The Jewish advance., November 22, 1878, Page 4, Image 4

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The Jewish Advance.
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Chicago, November 22nd, 1878.
8 8
BOLD RELIEFS.
* I.
There are some important questions
of the time imperatively demanding a
solution. Ignoring them behind the
barriers of ceremonies and usages of
ancient times, will help us very little.
Should orthodoxy and conservatism be
ever as successful, and the adherents
thereof rallying in close union offer a
strong opposition to all innovations, they
can at best only delay the consequences
at issue, and by this delay cause the sap
of American Judaism to be wasted.
Reform, again—it must be confessed
—has lost all hold of the hearts of our
enlightened brethren. As long as this
movement had acted as an iconoclastic
power, destroying the idols of fanaticism
and exposing the follies of superstition,
the people adhered to it. Now the time
having come for Reform to teach the
positive lessons of religion, the people
take it for inconsistency on the part of
the teacher. The cry is: “ He preached
Reform yesterday, he proclaims Ortho
doxy to day; how can I believe him?”
The difficulty arises from the fact that
we have no standard to be guided by; no
criterion by which to form a judgment.
The “ Shulchan Aruch ” is a dead letter;
the respect for the rabbinical position is
an illusion; and the time demands its
own. A few pious souls may impose
upon themselves the rigor of some
“Shulchan Aruch” regulations; but we i
may safely say that there is not a single
Israelite in America who follows all the
regulations of that code referring to
practical life. The most orthodox Is- !
raelites of America would be considered
irreligious by their Russian or Palestine
brethren. Our best Reform rabbins are
tolerated—considered as necessary bur- j
dens (if closely examined, few could be
found even to explain why “necessary,”)
by their respective congregations. The
rabbins are partly to blame for that—
partly the fault lies with the whims of
the people who do not know what to
demand of their ministers, but the
greatest part of the evil lies in the spirit
of the time which crowds upon us new
demands every day, which opens new
phases of life, creates circumstances
which cannot go hand in hand with
established religious institutions.
Our Christian neighbors harp on
“Faith,” and on “Salvation,” without
seeing that the ground is washed down
from under their feet every day more
and more. We preach a religion of
sense, justice, morality and humanity,
and have no fixed authority to be guided
by. The Bible is criticised as any other
monument of ancient literature; its
scientific records are almost overthrown;
the historical significance of its accounts
rudely shaken; and yet on Biblical texts
religious teachings are worked out. The
Talmud shares the same fate by our
scientific scholars, and from it adages
and parables are picked out to illustrate
lessons of ethics and morality.
Of the “ Shulchan Aruch,’’ the last
part
is suspended entirely,
for it would be simply ridiculous to up
hold the jurisprudence contained there
in as regards social and civil legislation
—not even in Russia could it be done;
the third part
is also obso
lete,with the exception, perhaps, of a few,
very few, regulations on nuptial duties;
so also is the second part
ignored, with the exception of a few of
the laws of “Shechitah,” and the mixtion
of milk and meat to which some Israel
ites still adhere; and the first part
—which treats on practical
religious regulations—well, we refer our
orthodox friends to it, to point out to
themselves how many paragraphs of
that part of the code they observe.
Who has overthrown the authority of
this code? Have the Reformers done
it? Not in the least. If the laws had
been practicable, all the Reformers of
the world could not prevail against a
single one of them. All that the Re
formers have done, was only explaining
the spirit of the times, and the nature of
the innovating circumstances which had
overwhelmed the ancient authority.
And a great deal of courage was re
quired for that work, especially of the
first champions of Reform; for it lies in
the nature of people in general, and in
the sensitive nature of the Jews par
ticularly, that they will tacitly forbear
with the loss of anything dear to their
hearts; but will persecute the one who
will boldly explain the nature of a
change in plain terms. The silent
mourner will bear his grief quietly,
and become reconciled to his bereave
ment, if he does not hear anyone men
tion it; but he will break out in loud
wailing and lamentation when lie hears
the subject of his mourning mentioned
and talked about. The would-be Ortho
dox Israelite will not observe a single
regulation of his religious code by force
of circumstances; but explain to him
the changes which have so effected his
religious life, and he will say that you
are a
tell him of a renova
tion ot ancient usages in modern garb,
and he will say that you desire to discard
Judaism for the sake of something else.
Indeed, great courage was required of
our first Reformers to explain the rav
ages which time had made in our relig
ious code, and to introduce the innova
tions required. But Reform has done
its task to perfection, and the spirit of
the times requires a new method of
religious activity which, as it appears to
us, inclines to a middle course between
the present Reform which has exhausted
its activity, and the Orthodoxy which
bears quietly its bereavements, and can
not rationally expect a perfect restitu
tion of the old glory in the spirit of the
ancient times; or rather according to
the letter of the ancient code. Sacri
fices may be required of either party,
but a mutual understanding must be
accomplished if Judaism should be
preserved.
HE11E ANI) THERE.
—The outrage perpetrated at St.
Mark’s Churchyard, has called attention
to the fact that, when the late A. T.
Stewart purchased church property on
the corner of Wooster and Amity streets,
and the shrine was transformed into a
stable, the sanctity of the graves was
violated, and bones and skulls were
rudely carted off, despite the indignation
of the public.—Messenger.
—The Reformer pertinently says:
“ Why is it that so many Jewish
‘ theatre parties’ are made up for Friday
evenings? Surely the most ‘liberal’
Jews might select some other night in
the week for theatre-going. In many
cases, we regret to say, the practice of
theatre-going on Friday evening is due
to a silly desire on the part of some
people to disguise the fact that they are
Jews. But people who are guilty of
such stupidity are usually of a class
whose physique and demeanor would
stamp them as Jews—that is to say,
Jews of a very inferior class—no matter
where they go or what they do. ”
—Says the Jewish Messenger:
“ One of the ‘ small fry ’ Jewish week
lies, devoted to ‘G-eneral news, litera
ture, science, art, and in the interest of
Judaism,’ writes weekly, ‘ please ex
change.’ As the paper is not newsy,
shows no literary taste, or the slightest
flavor of science and art, and as it serves
to caricature Judaism, and debase the
minds of such of its readers as are not
already debased, we have no desire to
receive it at all.”
The editor of the paper so well spoken
of says in every issue, that he wishes to
“ encourage home talent.”
—Two ladies of Upper Mallborough,
Maryland, have applied for admission to
the Bar. Judge Magruder, in reply,
decided that the Court could not grant
the request. In the course of his decis
ion, he said:
“ God has set a bound for woman.
Man was created first, and woman after,
and a part of him. Like the sun and
the moon moving in their different orb
its, the great seas have their bounds,
and the eternal hills and rocks that are
set above them cannot be removed ”
This is excruciatingly judicious. Give
us more of it, your Honor.
— Professor Romanes, in his address
before the British Association, was de
cidedly sarcastic: “A pike requires three
months to learn the position of a sheet
of glass in its tank; and when once the
association is established, it is never again
disestablished, even though the sheet of
glass be taken away. From which we see
that a pike is very slow in forming his ideas
and then again in unforming them, thus
resembling many respectable members
of a higher community, who spend one
half of their lives in assimilating the
obsolete ideas of their fathers, and
through the rest of their lives stick to
those ideas as the only possible truths.
They can never learn when the hand of
science has removed a glass partition.”
—The last words and deeds of man are
often characteristic of their past lives.
When the ill-fated steamship “London”
was sinking, a miserly man, having
dropped a sovereign in the water that
was already beginning to fill the cabin,
spent his last moments in searching for
his lost coin. The last words of the great
Napoleon, as he lay dying on the volcanic
rock to which Britain had chained him,
were “Head of the army!” His departing
spirit seemed to linger amid the thunder
and carnage of battles. “Independence
forever!” cried the patriotic Adams.
“Where arc those Belgian dispatches?”
asked Lord Palmerston. “Give the gen
tleman a chair,” exclaimed the polite
Chesterfield. “Boys, you may go now!
it is getting dark,” said one of Scotland’s
most famous teachers. These dying
sayings were characteristic of the men.
Rev. C. Perren, B. 1).
Bean Cowie and tiie Jews.—The
Bean of Manchester during the recent
holydays thought proper to send to every
Jew in the town a circular of invitation
to visit the cathedral—a Christian place
of worship—instead of going to the syna
gogue—to hear a discourse on the Jewish
religion. This unwarrantable imperti
nence on the part of Bean Cowie has
evoked from a local paper, the Free
Lance, a well-merited castigation. Our
contemporary says: “The rev. gentleman
is well aware that on previous occasions
the same insult has been offered to the
Jews without any result beneficial to our
Church, but having the effect of bringing
the doctrines of Christianity into con
tempt. The Jews do not interfere with
ns; why should we, who boast of our
Christianity as the very essence of all
that is tolerable and enlightened, grossly
insult a race from whose fundamental
religious, social, and moral laws, we have
stolen all that is good in Christianity?
If discussion were allowed at these
(church) meetings, and the Jew be per
mitted equal right of speech with Chris
tian, I am afraid to think what would
likely be the result.”
LITERARY NOTES.
The Ilaccarmel. a monthly journal in
Hebrew, edited by Mr. S. I. Fin, in Yil
na, and whose edition has been inter
rupted for some time, will henceforth
appear regularly every month.
The British Museum has lately ac
quired a small fragment of a terra-cotta
tablet, containing part of the annals of
Nebuchadnezzar. The portion relates to
his thirty-seventh year and a war with
Egypt.
The renowned tourist, Ephraim Dain
of, has published a work
on
the history of the Jews of Crimea, and
on that of the Karaites, Khozars and
Krimchucks. The author has compiled
in this work all that is historically
knowTn of his subject, from the earliest
time up to the latest discoveries.
It may also be of interest to the
lovers of Hebrew to know that a scion
tific work on the bun
has
recently been published in V una, with
maps and illustrations of the phases of
the planet and its revolutions. The
author of this work is Jehudah L. Zas
niz, of Vilna.
Mr. Ginsburg, of London, has com
pleted arrangements at Vienna for the
printing of his magnum opus, his edition
of the text of the Massorah, which will
fill four volumes of imperial folio. Dr.
Ginsburg is now collating the proofs
with the British Museum manuscripts,
and expects to have the first volume of
his work ready in February next.—
Athenceum.
Professor Harkavy, giving due credit
to the work, aThe Jews of Spain and
the Inquisition,” by Frederick David
Mocatta, of London, calls the author’s
attention to a mistake. In the above
named work (p. 28), the author speaks