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Part I. Introduction.
The Mission of the People of
Israel
A Sermon, by Rabbi Isaac Wise,
Delivered at Albany, January 30, 5609, A. M.
ובא לציון
גואל ולשבי פשע ביעקב נאם ה׳׃
“And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to
those who turn from transgression in Jacob, saith
the Lord.”—Isaiah lix.
Introduction.
The Messiah, the anointed of the Lord, the
Saviour, the Redeemer of Israel, or by whatever
name this supposed personage is, was, or will be
called, has been for many centuries the cause of
much trouble and dissension between the Israelites
and Christians, which resulted in many centuries of
affliction upon the house of Israel. Whether he had
already come, or is still to come, was the question
which caused so much contention on both sides; it is
the very axis around which the differences of these
two religions have revolved; and, in fact, this
question still remains undecided, in the public
mind, each party thinking to have the best evidence
on its side.
Not only Jews and gentiles, but even Jews against
each other, were involved in great difficulties
about the coming of the Messiah. Some of them
thought the Messiah must necessarily be a descendant
of King David, who will be anointed by God himself,
and gifted with a supernatural power to perform
miracles. That he is to assemble all the sons of
Israel from pole to pole,—bring
<<182>>them back to
their own country, and be their king. That he will
restore the temple at Jerusalem, and reorganize the
ancient form of divine worship. That he will restore
the nation of Israel to their ancient nationality,
form them into a moral, wise, and peaceable people,
esteemed, and left in peace by all other nations, so
that each one may rest safely and securely under his
vine and under his fig tree, and serve his God
according to the dictates of his own conscience.
Other Jews combined a higher mission with the coming
of the Messiah and supposed that the resurrection of
the dead would follow immediately on his appearance,
so that afterwards, earth, and man, and everything
pertaining unto them, should have another and more
spiritual character. Again, other Jews, of course,
having more philosophy than religion, supposed that
there never did come, nor will there come any such
personage, as generally understood under the
Messiah; that every person, promoting correct
knowledge about God and man, and the things
pertaining to them, every man adding to the common
welfare of mankind, to the stock of learning, to the
treasure of science, is a Messiah to his fellow-men;
that many such Messiahs had come, and many are still
to come, in order that the human race may be brought
to such an exalted condition as is described by the
prophets, when all the different nations on earth
will worship but one God, and in one way, when the
difficulties existing between Jews and gentiles will
be radically removed, and all men will be brothers
and sisters, forming one large family, united by
their conviction in the existence of one true God.
This Messiah question has been disputed by our
foremost theologians of the Spanish period.
Maimonides, commonly called Rambam, stated the
twelfth principle of Judaism to be the belief in the
Messiah, which Rabbi Joseph Albo, commonly known as
the בעל העקרים,
firmly contradicted, stating that one may be an
Israelite in the very strictest sense of Judaism,
without believing in the coming of a Messiah, since
there is no commandment in the Bible to believe so.
Such are the difficulties and differences which
exist about this question. Let us spend a little
while to search faithfully in the holy Bible, to
find out, in truth, what was promised by the divine
messengers of God. Let us be guided by faith and
sound judg<<183>>ment.
Let us address prayerfully the Most High, for His
assistance in this contemplation.
In order to have a correct view about the
Messiah, we must first investigate the very
historical source from which this national idea
originated; and to this end I must give you, in the
first place, a full description of the mission of
the people of Israel, as this was written down by
Moses and the prophets; and this will constitute the
theme of this lecture, being the mere introduction
to the course of lectures which I am about to
deliver on the Messiah.
The Mission Of The People Of Israel.
In my last lecture, I stated that our ancestors
were redeemed from Egypt in order to receive a
divine revelation, containing the true instruction
concerning God and his divine attributes; concerning
man, his duties, and hopes; concerning the way man
should pursue to elevate himself to a higher and
more perfect nature—to live happy, and die in a
confidence of a better future. This religious code
was not given to the house of Israel alone and
exclusively; our fathers and we were only made the
bearers of this divine word of God’s will, and it
was made our sacred duty to promulgate our holy
possession unto all nations on earth.
Thus we read in the nineteenth chapter of Exodus:
“In the third month after the children of Israel
were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same
day they came unto the wilderness of Sinai; for they
had departed from Rephidim, and they came to the
desert of Sinai and encamped in the wilderness; and
Israel encamped there opposite the mount. And Moses
went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him from
the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the
house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: Ye
have seen what I have done unto the Egyptians, and
how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you
unto myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my
voice and keep my covenant, then shall ye be unto me
a peculiar treasure, above all nations; for all the
earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation.” In these important words
is expressed the mission of Israel, and the sole
object of divine revelation. As it becomes the
priest’s duty to serve his God ac<<184>>cording
to the best of his conviction, and to promulgate his
divine knowledge to his fellow-men, so became it
Israel’s duty to worship the Most High, and to be
henceforth the teacher of all nations, to proclaim
God’s holy name to the whole world; “for mine is the
whole earth,” saith God. God is the loving Father of
all mankind, all the inhabitants of the earth, in
all the different climates and zones, in all the
various regions and countries, are the beloved
objects of his care; to all of them, Israel should
bring the divine truth, that they all may hear it
and live; to this end, our forefathers were selected
from among all nations, to be God’s peculiar
treasure, to be a sanctified instrument in the
benevolent hand of Providence, to be a holy nation
through the holy purpose they serve, by purity,
morality and piety. But before the Israelites can
fulfill their divine mission, they ought to know
themselves all the sublime truths of the revealed
word, they ought themselves to believe firmly in the
divine doctrine, which they should proclaim, to be
convinced of its beneficial consequences, to know by
experience that it has the power to save man from
the snares of vice and impurity, that it redeems
from the bondage of fiction and darkness; that it
guides man to the brilliant light and truth, into
the heavenly garden of morality, purity of mind, and
firmness of character; they ought to know, by their
own experience, that this law teaches man to live
happy in the midst of sore distress, and to die
confident in God, in His mercy and justice; for none
can teach a doctrine with love and enthusiasm—at
least none can expect sweet fruits of his mental
seed—if he teaches what he does not exactly believe
in himself; of what he himself has not sufficient
evidence; and no evidence is stronger or
deeper-rooted in the heart than that which has been
obtained through one’s own experience.
In order to effect such a love, such a zeal and
enthusiasm in Israelites—in order to gather the best
evidence of the consequences of God’s divine law on
the field of experience, there were required long
ages, many years of practice, many generations had
necessarily to pass away, and live in and according
to these religious dictates, to experience their
blissful influence; for mental prosperity develops
itself but slowly, the realization of spiritual
principles requires a long process of time;
wherefore their progress is almost imperceptible to
the eye of the mere observer of passing events.
<<185>>
In order to have a field to gather
experience, Israel ought to have and actually had a
country of their own, where they could fully enjoy
their heavenly property; where they had leisure and
opportunity to develop their spiritual faculties and
their mental capacities in accordance with their
religion; where they were at liberty to take such a
direction, to pursue such a course as their law
required of them; where they could educate and
strengthen themselves for their great mission.
Therefore, God gave them for their religious
instruction a political and civil code, based upon
the principles of the purest democracy,
independence, personal liberty, and self-government.
The mind of the Israelites was not to be engaged
with the projects of warfare, nor with the
speculations of commerce, neither should it be
occupied by the perplexing calculations of natural
philosophy, by the combination and figures of
mathematics, nor by the lofty propositions of
metaphysics; they should rather be a simple
agricultural nation, each resting under his vine and
under his fig-tree, subsisting on the products of
their land, which flowed with milk and honey: they
should develop their mind and exercise their mental
faculties, in experiencing the blessed consequence
of God’s word, in comprehending thoroughly the lofty
destiny to which all of them were designated by the
hand of Providence; to educate themselves in their
mode of thinking, feeling, acting, and speaking, to
be the teachers of all other nations, to be the
priests of the most High, for which their civil law,
the situation and oriental products, and even the
pleasant climate of their country, were favourable
and extremely well adapted; but also to prepare and
strengthen themselves to meet all the oppositions,
all the hardships, oppressions, and injustice that
would befall them in the process of their history,
in the fulfillment of their divine mission, if they
disobeyed the will of Providence and went astray, if
they did not pursue the path which the hand of the
Almighty had pointed out to them, and given them the
most suitable means to proceed on it; to learn to
meet with hardships and oppressions, and still not
lose confidence in God and His divine instruction;
for it is evident that we Israelites must fulfill
our mission; we must realize the will of our God; we
must diffuse the shining light of truth which we
received from Sinai.
Through all the world; from east to west, from
pole to pole, <<186>>one
of two things must happen. Either the Israelites
obey the voice of the Lord, live in and exclusively
for his sacred faith, and teach the other nations,
by the living example of the peace and happiness
they enjoy, of the order and prosperity of their own
country, of the enlightenment, good morals, and
liberty prevailing among all the people, of the
brilliant success and glorious development of his
history, as Moses clearly enough expressed it:
“Behold I have taught you ordinances and judgments,
even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should
do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep,
therefore, and do them; for this is your wisdom and
your understanding in the sight of the nations,
which shall hear all these ordinances and say,
Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding
people; for what nation is there so great? who hath
God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all
things that we call unto him for? and which nation
is there so great, that has ordinances and judgments
so righteous as all this law which I set before you
this day?” (Deut, iv.) Or, as Isaiah said (chapter
xlii.), “Behold my servant (the people of Israel),
upon whom I am leaned, my elect in whom my soul
delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him; he shall
bring forth judgment to the gentiles. He shall not
cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard
abroad. A bruised reed he shall not break, and the
smoking flax he shall not quench; but he shall bring
forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be
discouraged, till he have set judgment into the
earth, and the isles shall wait for his law. Thus
saith the Lord thy God; he that hath created the
heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread
forth the earth, and that which comes out of it; he
that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and
spirit unto them that walk therein,—I the Lord have
called thee in righteousness; I have taken thee by
thy hand; I have formed thee, and set thee to a
covenant of people, to a light of nations, to open
the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners of
the prison, and them that sit in darkness from the
prison-house.”
Or, if the Israelites go astray, break the
covenant of the Lord,—if they will not pursue the
path of virtue and righteousness, turn their minds
to vain imaginations and idols, and their hearts to
carnal desires, to low passions,—then God will
execute judgment, punish the erring people, in order
to recall them to the way
<<187>>of virtue and piety, to fit them again
to dwell in the heavenly home of the loving Father,
to return to their exalted destiny: and if they
still refuse, if they will not return, still harden
their hearts, shut up their ears not to hear the
gracious voice of their Father in heaven,—that then
they should be scattered abroad among all nations
and tongues around the globe; they should be
persecuted, trodden down, hated for their sin, and
for the sin of their fathers; but wheresoever they
go, they must still take the divine truth along with
them, and carry it to all nations around the globe,
that all of them may see it, and at last appreciate
it.
Thus should Israel be punished, if they refuse to
serve the Lord in joyfulness; in the happiness of
the heart, from the abundance of all that maketh
glad the heart of man. Such is the mission of
Israel, and these are the two ways to accomplish it.
The path they had to pursue was dependent on
themselves solely. Thus it was foretold by Moses and
the prophets.
In one of the last speeches of Moses, which
commences with the twenty-eighth chapter of
Deuteronomy, and ends with the thirtieth, these two
ways—which Providence has given to Israel to fulfill
their sacred mission—are spoken of in forcible and
very expressive terms. The address is too long for
being recited entire; but I wish that every one
would read it, and he will find that I have drawn my
remarks from this source. The same is the case with
an address of the prophet Isaiah; which begins with
the fifteenth verse of the fifty-second chapter, and
ends with the fifty-fifth chapter; where the
downfall of Israel, the distress, the hardships and
sorrows they will experience in the world among
opponents, their resurrection, their final triumph,
the acknowledgment of truth by all nations, are
powerfully described.
Allow me to recite a few verses merely. “If the
mountains depart, and the hills be removed, my
kindness shall not depart from thee; neither shall
the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord,
that has mercy on thee.” (lix. 10.) In respect to
the final triumph of truth, and the fulfillment of
Israel’s mission, the prophet says, in this same
address, “Behold thou wilt call a nation thou didst
not know, and a nation that hath not known thee will
run to thee; because of the Lord thy God, and for
the holy one of Israel, for he has glorified thee.”
(lv. 5.) To stimulate the people for their mission,
even if in the midst of calamities and
<<188>>distress, to
assure them of a blessed future as the result of
their painful task, the prophet says, farther: “For
as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven,
and return not thither, but water the earth, and
make it bring forth and bud, that it may 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, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall make prosperous
him whom I send; for ye shall go out with joy, and
be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills
shall break forth before you into singing, and all
the trees of the field shall clap their hands." (lv.
10-12.) You will read in these two addresses, which
I particularly recommend to your attention, as in
many other chapters of the, Bible, that Israel—the
whole nation, and no particular man—was chosen to
bring the truth of the Almighty to all the nations
on earth, either amidst peace and joy, happy in
their own country, if they would obey, and be
constantly a holy nation; or amidst pain and grief,
in distress and calamity, scattered and
persecuted—if they would disobey the word of the
Most High—if they would go astray, and forget the
holy covenant, the object of their sacred mission.
And if you ask me, which part of our sacred faith
shall be diffused among all nations? I must answer
you, Only the fundamental truths, the principal
doctrines, the abstract truths concerning God and
his attributes, concerning man, his duties and
hopes, shall become the property of all nations on
earth. “One shall say, I am the Lord’s, and another
shall call himself by the name of Israel, and
another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord,
and surname himself by the name of Israel.” (Isaiah
xliv. 5.) “And the Lord will be King over all the
earth, on that day the Lord will be One and his name
One.” (Zech. xiv. 9.) Every knee will then be bent
before the Lord, every tongue will glorify and
proclaim his holy name, every heart will rejoice in
truth, in the glory of our God and as once Israel
did on Mount Carmel, so shall once all nations
united and combined proclaim: “The Lord is the one
and true God, the gracious Father of all men, the
kind, benign, and merciful Saviour of all his
children; all men are the beloved objects of his
care, all men are brethren; we are all but one great
family, and God is our <<189>>
Father.” To this end should Israel bring all
mankind; this is our lofty destiny; this is our
glorious banner, which we are to carry from pole to
pole; but the ceremonial part of our faith is the
exclusive property of Israel; it has never been
given unto us to teach it to other nations; but
partly to separate our forefathers from paganism,
from the altar of idols, which they saw adored in
Egypt, and in all the countries round about them;
partly to prevent us from being divided and
subdivided into an innumerable amount of sects; and
partly to stamp us with the signs and tokens of our
faith, and of our nationality, that we, if
scattered, may remain all over the earth one and the
same nation, designed for one destiny; that we may
not be swallowed up by the overwhelming multitude of
other nations, before all the world shall have
accepted our sacred message, until all nations adore
with us the ONE and TRUE God—until our mission is
fulfilled.
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the
great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come
that were lost in the land of Assyria, and they that
were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall
worship the Lord on the holy mount in Jerusalem.
(Isaiah xxvii. 18.) “And in the last days it
shall come to pass, that the mountain at the house
of the Lord shall be established on the top of the
mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills,
and people shall flow unto it. And many nations
shall come, and say, Come, let us go up to the mount
of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob,
and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk
in his paths; for the law shall go forth from Zion,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he
shall judge among many people, and rebuke strange
nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords
into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning
hooks; no nation shall lift up a sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but
they shall sit every man under his vine, and under
his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid, for
the Lord of Hosts hath spoken so.” (Micah iv.) The
common acknowledgment of truth will effect in all
men a thorough and genuine fear of God, a general
desire to practise justice and mercy, in order to
find grace in the sight of the Lord.
Justice and mercy will then make all men
brothers, will inspire them to harmony and peace,
combine them to form a fra<<
190>>ternal union. This is the sublime end of
Israel’s mission; and before this condition of
mankind is brought about, Israel’s mission is not at
an end, and so long must we uphold our nationality
with all the signs and tokens with which God has
marked us, with all our biblical ceremonies by which
we know each other in all the different parts of the
world; but we are not obliged to teach them to the
gentiles.
Our mission has been and is still misunderstood, or
rather not understood at all, by many ignorant or
indifferent Israelites, as well as by almost all the
Christian interpreters of the Bible. They call it
the mission of the Messiah; they ascribe the
importance of our nation in history, together with
all the instructions and prophecies of the Bible
relating to it, to one man, to one son of our
nation, whom the Christians adore as a God. But they
ought to consider, that the son has not given birth
to the nation,—but our nation gave birth to this and
all other sons that first taught truth to the world,
even to all the pagan world. They ought farther to
consider that all the divine truth they possess not
only came by our sons, but was taken from our sacred
shrine, copied from our code; and every word that
strangers have added, every dogma taken from abroad,
is but a heresy of idle priests and monks, a mere
product of the dark ages of ignorance and
superstition. Again, they ought to consider that
this mission is still not fulfilled, though the
Christian Messiah long ago perished; that this
mission was partially fulfilled before that Messiah
appeared. Moreover they ought to consider that he
brought them no accomplished truth; Martin Luther
and many others have reformed his doctrines, and the
majority of the people in our present age disbelieve
his principal doctrines, and hundreds of reformers
have grown up in our present century. They see these
difficulties and say: “He will come a second time;”
of which there is neither an evidence, nor is there
the least ground for the supposition. To prevent the
people from returning us their best thanks for the
truth they possess, they made him a God; and to him
who does not believe in this imaginary deity, they
say: “Whosoever believe and be baptized shall be
saved; and who believeth not, shall be damned.”
Instead of coming and learning the whole truth
from us, to <<191>>seek
for the end where they found the beginning, they
send their missionaries to us; they are to teach us
doctrines which they have taken from abroad; because
our own doctrines they can never teach us, for this
would be as if the child would say to his mother, I
am much wiser than thou art,—as if the branch would
say to the tree, I bear more fruits than thou doest.
It was, and is still, Israel’s mission to promulgate
the sacred truth to all nations on earth; to diffuse
the bright light that first shone on Sinai’s
sanctified summit all over the world. The progress
of civilization, of science, arts, and enlightenment
level the way for this promulgation; the Christian
missionaries prepare the heathen to accept, at some
future day, the eternal truth from the hand of
Israel; the infidelity so tremendously raging in
Christianity all over the world, the innumerable
sects in which it is broken up, give us the best
evidence that the dogmas of Christianity are not any
longer of a satisfactory nature, either to the
profound investigator, or to sound common sense:
this gives us a satisfactory evidence, that the time
is close at hand when they will come and say, Let us
ascend the mount of the Lord, let us enter the house
of the God of Jacob; for from Zion cometh forth the
Law, and the word of God from Jerusalem.
And now, my dear friends, after I have given you a
full description of the mission of the people of
Israel, our own destiny, our problem which we have
to solve in the history of mankind, we are enabled
to go on with our proposed investigation of the
Messiah, which I will do in my next lecture. But let
me remind you of all the hardships that our fathers
experienced, because of this mission; how they were
persecuted with sword and fire, driven like
outcasts, like the wild beast of the field from one
country to the other, from land to land; how they
were bereft of their earthly joys, of their
possessions, of their liberty, nay, of their
families, of their fathers and mothers, of their
wives and children; how thousands of them died the
martyr’s death; but they kept their heavenly
property, their religion, and went confidently from
land to land, to slavery, to poverty, to death, and
were never tired of their pilgrimage, of their
sacred mission: remember this, and the importance of
our name in history, and learn to be pure and pious
sons of our nation, worthy of our pious ances<<192>>tors,
of our great and important mission; learn from this
to be proud of the honourable name of Israel, and
act constantly so as to win for it the respect and
regard of all men; learn from this to be inspired
for our sacred mission, to be pious and pure, moral
and virtuous, so as to deserve the glorious name of
an Israelite, so as to be actually a priest of God,
a representative of his hold word,—that the name of
the Lord may be glorified by you, and you be happy
and joyful in Him.
Let us conclude with the fifteenth Psalm.
“Lord! Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall
dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly,
and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in
his heart; he that beareth no evil words on his
tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh
up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a
vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that
feat the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and
changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to
usury, and taketh not reward against the innocent.
He that doth these things, shall never be removed.”
He will live in the sunshine of God’s mercy, in
the light of the Father’s love. Amen. |
