Chapter I: HAVE used my text in good old fashion as a pretext for a little (5)

But while the historic method stemmed the tide of rationalism, it failed to give back to religion its native vigor. It removed forever the stigma of insincerity that was attached to the origin and development of the dominant faiths; it illumined the past and incorporated it into man's spiritual life; but it was unable to restore to religion its most important function, that of shaping the future. The fundamental paradox which the historic method harbors, and which has prevented it from contributing adequately to the process of adjustment, is the fact that the spiritual experiences of the past, which it asks us to love and revere, were at the time of their enactment not memories, but vital responses to immediate and pressing needs. In the past religion dealt with its own present. That at all times the past did play an important rôle cannot be denied; but in all effective religion it can only be a means to an end. The historic method, on the other hand, succeeds in nothing but in revitalizing the past for its own sake. It provides no guidance for the future. A religion must not only write history--it must make history. This is why the historic method has been found wanting and has had to be supplemented by a new method of adjustment, which for want of a better term we may designate the socio-psychological.

_The New Way--the Social and Psychological Viewpoint_

BUT little attention has so far been paid to this new method of self-adjustment. Though it is still inchoate and uncrystallized, it forms the best part of every endeavor that makes for the rehabilitation of religion. The remarkable feature about the new mode of adjustment is that it did not come about directly, through a desire on the part of the teachers of religion to make good the inadequacy of previous methods. It was arrived at indirectly from a source that at first seemed hostile, and to some extent is still considered so, namely, social science. Not alone religion, but government and education, as well as history, economics and psychology, have been revolutionized as a result of the new way of approaching the problems of human life. So recent is the change that we have hardly had time to appraise it. The modern point of view toward human society has worked a change in all our thinking, comparable only to the one which resulted when the true purport of the concept "evolution" became apparent. The human race has lived through the forces generated by social existence without having been aware of them, even as it went on living for thousands of years without knowing the numerous forces that were latent in the earth, air and sea. It will probably take a much longer time for man to estimate at their worth the forces that are at work in social life than it took him to perceive the forces that dominate the physical world.

With all that, it is now generally established that the study of any phase of human life, whether for theoretical or for practical purposes, must be based upon the recognition that man is not merely a social animal, as Aristotle put it, but that his being more than an animal is due entirely to his leading a social life. In opposition to the older point of view, which prevailed in the more materialistic schools of thought during the nineteenth century, social science has proved that the forces that operate in human life are not merely those that are derived from the physical environment, but also those which are of a mental character. These psychical forces operate with a uniformity and power in no way inferior to those of the physical world. Social science is gradually accustoming us to regard human society not merely as an aggregate of individuals but as a psychical entity, as a mind not less but more real than the mind of any of the individuals that constitute it. The perennial source of error has been the fallacy of considering the individual human mind as an entity apart from the social environment. Whatever significance the study of the mind, as detached from its social environment, may have for metaphysical inquiry, it can throw no light upon the practical problems with which the mind has to deal--problems that arise solely from the interaction of the individual with his fellows. The individual human being is as much the product of his social environment as the angle is of the sides that bound it.

This new method of studying mental life both in the race and in the individual has revealed not merely the true significance of religion, but the way in which it functions and the conditions which affect its career. We now know that those phenomena in life which we call religious are primarily the expression of the collective life of a social group, after it has attained a degree of consciousness which is analogous to the self-consciousness of the individual. When a collective life becomes self-knowing we have a religion, which may therefore be considered the flowering stage in the organic growth of the tree of social life. The problem of religious adjustment is at bottom that of maintaining in a social group the psychical or spiritual energy which expresses itself in beliefs, ideals, customs and standards of conduct. Accordingly, when a religion is passing through a crisis, what is really happening is not so much that certain accepted truths or traditional habits are threatened with obsolescence, as that the social group with whose life it has been identified is on the point of dissolution. Whatever interest we have in the cultivation of the spiritual life must go towards conserving this kind of social energy. To have roses we must take care of the tree on which they grow, and not content ourselves with having a bouquet of them put into a vase filled with water. This newer conception of the religious life is fraught with far-reaching consequences, some of which we shall have to point out in a later article.

In Judaism we encounter the same three stages in the process of self-adjustment, though less clearly defined, by reason of much overlapping. What is known as the Haskalah movement represents the application of the rationalistic method to the spiritual problems of Jewish life. Having taken place in Russia, it was bound to be delayed in its coming for nearly a century. It received the first setback in its career when the pogroms broke out in the early "eighties," and the Russian Government inaugurated its policy of hounding and repression. The type which the Haskalah movement produced is the "Maskil," a man who curls his lip at ceremony and tradition, who lacks a sense of history and dabbles in cosmopolitanism. Not having had the courage to be thoroughgoing in his principles, or realizing that it was futile to be so, he tolerated what was distinctively Jewish so long as it was kept indoors and withdrawn from public gaze. In practice, however, "Haskalah" moved in the same direction as eighteenth century rationalism which made for the abrogation of the historic faiths.

_Judaism in the Rationalistic and Historic Stages_

CONTEMPORANEOUSLY with the rise and development of the Haskalah movement in Russia, Jewry in the German-speaking countries tested the validity both of the rationalistic and of the historic method. The Reform movement was at first, like the Haskalah movement, little more than a diluted cosmopolitanism. A typical case is that of David Friedlander and his friends, who began by reforming the worship in harmony with modern ideas and the changed social position of the Jews, and ended in offering to accept Christianity, if they would not be required to believe in Jesus and could be exempted from the observance of certain ceremonies. Influenced by the general reaction against rationalistic tendencies and by the rise of Jewish Wissenschaft, the Reform movement has had to reckon with the historic method of adjustment. But that influence has not been strong enough to overcome its early rationalistic bias from which it suffers to this very day.

The historic method was applied with far more thoroughness and consistency by the advocates of Historical Judaism. Zunz, Frankel, Graetz, Herzfeld, Luzzatto and Joel drew the line between adaptation and assimilation. They laid down the principle that it was fatuous to speak of a religion adjusting itself when it breaks so completely with the past as to be unrecognizable. In our anxiety to have Judaism conform to the needs of the age, we must take care lest we create an altogether new religion and label it Judaism. Intellectual honesty demands that we give due heed to the principle of identity, so that the sameness in our Judaism and that of our fathers be greater than the difference between them. They therefore applied themselves to the task of reconstructing the past by dint not of logic and phrase-mongering, but of patient, plodding search after facts strewn in the most out-of-the-way by-paths of literature, with the consequence that they discovered an impassable gulf between the Judaism of history and the Judaism of the Reform movement. We shall never be able to discharge fully our debt of gratitude to these Jewish scholars and historians who have given us, in place of a few vague and detached memories, a past rich in content and inspiration. But what they did was only to lay the foundation of the Judaism of the future. A foundation affords poor shelter against the hail and sleet of a bleak wintry day. Of what avail is it to keep on forever hugging the cold foundation stones, when we should be engaged in building the house of Israel?

_Judaism and the Jewish Soul_

AS soon as we begin to experience the need not merely of giving consent to certain abstract truths or of contemplating the past, but of helping to build the house of Israel as a means to our spiritual well-being, Judaism enters through us upon the third stage in the process of self-adjustment. This is the case with all those who rebel against the pulverizing and granulating tendencies of Judaized Protestantisms which ignore the "Kenneseth-Israel" in the effort to mete out salvation to the individual soul. This is true of all who refuse to allow Judaism to provincialize itself by applying for naturalization papers wherever it finds a habitat. To this class also belong those who see in Zionism not what its opponents make it out to be, a sulking, sullen Chauvinism, but a method of regeneration to which Judaism has been led by divine intuition. Dr. Schechter, who has contributed to Judaism the concept of catholicity, has this to say of Zionism: "While it is constantly winning souls for the present, it is at the same time preparing us for the future, which will be a Jewish future. Only when Judaism has found itself, when the Jewish soul has been redeemed from the Galuth, can Judaism hope to resume its mission in the world." How significant the apposition in which the author places Judaism and the Jewish soul! What a pity to spoil a poetic insight of that kind by applying to it so barbarous a term as socio-psychological. Yet in that insight is echoed the modern conception of religion as the self-consciousness of the group, a conception which the very conditions of life have forced the Jew to adopt. Whatever vitality Judaism still displays may be traced to a general presentiment that it is a social mind and not a system of abstract truths. We should not, however, permit such a principle to remain merely a vague presentiment. The task that devolves upon us is to render articulate both in theory and in practice all that is implied in the intuition that Judaism is the soul of Israel.

EDITORS' NOTE.--_Prof. Kaplan will continue to develop
his conception of the true meaning of Judaism in
articles to appear in subsequent issues._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote G: In _The Menorah Journal_ for October, 1915.]

=University Menorah Addresses=

_The following addresses indicating the attitude of
University authorities towards the Menorah movement
may be considered as supplementary to the University
Addresses printed in Part II of_ THE MENORAH MOVEMENT
(1914) _and in the first number_ (_January_, 1915)
_of_ THE MENORAH JOURNAL.

PROFESSOR ALBERT LÉON GUÉRARD OF THE RICE INSTITUTE

_Before the Rice Institute Menorah Society, November 29, 1915_

IT is my privilege to welcome the Menorah Society in the name of the non-Jewish element and of the Faculty of the Rice Institute. When I was requested to do so, I accepted at once and with pleasure. I am in hearty sympathy with the purpose of the Menorah Society. I am a teacher of French; but I should consider myself unworthy of my calling if, behind the words of a foreign language, I did not attempt to show the civilization of a people, their soul, their ideal. Now, what I am attempting to do for French, the Menorah plans to do for the traditions, the problems, the aspirations of the Jewish race. And although I believe that the people which gave to the world Saint Louis, Joan of Arc, Calvin, Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Pasteur, Victor Hugo has left its imperial imprint upon the whole of modern civilization, yet I cannot but be conscious of the prior and higher claims of that strange family of whose blood Moses, Jesus and Spinoza were born. Judaism and Hellenism, said Renan, are the twin miracles of human history. The artistic and philosophical primacy of the Greeks is not so striking as the religious primacy of the Hebrews. The worship of beauty is a less vital element than the undying quest for righteousness. The whole fabric of our culture rests on those Judeo-Hellenic foundations. And surely a university would be false to its name if it did not include among its courses the study of Jewish literature and Jewish history. The Rice Institute is young, and will not reach its full stature for many a decade; all branches of knowledge cannot be taken up at the same time. But the place which Judaic studies ought by right to have in the curriculum will be at least indicated and kept in mind by your Menorah Society.

I heartily welcome the Menorah because, open to Jews and Gentiles alike, it will help us break down the barrier of prejudices which still separates the two elements. I have seen with my own eyes the tragic effects of such prejudices: I was in Paris at the time of the Dreyfus case; I have seen how they warped the thought of scholarly men, like Houston Stewart Chamberlain; I have read with horror of the Russian pogroms. You, who have suffered for ages under the fierce contempt and hatred of fanatics, you who have at last reached this haven of democracy and justice, let not the lesson of past sufferings be lost; do not forget your brethren still in bondage; and your brethren are those who are persecuted, all the world over, even as you were persecuted. You ought to be foremost among those who labor for equality and freedom. We have a right to count upon you in the fight against all prejudices--prejudices of race and color, of class and country, of caste and religion. The emancipated Jew must be an emancipator.

I welcome the Menorah Society because, though devoted primarily to the tradition of your people, it does not look exclusively towards the past. Be rightly proud of the most unique and entrancing tradition in the history of the world. Cherish it, hold fast to it, as a title of nobility. The world has no respect for the man who does not respect himself in his forefathers. The call to American citizenship does not in the least imply the duty of forgetting that you are Jews: it is the best Jews that will make the best Americans. But do not be hypnotized by your past; be worthy of your ancestors by continuing their spirit rather than aping their habits. Think of the problems of to-day and to-morrow. Apply to human affairs your Biblical test of righteousness. Then you will find that, with a slightly different coloring perhaps, your aspirations are ours; our diverse evolutions, after centuries of estrangement and conflict, tend towards the same goal; and in the Menorah I see a sign of the coming harmony of sects and creeds, each remaining passionately attached to its own past, but all working in common towards the same future.

Finally, I cannot drive away from my thought the shambles of Europe. Your co-religionists are fighting under all the belligerent flags, as bravely, as loyally, as their fellow-citizens of a different creed; and they have suffered more heavily in Poland than even the Belgian martyrs. When one thinks of the carnival of murder to which the idolatry of territorial, political patriotism has led, one cannot but wonder whether the Jewish people throughout the world might not afford an example for all to follow. In Judaism we have tradition, culture and race dissociated from any special habitat or from any political form; and this nation without a land, this nation without a king, is developing, prospering, unconquerable. I wonder whether the territorial state, which has led to such monstrous aberrations, is not a last idol and doomed to disappear as an ethical factor; and whether the future might not belong to universal, interpenetrating communities;--freely expanding, untrammelled by physical boundaries, unable to use force, and free from the fear of force, communities of which Judaism to-day might be the prototype. But I do not want to dwell at any length on a mere hypothesis or perhaps on a flight of fancy. I have said enough, I hope, to convince you of my hearty sympathy with the work of the Menorah Society. May it long prosper--an increasing element of strength in our Institute!

PROFESSOR PHILIP B. KENNEDY, DIRECTOR OF THE DAY DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL OF COMMERCE, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

_Before the New York University (Washington Square) Menorah Society, November 3, 1915_