing eyes were turned to Heaven to vouchsafe us only the liberty of
worshipping without being molested for the profession of our faith, and to
be permitted some honourable pursuit, by which we could obtain a decent
livelihood. Surely during the ages of bitter persecution this was nearly
all which was asked, almost the only thing hoped for. And the pious ones
of those days imagined, that, with the enlargement which they coveted,
the number of devoted adherents to the law would greatly increase, and
that, were the terror of the weight from without removed, no one of the
seed of Jacob would act otherwise than as becomes a child of salvation
under the law, and that as dutiful children all would cheerfully give
honour and obedience to the Lord of all. And now the prayers of so many
saints have been heard; their blood has not flowed in vain, their tears of
anguish have been treasured up as a precious sacrifice before the
Eternal God; and, we, their descendants, live in comparative security, and
we are almost every where free to walk in the paths of the faith revealed
through Moses, and in many countries we can, as Jews, participate in the
government, and make our voice heard in the national councils, or
contend with the mighty in their country’s cause on the ensanguined
field of battle or the wide expanse of the ocean’s billows.
All this has been given to us. But how has experience
deceived the hopes of the pious in their dreadful struggle! They who, when
their life was, so to say, suspended before their eyes, and they dreaded
to breathe aloud in the presence of these tyrants, clung with the ardour
of desperation to the religion which sorrows had made dear to them, now
shake off the yoke of Heaven, when their profession as Jews would give
them rather honour than disgrace, as though they had no longer need to
value that which was so precious to them in their affliction. And daily we
see, that, men and women who, because they are Jews, were treated with
contumely and exclusion from all civil rights, barely reach the shore of
countries where they are unrestricted on account of religion, before they
display the most thorough neglect of their faith, and excel in sinful
indifference, though often better instructed and more piously educated
than those whom they find there before them.—Formerly, too, we were
debarred from cultivating secular sciences; naught was left us but the
development
of the wisdom of the divine law; and many sighed for opportunities to dip,
so to say, their oars in the flood of sciences, to understand better
through this means the mysterious courses of the laws of nature, and their
relation to the great concerns of life. Now this too has been granted. But
do those who are thus taught fight the good battles of their religion? Are
they the valiant defenders, by words and deeds, of their brothers, the
Israelites? Ask of the gentile churches, look into their seminaries of
learning, take a view of their council-houses, their armies, and their
fleets, and you will find there the apostates, who, but for this dangerous
acquirement, would have lived as their fathers have done, simple in faith,
devoted in their attachment to Israelites and their laws, and would
either have suffered in their sufferings or rejoiced in their happiness.
And those often who have acquired wealth, to whom the alliances with proud
families is opened through the powerful masses of gold they have heaped
up, who, but for this, would have been regarded with the same scorn as
their humbler brothers, now disdain to let their sons and daughters wed
with children of Jacob, but seek to buy them distinctions and empty titles
by giving them in marriage to the sons and daughters of the stranger.
They, therefore, who have seen and observed all this,
who hear the boast of the enemies of the Jews, that soon Israel will cease
to be a people, if the same gentilizing should proceed with a naturally
increased ratio, if the internal divisions should continue to multiply
with the new accession of causes of strife which develop themselves
daily,—they, who in the events before them, imagine they behold a new
state of things never before experienced, will naturally imagine, and
almost confidently expect, that now the gradual extinction of Israel so
long expected, is actually impending; and that whatever of this
anticipation
cannot, from want of time, be accomplished in the next ten years, will
certainly come to pass as an unavoidable thing. Indeed outward
circumstances betoken all this as but too likely. But persons must have
studied the natural inclination of the Jews, and the records of their
history, to small advantage, to let themselves be so easily led away by
outward exhibitions. Look, I pray you, in the scriptural records, and you
will find precisely what we see this day. In prosperity our forefathers
forgot the great Lord of all who had freed them from their oppressors, who
had rid their beautiful country of enemies who had often reaped what
others had sown, who had gathered the grapes which their owners had
carefully tended; and they served Baalim and Ashtaroth, whom they had
found impotent to aid them in in their days of distress. Nay, even at a
later period, say in the reign of Solomon, when the manifestation of the
divine presence in the temple they had just erected proved to the people
that the Lord dwelt in their midst: how little did they heed their
heavenly King, and how ungrateful were they in spite of all the peace and
prosperity that blessed their own Palestine, and the great degree of
knowledge
which flowed from their schools, and the high civilization and refinement
which had taken up their abode in the mountains of Judah, on the plains of
Jezreel, on the coasts of the great sea, and the banks of the fertilizing
Jordan. Scarcely had the wise king, who himself had been misled by his
love for strange women, been gathered to his fathers, than the fell
spirit of disunion broke the common bond which had made Israel one people,
and Palestine one country. The new king of the rival government set up
calves for worship at Beth-el and Dan, and the part of the people
separated from the rule of the house of David, was also soon torn away
from the path of the national religion. We speak of the evils of the
present day; they are fearful indeed; and no lover of truth, no friend of
the Mosaic institutions, can either palliate or defend them; but in the
extent of forgetfulness of the righteous way the men of antiquity exceeded
those of our own age. Now the number of transgressors is large indeed; but
at worst it is confined to individuals; but then an entire nation, with
few exceptions, at least but few are recorded, followed the course of
destruction. Yet there is one thing in which the present renders the evil
more permanent than the former period. It is this. During our residence in
Palestine, no matter if we sinned, we continued to be Israelites, we
were one people on our national soil, and the worship of idols left us
still surrounded by our brothers,* and we could return through repentance,
and so could our children, to the bosom of the divine legislation. But now
this is unfortunately not the case; they who leave the Synagogue, either
through apostacy, through the neglect of circumcision, or through
intermarriage with gentiles, become part and parcel with the
non-Israelites among whom we dwell, and they and their descendants, except
under rare circumstances, become strangers, and must remain so, to the
worship of the God of Israel; they merge into the nations of the earth,
and have neither right nor inheritance in the congregation of Jacob. Here
then we have a view of the past and present condition of the sinners in
Israel; and any reflecting mind can well measure the dark and bright sides
of the picture. One thing no one will be able to deny, that, as in the
national sinning during the first temple, before and since, there was a
recuperative power by which the people in a greater or less degree,
returned to their own God, though they had so often and so long worshipped
the idols of their neighbours or the falsehoods of their own invention, so
there are now, compared to the entire mass of Jews, but a very small
number who doubt in the fundamental truths of our faith. Nay, of the many
who have forsaken us, few indeed have done so from conviction, though this
makes their loss to us not the less certain nor more deplorable on their
and our account. Still let it not be forgotten, that in the prophetic
vision, Daniel already announced more than two thousand three hundred
years ago: “Many† shall be purified and made white, and be tried; but
the wicked will do wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand; but
the wise will understand.” (Daniel 12:10.) Here is a direct announcement
that in the trials and purifcations to which the nation of Israel is to
be subjected, some there shall be who will be purified and be rendered
resplendent in purity by the very means which the world calls evil;
whilst the wicked will pursue their course of destruction, contemning the
chastisement of the Lord, and thus render themselves permanently
outcasts from the communion of the faithful, who will, by constantly
dwelling upon the ways of God with man, and tracing always the effect to
its cause, see, ultimately, the righteousness of the divine decrees,
though in the beginning all appeared doubt and uncertainty; whereas they,
who are wicked, will in their worldliness and obduracy of heart, remain
strangers to the best of wisdom, and sink into that perdition which they
have in truth so ardently coveted, through the perversity of their
iniquitous
conduct.
*There is no question,
but that the Israelites during their sojourn in Palestine, never forgot
altogether the service of the Lord; He was under all circumstances their national
God, even whilst they incorporated the idols of the heathen in their
system of worship. The reader is referred to the history of Elijah’s
sacrifice on Carmel, where, he clearly asks the people how long they would
hesitate between the Lord and Baal, which evidently proves, that though
they ascribed certain propitiatory powers to their Baal, they had not
cast off the idea of the God of the Bible as the Supreme Ruler of all. (1
Kings 18:21.) See also the history of the nations brought by Shalmanasser,
king of Assyria, to supply the place of the Israelites whom he had led
away from their land (2 Kings 17:24-34); it is a curious passage, and
will give the inquirer a better idea of the notions of the heathens
respecting their love for idols; it is doubtlessly this,—they thought
that they could not approach the great Creator without some mediatorial
power, which power they represented under a thousand fanciful shapes, all
more or less false, all more or less disgusting. This, peculiar idea, of
an intermediate agency, is not unknown to the enlightened nations of
modern times, and they, like the gentiles of old, forget almost in the
worship of their mediator, the superior service which, even according to
their own views, is due to the Supreme. Doubtlessly this was the case with
the Israelites, and they adored the Lord in conjunction with their
follies. The sin is not the less heinous, for we were commanded “You
shall make nothing with me;” but as the idea of the power of the Lord
was always held up in their minds, the return to Him was at all times
easy, whenever they felt, by some calamity which overtook them, that they
had offended the Power who alone could save them. Circumcision was not
omitted, and probably most of the ceremonial laws were held sacred;
although we have evidence that they were frequently violated; but
renounced they never were; heathenism is more tolerant than Christianity
and Mahommedanism; it allowed all sorts of conjunctions in its systems
and practices; whereas they who embrace now the religions of the day, are
at once and for ever severed from Judaism; the Sabbath is changed,
circumcision is abolished, the Synagogue is given up for the church, the Jewish
nation for the world, and the apostates and those who marry out of the
pale, become lost to Israel, and they entail upon themselves and
their descendants, “all the consequences of the violated covenant which
are written in the book of the law,” (Deut. 29:20,) to as great a degree
as the idolators of old.
† This prophecy must
not be taken as an expression of fatalism, as though certain persons
were predoomed to sin; only that in the course of events transgressions
would undoubtedly take place; but that notwithstanding the principle of
righteousness would triumph, and the sorrows and tribulations would
confirm those who have the fear of the Lord in their heart. It is in fact
a blissful promise of the ultimate triumph of virtue, and the assurance
that all will tend to a happy end.
Through captivity and the edge of the sword, we were
taught in the days of our national existence, that destruction only is the
portion of those who forsake the Lord. And in adversity we were instructed
that those are not forgotten who firmly place their trust in the Rock of
Ages, the everlasting One, to whom appertain the power and the dominion.
Israel has thus been tried in the furnace of affliction, and also in the
sunshine of prosperity. Unmitigated calamities, unceasing banishment,
daily slaughter, would have at length destroyed us, had we remained ever
so constant in our attachment to our religion; for the worshippers would
have ceased when the people of Israel had all been annihilated. The
tribulations, however, were an excellent means to try, to purify, and to
make us white. The wicked, who had not the Lord in their heart, started
back at the sight of the dark vaults of the noisome dungeon, and they
fainted before the sharp edge of the drawn sword; they fell off and became
mingled with the oppressors; and from them sprung many who were the
bitterest enemies to those of their fathers’ faith. Whilst, in the same
times, the martyrs persevered in their righteousness, and proved to the
world how the Jew can love his God; how he can prize beyond every
possession the hope in the truth of his Father; how he can despise all
things of earth, and cast away life, if thus only can he seal his truth
and his faith. The defection of the weak is to us a beacon, a warning,
pointing out the dangers of the deeds for which these have been cut off
from the community of Israel. The heroism of the brave,—brave not in
worldly battle, but in a contest in which angels of purity might fittingly
have participated, is also a beacon, an incentive, a guiding star, the
bright blaze of the lighthouse upon the distant promontory, pointing out
to us the track into the safe harbour, where we can anchor with unfailing
security, in the haven of righteousness, our storm-tossed bark, when the
voyage of life is ended. Again there have broken over us days of greater
calm and peace; the world no longer professes to hate the Jews, they are
acknowledged as children of a common Father; and every where there are
many who speak well of Israel, and who seek to promote our welfare. The
race for scientific improvement and far-reaching enterprise is again
open to us, and many of us
scarcely remember even now the days of sorrow which we fain would hope
have passed away.
But “Jeshurun has also again grown fat, and he
kicks;” many of us are not able to withstand the temptation of
prosperity; they feel themselves better, in their own imagination, than
their humbler and less enlightened brothers; and thev reach after
distinctions which, to Jews, are not easily attainable, and for
alliances which remove them from their own friends. But at the same time
there are many, and these by far hundredfold greater in number than the
others, who glory in their descent and do honour to their name; these
discover in the improved state of our political condition no motive for
self-gratulation, but one of thankfulness to the Deity, who has looked
down upon our affliction, and remembered unto us the covenant with our
fathers, that He would not forsake us, nor even leave us because of his
great and holy name by which we are called. Let the wicked, then, as is in
their nature, leave the fold where all can find so sure a shelter; let
them join themselves to the idols which they love; they are only pursuing
the ancient path of transgression; and the house of Israel will be
strengthened when those have left it, who brought it no strength by their
nominal adherence, but who, on the contrary, were a scandal to all by
their irreligious conduct, by their love for the world, by their
forgetfulness of Heaven.
Who can doubt that we are pursuing our destiny under
all circumstances in which we may be placed? that there has been one
continued chain of interlinked events from the call of Abraham, through
the slavery in Egypt, the conquest of Palestine, our expulsion,
persecution, and present period of ease and comparative freedom? Is
there not a particular thread running through all these periods? Were
there not times when our extinction was more imminent than under present
circumstances? Let him gainsay this who has no faith in God; but we, who
hope in humility, and trust in unwavering confidence, look upon all that
occurs before our eyes as a mere phase in our history, as something to
which after-generations will refer and draw thence a lesson as we do
to-day from events which to us belong to the past. Israel will not be
exterminated, neither by the anger nor the favour of the gentiles; but we
shall move onward, retarded, perhaps, at times, but never long, let
mankind rage and forge fetters, or devise counsel as they may; we are the
messengers of God, and we are urged onward, be we willing or unwilling in
our service. Israel now is sinning, great is the breach which the law has
suffered; but the people will return to Him who has smitten them, and
glory in the Lord, and sanctify themselves in the God of Israel.
Generation after generation may sink into the grave, the green turf may
rest upon the bosoms of millions who are not vet born unto the house of
Jacob, without the coming of the Son of David. But notwithstanding this,
let no one despair of the sure coming future; for though we may
doubt that which we do not deem probable, the captives shall be let
loose and the ransomed shall go to Zion in triumph. And should we,
overpowered by fear, despair of the good promised to Jacob then let us
reflect that it is not a mortal who announced his will, but our God and
Creator; with Him length of days produces no forgetfulness, lapse of years
no abatement of strength; and surely He will sustain his people in their
wanderings, and protect them against themselves, that they be not lost in
the stream of time, which has swept away many and great nations. But to
us, lo! a sun is rising in the dim distant East, and his rays shall spread
over the face of the earth, and nations shall see the glory of God
revealed, and all shall be refreshed by the blessing of truth, which shall
be poured out over all flesh. From mountain to mountain the joyful message
shall be sent, and in Zion shall be proclaimed “Thy God reigneth,” and
from every corner of the earth shall come forth the children of Jacob,
they even who, through the sinning of their fathers, have been lost among
the gentiles, and they shall bow down before the Lord on the holy mountain
in Jerusalem; not one shall be wanting of the priests of the Most High;
for before us shall go the Lord, and though this happen far down in the
ages of futurity, we need not fear the fulfillment, for our rearward is the
God of Israel, who lives for eternity, and to whose name be ascribed
glory, now and for ever. Amen.
Elul 6th, August 28th, 5606.
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