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We have always looked upon ourself
as in a great degree neutral between the parties
which have unfortunately sprung up of late years
within the pale of Judaism ; not that we have not
decided opinions of our own, which we mean to defend
at all hazards, but in not sharing the extreme views
entertained by both the sections, not less those who
love to style themselves the Orthodox, than
those who delight in the name of Reformers.
It is no question but that this moderation,
expressed both publicly and privately, has brought
upon us and our humble Magazine the charge of
lukewarmness from the side of the zealots, and of
illiberality on that of the lovers of arbitrary
change. How both accusations can be true, is not for
us to decipher; at the same time nothing can be
farther from the truth than that we felt
indifferent in the cause of our faith, or that we
would willingly proscribe any one for opinion’s
sake, and because he had the independence to differ
with us in sentiment on the fundamental principles
even of religion. As regards our lukewarmness for
our cause, we would simply refer to our published
thoughts, and if they prove in the least that we
have swerved from the good old standard of our
sages, let us be condemned; but this does not
prevent us from confessing that many trifles have,
in process of time, been elevated to a position
which they do not deserve, and which the heroes
of our faith never meant to impart to them. It has
been indeed a great misfortune to our
<<62>>cause that many
private practices of extreme piety, which are
technically called מנהג חסידות,
and which were indulged in by those who were
abstracted in their pursuits and devoted to study,
made their own, as a voluntary offering on the altar
of religion, should by degrees have become
incorporated with the every-day life of ordinary
Israelites.
For whilst we lived excluded in
our ghetti, and were cast off by the world
abroad, it was not so difficult to prosecute such a
course of life, and even every new addition, every
lately developed practice of some remarkably austere
and venerated teacher was readily adopted, and loved
for the sake of him who first set the example. But
by degrees a change took place in our position; and
though equally hated as before for our adherence to
Judaism, we nevertheless came more in contact with
other persuasions, and the burden of oppression was
gradually made lighter and lighter, so that now many
fancy that they have nothing farther to bear, so
little do, they feel the weight of prejudice under
which they, notwithstanding all that has occurred,
still suffer, and will no doubt continue to suffer
until the day that the glorious Messiah shall rule
the earth as the messenger of the Lord, and as the
harbinger of peace to all mankind.
But is it at all conceivable that so great a change
should occur without a great and corresponding
influence on the thoughts and habits of feeling
among the Jews? Could the fusion with other men
actually occur, and a reciprocal impression on each
other’s thoughts be avoided? No one who has watched
the course of history can for a moment think so; and
however, unexpected to the careless observer, no
intelligent man will or can express the least
astonishment that within the last two centuries,
that is, since the Parliament of England brought
their faithless monarch to the block, both Judaism
and Christianity have undergone material changes,
not indeed in theory, but in practice; and perhaps
even religious views have also been greatly
modified, at least in the minds of the masses, by
the gradual diffusion of those liberal opinions
which the truly enlightened always entertained; for
what was formerly the property of but a few adepts,
and which was sacredly guarded as too sublime for
the vulgar, became, so to say, the common property
of all, by means of the press, which has scattered
abroad, broadcast, the <<63>>sublimest thoughts of
the deepest thinkers, and this among the humblest of
mankind. Could, among such an altered state of things,
especially at a time when whole nations seemed at
one expression of will to throw off all religious
belief and religious restraint, Judaism stand
untouched? Could it maintain the immense mass of
little observances, of no moment at any time,
against the assault of inquiry and of carping doubt?
Certainly not; and what was foreseen by the
clear-sighted centuries before, as early as the days
of the Talmud, actually occurred, for the
evil-disposed cast away the material with the
immaterial, because they had not the intelligence to
distinguish between what rested on the foundation of
the word of God and what was merely an ancestral
inheritance, and the work of successive generations.
Had we now had a well-established ecclesiastical
authority, composed of men who understood both the
true principles of religion and how to unite it with
the progressive, or, if you prefer the word, with
the destructive spirit of the age, much of the evil
we now complain of might have been avoided, and we
should not have to deplore the evident disunion
which prevails among us. But our leaders declared
everything like a departure from ancient usage a
heresy, even to translate the Scriptures into the
language of the country and to acquire the profane
sciences. The consequence was that those who were
really anxious to benefit Israel, even such men as
Moses Mendelssohn, were suspected, and their
services rendered abortive under the double
influence of the lukewarm support of their friends
and the captious opposition of their enemies. Notwithstanding all this, the minute observances of
which we speak, and of which those acquainted with
our former customs in Europe can easily recall many
instances to confirm our words, have fallen more and
more into disuse, and many things formerly
considered as important are now hardly recollected
as appertaining to Judaism, and which they actually
did not, although by degrees engrafted upon it. It
would be curious and amusing to compose tales, as
indeed has been done in France and Germany, in
which the habits, customs, and opinions, of ordinary
Jews of the eighteenth century, and as they no doubt
still prevail <<64>>in many places, should be
faithfully depicted,—and we venture little in
asserting that many a one would not believe that
these stories could embody the truth as it really
existed, but would set it down to the inventive
malice of some enemy to our people.
But such a judgment would be wrong, as the truth is
humiliating enough, and proves that superstition is
not confined to one people, but is a disease which
can affect all mankind without distinction. Now we
say, in this connexion, that we rejoice that the
light of reason, which has scattered to the winds
the superstitions of Romanism, and made the pillars
of its fabric to tremble, also visited the chambers
of our prison-house, and taught us to esteem lightly
what had no foundation in true religion, but
resulted from diseased imagination and the influence
of a bad example.
We rejoice at the downfall of folly and the deserved
contempt into which nonsense has fallen; and had our
leaders, we say, understood their true position,
they themselves would have laid the axe to the root
of the evil, and been the first to denounce what was
untenable. But they did not so understand their
duty; they endeavoured to conserve every observance,
and rendered suspected the children of light who
perhaps at first meant it truly, and thus became
themselves the founders of destructive reform, which
did not confine itself to excrescences, but to the
vitalities of the faith; for human nature is at best
but weak and fallible, and men once suspected were
only too apt to rush upon the opposite extreme, and
defied boldly a power which would not enter into
alliance with them to effect small and unimportant
changes.
We cannot indeed say that this actually occurred in
a single instance, as the records are not at our
disposal to refer to them; but we speak of a
general tendency, and those acquainted with the
events of the last fifty years will confirm our
words in every particular. All we meant, however, to
maintain is, that we do not regard everything
ancient as sacred; do not look upon antiquated
superstition as a thing which must not be examined
by the light of reason; hence, if orthodoxy consists
in observing all that has come down to us, we
renounce, for our part, any claim to be designated
by that title, which has no meaning in the ancient
institutions of Judaism, but is only a
<<65>>word
coined to mark a sect which knows of no progress,
which has neither past nor future. “But,” say our readers, “you then must be a
reformer; one devoted to the modern word, progress.”
This, however, is also foreign to us; we are no
reformer in the usual sense of the word; we are no
devotee of progress as it is generally taken. We
have maintained in conversation with an eminent
Israelite of New York, that reform, as such, is absolutely useless; since we have no authority
conferred on us to alter important things, and the
trifles of which we just now spoke are of that
nature that they may be tacitly dropped, and this by
a gradual common consent, and that it would not be
worth while to make a concerted onslaught on them by
a host of brave spirits armed cap-a-pie for this
spiritual contest.
Abuses will die fast enough of themselves; it should
therefore be the sole object of enlightened
ministers of religion to teach their flocks the
ancient and therefore the true principles on which
our system is based. Now herein, we cotend, all
our modern reformers, destructives, progressists, or
by whatever name they themselves or others may call
them, have failed; they only saw before them abuses,
hence they imagined that our holy structure was in
danger, and they busied themselves as greatly to
alter, change, transpose, destroy, rebuild, as their
so-called orthodox opponents were in keeping
everything on a medieval footing. One party called
out “Touch not the sacred edifice!” the other
exclaimed, “Pull down the rotten fabric, ere it
tumble down and crush us all beneath its ruins!”
Now we honestly dissent from both the opinions; as
to conserving abuses we have spoken already, and as
regards the necessity of remodelling our religion
for fear of its total overthrow, we cannot see any
opinion more absurd than this. What, change our
religion! remodel its doctrines! alter our
observances! Pray, on what principles? upon whose
judgment? Well may we say in the words of a great
orator, who some years back was greatly celebrated
in the House of Representatives and the Senate of
the Union: “The enemy thunders not yet at the gates
of the Capitol; and if he did we would require no
geese to save the state.”
Indeed, if such ridiculous proceedings as our
reformers resort to are needed to save Judaism, the
best thing we <<66>>could do would be to renounce it
altogether, and to make ourselves a new ism of some
sort, a philosophical and moral system based upon a
new idea, separate and distinct from the revelation
of Sinai. For this is a positive religion, one of
duty and precept; it is a separatist religion, as it
is calculated to divide off its followers from the
other portions of mankind; in short it is a system
unlike Christianity, unlike Mahomedanism, unlike
heathenism, and also unlike our modern reform, since
its followers are like the hyperorthodox, they have
neither past nor future, but only a receding present
time.
Are we illiberal for saying this? We imagine not,
unless truth be illiberal. Let us dwell
a little upon the idea just thrown out. Judaism has
a past, that is, the divine legislation and the
series of traditionary expositions how the law
should be observed by its adherents; it has a future
also, that is, an anticipated and therefore future
fulfilment of all that the Bible teaches concerning
it and its followers. We of the present time, if we
wish to be consistent, must so demean ourselves as
to preserve the chain which entwines the three
periods in which all things exist, that is, the
past, which embraced the acts and suffering of our
forefathers, the future, in which our posterity must
necessarily be active, and the passing moment, in
which we find ourselves.
Now we said that many of the lovers of ancient
abuses have no past nor future; they are not willing
to enter into the history of things, to inquire how
and whence they originated; nor are they willing to
look abroad with a calm unclouded eye upon the
approaching future, to see whether their ideas can
be sustained before the destroyer of everything
transitory, the remorseless tooth of time. But how
can the reformers, the absolute progressists, claim
any better ground? The sacred past they treat not
according to fact but agreeably to their fancy; they
seek for a light which is not from within but
without the pale of Judaism; and as to the future,
they imagine it as they choose to determine it, by
the light perhaps of human experience, of human
probability, but not of divine revelation, the
potency of the Almighty God. We beg our readers to cast abroad a searching look
into the doings of reform congregations; and do they
there discover a large increase of godliness, of
positive religion? “Are, in<<67>>deed, all the
members thereof holy, and is the Lord among them?”
Is the Sabbath honoured duly? is the sacred day of
the God of Israel a delight to them? is their
influence scattering light and peace around them?
We fear not; and still, unless all who do reform
what they call trifles adhere to the weighty points,
their changes are without excuse and based upon
false and delusive principles; for if reform do not
confirm them in religion, if the modifications do
not rivet them closer to their God, they testify to
an untruth, for they do not modify, but destroy;
they do not build up, they merely pull down, and
level to the ground the ancient landmarks.
And what do they generally expend their ingenuity
upon? by what means do they endeavour to restore the
lost taste for religious observances? Simply by
Synagogue reforms, and having said this you have
said all. It is no matter how people live, how much
they violate, provided only they attend public
worship, constituted not according to ancient Jewish
usages, but upon the model of our gentile neighbours,
and even our doctrines are remodelled upon the same
sapient basis. But it may be our native stupidity
that we can discover nothing Jewish in all this;
that we imagine a man may as well never enter the
Synagogue if he does not circumcise his children;
that listening to the tune played by the organist on
his melodious instrument cannot defend a woman for
eating leaven on the Passover; that assenting to a
beautiful sermon, delivered with all the fervour and
eloquence of a prophet, cannot absolve you for
violating the Sabbath.
And then let us ask those who differ from us on this
question of religious polity, what do you mean to
effect by beautifying the outward ceremonial of the
worship, whilst everything else is left so lifeless,
so cold, so dead? The Greek fable indeed says that a
certain Orpheus built the walls of a great city by
the tune of his lyre; but will your modern hymns,
your abridged prayers, your philosophical sermons,
soften the hearts of stone assembled around you?
will they, shall they, can they be thus attuned to
Heaven? to be, to remain faithful in the hour of
trial, to be willing to ascend the burning stake, if
so the sanctification of the Lord’s name should
again demand it? Let no one imagine that we are opposed to an
edifying, well‑<<68>>regulated, mode of worship, as
little as we are against erecting handsome
Synagogues to assemble therein the sons of Israel.
But we cannot help repeating the idea which we have
expressed before, that we detest a church-going
religion which begins with the priest, and which
ends in sound, and nothing but sound. If we were
bound to assemble merely once a week, in order to be
entertained by beautiful music, and gratified by
elegant and soul-stirring eloquence: then indeed
would men discharge their duty only by hiring the
most accomplished musicians, and procuring the most
eloquent and exciting preachers.
But this is not Judaism, and it is with this only
with which we have anything to do. Judaism is, or
should be, a religion of feeling; and if it be not
this, it is nothing at all, it is a mockery. We
contend that Synagogues are not established for the
amusement of the people, but the glorification of
God; we should assemble there to do honour to the
Great King, and to fortify each other in his
service. But wo to us, if another idea carries us
thither, if we are like an exhausted well, into
which you have to carry the water; for under such
circumstances it were far better if we never came,
if our body be as great a stranger in the house of
God as our soul is turned away from his service;
because under these circumstances we are aliens to
our faith, rebels to the Holy One, our God. But we may be asked whether we could reasonably
expect that people should come to Synagogue if the
manner of conducting the worship be offensive; if
disorder should reign instead of decorum; if we
have nothing but a singing minister, a mere parrot
to misrepresent the congregation before the throne
of Mercy. In candour we must answer No; although at
the same time this does not excuse an absence from
prayers, whilst for all this sinful humanity would
clutch at it to excuse its backsliding. We would
therefore be the last to tolerate such abuses as
just stated in the place which we have declared holy
to the Lord.
But if such be the unfortunate position of any
Synagogue, we say reform it upon correct principles;
take due care that decorum reign during your
assemblies, enforce silence and attention to the
prayers as far as you can effect this by proper
regulations; and remove your parrot minister, your
chanting, ignorant pretender, and procure a man of a
true heart, of a good education,
<<69>>one who fears
God, not mortals, and let him speak to you from a
full heart, from sincere conviction, the words of
truth and life; and if you have done this, you have,
we will venture to say, reformed your worship
enough, and it will truly be what it should be, the
outpouring of the heart before our heavenly Father.
It may not be as amusing as your new method of
reforming after the fashion of the stranger to the
house of Israel, if you will even, not as edifying;
but we trust that we have proved sufficiently
already that religion and amusement are not
synonymous terms, and that hence the most amusing,
agreeable, and edifying mode of worship may be the
farthest from the Jewish standard. We shall perhaps
be referred to the Temple ordinances, where
everything is alleged to have been done to add pomp
and grandeur to the worship, where the most
ravishing music, from the most powerful band that
ever was collected, was sent forth to entrance the
assembled multitude.
But independently of the consideration that the
Temple was an institution sui generis, and therefore
not to be taken as a model for us in captivity, the
ceremonies, though imposing, were very simple, and
sprung altogether from an idea inherent to our
religion, and having little, if anything, in common
with any other notions of worship. It would lead us
too far to discuss the question at present at any
length; but we may simply state that the Temple was
based upon the ordinances in Leviticus and Numbers,
as it was expounded afterwards in the days of David
and Solomon, and restored at a later period under
Ezra and Nehemiah, with the concurrence of the three
last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and
confirmed by the men of the so-called Great Synod.
But for all this the service there was special, not
general; preaching, as such, was not a portion of
it; public recitation of prayers had no place
there, not to mention that no foreign hymns or new
compositions of any kind were ever heard in front of
the altar; only the accepted Psalms of David being
chanted over the daily sacrifices, and for those of
the festivals.
The Synagogue existed, however, at the same time
with the Temple; and whilst the latter was resorted
to only in rotation by the twenty-four watches of
priests, Levites and Israelites, in succeeding
weeks, and visited by all the people three times
every <<70>>year, on Passover, Shebuoth, and
Tabernacles, the former was frequented every day in
the year to offer up prayers and listen to
instruction; the officials in the Temple were only
priests, the attendants only Levites, the witnesses
delegates from Israel; whereas at the Synagogue
those having the word of God with them, the accepted
delegates of the people, officiated just as they do
at the present day.
If the means were at hand it would be a useful
inquiry to trace the present Synagogue in its
antetype during the first and second temples; but,
without claiming much antiquarian knowledge, we
hazard little in affirming that the orthodox (we use
the word in a popular sense) or old-fashioned
Synagogue approaches the standard much nearer than
the mongrel product, the offspring of the reform
mania, with which we have been of late afflicted.
Whoever knows the dislike of change once inherent in
us, will readily acknowledge that the method of
Synagogue worship must be of a very ancient date,
especially as the, writers of many centuries past up
even to the Talmud speak of the method yet current
among us as existing in their days, and they even
recite the very prayers which we have yet among us.
We admit that there have been added, from time to
time, many new pieces, particularly the productions
of the Paytanim, or the Jewish poets of the middle
ages, commencing with R. Elazar Ha-Kalir, down to
his comparatively modern successors and imitators;
but this does not gainsay in the least that the form
has maintained itself unchanged, and that it is
substantially the same as in the days of Ezra. As we have been gradually drawn away from our point,
we may perhaps be pardoned by our readers for
digressing still farther, since the inquiry is one
deserving the serious attention even of the most
violent reformers. It is, then, a curious thing to
observe how, commencing say with the eleventh
century of the vulgar era, the Jews, being
apparently dissatisfied with the shortness of the
service, as recorded in the Talmud, constantly endeavoured to add to it the effusions of pious
hearts, which were continually produced in large
masses by the Kalir, Jehudah Hallevi, the two Aben
Ezra, Rabbenu Nissim, R. Shelomoh, Ibn Gebirol,
Messer Jehudah Leon, of Modena, R. Simeon Ben
Yitzchak, R. <<71>>Ephraim, of Bonn, and many others
of both the Sephardim and Ashkenazim: until at
length the prayer-book swelled from a simple
liturgy, composed of prayers easily recollected,
into an unwieldy collection of pieces of the most
varied merit, and in which exists, moreover, the
greatest variation between the different
communities.
But the most modern taste is decidedly the reverse;
for at present the prayers cannot be short enough,
and that form is considered the most edifying which
dismisses the congregation in the shortest possible
time, and with the least demand upon their
devotional attention. There can be no doubt but that
in these two extreme views the spirit and character
of the various ages are depicted.
The Talmudists thought more of studying the law than
the mere reciting of prayers; hence they esteemed
the Beth-Hammidrash above the Synagogue; their
successors adopted, by degrees, the ascetic views of
their masters, the Christian and Mahomedan
governments, where abstraction from life, and a
devotion to a contemplative state of existence, were
considered the most meritorious; and now comes the
modern utilitarian school, which finds nothing to
admire in anything, even devotion, which occupies
too much time; and as our Jews have the example of
Protestant Christians with either no liturgy or a
very abridged one, they fancy that they must demand
a similar compilation, in which all is reduced to
the simplest elements.
All this opens a wide field of inquiry and
investigation, which would to a surety not be
unfruitful in the hands of a pious and earnest
inquirer; but even to a superficial thinker there is
an evident remedy and an easy allaying of the
conflict, provided only men would come to the
discussion without prejudice and prepossession for
or against any proper and moderate change in the
various existing forms of prayers; and as a safe
rule we might fall back upon the authority of the
Talmud, and retain, in addition to the prayers
recorded or hinted at there, those composed at later
periods, which are of undoubted merit and purity of
style; and we say it without any disrespect to the
saints who laboured in producing our metrical hymns
and prose compositions, that many of them are
neither in substance nor style of sufficient
elegance and expressiveness to be retained in our
forms of devotion, <<72>>and that though perhaps at
some past time appropriate, they are not so any
more.
Perhaps they were adopted, as it strikes us, not for
their literary merits, but because of the piety and
great worth of their authors, which, if actually the
case, will exonerate their contemporaries, but can
scarcely plead as an excuse for our continuing to
recite what is actually no prayer, and often almost
unintelligible from the complication and obscurity
of the phraseology employed. But to say that all
should be abolished which is not founded on the
Talmud, would be acting against the spirit which
breathes throughout that great compend of our sages;
for they themselves would have adopted for their own
use some at least of the many beautiful productions
of the poets of Spain, Italy, Provence, Germany, and
Palestine had they existed in their days.
Besides, it must not be forgotten that the
Talmudists did not enjoy the blessing of a printing
press; hence the form of prayers was necessarily
confined to a few short and easily remembered
pieces, or those, at most, which could be readily
copied. But, as at present the press has taken the
place of the transcriber, the above reason for
extreme brevity does not exist any longer and hence
there is no necessity for falling back
upon the primeval simplicity in question. In this
matter, too, moderation is perhaps the safest, we
may say the only safe, method; and hence we are
equally averse to the immense mass of poetical
recitations demanded by the German ritual, and the
affected conciseness of the modern reform schools,
but most of all to the unpoetical poetry of the
latest days, which both in Germany and America has
been offered us instead of the almost inspired words
of Aben Ezra, Ibn Gebirol, Leon of Modena, Jehudah
Hallevi, and so many other great and holy men.
And we say, in all candour, if we are to remove from
our liturgy effusions so sincere, so sublime, so
elegant, we will surely not accept in their stead
the outpourings of the uneducated, which so-called
hymns are often full of grammatical inaccuracies,
and false conceptions of Judaism. We speak of
nothing in particular, but of matters in general;
but if proof were demanded we do not deem it
impossible to substantiate our words. For our part,
therefore, we prefer to abide by the work of men
who were great in every point of
<<73>>view, though
there be nothing divine or inspired in it, to
adopting the lucubrations of those for whose
religious and scientific preeminence we are not
willing to vouch, and whose contributions to our
literature might as well have been left unwritten. If you must then reform, fall back upon the
principles of our system as established in times
past, when learning and wisdom were prized even more
than gold is now-a-days, when the men of mind ruled
the people, when talents swayed the multitude, and
when virtue, not mere money, distinguished those
whose voice was listened to in Israel.
So we cannot go to the gentiles for their opinion,
nor ask of the spirit of the age, which in the next
ten years may become reactionary, as it is even now
appearing to retrograde in republican France, and
subjugated Italy; for in this way we should have to
reform again after a few months, before our new
system had been tried; and surely we Jews do not
desire to have a constant change of our
institutions, whenever a few dissatisfied spirits
complain that all things do not suit their peculiar
tastes. We meant, when undertaking to write this month on
the subject here presented, to have introduced many
other points; but we have been insensibly led away,
as is often the case with us when we sit down to
treat on any point colloquially, and in communion
with our own soul. Desultory as our remarks,
therefore, may seem, they are at least the
outpouring of our sincere conviction, given without
study or previous arrangement of our sentences; and
as such we give them to our readers, and trust that
they will not be entirely thrown away or neglected,
whether our labours be continued much longer or not.
But we hope that before long we may be permitted to
resume this topic, when we shall speak as freely as
we have done now; and we say also, candidly, that
our pages, whilst under our control, shall be open
to any one who will discuss this or any other
subject in a manner worthy the dignified position of
those who wish to be leaders and teachers in Israel.
(To be
continued.) |
