A WAY TO JUDAISM
Rosh Ha’Shanah, 5702—September, 1941
THE liturgy of the Mussaf service on Rosh Ha’Shanah is divided into three sections which are known by the Hebrew names:
(1) “Malchiyot” or Kingship, meaning the Kingship of God, the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty in the Universe, as we express it in our prayers,
(2) “Zichronot” or Remembrances, both of the world and of Israel before God,
(3) “Shofarot” or Trumpets, concluding with the time when the trumpets of the Messiah will announce that God’s Kingdom on earth has been firmly established among men.
This is the order in the prayer-book; but according to the Bible**Numbers X, 10; cf. Sifré ib. it ought to be the reverse. It should begin with the prayers which are called “the Trumpets”, continue with “Remembrances”, and conclude with the expression of the idea of God’s Kingship. Without entering into the question why we have not adopted the biblical order, I should like to point out the special significance of each of the arrangements mentioned—the traditional one of Kingship, Remembrances, Trumpets, and the reversed biblical order of Trumpets, Remembrances and Kingship.
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The order with which we are familiar conforms to the history of Judaism. Judaism began with “Malchiyot”, with the conception that God is God, that He is the Sovereign Ruler of the world, the Kings of Kings, and that man’s task is **Cf. the “Aleynu” prayer.“to build the Kingdom of God on earth”. “Kingship” was the beginning of Jewish history. All our historic experiences as a nation, all our memories, our “Zichronot”, are but the consequences of the one central thought—God. And it is on account uf their absorption in this one thought that Jews are still waiting on all the highways of the world for the day when the messianic Trumpets will sound to spread the tidings that the homeless nation, the wandering Jew, has found home at last.
This order—Kingship, History, Fulfilment—is the symbol of Judaism.
But not everybody is ripe for the Way of Judaism; there must be a prior way too, a way leading to Judaism. And this other way to Judaism must not start with “Malchiyot,” with the realisation that God alone is our Lord and has a claim on man’s whole life, that He matters more than wealth or comfort or success. How many of us would be able to understand this? How many of us can start with “Kingship”?
Consider, for example, the “modern” Jew. What does he know of God, what of God’s Kingdom on earth? This Jew of to-day is incapable of beginning from the idea of God. He does not realise what the consequences of this word must be for the life of man, in his business or profession, in his thoughts and his deeds, in his behaviour towards his fellow-men. He does not know it; he is morally and spiritually asleep. Before he can even start with Judaism proper, he must be driven out of his indifference, his conscience must be stirred. And therefore this other way back to Judaism must follow a different order. At its inception we find “Shofarot”—Trumpets, or such “sounds” as might awaken the hearts and minds of men.
But what are these “Sounds”?—They might be anything that would serve the purpose. To-day, they are the mighty sounding of the voice of History, the voice of God speaking to us through tremendous historic happenings. All the disappointments of men, all the tragedies, the terrible sufferings of the last few years, they are God’s own “Trumpets” calling us; forcibly opening ears that did not want to hear.
Surely, in the last few years History has been a terrible but efficient schoolmaster. What has it tried to teach the modern Jew?—I would say that those of us who have started to think have been taught “Zichronot”, they have been taught to remember; to remember many a thing the modern Jew wanted to forget for ever. It was the characteristic sign of the modern Jew that he was a person without memories, a man with a suppressed past. He did not know what was behind him, nor did he want to know it. He wanted to forget. He was running away from his own yesterday. He wanted to begin a “new life”, he wiped out his memories. Thus it happened that the “modern” Jew, the descendant of the oldest nobility in Europe, the offspring of the prophets, became the typical upstart of society because he no longer wanted to continue the tradition of the generations of his people.
But this belongs already to the past. To-day, the course of events is bringing us our memories back. Jews who think are beginning to remember; and will have to go on remembering, for History will not allow them to forget.
We wanted to forget our own past, we wanted to begin anew, because we wanted to escape Jewish destiny. We were tired of homelessness, of eternal wandering; we wanted so much to get home somewhere. Like little children who shutting their eyes imagine that no one can see them, we thought that if we forgot the past the world too would be prepared to forget, or at least to forgive, that we were Jews. It was a tragic mistake. In the last few years, History has taught us that the world never forgets. And whenever Jews or Jewries think they have, at last, safely escaped Jewish destiny, the world ferrets them out from their artificial anonymity, pointing with the finger at them, at the Jew. Think of French Jewry. If there ever was a Jewry without Jewish memories, if ever Jews succeeded in wiping out their past, it was they. To-day, they are on their tragic way back into the Ghetto again. The whole world is aware of the Jew as never before, because the Jew wanted to forget and make others forget him.
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Then there is another, perhaps even more important, reason why History is reviving in Jews long-forgotten memories.
The “modern” Jew was giving up Judaism, he was gradually drifting away from it, because he thought it old-fashioned, he imagined he had found something better. There was in front of him the new and young civilisation of Western Europe. It was promising, it was alluring. Old Judaism could not compete with it. But what did this great Western Civilisation for which Jews abandoned Judaism keep of its promises? What did it bring us and the world?
Every thinking man understands it to-day: it was new but inexperienced, it was young but unreliable; it was shining and beautiful to look at but foul in its very foundations. It has caused confusion, destruction and incredible suffering. It has brought bankruptcy—economic and moral bankruptcy—over the world.
And for this empty bubble, this glittering shell, we have thrown overboard good old weather-beaten,reliable, eternal Judaism. For a civilisation which, while professing that it is based on a religion of love, never argues without the sword in the hand, we have jettisoned even the memories of the Jewish Way of faithfulness through the word.
What a folly, what a tragic folly. **Jeremiah II, 11.“Hath a nation changed its gods, which yet are no gods? But My people hath changed its glory for that which does not profit”. If ever these words were true, they are true to-day.
Thinking Jews should have learned by now that Judaism was never so topical, so “live”, so much needed by all of us, as it is in the confusion of our times when all the foundations of the world are shaking, and a vortex of darkness is sucking everything into its abyss. Thinking Jews are beginning to remember neglected, forgotten Judaism; they feel that there is in it something that may dispel the darkness, guide the confusion of hearts and minds, and give new direction and meaning to the now meaningless life of men.
Thus, History through the “Trumpets” of God is leading us back to Zichronot, recalling in us memories of the past, reminding us of Judaism.
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But the “Shofarot” of our times, the voice of History, lead those of us who use their minds much further than to “Memories”, they lead us to the very terminus of the Way back to Judaism, to “Malchiyot”, to the acceptance of God’s Kingship in our everyday life.
It is not enough to realise that the expectations of humanity have been confounded, that its hopes have ended in disappointment, that this new and promising epoch in the history of mankind has taken us to the very verge of the abyss, that man is bankrupt. One must try to understand how all this has come about. The noble endeavours of man, human progress and enlightenment, science and philosophy, great new inventions and bold research, could have brought us deliverance from poverty and misery, an age of plenty and contentment. How could all these potential blessings turn into a curse at our hands, into an all-embracing world tragedy?
The answer to this question was given many centuries ago in the following words of the Bible:**Psalms CXXVII, 1.“If the Lord buildeth not the house, in vain toil those who build it”. Yes, we were progressing, but so quickly that we left God behind. We were building, but without God. Our civilisation is bankrupt because it is idolatrous. It has served the idols of selfishness, of greed, of “success”; the idols of power and might, the idols of the class or the nation. It was in this latest proud period of human progress that the conscience of the world became so enfeebled as to permit a whole nation to speak of “Sacro Egoismo”, the Holy Egoism. Well, here they are, the fruits of holy egoism.
But where was God all the time? The answer is: In the synagogues, in the churches, in the places of worship; there men kept God a prisoner, a prisoner of the synagogue, of the Church, of the Prayer Book. O yes, a most distinguished prisoner, to whom people in their “Sunday best” paid a visit now and then to show their appreciation for His famous past; but yet a prisoner, whom men had exiled from their lives.
If there is to be a New World, God must be freed from His prison; He must be led out of the synagogues, out of the churches, out of the Prayer Book. He must be allowed to live with us. We must make Him feel at home in our houses, in our shops and offices, in our factories and workshops; everywhere, in every little corner of human life, there must be a place for Him. The preamble to all the blueprints of a better world is: **Psalms CXI, 10.“the beginning of all wisdom is the fear of God.”
Will the nations understand this? Will they realise that there is no other hope for mankind, that there is no other way out of the chaos?
God, the faith, followed up in all its consequences and applied to the whole of life—God, the Way of Living, is the only remedy.
There will be lasting peace when faith in God rules and guides all the affairs of men and nations; and “He will be King over all the earth”.