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To
The Editor of the Occident:—
Having noticed in your excellent periodical,
repeated calls on the leading members and
authorities of our communities on this continent,
with the view of rousing them from their lethargy in
spiritual affairs, to the necessity of establishing
an ecclesiastical synod for remedying existing
evils, we being literally
כצאן בלי רעה “like sheep without a shepherd:”
may I be permitted to add to your irrefutable
arguments on that subject, what I have had ocular
demonstration of, during my late visits to most of
the Kehilloth in the United States? It is almost
impossible to enumerate the difficulties with which
the office of a Jewish minister is surrounded,
especially if he be one who will not deign to play
the hypocrite, or to act contrary to his inward
conviction, but is determined not to swerve from the
path of truth. Indifferentism, infidelity, and the
ignorance of superstition are equally arrayed
against him. To stimulate the first and convince the
second, is not so difficult a task as to enlighten
the third.
The exploded ideas which originated in the dark
ages, and are falsely termed orthodoxy, are so many
stumbling-blocks in his path. The least deviation
from useless ceremonial observances which deaden the
spirit of Synagogue worship and tediously prolong
the service, is magnified into a daring innovation.
On the most trivial points <<600>>of form, which
would be “more honoured in the breach than the
observance,” senseless charges are brought against
him; and, what is still more ridiculous, by some
who, whilst loudly proclaiming their staunch
adherence to orthodoxy, are systematic violators of
the holy Sabbath day, intermarry with the stranger,
and are as much acquainted with the pages of the
Bible as with Egyptian hieroglyphics. With the
exception of a very few אחד
בעיר ושנים במשפחה the Scriptures are,
generally speaking, a sealed book. In fine, it is
lamentable to notice the prostrate, lifeless state
of Judaism under the sway of that species of
orthodoxy which an Ibn Ezra and a Maimonides would
have laughed to scorn, and which shackles the
efforts of conscientious and intelligent men, who,
instead of being permitted to lead the flocks, are
constrained to follow their erratic and eccentric
movements.
I
do not hesitate in saying that, taking the Jewish
ministers in America as a body, they are capable by
their learning and acquirements of infusing life
into “the dry bones,” were they allowed to do so.
And I am astonished that questions should be
propounded to the Rabbinical tribunal of Europe,
when their solutions can as readily and faithfully
be obtained here.
With regard to Judaism among such as call themselves
Reformers, I have found, that all ceremonial laws,
without exception, are considered either
impracticable, or inconvenient, or unsuitable to the
age. The laws which our forefathers have so rigidly
adhered to these 3500 years are now thought to
require a radical modification, i. e. one agreeable
to their wishes. Even the Decalogue, for which alone
they pretend to entertain a special reverence, they
infringe by a profanation of the Sabbath. Its
violation, alas! has become the rule; its
observance, the exception, among all parties.
The house of worship cannot consequently be expected
to be visited on that day but by very few; and this
is actually the case.
In
one place, where there are a sufficient number of
members to fill the Synagogue, the only attendants I
found were the reader and the president, and such, I
understood, is the case there every Sabbath. In
another, with from 25 to 30 families, it is closed
all the year except on Rosh-Hashanah and the Day of
Atonement.
Shechitah and Bedikah, which were
<<601>>ever
considered by our fathers as most important, are
scoffed at as being merely traditional, and too
insignificant to bestow a thought upon. Even where
there is a shochet, his services are not required.
Leviticus vii. 25, 26, and 27, is held to be no
longer binding, so also the law of forbidden food
(Leviticus, xi. entire). The latter is
philosophically explained away, as having been
prohibited only in certain localities, and in bygone
days! several places, though containing a great many
Jewish families, there is no casher dinner to be
got. Mezuzah Tsitseet, and Tephillin, originally
instituted as external symbols, that we might by
continually looking on them, “remember the
commandments of the Lord and do them,” are likewise
dispensed with; for, being able to read, they say
they can remember the commandments without these
signs; or rather, they do not see the utility of
remembering laws which they have no desire to
practise. In short, to assimilate themselves in all
matters to non-Israelites is their grand idea, and
they scruple not to question whether intermarriage
with the latter is really unlawful. Such are the
prevailing ideas which, from my own observation,
have taken deep root among those not provided with
ministers to expound the word of God, and also among
those whose very minister has himself encouraged his
congregation in its backsliding.
In
a Kehillah, esteemed not many years ago as one of
the chief in the Union, the late minister, once
ultra orthodox, and a strenuous supporter and strict
observer of the oral law, has changed to the
opposite extreme. According to his creed, printed
for the especial benefit of his followers, Israel
has been walking in darkness until now; for the law,
as his creed says, was not given to Moses by
God, “but delivered to our fathers” by Moses.
Yet he admits its divinity by calling it “the Divine
Law in our possession.” But whence does he
derive its divinity, unless he fully believes
in its transmission from God Almighty? The daring
infidelity of this alteration is only surpassed by
its folly, sophistry, and want of logic. Labouring
hard to propagate his erroneous doctrine, he has
advocated the abolition of all ceremonial laws, and
from his silence, when questioned on the subject of
the abrogation of the Sabbath and
circumcision, I am <<602>>at liberty to infer that
the former, “the sign between God and Israel for
ever,” and the latter, the everlasting
covenantal-token between God and Abraham’s
descendants, can also be held by him as no longer
obligatory on the house of Israel.
Certain it is, that he thought proper, in relation
to the Sabbath, to introduce in the prayers for that
day ונתתו לגויי הארצות
“Thou (God) hast given it (the Sabbath) to the
gentiles,” instead of ולא
נתתו “Thou hast not given it,”—a
substitution entirely unwarranted, and contrary to
the letter and spirit of Scripture. There can be but
one deduction from this substitution, viz.: the
desire of changing the seventh day of the week as a
Sabbath, to the more general one of the first day,
in order to assimilate our observances to those of
non-Israelites.
Who can deny that the influence which the ceremonial
laws always did, and do still exercise on the
Israelites was, and is, of the most important
nature? No longer forming a body politic,— dispersed
over the earth—though adopting the language and
manners of the countries where they are
citizens,—still do they preserve their nationality,
and possess all the elements required to reconstruct
it, in community of language, religion, legislation,
and above all, of pure descent (by avoiding mixed
marriages), in which respect they are altogether
unrivalled by any other people that ever figured in
the annals of history. Those of our members,
therefore, who deride these ceremonial observances,
and fancy it is enough to acknowledge the unity of
God, should remember that such a belief does not
especially characterize Judaism, since they must
admit that the Mahommedans are as strictly unitarian
as ourselves; and all the consequences resulting
from an adherence to it are not less scrupulously
regarded by them than by us. The law and the
prophets must guide us; and all their teachings,
whether ceremonial or moral, wherever they can be
brought into practice, are as essential now to us,
as imperative now on us, and should be held as
sacred by us, as when they were first delivered by
divine Wisdom for our improvement and
sanctification.
Nothing but a convention of the learned and able
ministers of the Synagogues throughout the Union,
together with such members as are distinguished for
their acquirements in Hebrew theo-<<603>>logy, can
remedy the evils, which immovable orthodoxy on the
one hand, and the frenzied rashness of reform on the
other, are accumulating on our congregations. The
longer it is delayed, the more disastrous will be
the consequences; and the generation now growing up
will either be totally lost to us, or have to
bewail, in the desertion of our Synagogues, the
apathy and backwardness manifested by its parents in
forbearing to labour, when they had the opportunity
and saw the necessity, in the sacred and holy cause
of God and Israel.
I
am,
Your obed’t serv’t,
S.
NEWMAN. Cincinnati, Adar, 5611.
Note by the Editor.—We have a mournful
satisfaction in laying the above communication
before our readers, as confirming all we have ever
advanced on the necessity of union among those who
are called upon to minister in the sanctuary and
those who have made the law of God their study. Mr.
Newman does not overcharge his picture. Our own
observation, during our journey South last spring,
has convinced us, that religion is at a low ebb in
many places and that a mighty effort is needed to
lift up the perishing souls from the gulf of
irreligion and indifference. To think that there are
congregations, large enough to have all the offices
of religion duly administered, in which a strict
Israelite cannot find an ounce of meat to satisfy
his hunger without violating his conscience? that in
entire communities no sabbathic rest visits the
houses of Israelites? that people are without
instruction and without ministers, and hear and see
nothing of Judaism from the year’s commencement to
its ending, except what, we have been privileged to
carry to them in our Magazine?—And what are the
people to do for ministers? where are they to obtain
them? We chiefly allude to American congregations,
who cannot be instructed by immigrants from Germany
and Poland, who form now the main body of Jewish
divines in this country. It is sad to reflect, that
there are few, too few by far, to supply the various
offices now vacant; and the evil will increase,
instead of diminishing, as congregations multiply,
and as the present foreign population in various
communities yields by degrees to native-born
children, who necessarily will not be acquainted
with the German language, or at least not familiar
enough to listen to preaching in a dialect which is
not <<604>>their native tongue, though it may be the
vernacular of their progenitors.
Two things besides a union-meeting of ministers, are
required, or rather, such a meeting should propose
and carry out two measures, which alone can remedy
the crying evil under which we groan. The one is, to
educate English-speaking young men to become
ministers; and the second, to procure for the
ministry a respectable standing, which it never has
yet enjoyed in this country. Look at the
discreditable exhibition of advertising all over
Europe and America for a man whose whole duty it is
to be able to read prayers, and from whom
no-learning, no high attainment, is required; and
then to have the mortification to reflect that even
such an one is not readily found. We ask, in
mournful seriousness, those who profess to have some
little zeal for our religion, Do you not see, that
you are pursuing a destructive course, in not at
once progressing with the work, and opening schools
for the educating of many, to be fitted, whenever
occasion requires, to enter into your service as
your teachers and guides?
We
have spoken on this subject before; but we cannot
repeat it too often, nor can our readers reflect too
seriously upon it. The first commencement of a
theological seminary need not be made upon a large
scale; in fact, children will have to be trained
from their infancy in proper religious knowledge,
and care must be taken that they become strict
conformists to all the requirements of duty and
practice which Judaism requires. This can be done,
in the first instance, in elementary schools, of
which each congregation in the large cities should
have one; and it is afterwards from these primary
nurseries, that the best minds should be selected
and be educated in a high seminary in a complete
course of study.
It
is expected to make a commencement soon in
Philadelphia, and well-founded hopes are entertained
that the success may be such as to insure the
continuance of the elementary school, which it is
proposed to open forthwith. Our readers will perhaps
recollect that, two years ago, a charter was
obtained for a Hebrew Education Society from the
legislature of Pennsylvania empowering the members
to establish schools, and to erect, whenever the
funds will allow it, a college, which has the
privilege of conferring the usual learned degrees.
Though now the commencement to be made will
necessarily be but small, it rests with the parents
and wealthy individuals to say, whether it shall not
increase to be a flourishing institution, every way
calculated to subserve the purpose to which we have
referred. The various ministers, either singly or in
a convention, should urge on their flocks to similar
efforts, and to contribute towards endowing the
society in this city, which is perhaps,
<<605>>all
things considered, the best situated for the
purpose, in order that it may accomplish all the
good hoped for. It is, indeed, to us surprising,
that a universal agitation has not long since been
commenced to urge the project forward with might and
main; unless that a petty jealousy, as to the place
where the high school should be established, has
prevented a concert of action. But it is evident
enough, that some one town must be selected, and we
care not which it be, so only the good is
accomplished. But as the Education Society has
already a liberal charter, and it being doubtful
whether such a one could be obtained elsewhere, it
is evidently proper to support it in its endeavours
until such time as it may have proved its being
inadequate to the task it has assumed.
The second point to which we referred, the want of
position which the ministers now in office suffer
from, is one of much greater importance than you,
worthy friend, may perhaps imagine. Do you think it
a pleasant thing for a man of mind and education to
be nothing but an obsequious servant to the
president and trustees of a congregation, when these
officers have not been selected for their superior
learning or strict religious conformity? Do you not
think it intolerable that such as these should be
enabled by the power they hold to prevent the
minister from addressing the people, except upon
their permission previously obtained? That other
duties are to performed only upon consent of the
board, or president alone, and not otherwise?— We
are sorry to confess that all our efforts to
ameliorate the condition of the office of minister,
in this city and elsewhere, have proved absolute
failures; and we have, perhaps, been considered
arrogant interfering in matters wherewith we have no
rightful concern, obstinate, and what not else, for
having dared to think that lay-tyranny over the
ministers is fully as bad as clerical tyranny over
the flocks.
Neither party should rule, but each portion should
manage its proper department; the worship and
sermons should be the business of the minister
whilst the temporalities of the congregation belong
properly and exclusively to the people; and that
minister must understand his calling very
imperfectly, who among us would attempt to influence
elections or concern himself with monetary affairs,
unless his advice be requested, or his superior
wisdom invoked to settle a difficult point of
controversy. It is indeed deplorable to witness the
ministry so entirely dependent, so entirely bound
hand and foot, as they are all over the country; and
more deplorable still, that the individuals
composing the order have so little spirit, or power
rather, as not to offer any resistance. Our efforts,
indeed, have not been seconded by any other person
in office; on the con-<<606>>trary, by the quasi
condemnation of our written words by those who ought
to have been, to say the least, silent, if they
could not afford, from family considerations and
narrowness of means, to support us in our course,
they have almost put the elevation of our ministry
among the impossibilities, among the things that are
not likely ever to be effected. For, why should the
various communities pass new laws for the better
regulation of their ecclesiastical affairs, if the
author of the new ideas is universally condemned by
those whom he intended to serve more than himself?
and when others are only too over-anxious to accept
of conditions which he thinks humiliating to himself
and outraging the sacred character which he should
support as the spiritual chief of a congregation?
What does such haste on the part of claimants for
office argue but that either the demands made by the
other were unreasonable and unjust, or that they
themselves lose sight of their own rights, dignity,
propriety, and self-respect, or that they are
inferior in character and qualification, and hence
willing to accept office on less exacting terms? It
requires, however, no proof to make it clear to
all, that if ministers act so, if they display so
little self-respect, if they undervalue their own
worth or literary attainments, they can never have
any influence over the public mind; they can never
reprove sinners; they can never lead in any useful
measure; and what is more, they do not deserve it;
and we are free to confess that, for our part, we
could ever place the least confidence upon a man
whom we might have to suspect that he sought the
ministry as a means of support solely, and obtained
the public vote only by unworthy cringing and
submissive yielding to unjust demands for no better
and holier motive than to secure his election.
It
is true, too true, that very few are so situated as
to defy public injustice; those who have once been
in office are generally depending on their
employment for their daily support; the salaries
also are mostly entirely too inadequate for the
maintenance of a family; consequently, when an
office, where the pay is larger than theirs, is
likely to be attained, men are naturally attracted
by the bait, and they weigh little the circumstance
that, in supplanting another, they also dig the
grave of their own independence and usefulness, and
this without taking into view the injunction which
the Bible, according to Jewish interpretation,
conveys against interfering with another's proper
position. Much, therefore as we grieve to witness
the unbecoming office-hunting which has of late been
seen in various congregations, it is, at last, but
frail human nature, which yields to temptations
which it has not the courage to resist.
A
convention, however, of all the ministers in the
country, to <<607>>which those in England might
safely join themselves, might perhaps effect a
better understanding of what is actually needed
towards increasing the numerical strength and the
absolute importance of the order, and this without
infringing in the least on the rights of the
congregations. For one, we are opposed to clerical
rule of every kind; the Jewish preacher Rabbi, or
officiating minister, has no concern whatever with
temporalities; and thus no one, who values his
sacred calling could desire to render his religious
influence less by interfering in the affairs of his
flock. But, at the same time, we hope that if not
now, at least at a future day, the ministers in a
body will resist the contract system, unless the
specifications which these contracts contain are
mentioned in the by-laws of respective
congregations, for in the latter case the contract
is merely an abstract of already existing laws which
every honest man will of his own accord be ready and
willing to abide by.
It
would, however, be much better, if with the
improvement of the personnel of the ministry and the
more uniform and superior education of the claimants
for clerical offices, there should be established,
by a convention of lay-delegates of the more
important congregations, uniform laws for the
government of the ministry, so that all who enter
upon it may be subjected to the same-regulations,
and that when transferred to other places, as this
would occasionally happen, they would not have to
undergo an apprenticeship in the acquisition of a
knowledge of their duties. Is it not evident, that
by such simple improvements the ministry could be
rendered much more respected and deserving of
consideration, and thus tend to draw young men of
good and well-known families to seek for no higher
position than the Synagogue offers for them? and the
disgrace attaching to American Israelites elites,
that not a single native is now at the head of a
congregation, would then be wiped away, we trust,
never more to be brought forward again.
We
will not make any personal reflections upon the
position of various synagogue-officers in the
country, although we know them nearly all in person
or by reputation; but we are warranted to say, that
with few exceptions they have little influence, and
for that matter cannot expect it; and only an entire
reform of the present system can render them as
efficient as the Christian clergy of various
denominations are. But it is folly to expect that
the ministers alone can effect much by any
conventions they may hold among themselves, unless
they are heartily seconded by the people themselves;
the head cannot labour without hands, as little as
these can do it without the intellect. Let all
those who love their religion, no matter what
profession and situation they may be of, agitate
among their friends <<604>>this great idea of
congregational, not synagogue, reform, and our word
for it, that much good will result to all from the
elevation of the ministry, by placing it upon the
platform of law, and shielding it from the arbitrary
interferences of ignorant and often malevolent
laymen whilst this improvement will also tend to
increase the personal strength of the ministry, and
thus provide teachers of religion to numerous
communities who are either entirely or inadequately
provided, or have no desire now for instruction in
their faith, since they do not even wish sermons,
when they could have them by asking for them. We are
not drawing upon our fancy, of this our readers may
be assured and we have not stated a single fact for
which we could not furnish the proof, if required.
We say, therefore, let us have by all means a
convention of ministers, to explain the position of
Judaism to the people, and let these afterwards
assemble in brotherly love, to second the proposals
of their true friends, and thus promote their
personal standing and secure their spiritual
well-being. |
