Jewish Theology Part 17

6. But most significant in the character and development of Judaism is the fact that all the leading ideas and motives which emanated from the priesthood of the Jewish people were concentrated in one single focus, the _hallowing of the name of G.o.d_. Two terms expressed this idea in both a negative and a positive form, the warning against "_Hillul ha Shem_"-profanation of the name of G.o.d-and the duty of "_Kiddush ha Shem_"-sanctification of G.o.d's name. These exerted a marvelous power in curbing the pa.s.sions and self-indulgence of the Jew and in spurring him on to the greatest possible self-sacrifice and to an unparalleled willingness to undergo suffering and martyrdom for the cause. These terms are derived from the Biblical verse, "Ye shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel; I am the Lord who halloweth you."(1119) This verse forms the concluding sentence of the precepts for the Aaronitic priesthood and warns them as the guardians of the sanctuary to do nothing which might in the popular estimation degrade them or the divine cause intrusted to them. When, however, during the Maccabean wars, the little band of the pious proved themselves to be the true priesthood in their Opposition to the faithless Aaronites, offering their very lives as a sacrifice for the preservation of the true faith in G.o.d, the Scriptural word received a new and higher meaning. It came to signify the obligation of the entire priest-people to consecrate the name of G.o.d by the sacrifice of their lives, and also their duty to guard against its profanation by any offensive act. In connection with this Scriptural pa.s.sage the sages represent G.o.d as saying, "I have brought you out of Egypt only on the condition that you are ready to sacrifice your lives, if need be, to consecrate My name."(1120) From that period it became a duty and even a law of Judaism, as Maimonides shows in his Code, for each person in life and in death to bear witness to His G.o.d.(1121) "Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and I am G.o.d"(1122)-and witnesses being in the Greek version martyrs, the word afterward received the meaning of "blood-witnesses."-This pa.s.sage of the prophet is commented on by Simeon ben Johai, one of the great teachers who suffered under Hadrian's persecution, in the following words, "If ye become My witnesses, then am I your Lord, G.o.d of the world; but if ye do not witness to Me, I cease to be, as it were, the Lord, G.o.d of all the world."(1123) That is to say, it is the martyrdom of the pious which glorifies G.o.d's name before all the world. Or, as Felix Perles says so beautifully, "As every good and n.o.ble man must ever bear in mind that the dignity of humanity is intrusted to his hand, so should each earnest adherent of the Jewish faith remember that the glory of G.o.d is intrusted to his care."(1124) The Jewish people has fulfilled this priestly task through a martyrdom of over two thousand years and has scornfully resisted every demand to abandon its faith in G.o.d, not consenting to do so even in appearance. Surely historians or philosophers who can ridicule or commiserate such resistance betray a hatred which blinds their sense of justice. As a matter of fact, it was the consciousness of the Jewish people of its priestly mission that has made it a pattern of loyalty for all time.

7. Moreover, the fear of profaning the divine name became the highest incentive to, and safeguard of the morality of the Jew. Every misdeed toward a non-Jew is considered by the teachers of Judaism a double sin, yea, sometimes, an unpardonable one, because it gives a false impression of the moral standard of Judaism and infringes upon the honor of G.o.d as well as that of man. The disciples of Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach once bought an a.s.s for him from an Arab, and to their joy found a precious stone in its collar. "Did the seller know of this gem?" asked the master. On being answered in the negative, he called out angrily, "Do you consider me a barbarian? Return the Arab his precious stone immediately!" And when the heathen received it back, he cried out, "Praised be the G.o.d of Simeon ben Shetach!"(1125) Thus the conscientious Jew honors his G.o.d by his conduct, says the Talmud, referring to this and many similar examples. Such lessons of the Jew's responsibility for the recognition of the high moral purity of his religion have ever const.i.tuted a high barrier against immoral acts.

The words, "Be ye holy, for I the Lord your G.o.d am holy" form significantly the introduction to the chapter on the love of man, the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, placed at the very center of the entire Priestly Code. "Your self-sanctification sanctifies Me, as it were," says G.o.d to Israel, according to the interpretation of this verse by the sages.(1126) In contrast to heathendom, which deifies nature with its appeal to the senses, Judaism teaches that holiness is a moral quality, as it means the curbing of the senses. And in order to prevent Israel, the bearer of this ideal of holiness, from sinking into the mire of heathen wantonness and l.u.s.t, the separation of the Jew from the heathen world, whether in his domestic or social life, was a necessity and became the rule and maxim of his life for that period. All the many prohibitions and commands had for their object the purification of the people in order to render the highest moral purity a hereditary virtue among them, according to the rabbis.(1127)

8. It is true that the acc.u.mulation of "law upon law, prohibition upon prohibition" by the rabbis had eventually the same injurious effect which it had exerted upon the priests in the Temple. The formal law, "the precepts learned by rote," became the important factor, while their purpose was lost to sight. The sh.e.l.l smothered the kernel, and blind obedience to the letter of the law came to be regarded as true piety. It cannot be denied that adherence to the mere form, which was transmitted from the Temple practice to the legalism of the Pharisees and the later rabbinic schools with their casuistry, impaired and tarnished the lofty prophetic ideal of holiness. It almost seems as if the clarion notes of such sublime pa.s.sages as that of the Psalmist,

"Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord, And who shall stand in His holy place?

He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; Who hath not taken My name in vain, and hath not sworn deceitfully,"(1128)

no longer found its full resonance in the heart of Judaism. In the practice of external acts of piety religion became petrified and the spirit took flight. That which is of secondary importance became of primary consideration. This is the fundamental error into which the practice and the development of the Law in Judaism lapsed, and to which no careful observer can or dares close his eyes. Undoubtedly the Law, as it embraced the whole of life in its power, sharpened the Jewish sense of duty, and served the Jew as an iron wall of defense against temptations, aberrations, and enticements of the centuries. As soon as the modern Jew, however, undertook to free himself from the tutelage of a blind acceptance of authority and inquired after the purpose of all the restrictions which the Law laid upon him, his ancient loyalty to the same collapsed and the pillars of Judaism seemed to be shaken. Then the leaders of Reform, imbued with the prophetic spirit, felt it to be their imperative duty to search out the fundamental ideas of the priestly law of holiness, and, accordingly, they learned how to separate the kernel from the sh.e.l.l. In opposition to the orthodox tendency to worship the letter, they insisted on the fact that Israel's separation from the world-which it is ultimately to win for the divine truth-cannot itself be its end and aim, and that blind obedience to the law does not const.i.tute true piety. Only the fundamental idea, that Israel as the "first-born" among the nations has been elected as a priest-people, must remain our imperishable truth, a truth to which the centuries of history bear witness by showing that it has given its life-blood as a ransom for humanity, and is ever bringing new sacrifices for its cause.

Only because it has kept itself distinct as a priest-people among the nations could it carry out its great task in history; and only if it remains conscious of its priestly calling and therefore maintains itself as the people of G.o.d, can it fulfill its mission. Not until the end of time, when all of G.o.d's children will have entered the kingdom of G.o.d, may Israel, the high-priest among the nations, renounce his priesthood.

Chapter LI. Israel, the People of the Law, and its World Mission

1. Judaism differs from all the ancient religions chiefly in its intrusting its truth to the whole people instead of a special priesthood.

The law which "Moses commanded us is an inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob,"(1129) is the Scriptural lesson impressed upon every Jew in early childhood. As soon as the Torah pa.s.sed from the care of the priests into that of the whole nation, the people of the book became the priest-nation, and set forth to conquer the world by its religious truth. This aim was expressed by all the prophets beginning with Moses, who said: "Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His spirit upon them."(1130) The prophetic ideal was that "they shall all know Me (G.o.d), from the least of them unto the greatest of them,"(1131) and that "all thy (Zion's) children shall be taught of the Lord."(1132) After the people came to realize that the Law was "their wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples,"(1133) they soon felt the hope that one day "the isles shall wait for His teaching,"(1134) and confidently expected the time when "many peoples shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the G.o.d of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."(1135) Once liberated from the dominance of the priesthood, religion became the instrument of universal instruction, the factor of general spiritual and moral advancement. In addition it endowed humanity with an educational ideal, destined to regenerate its moral life far more deeply than Greek culture could ever do. The object was to elevate all cla.s.ses of the people by the living word of G.o.d, by the reading and expounding of the Scripture for the dissemination of its truth among the ma.s.ses.

2. Those who define Judaism as a religion of law completely misunderstand its nature and its historic forces. This is done by all those Christian theologians who endeavor to prove the extraordinary a.s.sertion of the apostle Paul that the Jewish people was providentially destined to produce the Old Testament law and become enmeshed in it, like the silkworm in its coc.o.o.n, finally to dry up and perish, leaving its prophetic truth for the Church. This fateful misconception of Judaism is based upon a false interpretation of the word _Torah_, which denotes moral and spiritual instruction as often as law, and thus includes all kinds of religious teaching and knowledge together with its primary meaning, the written and the oral codes.(1136) In fact, in post-Biblical times it comprised the entire religion, as subject of both instruction and scientific investigation. True, law is fundamental in Jewish history; Israel accepted the divine covenant on the basis of the Sinaitic code; the reforms of King Josiah were founded on the Deuteronomic law;(1137) and the restoration of the Judean commonwealth was based upon the completed Mosaic code brought from Babylon by Ezra the Scribe.(1138) This book of law, with its further development and interpretation, remained the normative factor for Judaism for all time. Still, from the very beginning the Law of the covenant contained a certain element which distinguished it from all the priestly and political codes of antiquity. Beside the traditional juridical and ritualistic statutes, which betray a Babylonian origin, it contains laws and doctrines of kindness toward the poor and helpless, the enemy and the slave, even toward the dumb beast, in striking contrast to the spirit of cruelty and violence in the Babylonian law.(1139) In the name of the all-seeing, all-ruling G.o.d it appeals to the sympathy of man. These exhortations to tenderness increase in later codes of law under the prophetic influence, until finally the rabbis extended them as far as possible. They held that every negligence which leads to the loss of life or property by the neighbor, every neglect of a domestic animal, even every act of deceit by which one attempts to "steal" the good opinion of one's fellow-men, is a violation of the law.(1140) Hence Rabbi Simlai, the Haggadist, said that from beginning to end the Law is but a system of teachings of human love,(1141) while another sage tried to prove from the books of Moses that G.o.d implanted mercy, modesty, and benevolence in the souls of Israel as hereditary virtues.(1142) In the same spirit Rabbi Meir described the law of Israel as the law of humanity, supporting his statement by a number of biblical pa.s.sages.(1143)

3. But, as light by its very nature illumines its surroundings, so the Torah in the possession of the Jewish people was certain to become the light of mankind. First of all, the book of Law itself insists that the father shall teach the word of G.o.d to his children, using many signs and ceremonies that they may meditate on the works of G.o.d and walk in the path of virtue, and that the divine commands should be "in the mouth and in the heart of all to do them."(1144) It was made inc.u.mbent upon the high priest or king to read the Law at least once every seven years to the whole people a.s.sembled in the holy city for the autumnal festival,-men, women, children, and the sojourners in the gates,-so that it should become their common property.(1145) This precept probably gave rise to the triennial and later the annual system of Torah reading on the Sabbath. But in addition to the book of Law the prophetic words of consolation were read to the people, a custom which originated in the Babylonian exile, and was continued under the name of _Haftarah_ ("dismissal" of the congregation).(1146) The seer of the exile refers to these prophetic words of comfort which were offered to the people on the Sabbath as well as other feasts and fasts: "Attend unto Me, O My people, and give ear unto Me, O My nation, for instruction (Torah) shall go forth from Me, and My right on a sudden for a light of the people.... Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law; fear ye not the taunt of men, neither be ye dismayed at their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but My favor shall be forever, and My salvation unto all generations."(1147) Moved by such stirring ideals, Synagogues arose in Jewish settlements all over the globe, and the book of the Law, in its vernacular versions, Greek and Aramaic, together with the words of the prophets, became the general source of instruction. In the words of the Psalms, it became "the testimony of the Lord, making wise the simple,"

"rejoicing the heart," "enlightening the eyes," "more to be desired than gold."(1148) Nay more, the study of the Law became the duty of every man, and he who failed to live up to the precepts of the devotees of the Law, the Pharisean fellowships, was scorned as belonging to the lower cla.s.s, _am haaretz_. Every morning the pious Jew, first thanking G.o.d for the light of day, followed this up by thanking Him for the Torah, which illumines the path of life. "The welfare of society rests upon the study of the Law, divine service and organized charity," was a saying of Simon the Just, a high priest of the beginning of the third pre-Christian century.(1149) Thus learning and teaching became leading occupations for the Jew, and the two main departments of Jewish literature, correspondingly, are _Torah_ and _Talmud_, that is, the written Law and its exposition. Indeed, the highest t.i.tle which the rabbis could find for Moses was simply "Moses our Teacher." Nay, G.o.d Himself was frequently represented as a venerable Master, teaching the Law in awful majesty.(1150)

4. Later under the successive influence of Babylonian and Greek culture, the wisdom literature was added to the Prophets and the Psalms, giving to the whole Torah a universal scope, like that claimed for Greek philosophy.

The Jewish love of learning led to an ever greater longing for truth by adding the wisdom of other cultured nations to its own store of knowledge.

This motive for universalism became all the stronger, as the faith became more centered in the sublime conception of G.o.d as Master of all the world.

As the G.o.d of Israel appeared the primal source of all truth, so the revealed word of G.o.d was considered the very embodiment of divine wisdom.(1151) In fact, the men of h.o.a.ry antiquity described in the opening chapters of Genesis were actually credited with being the instructors of the Greeks and other nations.(1152) We read a strange story by a pupil of Aristotle that the great sage admired a Jew, whom he happened to meet, as both wise and pious, so that the little Jewish nation was often considered, like the wise men of India, to be a sect of philosophers.(1153) Indeed, Judaism became a matter of curiosity to the pagan world on account of the Synagogue, which attracted them as a unique center of religious devotion and instruction, and especially because of the Bible, which was read and expounded in its Greek garb from Sabbath to Sabbath. The Jewish people raised themselves to be a nation of thinkers, and largely through a.s.sociation with Greek thought. For example, in the Greek translation of the Scriptures all anthropomorphic expressions are avoided. As the personal name of Israel's G.o.d of the covenant, *JHVH*, was replaced by the name _Adonai_, "the Lord,"(1154) the universality of the Jewish G.o.d became still more evident. Thus the pagan world could find G.o.d in the Scriptures to be the living G.o.d who dwells in the heart and is sought by all mankind. The Jew became the herald of the One G.o.d of the universe, his Bible a book of universal instruction. Many of the heathen, without merging themselves into the community of the covenant people and without accepting all its particularistic customs, rallied around its central standard as simple theists, "worshipers of G.o.d," or "they who fear the Lord," according to the terminology of the Psalms.(1155)

5. An old rabbinical legend, which is reflected in the New Testament miracle of Pentecost, relates that the Ten Words of Sinai were uttered in seventy tongues of fire to reach the known seventy nations of the earth.(1156) We are told that when the people entered Canaan, the words of the Law were engraved in seventy languages on the stones of the altar at Mount Ebal.(1157) That is, the law of Sinai was intended to provide the foundation for all human society. One Haggadist even a.s.serts that the heathen nations all refused to accept the Law, and if Israel also had rejected it, the world would have returned to chaos.(1158) Israel was, so to speak, _forced_ by divine Providence to accept the Law on behalf of the entire race. Hillel, under the Romanized reign of Herod, was fully conscious of this world-mission when he said: "Love your fellow creatures and lead them to the study of the Law."(1159)

6. The outlook for the Jewish people, however, became darker and darker through its struggle with Rome. The fanatical Zealots entirely opposed the spreading of the knowledge of the Torah among those who did not belong to the household of Israel.(1160) Then the Church sent forth her missionaries to convert the pagan world by constant concessions to its polytheistic views and practices. The seed sown by h.e.l.lenistic Judaism yielded a rich harvest for the Church, even though it was won at the sacrifice of pure Jewish monotheism. The Ten Words of Sinai, the Mosaic laws of marriage, the poor laws, and other Biblical statutes became the cornerstone of civilization, but in a different guise; the heritage of Judaism was transplanted to the Christian and Mohammedan world in a new garb and under a new name. Henceforth the Jew, dispersed, isolated, and afflicted, had to struggle to preserve his faith in its pristine purity. The very danger besetting the study of the Law during the Hadrianic persecutions, which followed the Bar Kochba revolt, increased his zeal and courage. "Devoid of the Torah, our vital element, we are surely threatened with death," said Rabbi Akiba, applying to himself the fable of the fox and the fishes, as he defied the Roman edict.(1161) The fear lest the Torah should be forgotten, stimulated the teachers and their disciples ever anew to its pursuit. The Torah was regarded as the bond and pledge of G.o.d's nearness; hence the many rabbinical sayings concerning its value in the eyes of G.o.d, which are frequently couched in poetic and extravagant language.(1162) The underlying idea of them all is that Israel could dispense with its State and its Temple, but not with its storehouse of divine truth, from which it constantly derives new life and new youth.

7. One important question, however, remains, which must be answered: Has the Jewish people, shut up for centuries by the ramparts of Talmudic Judaism, actually renounced its world mission? In transmitting part of its inheritance to its two daughter-religions, has Judaism lost its claim to be a world-religion? The Congregation of Israel, according to the Midrash, answers this question in the words of the Shulamite in the Song of Songs: "I sleep, but my heart waketh."(1163) During the sad period of the Middle Ages, Judaism in its relation to the outer world slept a long winter-sleep, now in one land and now in another, but its inner life always manifested a splendid activity of mind and soul, exerting a mighty influence upon the history of the world. It was declared dead by the ruling Church, and yet it constantly filled her with alarm by the truths it uttered. The Jewish people was given over to destruction and persecution a thousand times, but all the floods of hatred and violence could not quench its flame. Its marvelous endurance const.i.tuted the strongest possible protest against the creed of the Church, which claimed to possess an exclusive truth and the only means of salvation. To suffer and die as martyrs by thousands and tens of thousands, at the stake and under the torture of bloodthirsty mobs, testifying to the One Only G.o.d of Israel and humanity, was, to say the least, as heroic a mission as to convert the heathen. Indeed, the Jew, in reciting the Shema each morning in the house of G.o.d, renewed daily his zeal and faith, by which he was encouraged to sacrifice himself for his sacred heritage.

8. But the cultivation of the Torah, obligatory upon every Jew, effected more even than the preservation of monotheism. Alongside of the Church, which did its best to suppress free thought, Islam provided a culture which encouraged study and investigation, and this brought the leading spirits in Judaism to a profounder grasp of their own literary treasures.

Bold truth-seekers arose under the Mohammedan sway who had the courage to break the chains of belief in the letter of the Scripture, and to claim the right of the human reason to give an opinion on the highest questions of religion. The leading authorities of the Synagogue followed a different course from that of the Church, which had brought the Deity into the sphere of the senses, divided the one G.o.d into three persons, and induced the people to worship the image of Mary and her G.o.d-child rather than G.o.d the Father. They insisted on the absolute unity and spirituality of G.o.d, eliminated all the human attributes ascribed to Him in Scripture, and strove to attain the loftiest and purest possible conception of His being.

It took a mighty effort for the people of the Law to reexamine the entire ma.s.s of tradition in order to harmonize philosophy and religion, and invest the divine revelation with the highest spiritual character. This mental activity exerted a great influence upon the whole course of thought of subsequent centuries and even upon modern philosophy. Again Israel became conscious of his mission of light. Jewish thinkers, often combining rabbi, physician, and astronomer in one person, carried the torch of science and free investigation, directly or indirectly, into the cell of many a Christian monk, rousing the dull spirit of the Middle Ages and bringing new intellectual nurture to the Church, else she might have starved in her mental poverty.

The Jews of Spain became the teachers of Christian Europe. The forerunners of the Protestant Reformation sat at the feet of Jewish masters. Jewish students of the Hebrew language, scientifically trained, opened up the simple meaning of the Scriptural word, so long hidden by traditional interpretation. The Lutheran and the English translations of the Bible were due to their efforts, and thus also the rise of Protestantism, which inaugurated the modern era. Yet this intellectual revival, this wonderful activity of various thinkers among medieval Jewry, required a soil susceptible to such seeds, an atmosphere favorable to this intense search for truth. This existed only in the Jewish people, since the universal study of the Torah brought it about that "all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings" even while dense darkness covered the nations of the medieval world.

9. We must not underrate the cultural mission of the Jewish people, with its striking contrast to the New Testament point of view, which created monasteries and the celibate ideal, and thus discouraged industry, commerce, and scientific inquiry. Dispersed as they were, the Jewish people cultivated both commerce and science, and thus for centuries were the real bearers of culture, the intermediaries between East and West.

While the Church divided mankind into heirs of heaven and h.e.l.l, thus sowing discord and hatred, the little group of Jews maintained their ideal of an undivided humanity. But even their industrial and commercial activity had more than a mere economic significance. Forced upon the Jew by external pressure, it was favored by Jewish teaching as a means of promoting spiritual life. Not poverty and beggary, but wealth begotten by honest toil has the sanction of Judaism in accordance with the saying "Where there is no flour for bread, there can be no support for the study of the Torah."(1164) Moreover, the rabbis interpreted the verse, "Rejoice, O Zebulun, in thy going out, and thou, Issachar, in thy tents,"(1165) as meaning that Zebulun, the seafarer, shared the profit of his commerce with Issachar, who taught the law in the tents of the Torah, that he, in turn, might share his brother's spiritual reward. Indeed, the Jew used his gains won by trade in the service of the promotion of learning, and thus his entire industry a.s.sumed a higher character. Our modern civilization, with its higher values of life, owes much to the cultural activity of the medieval Jew, which many leaders of the ruling Church still ignore completely. It is true that the hard struggle for their very existence kept the people unconscious of their cultural mission, and only now that they have attained the higher historical point of view can they exclaim with Joseph their ancestor: "As for you, ye meant evil against me; but G.o.d meant it for good, to bring it to pa.s.s, as it is this day, to save much people alive."(1166) The fact is that Jewish commerce has been an important cosmopolitan factor in the past, and is still working, to a certain extent, in the same direction.(1167)

10. New and great tasks have been a.s.signed by divine Providence to the Jew of modern times, who is a full citizen in the cultural, social, and political life of the various nations. These tasks are most holy to him as Jew, the bearer of a great mission to the world, which is embodied in his heritage, the Torah. However splendid may have been his achievements in the fields of industry and commerce, of literature and art, his own peculiar possession is the Torah alone, the religious truth for which he fought and suffered all these centuries past; this must forever remain the central thought, the aim of all his striving.(1168) Every achievement of the Jewish people, every attainment in power, knowledge, or skill, must lead toward the completion of the divine kingdom of truth and justice; that for which the Jew laid the foundation at the beginning of his history is still leading forward the entire social life of man to render it a divine household of love and peace. In order that it may carry out the world mission mapped out by its great seers of yore, the Jewish people must guard against absorption by the mult.i.tude of nations as much as against isolation from them. It must preserve its ident.i.ty without going back into a separation rooted in self-adulation and clannishness. Instead, the great goal of Israel will be reached only by patient endurance and perseverance, confidently awaiting the fulfillment in G.o.d's own time of the glorious prophecy that all the nations shall be led up to the mountain of the Lord by the priest-people, there to worship G.o.d in truth and righteousness. The Law is to go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, as a spiritual, not a geographical center. This vision forms the highest pinnacle of human aspiration, rising higher and higher before the mind, as man ascends from one stage of culture to another, striving ever for perfection, for the sublimest ideal of life. This is characteristically expressed by the Midrash, which refers to the Messianic vision: "And it shall come to pa.s.s in the end of days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills."(1169) "One great mountain of the earth will be piled upon the other, and Mount Zion will be placed upon the top as the culminating point of all human ascents." Taken in a figurative sense, in which alone the saying is acceptable, this means that all the heights of the various ideals will finally merge into the loftiest of all ideals, when Israel's one holy G.o.d will be acknowledged as the One for whom all hearts yearn, whom all minds seek as the Ideal of all ideals.

Chapter LII. Israel, the Servant of the Lord, Martyr and Messiah Of the Nations

1. "If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence. If the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are borne, enn.o.ble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land. If a literature is called rich which contains a few cla.s.sic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors are also the heroes?" With these cla.s.sic words Leopold Zunz introduces the history of sufferings which have occasioned the hundreds of plaintive and penitential songs of the Synagogue described in his book, _Die Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters_. They are the cries of a nation of martyrs, resounding through the whole Jewish liturgy, and appearing already in many of the Psalms: "Thou hast given us like sheep to be eaten; and hast scattered us among the nations. Thou makest us a taunt to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten Thee, neither have we been false to Thy covenant: Nay, for Thy sake are we killed all the day; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Awake, why sleepest Thou, O Lord?

Arouse Thyself, cast not off forever. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?"(1170) Thus the congregation of Israel laments; and what is the answer of Heaven?

2. The Bible contains two answers: the first by Ezekiel, priest and prophet; the other by the great unknown seer of the Exile whose words of comfort are given in the latter part of Isaiah. Ezekiel gave a stern and direct answer: "The nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity because of their iniquity, because they broke faith with Me, and I hid My face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they fell all of them by the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions did I unto them; and I hid My face from them. Therefore thus saith the Lord G.o.d: Now will I bring back the captivity of Jacob, and have compa.s.sion upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name. And they shall bear their shame, and all their breach of faith which they committed against Me."(1171) These words are echoed in the harrowing admonitory chapter of Leviticus, which, however, closes with words of comfort: "And they shall confess their iniquity ... if then perchance their uncirc.u.mcised heart be humbled, and they then be paid the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land."(1172) This view of divine justice as external and punitive was basic to the Synagogue liturgy and the entire rabbinic system. The priestly idea of atonement, that sin could be wiped out by sacrifice, made a profound impression, not only upon individual sinners, but also upon the nation. Hence it was applied especially to the people in exile when they could not bring sacrifices to their G.o.d. Still, one means of atonement remained, the exile itself, which could lead the people to repentance and finally to G.o.d's forgiveness.(1173) Thus the people retained a hope of return from their captivity. They were a.s.sured by their prophetic monitors that the faithful community of the Lord would again be received in favor by the G.o.d of faithfulness. They even built their hope upon the portions of the Law, which was read to a.s.sembled worshipers that they might know and observe it on their return to the land of their fathers. Israel could say with the Psalmist: "Unless Thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in mine affliction."(1174) According to a Palestinian Haggadist, "Israel would never have persevered so long, had not the Torah, the marriage contract of Israel with its G.o.d, pledged to it a glorious future on the holy soil."(1175) Wait patiently for G.o.d's mercy, which in His own time will rebuild Israel's State and Temple!-this is the keynote of all the prayers and songs of the Synagogue.

3. But the great seer of the exile, whose anonymity lends still greater impressiveness to his words of comfort, stood on a higher historical plane than that of Ezekiel the priest. He witnessed the transformation of the entire political world of his time through the victory of Cyrus the Mede over the Babylonian empire, and thus was able to attain a profounder grasp of the destiny of his own nation. Hence he was not satisfied with the view of Ezekiel. The latter had applied the popular saying, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge,"(1176) to refute the belief that an individual was punished for the sins of his fathers; but he failed to extend this doctrine to the whole nation.

Whatever sins were committed by the generation who were exiled, their children ought not to suffer for them "in double measure."(1177) Moreover, the realm of love has a higher law than atonement through retribution.

Love brings its sacrifice without asking why. By willing sacrifice of self it serves its higher purpose. He who struggles and suffers silently for the good and true is _G.o.d's servant_, who cannot perish. He attains a higher glory, transcending the fate of mortality. This is the new revelation that came to the seer, as he pondered on the destiny of Israel in exile, illumining for him that dark enigma of his people's tragic history.

The problem of suffering, especially that of the servant of G.o.d, or the pious, occupied the Jewish mind ever since the days of Jeremiah and especially during the exile. The author of the book of Job elaborated this into a great theodicy, speaking of Job also as the "servant of the Lord."(1178) Whatever pattern our exilic seer employed, beside the chapters about the Servant of the Lord,(1179) whatever tragic fate of some great contemporary the plaintive song in the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters referred to (some point to Jeremiah, others to Zerubabel),(1180) or whether the poet had in mind only the tragic fate of Israel, as many modern exegetes think; in any case he conceived the unique and pathetic picture of Israel as the suffering Servant of the Lord, who is at last to be exalted:(1181)

"Behold, My servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. According as many were appalled at thee-so marred was his visage unlike that of a man, and his form unlike that of the sons of men-so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard shall they perceive. Who would have believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shot up right forth as a sapling, and as a root out of a dry ground; he had no form nor comeliness, that we should look upon him, nor beauty that we should delight in him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of pains, and acquainted with disease, and as one from whom men hide their face; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely our diseases he did bear, and our pains he carried; whereas we did esteem him stricken, smitten of G.o.d and afflicted. But he was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities; the chastis.e.m.e.nt of our welfare was upon him, and with his stripes we were healed. All we, like sheep, did go astray, we turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, though he humbled himself, and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea, he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and with his generation who did reason? For he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due.

And they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich his tomb; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to crush him by disease; to see if his soul would offer itself in rest.i.tution, that he might see his seed, prolong his days, and that the purpose of the Lord might prosper by his hand. Of the travail of his soul he shall see to the full, even My servant, who by his knowledge did justify the Righteous One to the many, and their iniquities he did bear. Therefore will I divide him a portion among the great, and he shall divide his soul with the mighty; because he bared his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

4. Whatever be the historical background of this great elegy, our seer uses it to portray Israel as the tragic hero of the world's history. His prophetic genius possessed a unique insight into the character and destiny of his people, seeing Israel as a man of woe and grief, chosen by Providence to undergo unheard-of trials for a great cause, by which, at the last, he is to be exalted. Bent and disfigured by his burden of misery and shame, shunned and abhorred as one laden with sin, he suffers for no guilt of his own. He is called to testify to his G.o.d among all the peoples, and is thus the _Servant of the Lord_, the atoning sacrifice for the sins of mankind, from whose bruises healing is to come to all the nations,-an inimitable picture of a self-sacrificing hero, whose death means life to the world and glory to G.o.d, and who will at last live forever with the Lord whom he has served so steadfastly. Our seer mentions in earlier pa.s.sages the Servant of the Lord who "gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; and hid not his face from shame and spitting."(1182) Yet "he shall set his face like a flint," so that "he shall not fail nor be crushed, till he have set the right in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his teaching."(1183) Still more directly, he says: "And He said unto Me, 'Thou art My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.' ... It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the offspring of Israel; I will also give thee for a light of the nations, that My salvation may be unto the end of the earth. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him who is despised of men, to him who is abhorred of nations, to a servant of rulers: kings shall see and arise, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the Lord that is faithful, even the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee."(1184)

5. It was, however, no easy matter for men reared in the old view to reach the lofty conception of a suffering hero. Even the dramatic figure of Job seemed to lack the right solution. Job protests his guiltlessness, defies the dark power of fate, and even challenges divine justice, but G.o.d himself announces at the end that no man can grasp the essence of His plan for the world. A later and more nave writer, who added the conclusion of the book, reversed Job's destiny and compensated him by a double share of what he had lost in both wealth and family.(1185) As if the great problem of suffering could be solved by such external means! Neither would the problem of the great tragedy of Israel, the martyr-priest of the centuries, the Job of the nations, ever find its solution in a national restoration. A mere political rebirth could never compensate for the thousandfold death and untold woe of the Jew for his G.o.d and his faith!

But the people at large could not grasp such a conception as is that of Deutero-Isaiah's of the mission of Israel to be the suffering servant of the Lord, the witness of G.o.d-which is "martyr" in the Greek version,-the redeemer of the nations. They were eager to return to Palestine, to rebuild State and Temple under the leadership of the heir to the throne of David. But when their hope had failed that Zerubbabel would prove to be the "shoot of Jesse,"(1186) the prophetic elegy was referred to the Messiah, and the belief gained ground that he would have to suffer before he would triumph.(1187) Thus many a pseudo-Messiah fell a victim to the tyranny of Rome in both Judaea and Samaria,-for the Samaritans also hoped for a Messiah, a redeemer of the type of Moses.(1188) Finally a belief arose that there would be two Messiahs, one of the house of Joseph, that is, the tribe of Ephraim, who would fall before the sword of the enemy,(1189) and the other of the house of David, who was to conquer the heathen nations and establish his throne forever.(1190)

The Church referred the pathetic figure of the man of sorrow to her crucified Messiah or Christ. Yet he who was to be a world-savior bore through his followers d.a.m.nation to his own kinsmen, and thus was rendered the chief cause of the persecution of the martyr-race of Israel.

6. We learn, however, from Origen, a Church father of the third century, that Jewish scholars, in a controversy with him, expressed the view that the Servant of the Lord refers to the Jewish people, which, dispersed among the nations and universally despised, would finally obtain the ascendancy over them, so that many of the heathen would espouse the Jewish faith.(1191) Most of the medieval Jewish exegetes, including Rashi, who usually follows the traditional view, refer the chapter likewise to the Jewish people. As a matter of fact, the earlier chapters which speak of the Servant of the Lord can have no other meaning, while many points in the description of the suffering hero, especially the reference to his seed after his death, do not fit the Nazarene at all. Hence all independent Christian scholars to-day have abandoned the tradition of the Church, and admit that Israel alone is declared by the prophet to be the one singled out by G.o.d to atone for the sins of the nations, to arouse all humanity to a deeper spiritual vision, and finally to triumph over all the heathen world.(1192)

7. Thus the strange history of the martyr people is put in the right light and the great tragedy of Israel explained. Israel is the champion of the Lord, chosen to battle and suffer for the supreme values of mankind, for freedom and justice, truth and humanity; the man of woe and grief, whose blood is to fertilize the soil with the seeds of righteousness and love for mankind. From the days of Pharaoh to the present day, every oppressor of the Jews has become the means of bringing greater liberty to a wider circle; for the G.o.d of Israel, the Hater of bondage, has been appealed to in behalf of freedom in the old world and the new. Every hardship that made life unbearable to the Jew became a road to humanity's triumph over barbarism. All the injustice and malice which hurled their bitter shafts against Israel, the Pariah of the nations, led ultimately to the greater victory of right and love. So all the dark waves of hatred and fanaticism that beat against the Jewish people served only to impress the truth of monotheism, coupled with sincere love of G.o.d and man, more deeply upon all hearts and to consign hypocrisy and falsehood to eternal contempt. Such is the belief confidently held by the people of G.o.d, and ever confirmed anew by the history of the ages. "He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand up together; who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord G.o.d will help me; who is he that shall condemn me?"(1193) Thus speaks the Servant of the Lord, certain that he will finally triumph, because he defends G.o.d's cause, and is bound indissolubly to Him.(1194) Indeed, G.o.d says of him: "Surely, he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Mine (his) eye."(1195)

8. The great importance which the rabbis attached to Israel's martyrdom is shown by the following remarks in connection with the laws of sacrifice: "Behold, how the Torah selects for the sacrificial altar only such animals as belong to the pursued, not the pursuers: the ox which is pursued by the lion; the lamb which is pursued by the wolf; the goat which is pursued by the panther, but none of those which feed on prey. In like manner G.o.d chose for His own the persecuted ones: Abel, who was persecuted by his brother Cain; Noah, who was derided by the generation of the flood; Abraham, who had to flee before the tyrant Nimrod; and Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, who met with unkindness from their own brothers. In the same way G.o.d has chosen Israel from among the seventy nations, as the lamb hunted, as it were, by seventy wolves, that it should bear His law to mankind."(1196) This idea is expressed also in the Haggadic saying: "Those shall be privileged to see the majesty of G.o.d in full splendor who meet humiliation, but do not humiliate others; who bear insult, but do not inflict it on others; and who endure a life of martyrdom in pure love of G.o.d."(1197)

Indeed, the medieval Jew accepted his sad lot in this spirit of resignation. But the modern Jew is in a different situation. In the mighty effort of our age for higher truth, broader love and larger justice, he beholds the nearing of the prophetic goal of a united humanity, based on the belief in G.o.d, the King and Father of all. Accordingly, modern Judaism proclaims more insistently than ever that the Jewish people is the Servant of the Lord, the suffering Messiah of the nations, who offered his life as an atoning sacrifice for humanity and furnished his blood as the cement with which to build the divine kingdom of truth and justice. Indeed, the cosmopolitan spirit of the Jew is the one element needed for the universality of culture. On the other hand, the world at large is to-day learning more and more to regard the superb loyalty of the Jew to his ancestral faith with greater fairness and admiration and to accord larger appreciation to him and his religion. Once the flood of hatred, dissension, and prejudice that brought such untold havoc shall have disappeared from the earth; once religion emerges from the nebulous atmosphere of other-worldliness, and directs its longing for G.o.d toward a life of G.o.dliness on earth in the spirit of the ancient prophets, then the historic mission of the Jew will also be better understood. Israel, the hunted dove, which found no resting-place for the sole of its foot during the flood of sin and persecution, will then appear with the olive-branch of peace for all humanity, to open the hearts of men that all may enter the covenant with the universal Father. Then, and not till then, will the shame of those thousands of years be rolled away, when the world will recognize that not _a_ Jew, but _the_ Jew has been the suffering Messiah, and that he was sent forth to be the savior of the nations.

Chapter LIII. The Messianic Hope

1. Recent investigators have brought to light many a vision of an era of heavenly bliss brought about by some powerful ruler, voiced in h.o.a.ry antiquity by seer or singer in addressing the royal masters of Babylon or Egypt.(1198) But no word in the entire vocabulary of ancient poetry or prose can so touch the deeper chords of the heart, and so voice the highest hopes of mankind, as does the name _Messiah_ ("G.o.d's anointed").

From a simple t.i.tle for any of the kings of Israel, it grew in meaning until it comprised the highest hopes of the nation. The Jewish vision of the future was not the twilight of the G.o.ds, which meant the end of the world with its deities, but the dawn of a new world, bright with the knowledge of G.o.d and blessed by the brotherhood of man. This, the Messianic ideal, is the creation of the prophetic genius of Israel, and in turn it influenced man's conception of G.o.d, lifting Him out of the national bounds, and making Him the G.o.d of humanity, Ruler of history.

Israel's Messianic hope has become the motive power of civilization. In the time of deepest national humiliation it gave the prophets their power to surmount the present and soar to heights of vision; through it the Jewish people attained their strength to resist oppression, buoyed up by perfect confidence and sublime hope. At the same time its magic l.u.s.ter captivated the non-Jewish nations, spurring them on to mighty deeds. Thus it has actually conquered the whole world of man. With every step in culture it points forward to higher aims, still unattained; it promises to lead mankind, united in G.o.d, the Only One, to truth and justice, righteousness and love. As the banner of Israel, the Messiah of the nations, it is destined to become the lode-star of all nations and all religions. This is the kernel of the Jewish doctrine concerning the Messiah.

2. This Messianic hope, on closer a.n.a.lysis, reveals two elements, both of prophetic origin: one national, the other religious and universal. The latter is the logical outcome of the monotheism of the great exilic seer, who based his stirring pictures of the glorious future of Israel upon the all-encompa.s.sing knowledge of G.o.d possessed by the Chosen People. The cla.s.sic expression of this hope appears in Isaiah II, 1-4, and Micah IV, 1-14: "And it shall come to pa.s.s in the end of days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say: 'Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the G.o.d of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths,' for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." We note, indeed, that no reference to the Messiah or a king of the house of David appears either in this pa.s.sage or any of the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah. Justice and peace for all humanity are expected through the reign of G.o.d alone. The specific Messianic character of this prophecy took shape only in its a.s.sociation with the older national hope, voiced by the prophet Isaiah.