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Though there are no accepted Articles of Faith in Judaism, there is
a complete consensus of opinion that Monotheism is the basis of the
religion. The Unity of God was more than a doctrine. It was associated
with the noblest hope of Israel, with Israel's Mission to the world.
The Unity of God was even more than a hope. It was an inspiration,
a passion. For it the Jews 'passed through fire and water,' enduring
tribulation and death for the sake of the Unity. Al the Jewish
martyrologies are written round this text.
In one passage the Talmud actual y defines the Jew as the
Monotheist. 'Whoever repudiates the service of other gods is cal ed a Jew'
(Megillah, 13 a).
But this al -pervading doctrine of the Unity did not reach Judaism as an
abstract philosophical truth. Hence, though the belief in the Unity of
God, associated as it was with the belief in the Spirituality of God,
might have been expected to lead to the conception of an Absolute,
Transcendent Being such as we meet in Islam, it did not so lead in
Judaism. Judaism never attempted to define God at al . Maimonides
put the seal on the reluctance of Jewish theology to go beyond, or
to fall short of, what historic Judaism delivered. Judaism wavers
between the two opposite conceptions: absolute transcendentalism and
absolute pantheism. Sometimes Judaism speaks with the voice of Isaiah;
sometimes with the voice of Spinoza. It found the bridge in the Psalter.
'The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon Him.' The Law brought heaven
to earth; Prayer raised earth to heaven.
As was remarked above, Jewish theology never shrank from inconsistency. It
accepted at once God's foreknowledge and man's free-wil . So it described
the knowledge of God as far above man's reach; yet it felt God near,
sympathetic, a Father and Friend. The liturgy of the Synagogue has been
wel termed a 'precipitate' of al the Jewish teaching as to God. He is
the Great, the Mighty, the Awful, the Most High, the King. But He is also
the Father, Helper, Deliverer, the Peace-Maker, Supporter of the weak,
Healer of the sick. Al human knowledge is a direct manifestation of
His grace. Man's body, with all its animal functions, is His handiwork.
He created joy, and made the Bridegroom and the Bride. He formed the fruit
of the Vine, and is the Source of al the lawful pleasures of men. He is
the Righteous Judge; but He remembers that man is dust, He pardons sins,
and His loving-kindness is over al . He is unchangeable, yet repentance
can avert the evil decree. He is in heaven, yet he puts the love and
fear of Him into man's very heart. He breathed the Soul into man, and
is faithful to those that sleep in the grave. He is the Reviver of the
dead. He is Holy, and He sanctified Israel with His commandments. And
the whole is pervaded with the thought of God's Unity and the consequent
unity of mankind. Here again we meet the curious syncretism which we
have so often observed. God is in a special sense the God of Israel;
but He is unequivocally, too, the God of al flesh.
Moses Mendelssohn said that, when in the company of a Christian friend,
he never felt the remotest desire to convert him to Judaism. This is the
explanation of the effect on the Jews of the combined belief in God as
the God of Israel, and also as the God of all men. At one time Judaism
was certainly a missionary religion. But after the loss of nationality
this quality was practical y dormant. Belief was not necessary to
salvation. 'The pious of al nations have a part in the world to come'
may have been but a casual utterance of an ancient Rabbi, but it rose
into a settled conviction of later Judaism. Moreover, it was dangerous
for Jews to attempt any religious propaganda in the Middle Ages, and
thus the pressure of fact came to the support of theory. Mendelssohn
even held that the same religion was not necessarily good for al ,
just as the same form of government may not fit equal y all the various
national idiosyncrasies. Judaism for the Jew may almost be claimed as
a principle of orthodox Judaism. It says to the outsider: You may come
in if you wil , but we warn you what it means. At al events it does
not seek to attract. It is not strange that this attitude has led to
unpopularity. The reason of this resentment is not that men wish to be
invited to join Judaism; it lies rather in the sense that the absence
of invitation implies an arrogant reserve. To some extent this is the
case. The old-fashioned Jew is inclined to think himself superior to
other men. Such a thought has its pathos.
On the other hand, the national as contrasted with the universal aspect
of Judaism is on the wane. Many Jewish liturgies have, for instance,
eliminated the prayers for the restoration of sacrifices; and several have
removed or spiritualised the petitions for the recovery of the Jewish
nationality. Modern reformed Judaism is a universalistic Judaism. It
lays stress on the function of Israel, the Servant, as a 'Light to the
Nations.' It tends to eliminate those ceremonies and beliefs which are
less compatible with a universal than with, a racial religion. Modern
Zionism is not a real reaction against this tendency. For Zionism is
either non-religious or, if religious, brings to the front what has
always been a corrective to the nationalism of orthodox Judaism. For
the separation of Israel has ever been a means to an end; never an end
in itself. Often the end has been forgotten in the means, but never for
long. The end of Israel's separateness is the good of the world. And
the religious as distinct from the merely political Zionist who thinks
that Judaism would gain by a return to Palestine is just the one who also
thinks that return is a necessary preliminary to the Messianic Age, when
all men shal flow unto Zion and seek God there. Reformed Jews would have
to be Zionists also in this sense, were it not that many of them no longer
share the belief in the national aspects of the prophecies as to Israel's
future. These may believe that the world may become ful of the knowledge
of God without any antecedent withdrawal of Israel from the world.
If Judaism as a system of doctrine is necessarily syncretistic in
its conception of God, then we may expect the same syncretism in its
theory of God's relation to man. It must be said at once that the term
'theory' is il -chosen. It is laid to the charge of Judaism that it has no
'theory' of Sin. This is true. If virtue and righteousness are obedience,
then disobedience is both vice and sin. No further theory was required
or possible. Atonement is reversion to obedience. Now it was said above
that the doctrine of the Unity did not reach Judaism as a philosophical
truth exactly defined and apprehended. It came as the result of a long
historic groping for the truth, and when it came it brought with it olden
anthropomorphic wrappings and tribal adornments which were not easily to
be discarded, if they ever were entirely discarded. So with the relation
of God to man in general and Israel in particular. The unchangeable
God is not susceptible to the change implied in Atonement. But history
presented to the Jew examples of what he could not otherwise interpret
than as reconciliation between God the Father and Israel the wayward
but always at heart loyal Son. And this interpretation was true to the
inward experience. Man's repentance was correlated with the sorrow of
God. God as well as man repented, the former of punishment, the latter
of sin. The process of atonement included contrition, confession, and
change of life. Undoubtedly Jewish theology lays the greatest stress on
the active stage of the process. Jewish moralists use the word Teshubah
(literally 'turning' or 'return,' _i.e._ a turning from evil or
a return to God) chiefly to mean a change of life. Sin is evil life,
atonement is the better life. The better life was attained by fasting,
prayer, and charity, by a purification of the heart and a cleansing of the
hands. The ritual side of atonement was seriously weakened by the loss
of the Temple. The sacrificial atonement was gone. Nothing replaced
it ritual y. Hence the Jewish tendency towards a practical religion
was strengthened by its almost enforced stress in atonement on moral
betterment. But this moral betterment depended on a renewed communion
with God. Sin estranged, atonement brought near. Jewish theology regarded
sin as a triumph of the _Yetser Ha-ra_ (the 'evil inclination')
over the _Yetser Ha-tob_ (the 'good inclination'). Man was always
liable to fal a prey to his lower self. But such a fal , though usual
and universal, was not inevitable. Man reasserted his higher self when
he curbed his passions, undid the wrong he had wrought to others, and
turned again to God with a contrite heart. As a taint of the soul, sin
was washed away by the suppliant's tears and confession, by his sense
of loss, his bitter consciousness of humiliation, but withal man was
helpless without God. God was needed for the atonement. Israel never
dreamed of putting forward his righteousness as a claim to pardon.
'We are empty of good works' is the constant refrain of the Jewish
penitential appeals. The final reliance is on God and on God alone. Yet
Judaism took over from its past the anthropomorphic belief that God could
be moved by man's prayers, contrition, amendment--especial y by man's
amendment. Atonement was only real when the amendment began; it only
lasted while the amendment endured. Man must not think to throw his own
burden entirely on God. God wil help him to bear it, and wil lighten
the weight from wil ing shoulders. But bear it man can and must. The
shoulders must be at all events willing.
Judaism as a theology stood or fell by its belief that man can affect
God. If, for instance, prayer had no validity, then Judaism had no basis.
Judaism did not distinguish between the objective and subjective efficacy
of prayer. The two went together. The acceptance of the wil of God
and the inclining of God's purpose to the desire of man were two sides
of one fact. The Rabbinic Judaism did not mechanical y posit, however,
the objective validity of prayer. On the contrary, the man who prayed
expecting an answer was regarded as arrogant and sinful. A famous Talmudic
prayer sums up the submissive aspect of the Jew in this brief petition
(Berachoth, 29 a): 'Do Thy will in heaven above, and grant contentment of
spirit to those that fear Thee below; and that which is good in Thine eyes
do. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hearest prayer.' This, be it remembered,
was the prayer of a Pharisee. So, too, a very large portion of al Jewish
prayer is not petition but praise. Stil , Judaism believed, not that
prayer would be answered, but that it could be answered. In modern times
the chief cause of the weakening of religion al round, in and out of
the Jewish communion, is the growing disbelief in the objective validity
of prayer. And a similar remark applies to the belief in miracles.
But to a much less extent. Al ancient religions were based on miracle,
and even to the later religious consciousness a denial of miracle seems
to deny the divine Omnipotence. Jewish theology from the Rabbinic age
sought to evade the difficulty by the mystic notion that all miracles
were latent in ordered nature at the creation. And so the miraculous
becomes interconnected with Providence as revealed in history. But the
belief in special miracles recurs again and again in Judaism, and though
discarded by most reformed theologies, must be admitted as a prevailing
concept of the older religion.
But the belief was rather in general than in special Providence. There
was a communal solidarity which made most of the Jewish prayers communal
more than personal. It is held by many that in the Psalter 'I' in the
majority of cases means the whole people. The sense of brotherhood, in
other relations besides public worship, is a perennial characteristic
of Judaism.
Even more marked is this in the conception of the family. The hallowing
of home-life was one of the best features of Judaism. Chastity was
the mark of men and women alike. The position of the Jewish woman was
in many ways high. At law she enjoyed certain privileges and suffered
certain disabilities. But in the house she was queen. Monogamy had been
the rule of Jewish life from the period of the return from the Babylonian
Exile. In the Middle Ages the custom of monogamy was legalised in Western
Jewish communities. Connected with the fraternity of the Jewish communal
organisation and the incomparable affection and mutual devotion of
the home-life was the habit of charity. Charity, in the sense both of
almsgiving and of loving-kindness, was the virtue of virtues. The very
word which in the Hebrew Bible means righteousness means in Rabbinic
Hebrew charity. 'On three things the world stands,' says a Rabbi,
'on law, on public worship, and on the bestowal of loving-kindness.'
Some other concepts of Judaism and their influence on character wil
be treated in a later chapter. Here a final word must be said on the
Hal owing of Knowledge.
In one of the oldest prayers of the Synagogue, repeated thrice daily,
occurs this paragraph: 'Thou dost graciously bestow on man knowledge,
and teachest mortals understanding; O let us be graciously endowed by
Thee with knowledge, understanding, and discernment. Blessed art Thou,
O Lord, gracious Giver of Knowledge.' The intellect was to be turned
to the service of the God from whom intel igence emanated. The Jewish
estimate of intellect and learning led to some unamiable contempt of the
fool and the ignoramus. But the evil tendency of identifying learning
with religion was more than mitigated by the encouragement which this
concept gave to education. The ideal was that every Jew must be a scholar,
or at all events a student. Obscurantism could not for any lengthy period
lodge itself in the Jewish camp. There was no learned caste. The fact that
the Bible and much of the most admired literature was in Hebrew made most
Jews bilingual at least. But it was not merely that knowledge was useful,
that it added dignity to man, and realised part of his possibilities.
The service of the Lord cal ed for the dedication of the reason as well
as for the purification of the heart. The Jew had to think as wel as
feel He had to serve with the mind as well as with the body. Therefore
it was that he was always anxious to justify his religion to his reason.
Maimonides devoted a large section of his _Guide_ to the explanation
of the motives of the commandments. And his example was imitated.
The Law was the expression of the Will of God, and obeyed and loved
as such. But the Law was also the expression of the Divine Reason.
Hence man had the right and the duty to examine and realise how his own
human reason was satisfied by the Law. In a sense the Jew was a quite
simple believer. But never a simpleton. '_Know_ the Lord thy God'
was the key-note of this aspect of Jewish theology.