Jewish Life June 1957 by Jewish Action

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WITH TORAH TO FREEDOM (See Page 2)

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S aul B ernstein , Editor M. M orton R uben stein D r. E ric O ffenbacher R euben E. Gkoss R abbi S. J. S harfman L ibby K laperman

EDITORIALS B O N U S .................................................... ARABIAN OIL VS. AMERICAN PRINCIPLE ................................................ THE TASK AHEAD.................................

Editorial Associates

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ARTICLES A MODERN BIBLE TRANSLATION.............. 7 A. A. Davidson TORAH-TOWN — A SEMI-RURAL OR THODOX JEWISH COMMUNITY. . . . . 11 Saul Sigelschiffer HASHKOFAH: THE AM SEGULAH C O N C E P T ................................................ 17 Samson R. Weiss RELIGION IN THE YISHUV............. .. 19 I. Halevi-Levin YEHUDA HALEVI AS PHILOSOPHER. . . 26 Meyer Waxman HEBREW: ITS ROLE IN JEWISH LIFE. . 40 Zevi Tabory SHECHITAH AT STAKE........................ 44

M. J udah M etchik

Assistant Editor Inside Illustrations by N orman N odel

JEW ISH LIFE is published bi-monthly. Subscription two years $3.00, three years $4.00, four years $5.00. All rights reserved Editorial and Publication Office : 305 Broadway New York 7, N. Y. . BEekman 3-2220

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A FEW KIND WORDS ABOUT THE SHAMOSH .................................. 34 Bertha Z. Beck

U nion of Orthodox J ew ish Congregations of A merica M oses I, F euerstein

President Rabbi H. S. Goldstein, Wil liam Weiss, Samuel Nirenstein, William B. Herlands, Max J. Etra, Honorary Pres idents; B e n ja m in K oenigsberg, Nathan K. Gross, Samuel L, Brennglass, S. David Leibowitt, Vice Presidents; Edward A. Teplow, Treasurer; Reuben E. Gross, Secretary. Dr. Samson R. Weiss, Exec utive Vice President. ;

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PHOTO FEATURE LAG BAOMER IN MERON.................... 38

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BOOK REVIEWS A SYNTHESIS THAT FAILED................. 55 Justin Hoffman OLD TRADITIONS IN NEW BEAUTY. . . 58

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FEATURES AMONG OUR CONTRIBUTORS........... 2 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR........................ 59

Am awf

&un,GoMtniitda/M,

A. A. DAVIDSON is well known to J ewish L ife readers for his delightful articles and stories. Born and bred in Yonkers, N. Y., he has gained a reputation as one of America's most promising young Jewish writers. His work has been published in many leading periodicals. He is the recipient of the first prize of the Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine annual contest for 1956. SAUL SIGELSCHIFFER is the principal of Herman Ridder Junior High School 98, The Bronx, N. Y. A member of the faculty of the School of Education and Community Adminis tration of Yeshiva University, he also serves as chairman of the Board of Directors of the Yonkers Hebrew Academy. This is his first contribution to Jew ish Life . DR. SAMSON R. WEISS is the executive vice-president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Noted Jewish educator and thinker, his column on Jewish concepts is a regular feature of J ewish L ife . RABBI ZEVI TABORY is the Director of the Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora of the Jewish Agency. A student of the »famous Yeshivah of Slobodka, he was ordained by rabbinic authorities in Europe, Israel and America. Rabbi Tabory was graduated "from Teachers' Seminary in Kovno and later studied at the Emory University of Georgia. DR. MEYER WAXMAN is the eminent author of ''A History of Jewish Literature," and other noted works. He is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago. DR. JUSTIN HOFFMAN was ordained by the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago. He received his M.A. and his doctorate in Education at the University of Buffalo where he is currently serving as director of the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation. BERTHA ZELDA BECK is the author of short stories which have appeared in Jewish and general periodicals. I. HALEVY-LEVIN is the Israel correspondent of J ew ish L ife . The editor of "Israel Argosy," an anthology of the works of modern Israeli writers, he, is prominent in religious labor circles in Israel.

------------------------ COVER-----------------------Our cover photo, appropriate to the Shavuoth season, shows a young immigrant from Poland boarding an Israel-bound vessel at Marseilles. He is bringing on board a Sefer Torah which had been preserved throughout the ravages of Nazi terror and the oppressions of Communist rule. Please note: Because of the Shem appearing on the Torah mantle in the picture, appropriate care must be taken with the handling of this issue, the cover of which may not be destroyed.

JEWISH LIFE

B O N U S PIGHTY-SEYEN boys and girls, students of nine yeshivah high schools in Metropolitan New York, have brought new lustre to the Jewish Day School movement by winning as many Regent College Scholarships awarded by the Department of Education of the State of New York. The group constitutes more than 4% of the scholarship winners in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens, several times the percentage of the number of students in their schools to the total student body in those boroughs. Two yeshivah high school students were among the three top contestants. As many as 50% of the graduates of one yeshivah high school won the scholarships. A report on this achievement issued by Torah Umesorah notes: "The full impact of these figures has yet to be studied. The bare facts themselves, however, fully indicate that yeshivah high school graduates can certainly hold their own — and more — in a competitive examination given to all high school students.” Without risking the charge of jumping to rash conclusions, it can certainly be further said that this achievement is an extraordinary demonstration of the worth the superior worth, of the Jewish Day School in purely pedagogical terms. The achievement cannot be dissociated from the fact that, at both elementary and high school yeshivoth, the curricula include substantial Jewish studies in addition to all the principle subjects which form the curricula of the public schools. Nor must it be forgotten that the physical facilities of the yeshivah schools are in most cases inferior to those of the public schools. Far from being acquired to the disadvantage of general scholarship, the Jewish values offered by the yeshivah schools turn out, in open test, to be actually a supporting factor. P ROTAGONISTS of the Jewish day schools are pleased but not at all sur prised by the scholarship results. Through the fifteen years or so of the history of the day schools, it has become apparent to all but the most obdurate of opponents that the spirit motivating them, shared by pupils, parents, and teachers alike, yields a rich educational harvest. When learning c, .. is imbued with spiritual ideal, when it is lishmah, sanctified, the a l ^ a lon~ entire mind becomes illuminated. Knowledge, in whatever field to which the student is directed, acquires a sweetness to which he eagerly reaches out and which he assimilates readily. All phases of the curriculum, whether or not specifically "religious,” partake of the benefits. To the extent that proficiency in school work is an index to future success May-June, 1957

in adult society, we can anticipate that the products of our day schools will do outstandingly well. The results of past years already tend to bear out this as sumption. If this is the case, it is a gratifying development for which all must rejoice. Yet we must never permit the worth of the day schools to be measured primarily in such terms. The criterion of day school worth is, and must ever remain, their ability to nurture Jews — complete, informed, practicing happily Jewish Jews. If, in the process, yeshivah training provides a superior basis for the ordinary walks of life, that must be viewed as a bonus, even as the value of all mitzvoth, lies not in the physical and social benefits which accompany them but in their very performance.

ARABIAN OIL vs. AMERICAN PRINCIPLE ^ H E RENEWAL by our Government of the understanding with Saudi Arabia excluding Jews from United States military installations there has received but a fraction of the attention so shocking and ominous an agreement warrants. Concluded at a time of world crisis, the transaction received minor treatment by the press. Now, belatedly, the American public is awakening to the enormity of this violation of basic American principle and policy. Up to the time that the original arrangement to this effect was entered into by the Truman Administration, the United States had never before in its history tolerated discrimination against any body of American citizens by any foreign power. To the contrary, our country, on every occasion through the centuries when such a question arose has asserted with the utmost vigor its insistence upon equal treatment for Americans of all races, origins and faiths. No circumstance, of whatever consequence, was ever permitted to interfere with the assertion and implementation of this policy. In fact, any other course would have been deemed inconceivable, an indefensible betrayal of basic prin ciples of American life. Yet, with the United States the mightiest power in all the world, the preceding Administration yielded to such a stipulation by the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia — and the present Administration, in all deliberation, has again done so. *J"HE RENEWED agreement barring American Jews from Saudi Arabia is justified by the State Department as the necessary price for that country’s oil and friendship. The said oil and friendship are deemed, by the Administration, to be indispensable to defense against Soviet Russia. One wonders: would the sale of the American birthright for oil and bases have been judged ^ equally unavoidable had King Saud addressed equal restrictions to V a lid Christians. Would Mr. Dulles, in such case, have found that the Price restrictions were justifiable because of the previously unknown fact that Christians had killed Mohammed? American Jews would be well advised to ponder the significance of the agreement with Saudi Arabia. It would be a mistake to regard the development 4

JEWISH LIFE

as a mere humiliation and annoyance. In the opinion of this magazine, the repe tition of the discriminatory agreement marks Jewish Americans as of different, and inferior, status to that of Americans at large. The consequences to American Jewry can be profound. While the Jews are the immediate objects of the agreement, the whole nation is its victim. It strikes against all that makes America American, and must inevitably, unless promptly and decisively nullified, lead step by step to the perversion and poisoning of American institutions. The discriminatory Saud Arabian agreement is a potent menace to American democracy. Reaction against the agreement which Secretary of State Dulles concluded with King Saud is being voiced on many sides. If America is to endure as the land of freedom, the agreement must be terminated and erased for ever from memory.

THE TASK AHEAD C O IN C ID IN G with the 59th anniversary of the founding of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the organization’s Annual Dinner on June 2nd brings together leaders of every element of the orthodox Jewish community. Serving the largest constituency of any American Jewish organization, the Orthodox Union has achieved, in the course of its history, distinction and prestige. In the past few years especially, the central body of American Orthodoxy has made impressive strides. The Annual Dinner provides appropriate occasion to take stock of this progress and to appraise present and future tasks. There can be no doubt that American Orthodoxy today, in marked contrast to the situation which prevailed at the time of the Orthodox Union’s founding, is a dynamic and, in increasing measure, a coherent force. The evidences of vitality are omnipresent. The rise of many new congregations and the resurgence of synagogue life generally, the Day School phenomenon, the expansion and waxing influence of the major yeshivoth, the growth of community institutions and organizations — all involving the participation of constantly increasing numbers and reflecting with increasing force their source in vibrantly Jewish hearts — attest to the forward sweep of orthodox Jewry. The orthodox Jew, attuned to the American scene, is not merely perpetuating himself — he is multiplying, intensifying the calibre of his Jewishness and daily making a wider and deeper mark on his environment. Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the growth of American Orthodoxy is its spontaneity. Basically, it is a grass-roots development. While spearheaded by inspired individual leaders and mobilized by dedicated organizations, the movement derives its essential impetus from the common will of the rank and file of our people. In this circumstance lies the ultimate strength of present-day Orthodoxy. But also, therein lies the explanation for its relative backwardness as an integrated force. All other movements in American Jewish life are organized from the top down, or from the center outward. In contrast, Ortho doxy, not deriving from an institutional source, evolves out of a multiplicity of May-June, 1957

individual nuclei. While other groups are initially endowed with organic struc ture but must manufacture ideological content by synthesis, Orthodoxy has from the -first its basis of belief, doctrine, law and practice, but must achieve its organic structure by synthetic development. J N THE highly organized world of today, a force not comprehensively inte grated must suffer perilous disadvantage. However sturdy its roots, it cannot realize its full potential, nor can it employ its resources to best effect in coping with surrounding influences, while lacking coordination ahd central direction. American Orthodoxy, steadily maturing, has become well aware P en a lties of these elementary truths. Awareness has brought increasing £ Of | recognition of the role of the Union of Orthodox Jewish CongreD isu n ity gations of America, and recognition, in turn, has been increasingly translated into working strength. Thus the Union, the common spokesman and standard-bearer for the forces of American orthodox Jewry, has been emerging also as its. effective central force, its instrument for a concerted approach to the problems which all share, to the needs of today and tomorrow. The scope of the organization has widened, bringing it into many new fields of service and action. Broader scope, inevitably, has brought into view broader needs. Today, the vista facing the Orthodox Union is one of titanic tasks. The rising structure of American Orthodoxy stands amidst a ravaged scene. Entire communities, sundered by forces with which they were not equipped to cope, have fallen prey to spiritual disintegration. In every part of the land, weedy growths have sprung up, not seldom spreading into the very portals of the synagogue, reducing healthy organs to waste. Ignorance of the very elements of Jewish belief prevails among masses of Jews. Voices false to the Covenant of Sinai lure the uninstructed. New communities, attracting hundreds of thousands of Jewish families, have sprung up whose bright promise is nullified by the absence of effective Torah voice and leadership. On all sides, chaos abounds. T H E UNION today is called upon to lead the forces of Torah Jewry in address ing these immense problems in their totality. The Union is responding to the call. The measure of its success, in final analysis, is governed K ey to by the support, both moral and financial, which it receives. Let E ffective it be clearly realized that without an effective Union, there can be O rtho d o xy no effective Orthodoxy ^ j a n d no single orthodox institution, however strong, can of itself withstand the forces of chaos. W ith an effective Union, the strength of all is multiplied and, with the grace of the Almighty, the army of the Torah will go forward to high destiny.

JEWISH LIFE

A “Modem” Bible Translation By A. A. D AVIDSON

SHOULD a Jewish translaf tion of the Bible into English be needed? If we were all as learned as we by rights ought, we could read the kithvey kodesh (Holy Scriptures) in the original. Also, if we kept two suc cessive Sabbaths as we by rights ought, we would see Messiah come before the third. Facing things as they are, and not as they ought to be, we know that from the time of the Second Temple so many of us have been ignorant in the Holy Tongue that translations have been needed, and, being needed, have been provided. A famous legend accompanies the account of the first such translation: Seventy scholars at work separately to do the Scriptures into Greek produced seventy identical versions (h e n c e , "Septuagint,” from the Greek word for seventy). W hat is perhaps no less remarkable is that each version con tained identical errors! for, at any rate, errors there were, and errors remain, despite early Christian efforts to cor rect them — a fact not mentioned in current advertisements of "The Sep tuagint Bible”: a translation of a translation! . . . The fast, instituted by the rabbis of the Holy Land, to mark the appearance of the Septuagint in Egypt, long ago fell into disuse. The famous Targum, or Aramaic version, of Onkelos, is more of a para phrase than a translation; and the wellknown Teitsh-Chumosh in Yiddish — which we like to imagine our grand mothers using (I regret that so many grandmothers, including mine, were never taught to read their mo the rMay-June, 1957

tongue), departs so much from the basic text that is rather a book about the Chumosh than a version of it. *J*HERE ARE more formal Jewish * translations into German, in Spanish ancient and modern, in French, Dutch, Arabic; and even the good Chassidishe ladies in Williamsburg, who object tartly to "weak” Jews speaking "goyish” — i.e., English, take advantage of a version in the presumably purified language spoken in Munkacs, Marmar os, and Budapest. English? There have been quite a number of AngloJewish translations, several still in print, and every single one of them is based on the idea that the English lan guage froze to death about 1611 c.e., and ha5 never thawed out. The reason, of course, is the influ ence of the "King James Version,” prepared for English-speaking Prot estants. But though a number of Protestant scholars have knocked off the icicles and produced translations into current English, we Jews have never done so. I recognize that sloppy monarch’s favored work as a structure of beautiful English, but admiring the linguistic style of Anglican bishops 300 years dead is one thing, and Tal mud Torah is something else. This obsolete style has forced itself upon the translations of the prayerbook as well. One can become accus tomed to harder things than addressing the Almighty in the vocabulary and style of ( le-havdil elef alfey havdoloth) James VI and I — but aside from the fact that it is absurd, it is a barrier. 7

One should be able to read a prayer or a psalm as easily as if it had just been written. At the time of this writing a com mittee of eminent Jewish scholars is engaged in producing a translation of the Tanach into modern English, un der the auspices of the Jewish Publica tion Society — whose 1917 translation was in the good old "peradventure thou couldest wot” style. The fact that the present committee members declare that they will use modern English dis poses of one problem. There are others. J7VERY translation is in a sense an original creation. It is not a me chanical replacement of one word by another. It is marked evidently and strongly by the nature and background and opinions of the translator. Pope’s Homer is not Chapman’s Homer. When a number of translators work together to produce a single version, individual nuances may be submerged, but the result will bear the imprint of such nature, background, and opinions as. they jointly share. If the non mechanical aspect is so, even in regard to a work merely literary, how much more must it be so of something unique — the distillation of the Divine Word — the giving of an earthly form to Heavenly Oracles — the Torah. W e cannot discuss any particular product of this committee’s work until now, because they have chosen not to divulge any of it, being undesirous of controversy based on usage which they may later change. Or such, at any rate, is the reason they have given. But if we cannot know exactly what the com mittee has done, we can at any rate, know who the committee is, and this may go far to indicate what the com mittee is likely to do. 8

The Advisory Editorial Committee which is preparing the new Bible translation consists of the following: Dr. Bernard J. Bamberger, of the West End Synagogue (Reform ); Prof. E. A. Speiser, of the University of Pennsyl vania; Dr. Harry Orlinsky, Edltor-inChief, Professor of Bible at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Re ligion (Reform ), and sole Jewish ad visor to the New Standard Revised translation of the Bible (Protestant); Dr. Harry Freedman, who worked on the Soncino Talmud and Midrash, and the Encyclopedia of Biblical Knowl edge (O rthodox); Dr. Max Arzt, ViceChancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative); Judge Louis Levinthal, Chairman of the Publication Committee of the Jewish Publication Society; Mr. Edwin Wolf II, President of the JPS; Dr. Solomon Grayzel, Editor of the JPS, Bible instructor at Dropsie College, and author of wellknown Jewish historical works; and Dr. H. L. Ginsberg, of Columbia Uni versity and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Of these distinguished gentlemen, only Dr. Freedman is orthodox, and he has removed to Australia since the committee began its work. Who, if anyone, will replace him, as "ortho dox representative,” is as yet unknown. A resolution supporting this new trans lation was introduced at a past conven tion of the Rabbinical Council of America, but was tabled. One of the problems involved is how far it is permitted, or if it is permitted at all, to make use of translations or even original productions of religious works prepared by those who are not them selves religious in the orthodox under standing of the term. And besides these Halochic aspects, there are prac tical considerations. JEWISH LIFE

JS THE Masoretic Text (the received and accepted Hebrew version) to be followed absolutely in this translation, or is it to be set aside by "scientific” considerations when the committee sees fit? When the traditional commen taries on any given verse are — or seem to be I p in conflict with the more "modern” opinions of the committee or other authorities favored by them, which is to prevail? The September, 1956 issue of the Jewish Publication Society’s Bookmark contains some in teresting reading on these points. One sentence appears reassuring: "The Committee considers the Masorah sa cred.” This, however, is followed by the significant word, "Nevertheless . . Let us consider the whole matter in context:

archeologists have been able to identify all the other places as having been excep tionally important in ancient pre-Israelite times. They have, however, been unable to find anything that sounds like 'Calneh.* On the other hand, if you recognize that „ the vocalization of the Hebrew Bible came considerably later than the writing of the books, it is conceivable that the consonants which make up the word 'Calneh* could very well have been read 'Kulanah*, which means 'all of them*, so that the verse would read: "Babel, Erech and Accad, all of them m the land of Shinar. "O f course this represents a change in the vocalization of the Hebrew, yet it is geographically and scientifically more ac curate. Here then is a problem for the Committee. "Such problems recur with surprising frequency. The Committee considers the Masorah sacred. Nevertheless, such scien tific opinion must be called to the atten tion of the modern Jew.** (The JPS Bookmark, Sept. *56.)

"Again in Genesis 10:10 we have a list of countries over which Nimrod ruled. The verse lists: 'Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar.* Modern

Most of us, of course, quite well aware that such "scientific opinion” changes year by year, are content to

May-June, 1957

stick with poor old Calneh, which the archaeologists■ — only b ecau se th ey haven’t found it — are prepared to deny existed. At one time they were sure that Troy didn’t exist — until it was found. But, really, is this the sort of scientific opinion which is going to guide the committee? A college fresh man would hesitate before such logic.

"This is the pool of Gibeon,” there seems no good reason not to believe them. If they say, "'Tishcach yemini’ should perhaps be understood not only as meaning 'Let my right hand forget,’ but 'Let my right hand wither,” ’ we can concede: "Perhaps.” But boldly to emend the Text so carefully and pray erfully preserved down the millennia, to alter its vowels and consonants, every one of which is holy, because of some thing which somebody claims to find in Akkadian, Ugaritic, or Greek can this ever be acceptable to us?

ORLINSKY, the project’s Editorin-Chief, says: ''While it may be necessary sometimes to emend the Masoretic text, emendations should be held to a minimum, and in no case should an emendation be introduced if J H E PREFACE to the 1917 JPS it lacks the support of a pertinent an translation says, regarding non-Jew cient Near Eastern text, or of an an ish versions, ". . . the Jew cannot afford cient primary version, such as the to have his Bible prepared for him by Septuagint.’’ About the only acceptable others. He cannot have it as a gift part of his statement would be: "in no even as he cannot borrow his soul from case should an emendation be intro others.” This is still true. W e cannot duced” -— which, of course, is not what have our Bible prepared for us by he said. So we find the answer to the Protestants or Catholics, and we just as question raised earlier in this article. emphatically cannot have it prepared Q. Is the Masoretic Text to be fol for us by men of any faith who would lowed absolutely in this translation, or strain it through a "scientific” sieve. is it to be set aside by "scientific” con The sun (says an ancient proverb) can siderations when the committee sees only be seen by its own light. And fit? A. It is to be set aside as the the Torah can only be understood on committee sees fit. The texts of the its own terms. idolaters and the error-filled Septuagint It seems obvious that this transla are to be preferred. tion of the Bible (still many years It is not to be understood that we from completion) must give grave should ignore the work of scholars in doubt that it is being prepared on the the fields of archaeology and philology. Torah’s terms. If the committee will If they say, ’’These are the ruins of insist on spurning the Jordan in order Ur Chasdim,” "These are the stables to bathe in Amanah and Pharpar, we which Solomon built at Har-Megiddo,” cannot follow them.

JEWISH LIFE

Torah Town—A Semi-Rural Orthodox Jewish Community By SAUL S1GELSCH1FFER jy jY sister-in-law, who lives in the suburbs and has two teen-age daughters, recently complained to me, "Gilda and Edith have nothing to do on Saturday afternoons. There is no real Jewish life for young people in this community. If it were not for the fact that we are so close to New York City, where they can go during the week to meet other teen-agers inter ested in Jewish culture and Zionism, I don’t know what they would do.” This problem has confronted many orthodox parents in suburban com munities. Its difficulties are increased in those areas where distance makes it impossible for young people to travel to New York City for afternoon or evening classes, clubs, and other ac tivities. For New York City substitute any other large city, if you wish. The situation is the same. As a result, many who would like to live in suburban surroundings are deterred by the dis advantages in the education and en vironment of their children. The impact on children, however, is only one phase of a problem which affects an entire concept of living. Orthodox Jewry today is seeking to a greater extent to live a complete life revolving around the synagogue and the yeshivah. It wants an environment which will exude the spirit of Jewish tradition, especially as regards Sab bath observance by the entire com munity, while it participates fully in the economic, political and social opMay-June, 1957

portunities offered in a free society. This objective has thus far been achieved in a number of urban com munities only to a very limited extent because of the diffuseness of popula tion and because of the intrusions and distractions which are inevitable in large cities. It is practically non-exist ent in suburban communities. ^ HOUGH the vitality and strength of traditional Judaism have been demonstrated recently in many signi ficant ways, such as the growth of yeshivoth, camps, and Shabboth and Kashruth observance, we have not yet learned how to take complete advan tage of the remarkable opportunities in this wonderful land of freedom. Much of the confusion in Jewish life has stemmed undoubtedly from the mistaken notion that full acceptance into American society is conditioned on compromise or assimilation. This is regrettable. America demands from us, as it does from all groups that make up the nation, only that we be our selves. The strength of our country lies in the distinctive contributions made by the various elements of its population in accordance with their finest traditions. To the extent that we live in accord with our own traditions based on Torah, we are an asset to our country. In turn, the unparalleled freedom of America stimulates the fullest expres sion of the genius of each group. 11

Judaism, in particular, which managed Assume that such a property, un to thrive and enrich its culture in lands developed, is bought for $175,000, or of persecution, should be able, in this $500 an acre. Undeveloped properties free climate, to reach magnificent located at this distance from New York heights of accomplishment. W e may usually sell for about half this price. well see in time an historical repetition It would be developed in the following of the relationship which existed in way: the era of the Babylonian Gaonate, Three hundred acres would be sub with American Jewry taking its place divided into half-acre plots for build side by side with Israel in the interpre ing 600 homes. It is on this section tation and expansion of Jewish contri that the promoters would earn their butions to world culture. return. The remaining fifty acres, in This article, therefore, has a two cluding lake, would be deeded free to fold purpose: to show how an orthodox the community for a school, synagogue, community may live in a suburban or play fields, faculty apartments, and semi-rural area, and to show how the other community purposes. Included pattern of living of such a community in this deed would be stores and a may enhance Jewish tradition in ac parking area constructed by the pro cordance with American ideals. The moter as a small shopping center to author accepts at the outset the criti help provide income for the synagogue cism, if such it be, that the plan de and school. scribed herein is a bold one, but he The plots would sell for $500 to maintains that it is not grandiose or $3,000, depending on location. De impractical. It does require, however, sirable developed lake property is worth a spirit of faith and dedication, just easily more than this. Deducting the as it presupposes business imagination costs of surveys, promotion and devel and hard-headed enterprise. opment, there would be a handsome return for the promoters on this phase WILL give this community the of the project alone, not to mention name of Torah-town in order to the return on the building of homes. emphasize the implication that its life revolves around the synagogue and the COURSE, to achieve the desired yeshivah school. It should be located objective, plots and homes would about fifty miles from New York City be offered only to purchasers who are or some other major center, in order Shomrey Shabboth. To insure desir to provide rapid, accessible commuting able development and to preserve val by car or train. It should comprise ues, provision would be made that no about 350 acres, and should contain a home cost less than a certain sum to lake of fifteen or twenty acres in order build, with definite specifications as to provide the possibility of every to the type of construction and mate advantage of country living. rials. W ith the purchase of house and The property should be developed by a real estate expert or syndicate who plot would go membership privileges would be able to combine a reasonable in the use of the lake and community profit with a genuine motivation to facilities. To protect against the possi perform an unusual and significant bility of property subsequently falling into the hands of families who are not service to the Jewish community.

JEWISH LIFE

Shomrey Shabboth, another clause would provide that sales be approved by the community. The yeshivah school and the syna gogue would be housed in one ultra modern building. The main synagogue would accommodate about 1,500, a smaller subsidiary synagogue about 400. The school would be designed to serve children from nursery through high school. Assuming an average of one-and-a-half to two children per fam ily at these age levels, the school would contain forty, classrooms, special nurs ery and kindergarten rooms, a large and small auditorium, two gymna siums, locker rooms, a library, science rooms and laboratories, music and band rooms, audio-visual rooms, and special offices for such activities as guidance and student activities. A separate build ing of fifty one-and-a-half to four-anda-half room apartments would house the faculty.

May-June, 1957

Surrounding the school would be spacious play facilities, consisting of baseball diamonds, basketball courts, football and soccer fields, tennis courts, play areas for small children, and an outdoor theatre. Even after providing for these facilities and the previously mentioned shopping center and park ing area, a considerable portion of the fifty-acre tract would be left for future development. J H E COST of construction of these facilities (with the exception of the store and parking areas constructed by the promoter) would be about $4,000,000. To raise this money each house would be taxed $500 annually. This would be a fixed charge incurred with the purchase. Since county taxes in rural areas are generally low, the total tax burden on each family would still be much lower than it is in an urban area

or in a suburban area close to the city without the advantages provided by Torah - town. The tax would in clude full membership privileges in the synagogue, including seats or pews. W ith a tax income of $300,000 a year, the cost of construction would be paid off within fifteen to eighteen years, including mortgage charges. Taxes may be lowered after the prop erty becomes free and clear. Current maintenance of the school and synagogue, aside from income ob tained through such channels as the usual bazaars, drives, etc., would be derived from the following income sources: Tuition from school; tuition from summer day camp; rent from stores and concessions; rent from fac ulty apartments ;Ytcommission fee on resale of houses and rentals of facilities, such as auditorium. An independent, self-supporting re ligious community would thus be as sured, having enough constant income to enable it to encourage and foster any cultural and philanthropic ac

tivities, such as the subsidization of scholars and higher Torah learning. Various stores and shops would be necessary to meet the needs of the community such as meat and delicat essen, grocery, dairy, fruit and. vege table, drug, candy and stationery, res taurant and banquet, bakery, hardware, barber and beauty, books and religious articles. Food, of course, would be un der reliable rabbinical supervision, op erating through a Kehillah structure. There would undoubtedly be room for other professional and business enter prises, including a doctor, dentist and podiatrist. Such enterprises would also serve the surrounding area, both Jew ish and Gentile. A community such as Torah-town would undoubtedly at tract other Shomrey-Shabboth families who would want to build or purchase homes in the vicinity. Property values would rise; small apartment houses or garden apartment projects would very likely follow. Development might in deed become so rapid as to lead to the problem of how to prevent the area from becoming urbanized.

Educational Advantages ^ ^ I T H THE LIFE of the community revolving around the synagogue and the school, the latter would offer a great challenge for the realization of the full potentialities of traditional Jewish living on the American scene. Because of its favored status the yeshivah could become a prototype in the field of Jewish education. It would be able to attract the finest teachers by offering optimum working conditions and salary. Many pedagogical tech niques and practices could be followed which are at present either virtually impossible or very difficult of attain ment, such as frequent and extensive 14

supervisor-teacher conferences, in-serv ice teacher training, close cooperation of the Hebrew and secular staffs, maxi mum integration of the activities of the Hebrew and secular departments, and an extensive, novel parent-teacher program. The school would not be compelled to follow the usual academic day of 9 A.M. to 4 P.M., nor the practice of some yeshivoth which, under pressure of covering ground, extend the day to 5 P.M., and thus subject themselves to the charge of depriving children of daytime play. At Torah-town the school day would start at 8 A.M. and JEWISH LIFE

end at 6 P.M., because generous and would never be lacking. It is also ample playtime and group activities obvious that there would never be a would be provided in close proximity problem for either adults or children to the home under supervision of the of what to do on Shabboth. Intellec school. tual pursuits take on added enjoyment Not all children, of course, would as well as sanctity on Shabboth. follow this schedule. A staggered pro This pattern of living need not cease gram would provide for children of for adult or child during the summer, various age levels, with the older chil as intellectual activities seem to do at dren following a full program. In present. All of the advantages inherent addition, for these children night study in a community like Torah-town under school supervision would also be would be enhanced during the summer possible, because the program of some period. Children’s needs would be teachers could be arranged to allow for adequately met by the day camp. A work with special groups. Thus the moderate tuition fee would be a sav life of the child would be absorbed in ing for parents at the same time that the school which, through its extensive it would provide a source of income facilities, would provide play, music for the school. The needs of adults instruction, athletics, clubs and various would also be adequately provided for other outlets for youthful energies, in by special summer educational pro terests and talents on a full-time basis. grams, courses, and social affairs held There are infinite possibilities in under the sun or under the stars, with this educational set-up. Space consid the outdoor theatre serving as a key erations prevent a more detailed enum facility. Parents who might desire a eration and description than those men change of scene for the summer would tioned above. It is evident, however, have little difficulty in renting their that teachers and children, as w;ell as homes, if they were so inclined, be parents and religious leaders, would be cause of these attractions and ad working in a stimulating, exciting and vantages. creative environment which would have a profound and stirring impact J N SHORT, Torah-town would pro on Jewish life throughout the country. vide a year-round, complete, conr trolled environment which would meet ^ H E intellectual and cultural activities the needs of orthodox Jewish family of the community would also be life for young child, - teen-ager, adult conducted on a twenty-four hour basis. and aged on a level hitherto unpar The life of the synagogue which, ac alleled in the United States. It is the cording to our tradition, was and should kind of community set-up which can always be on such a basis, would be be successfully organized by, and has resurrected. Therè would be minyonim meaning for, only orthodox Jewry. It throughout the day, shiurim and study is this group for which the rich life groups of various kinds for those of of the synagogue and the yeshivah, all ages, and special classes and courses and the traditional observance of the at night for business people. W ith Sabbath undisturbed by the encroach the faculty of the school and visiting, ments of traffic or business or other as well as resident, scholars on hand as forbidden activities, would have par participants, a challenging program ticular appeal. A community like May-June, 1957

Torah-town would thus demonstrate that it is possible to adhere to orthodox Jewish tradition as Americans. It can demonstrate the vibrancy and vitality of Torah Judaism in adapting itself to a favorable environment without sac-

rificing fundamentals. Such an object lesson is much needed in these critical times of greater Jewish awareness. Its impact would be left on Jews every where.

Answers For the Critics £*RITICISMS and objections to the Torah Judaism on the part of its nonplan for a Torah-town may, of Jewish neighbors. course, be raised, but none which affects 3. Would not such a community be its essential soundness. Some which solely a rich man’s environment? No. may be anticipated, and can therefore While it would be initially a com be answered, are: munity for the middle-income group, 1. Will you not be creating a ghetto? a successful undertaking of this sort No. Torah-town would no more would, as pointed out previously, in be a ghetto than such communities as evitably bring housing developments Tuxedo Park or Newport are ghettoes. in the adjoining area for lower income People with common interests natur groups. ally tend to group together. While 4. Would the promoter or promot there may be such a phenomenon as a ers, be able to attract a sufficient num self-imposed ghetto where all contact ber of families to such a project? Yes, with the outside world is voluntarily if the purposes are well-advertised and avoided, the usual concept of a ghetto generally known. Who would not wish is that it is imposed from without, not all the advantages of living in such a within, and under no such construction community, especially since it would of the term would it apply here. be cheaper than living on a similar 2. Would there be any contact with scale in the city? Many who could not the outside world? Of course. Aside afford it would gladly pinch themselves from the fact that proximity to a major economically in order to avail them city would make for easy commuting selves of the opportunities offered. for residents for business and other 5. Are the statistics sound? The contacts, it is logical to assume that figures quoted áre only general esti cordial relationships would develop mates, but they are based on investiga with the contiguous community and tion and experience. They may need that many functions of Torah-town revision after more careful study and would be open to visitors, whether scrutiny; not enough, however, to Jewish or Gentile. Some facilities, change their fundamental value as a such as the outdoor theatre or the basis of procedure. • gymnasium or auditorium, might be The fundamental questions, as the made available for outside functions. writer sees it, are two: Where will the Torah-town would, it is certain, not promoter or group of promoters come fail to meet the challenge of developing from, and where can a suitable location a better understanding and respect of be found?

JEWISH LIFE

I HASHKOFAH The “Am Segulah” Concept By SAMSON R. WEISS Now, therefore, if you will truly listen to My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall he My treasure among all the nations, for Mine is the entire earth. ( Sh’moth, 19:5.)

INHIS preamble to the Decalogue,

the Almighty pronounces His choice of Israel, conditioned on the acceptance of the covenant of Torah, as the segulah mikol hoamim, the chosen jewel from among all other nations. Rabbi Abra ham Ibn Ezra, the great Bible com mentator who exerted so deep an in fluence on Maimonides, Nachmanides and all subsequent classic Jewish think ers, explains the term segulah as an object honored and desirable like which nothing else can be found. Accord ingly, Israel has been chosen to be a treasure among all nations, a people unlike others and distinguished from them by precious qualities. The idea of a chosen people is not a popular one. The contemporary Jew finds it difficult to accept because of the apparent conflict with the concept of human equality so deeply ingrained in Jewish thought and action. Every thing in his soul revolts against the arrogance of a scheme of human rela tions which condemns a human being a priori, from birth on, to an inescap able lower level of existence and de nies to him the equality of rights and privileges. He has seen his people decimated as the direct result of a May-June, 1957

racist theory denying this equality. He responds with all his heart to the Divine command, so often stressed throughout Scripture, to love the stranger and to extend to him equality of rights, one law shall prevail for you and the stranger in your midst. J^OVE is the highest form of accept ance. It presupposes the almost complete identification with the re cipient and object of such love. To love is not to extend pity nor to exer cise mercy and compassion, but to bring the loved one into the circum ference of one's own existence and to experience him as an integral part of it. How, then, can the Jew reconcile these fundamentals of his relation to humanity with the concept of the Am Segulah? Equality is not an evaluative cate gory. It does not postulate the identity of merit and value, for if so it would deny all human ascent and develop ment. Equality is rather the acknowl edgment of the common basis and potential of all men, their being en dowed with the same limitless pos sibility of intellectual and moral ex pansion. Equality, in fact, is the recognition that the only permissible distinction between men is by their utilization of this potential, that their difference in value rests solely on their moral level and virtue, and that no other measure of human value be ap17

plied to any human being. Thus, the noble is elevated above the base, the saint above the profanizer, and the righteous stands higher th a n th e wicked who has turned his potential into the destructive pattern of evil. This is why the choice of Israel was made contingent upon its accept-, ance of the Divine Law. This is why we are told by the Almighty that our distinction must be based on the keep ing of the covenant-— for His is the entire earth and all beings are His children. ##O A ID Rabbi Meir: Whence do we know that even the Gentile who occupies himself with the Torah is like the High Priest? Therefore, it is written which man shall do and live 'by them (Vayikra 18:5.); Scripture does not say, Kohanim, Leviim, Yisroelim, but man. So you learn that even the Gentile who performs the Torah deeds is like unto the High Priest.” (Avodah Zorah, 3.) It is only in the perform ance of Torah and Mitzvoth that we justify the choice, and only by the enactment of the Divine precepts that we remain a kingdom of nobles and a holy people. Torah was offered by the Almighty, as tradition tells us, to all the nations but only Israel chose to accept it. Yet, even now the way is open for every human being to join the chosen peo ple, to share its distinction and to become jewel and treasure. David the King, from whose progeny will come forth the Moshiach, was himself the descendant of a noble woman who chose poverty and suffering above the riches of her father’s palace to join our people and our G-d. This is one of the reasons why we read the Book of Ruth on the Yom Mattan Torotheynu, on Shovuoth, the day Torah 18

was given to us. Shemaya and Avtalyon, Onkelos the Translator and many other Geyvim joined the Am Segulah and became teachers of our people, revered and honored for all times. For mine is the entire earth — this is the portal, the open gate which never was closed to anyone seeking the goodness and the truth of Torah. ^%VER 3200 years ago we stood on Sinai and accepted the Covenant, the Laws of the Torah. Since then we have remained the Chosen People, G-d’s treasure among the nations, by our continued willingness to live by them, generation after generation, in peace and in persecution, in prosperity and in dire poverty. By our very ex istence as a people, we have offered our excellency to all who wanted to share it by clinging to the content of the Divine Revelation, the 613 Pre cepts, in word and deed. W e have never sought to missionize, we have never forced our faith upon others. W e are enjoined by the Torah not to accept rashly the proselyte but to test thrice his seriousness and the stead fastness and purity of his resolve. If like Ruth he then speaks entreat me not to leave thee and to cease from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go and whither thou steep est I will sleep, thy people shall be my people and thy G-d my G-d, he is accepted in the ranks of the Am Segulah. Ennobled by the good choice, ele vated and sanctified by the good deed, precious among all nations unto the Lord by the performance of His pre cepts — this is Yisroel’s concept of the A m Segulah. It is also Yisroel’s ex pression of sublime confidence in the unlimited potential of the human soul, the cornerstone of human equality. JEWISH LIFE

Religion In The Yishuv By l HALEVY-LEVIN Jeru salem :

READERS OF ORTHODOXY in this country claim that a majority of Israel's Jewish inhabitants are religious. That may certainly be so. The North African and the Middle Eastern com munities, who have made up the bulk of the influx of immigrants since 1948, are preponderantly orthodox. This numerical majority, however, is not very important in the cold kulturkampf that is being waged in Israel. The newcomers are a passive element, and are not likely to play an active role in this country's affairs for many years to come. Comforting figures can be quoted to prove that the religious situation is really not so bad as it is made out to be. Thus 100% of the marriages are performed according to the religious rite. But then there is no such thing as civil marriage. Close to 100% of the male children born are circumcised. Partly the rea son is the arrangements made in all miblic hospitals and nursing homes to have male infants circumcised — by the doctor if the oarents insist — before they leave. But it is also due, in a large measure, to the significance still ascribed to this rite even by non religious Tews, some of whom ration alize th^ir compliance by "hygienic reasons.” Some years ago, during the issue of new ration books to the population, 90% of the consumers of meat reg istered with kosher butchers. This is an encouraging figure but too much May-June, 1957

meaning should not be read into it. Then, of course, there is the matter of bootleg meat. In recent years, as a result of strict official controls and a general scarcity of meat, the illicit slaughter of cattle outside the public abbatoirs has become rife. Operators of these slaughter-houses, situated in isolated woods, backyards and packing houses, are unrestricted in their busi ness by veterinary supervision or the Biblical injunction regarding the con sumption only of "clean beasts.” Police raids have revealed the sub stitution of mule, horse, donkey and, of course, camel meat (the last is considered a delicacy in the Middle East) for beef. Registration with a kosher butcher constitutes a fairly ef fective guarantee both of the origin and the quality of the meat purchased. No less than 35% of Israel's chil dren go to religious schools, yeshivoth, Youth Aliy ah homes and the like. (In Jerusalem, the figure is 75%.) But in the K’nesseth elections in 1956 the re ligious parties mustered no more than twelve percent of the votes. Little wonder, then, that religious Jews must contemplate the future with concern. Y e t in the orthodox camp there is not only a chronic lethargy; there is a totally inadequate appreciation of the gravity of the situation, despite the constant struggle being waged in the K’nesseth and elsewhere over individ ual issues. 19

The religious community has refused to adapt its weapons to the new con ditions of the culture-war in Israel. For example: There is not a single institution for the specific purpose of training rabbis in this country. Not that there is a dearth of poten tial students for such an institution. The tradition of religious learning is being fostered and strengthened. There is a growing tendency among religious young people, especially those belong ing to youth organizations, to devote two or three years to study in a yeshivah despite the strain this puts on their educational program in view of the fact that they must serve thirty months in the army. Time was when it was hoped that the Religious Workers’ m o v em en t would produce , a class of spiritual leaders, who, with proper intellectual equipment and with their roots in the soil of the country, would be capable of grappling with the problems facing the modern Jew in Israel. It was an idle hope, because no conscious effort was made to realize it. Under Israeli conditions, it is clear, the role of the Rabbinate must be mainly an educational and social one. The aim of the yeshivoth, however, has remained ‘Torah Lishmoh” — learning for its own sake. There has been little learning for the sake of teaching. The spirit, the entire atmos phere, in the more important yeshivoth is still that of the "old country,” of Poland and Lithuania. The kulturkampf is being kept cold and within bounds by tacit agreement. Even the more militant atheists are not unmindful of repercussions abroad — among Gentiles, no less than Jews — to any overt attack on religious prac tice or values. The League against Religious Co20

ercion enlisted very little support as long as it existed, and has for long been defunct. But prejudice against religious Jewry is strong. Indeed in certain of its manifestations it is not unreminiscent of prejudice against Jews in the Diaspora, especially the proneness to visit the sins of the few on the many. Any misdemeanor com mitted by a religious Jew — especially if he is associated with some public body — is immediately laid at the door of the community. Public opinion judges members of Mapai or the General Zionists indi vidually; but orthodox Jews are judged by their religious or party affiliation. No one — to cite a salient example — would think of ascribing the actions of the Communist Party to any other section of the Israel Socialist move ment. But the blame of any rowdyism or bout of stone - throwing by the Neturei Karta falls on religious Jewry generally. Incidentally it is not without inter est, in this context, to remark on the respect which the sincerity and con sistency of the Neturei Karta has in spired among non-Jewish observers, including Edmund Wilson, the Amer ican critic. In view of the atmosphere of mis representation and misunderstanding surrounding religious Jewry in Israel it is surprising that so little effort should be invested by its manifold or ganizations in explaining its attitude, in refuting its critics and publicizing its achievements. For instance, it is generally believed in the non-religious section of the community, especially the. younger generation, that the mod ern Jewish colonization effort in this country, was launched in a burst of revolutionary iconoclasm against the JEWISH LIFE

Their weapons within reach, religious Israeli settlers studying Gemorah are prepared for any eventuality requiring the u se of arms.

obscurantism and reaction of the Jew Quite simply the case of religious ish place of settlement. Jewry is being lost by default. How many people know that most The Mizrachi and Agudist parties, of the colonies and the new urban in spearheading religious efforts to pre quarters, established in the eighties serve the traditional character of the and the nineties of the last century, State, find themselves in a peculiar were founded by orthodox Jews from quandary. Commanding only a small the gaettoes of Jerusalem and Safed minority in the K’nesseth, they must and from the towns and villages of secure, by compromise and concession, Eastern Europe? the support of other parties for their The epic defense of Kfar Etzion is policies. The religious principles they renowned; but how many people know uphold naturally restrict their freedom of the extent of religious Jewry’s war of movement. effort—of Kfar Darom, or Be’eroth Paradoxically, however, their maneu Yitzchak, of Tirat Tzvi, where Fawzi vers within the confined space that el Kawukji’s so-called Army' of Libera remains at their disposal lays them tion sustained its first major defeat? open to the charge of insincerity and How many people know of the de opportunism. The case of legislation to restrict liberate policy of settling on the fron tiers of Jewish territory which placed pig-breeding provides an instructive those villages on the front-line when case in point. the day of trial came? For some years now, the religious It is only during the election cam parties have been preparing the ground paigns, when in any case people suffer for an overall prohibition of pigfrom a surfeit of propaganda, that any breeding in Israel. Up to some months attempt in this direction is made. ago fifteen local authorities, including May-June, 1957

the City Councils of Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, prohibited the breed ing of pigs within the municipal lim its, on the basis of an ordinance dating from the Mandatory period. A recent Supreme Court decision, however, finding the regulation ultra vires, created a state of emergency. Under existing circumstances, with the present composition of the Gov ernment coalition, in which Mapam and Achduth Avodah are strongly rep resented, the Mizrachi-Hapoel Hamizrachi appreciated that all they could hope for was some interim measure. The only compromise capable of gaining the necessary support of other parties in the K’nesseth has been found to be a bill authorizing local authorities to prohibit pig-breeding within the

Pitfalls ^H E R E IS another aspect of this op portunism which is even less palat able. Politics is only the art of the possible; it is a complicated system of give-and-take, a craft of exerting press ire to secure a desired end. Political life has its own rules, but the spectacle of religious organizations engaging in the tricks and horse-deal ing which are an essential part of its pattern, however plausible the excuses, is unedifying. It has done much to discredit religious life and religious people. Far more damage, in the long run, is done by the basic principle upon which these tactics are grounded — the division of the people into two cate gories, religious and non-religious. For the religious, maximum concessions must be secured, such as the develop ment of a State religious school system, special facilities to enable religious young women to obtain exemption 22

area of jurisdiction. The kibbutzim engaged in pig-breeding will be able to continue to do so. No need, therefore, to point out the extreme dissatisfaction with which re ligious Jews — and even non-religious Jews (for opposition to pork-consump tion and pig-breeding extends far beyond the confines of the religious community) — regard this law, which incidentally, was supported by all re ligious parties. The patch-work system of prohibi tion and non-prohibition areas to which it must give rise lays the reli gious parties open to the mockery and sneers of both the left-wing and the opposition parties. It is a compromise typical of the dilemma of religious Jewry. : Politics

from military service, and pressing for the creation of religious units in the Army. For the non-religious, certain overall legislation must be imposed, designed to insure, publicly at least, the tradi tional character of the country, as for example, Sabbath observance, includ ing a stoppage of public transport, the prohibition of swine-breeding and the like. The non-religious section has not been slow to point out the inconsist ency and the basic un-Jewishness of this position, and to underline the privileged status it seeks to create for religious Jews. There are indications that they may yet use it to rid them selves of some of the restrictions they find more irksome. QONTEMPLATION of the often un dignified postures of the religious parties in the political struggle has reJEWISH LIFE

suited in vague and wishful thinkingmaterialism of Israel’s youth since that somehow the cause of Orthodoxy Statehood has been achieved. But basically this distaste for religion would be better served if it could be extracted from the political arena. These can be traced to systematic indoctrina thoughts have combined to give birth tion in the schools, and to the spirit to the view that religious Jews should in which the works of J. L. Gordon, eschew political organizations, and that Mendele Mocher Sefarim, Berditchevthey should seek to constitute a sort sky, Achad Ha’am and other Hebrew of spiritual leaven working through all parties which are not avowedly antireligious. This suggestion, however, does not reckon with the wide field of activities in which Israeli political parties en gage -§|- economic, financial, social, cul tural (publication of books and news papers) and educational (maintenance of kindergartens, secondary, night and vocational schools, even a university in the case of the Mizrachi). Nor does it take into consideration the economic interests involved (e.g., transport on the Sabbath) and the strength with which non-religious—as distinct from anti-religious — views are held. In the event that religious Jewry leaves the arena of political organiza tions, it may be foreseen that the religious citizens who would join the other various parties in considerable numbers, would find themselves shep herded by the party machines — which have never been squeamish about their methods—-into religious styoth. These slyoth are stooge groups, of the type set up by Mapai and the Revisionists in the past, and which the General Zionist attempted to set up prior to last year’s K’nesseth elections. The result would be a dissipation of strength, with even less prospect of reinforcing religious life in Israel than in the past. A particularly depressing feature of this unencouraging picture is the atti tude of the younger generation. Much An afternoon rest is enjoyed by this Ortho has been made of the blase outlook and dox Tel-Avivite, by reading a newspaper. May-June, 1957

writers are taught. This separation aware of the void they have left in the from religion is also due to the por hearts of their pupils, of the material trayal of life in East Europe in a ism and nihilism which in their blind totally negative light, and to the under ness they have fostered, have now be lying assumption that it was traditional gun to speak of the need of instilling Judaism as expounded by the Rabbis "religious feelings” in the young that was responsible for the direction people. But the latter, conscious of in which this life developed. their teachers’ own lack of faith and The neo-paganism of the so-called even of respect for Jewish tradition, Canaanites or Ivrim Chadashim that dismiss all this talk as so much cant. developed some years ago in this coun Yet, the situation is not devoid of try, with its rejection in toto of Zion prospects for improvement, provided ism, its distinction between Hebrews a resolute attempt is made to meet (born in Israel) and Jews (with whom the challenge of modern conditions. they recognize no ties whatever), its There is a general trend back to re nostalgia for a hypothetical pre-Abra- ligion abroad in the world, and in hamic era, is largely a natural conse Israel large sections of the population quence of this century-old tradition of are beginning to question the wisdom anti-Rabbanism. and validity of their anti-religious Israeli educators, suddenly become course.

Rethinking on Role of Religion ^ H E NEED for a return to traditional religious forms is becoming more articulate. One observer has remarked on the gradual return to the traditional Haggadah and Seder in the kibbutzim. TJiere is even some talk of developing a traditional — as distinct from relig ious — way of life in some of the latter. There are even faint signs of a will ingness to accept Rabbinical guidance, as for instance in the development of Yom Atzmauth. The spontaneity and gayety which marked this new festival in the early years of statehood has worn off and it is now cited as an example of the formlessness into which a secular conception of a national holi day must degenerate. Then again it must be borne in mind that the Bible remains the foun

dation of education in Israel. More than that it is the fabric upon which the pattern of our new life is being woven. True it has been taught largely as literature, and at best as history, but it constitutes the basis upon which the educators, inspired by a more positive appreciation of religion, can work. Against this background the sugges tion put forward by the venerable scholar and Mizrachi leader, Rabbi J. L . Maimon, to reconstitute the San hedrin, must be assessed* Some such institution, resting firmly on the sup port of all sections of religious Jewry and exercising an unchallenged moral and spiritual authority, is obviously necessary to resist the encroachments of irreligion and materialism.

JEWISH LIFE

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May-June, 1957

• His Approach To Judaism As Viewed Through the "Kuzari.”

Yehudah Halevi As Philosopher By MEYER W A X M A N y E H U D A H HALEVI’S contribution to Jewish thought is as distinguished and as original as his contribution to poetry.* Saturated with the spirit of Jewish nationalism, its main purpose was to enunciate the uniqueness of Judaism and its influence on the de velopment of the spiritual life of humanity. Due to Halevi’s awareness that the significance of Israel’s faith is greatly contested by two other religions as well as by philosophy, the presentation of his thought in his philosophic work, the "Kuzari,” displays both apologetic and polemic tendencies. In fact, in the Arabic original of the Kuzari the title is followed by a subtitle which reads "A Defense of the Disparaged Re ligion.” And it is for this purpose that Halevi borrowed the story of the con version to Judaism by the King of the Khazars and arranged his work in the form of dialogues between the Khazar King and a Jewish scholar. Such a form projects both the apologetic and the polemic arguments in the best manner. However, in spite of the subtitle of this work, the author’s main purpose was not to carry on detailed polemics against opponents, but to demonstrate firmly the fundamentals of Judaism; namely, that it is a true revealed re ligion, and that it is eternal and can neither be changed nor abrogated. *See the author’s article “Yehudah Halevi” in the Nisan 5717 issue of Jewish Life. 26

Only indirectly are these assertions aimed against those who contest the uniqueness of Judaism. The proof that it was revealed contradicts the view of the philosophers of the time that rev elation is impossible, while the asser tion of its eternity refutes the claims of Christianity and Islam that the rev elation of Judaism was abrogated and was substituted by their revelation. J H E NEO- PLATONIC teachings which prevailed among the leading Arabic philosophers of Halevi’s era taught that there is a first cause to the world, but the relation between the cause and the world is mechanical in essence, since the world came into be ing through the process of emanation. This view not only denies the posses sion of will to G-d, but also deprives the performance of the precepts of the Torah of any value. The refutation of this view and the enunciation of the great value of the performance of the precepts of the Torah forms then one of the principle purposes of Yehudah Halevi’s Kuzari. Again, the two daughter religions, i.e., Christianity and Islam, assert that Judaism lost its importance and that they took its place, and consequently Judaism and the Jews are placed in a lower position. The invalidation of these assertions and the proof that the revelation of Judaism is eternal, with the result that not only are the Jews not lower than the other nations, but JEWISH LIFE

even excel them in spirituality, forms the second main aim of the Kuzari. The leading aims of the Kuzari are then to prove: (a) the possibility of Divine Revelation to man; (b) the importance and uniqueness of the rev elation of Judaism; and (c) the value of the practical phase of Judaism. J N ENDEAVORING to prove his points, Halevi uses as an introduc tion the story of the conversion to Judaism of the King of the Khazars, borrowed from the letter sent by the King of the Khazars to Chasdai Ibn Shapruth, but he adds important items of his own. In the* story we are told that the prince, having been dissatisfied with his ancestral religion, launches upon the search for the right creed. For that purpose he invites the representatives of Christianity and Islam to present their religious views, but ignores Juda ism, .slighting its value since it could not gain for its followers the proper political and social position. But when each of the representatives of the two religions attempts to prove the value of his religion by showing that it is based on the Jewish revelation, the king is perplexed. He calls the Chris tian representative and, asking him which is the better religion, Judaism or Islam, receives the answer that Juda ism is preferred. Placing a similar query before the Mohammedan, again the choice is Judaism. He then calls a Jewish scholar and after listening to his presentation of the teaching of his religion, he recognizes its great truth and is converted to Judaism. Halevi took the story and supplied it with an extensive imagined discussion between the king and the scholar, which, forms the content of the book. Yehudah Halevi also added to the May-June, 1957

story, and utilized for his purpose, a discussion between the king and a philosopher. The latter presents his conception of religion, in which G-d is the first cause of the world, but has little relation to the world and man, for the world comes into being through a mechanical process of emanation. Similarly, the philosopher postulates, human conduct is not guided by the will or command of G-d, and it is left to the choice of the human intellect. Halevi places an answer to such pre sentation in the mouth of the king. A religion such as this does not suit him, the king declares, for he is seek ing a right way of life and proper action. P L THIS answer lies the root of Halevi’s own religious philosophy. There must be a relation between G-d and man, and G-d must reveal to man the way of life. Again, the fact that both Christianity and Islam point to Judaism and the Revelation at Sinai as the basis of their teachings prove the value of that Revelation, for there is a consensus ominum, a general agree ment as to its importance. At the time such an argument was considered a valid proof of the veracity of the view agreed upon. Halevi thus presented already in his introduction a partial rebuttal of all arguments against the value of Judaism and its Revelation. Consequently, the bearers of the re ligion revealed at Sinai are not inferior to the followers of the other religions which based themselves on that revela tion. Halevi, however, is not satisfied with proving the general agreement that the Divine Revelation to the Jews was the first, but endeavors to prove its complete veracity and that it is the only true one and can neither be doubted nor abrogated. 27

The first step in his argument is a premise that the proof for the existence of G-d does not lie in the logical or philosophical argument propounded by the philosophers. Rather, it is based in the intuition of the human soul and its strength lies in human experience. In the case of Judaism, its revelation is based on the personal experience of sense data of a multitude, of many hundreds of thousands of men and women, which bears within itself its own attestation. Moreover, the veracity of Jewish belief is strengthened by the consensus omnium of the other monotheistic re ligions. However, this argument con tains a flaw, which our philosopher himself places in the mouth of the Khazar King. Says the King, 'True, this revelation was personally experi enced by the Jews, but only by the Jews, and not by other peoples. Juda ism is then not a universal religion, and there is no obligation by other people to accept its doctrine or follow its precepts.” Halevi meets this objec tion by pointing to the high degree of prophecy possessed by Moses. The validity of the proof is based on the fact that in those times all nations be lieved in prophecy, even the ancient Greeks, but in various degrees. Halevi buttresses his proof by claiming that the real prophet is a distinct human species; his spirituality differs from that of all other men in kind not in degree. He posits a division in human spirituality. Just as there are divisions in nature—the inorganic plants, living beings, and men—so are there divi sions in the human genus: ordinary men, scholars, philosophers, and above all, the true prophet. And since the followers of the other religions agree that Moses was such a prophet, it fol lows that his teachings have a universal 28

quality, and its veracity and -authen ticity are fully established. £ ^ U R poet - thinker then addresses himself to the postulate or con temporary philosophers that G-d is so exalted that we cannot attribute to Him any close relation to man ex pressed in the concept of revelation. Revelation implies expression of will on the part of G-d, which involves a limitation of His very essence. Halevi undertakes then to refute the very basic conception of the philosophers concern ing G-d and the world. He says, na ture does not, as the philosophers say, manifest itself according to an eternal plan which is realized mechanically, but presents evidence of a rational plan which is continually being realized in the world. True, the elements and the

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spheres participate in the realization the potentiality of that attribute had of the plan, but only through the pow to be brought into realization by prep ers placed in them by G-d. The con aration and effort. trolling power of the plan as a whole W e thus see that of all the children is the will of G-d, which is constantly of Adam only Sheth was possessed of active in matter and supplies it with spirituality, and of later descendants forms according to a certain proportion. only Enoch. At times, a whole genera The conclusion then is that since the tion, or even several generations, lacked influence of the will of G-d is evident this quality. Just as we note today that in material beings, it is also active in a given biological trait in a given man relation to man and thus we must ac may skip entirely his son or even his cept the closeness between G-d and grandson and becomes evident in a man which revelation posits. descendant several generations later, In support of belief in the eternity so it happened with the attribute of of the Divine Revelation and the im spirituality. It skipped a number of possibility of its being abrogated in generations and was manifested in any way, Yehudah Halevi brings to Abraham. Again, from Abraham it bear a distinctive view of the rise of skipped Ishmael and was realized only spirituality in man. Pursuing his con in Isaac, and from Isaac, it passed only tention as to the source of man’s recog to Jacob and not to Essau. Only with nition of the existence of G-d, he ex Jacob the quality passed not to indi plains the origin of spiritual intuition. viduals, but to a group; namely, the He calls that intuition lnyon Eloki. Children of Israel. Henceforth, the en This concept may have several mean tire Jewish people possessed that at ings, but its primary significance is tribute potentially, but it is realized that the attribute of spirituality was only in select individuals, or, at cer not acquired gradually by man, but tain times, even in the entire people. placed by G-d Himself in the soul of Such a moment was the time of the Adam. He, as the first created man, Revelation at Sinai, when Israel as a bore the stamp of perfection. But those that came after him had to labor whole conceived Divine Revelation for the attainment of this quality of and received the Torah. This moment spirituality. Only those of Adam’s constituted a realization of that par descendants whose souls and minds ticular quality in the people as a whole. were of a higher degree and whose Thereafter, the manifestation of that actions were righteous attained the quality was realized only in individ attribute of spirituality. In other words, uals; namely, the Prophets.

Meaning of Prophecy P ^S WE noted, prophecy according to Halevi denotes a special degree of the perfection of the soul, differing essentially* and not just in degree, from other types of human perfection. It follows from this view that the Rev elation of Judaism could not be abMay-June, 1957

rogated, for the other nations, lacking this unique quality, could not conceive it and therefore could not be its re cipients. It also follows that since the entire people possesses the quality in potentiality/; that it possesses a high degree of spirituality, and is not only 29

not inferior to other peoples, but even ity, both as to its influence ,on the superior. individual and on the life of the nation. In fact, Yehudah Halevi calls Israel This activity attains its perfection only the spiritual heart of humanity which, in a special land — namely, Eretz Yishe says, is both an advantage and a roel. It is only there that it was mani disadvantage. Just as the heart of the fested in its entirety — and t h a t human body feels pain and grief more prophecy, the concomitant of its per severely than the other organs, so does fected activity, was manifested. When the Jewish people feel suffering in a the King of the Khazars objects to more grievous manner than other peo the influence of the land as a factor ples. On the other hand, due to the in the activity of the special spirit sensitiveness of the heart it is the first uality, Yehudah Halevi at first attempts to feel the disturbance and to offer to point to the particular influence resistance to the disease. Likewise, the exerted by certain lands upon the Jews are alert to offer resistance to plants and animals found in each one tribulation and have thus succeeded in of them, and especially upon the life enduring under all circumstances. This of the people dwelling therein, but then superiority spoken of by Halevi must advances another argument for his not be understood as one which gives view. He asserts that there is another the Jews the right to dominance or factor which helps to strengthen the to look down upon other peoples. It is power of that quality (Inyon Eloki); merely a spiritual distinction which namely, the observance and practice they are to employ for the benefit of of the Divine precepts. Both factors, the Land and the Mitzvoth, brought humanity as a whole. The possession of the spiritual qual about the perfection of the spirituality ity, says Halevi, brought about the which was manifested in the prophecy. As for the period of the Second manifestation of Divine influence in the history of Israel. This history dif Commonwealth, when prophecy ceased fers from that of other peoples by the at its very beginning and the people intercession of a special Divine Provi underwent much tribulation in spite dence, operating in the life of the Jew of the fact that they dwelt in the ish people in a miraculous way, while Holy Land, Halevi says that this was the history of other nations is subjected due to a grave sin which they com mitted. The sin was that only a small to the laws of nature and causation. part of the people returned to their J N PROPOUNDING this concept, land, while the majority remained in Yehudah Halevi was confronted exile, in Babylonia. The voluntary with the difficulty of explaining the selection of exile brought a lowering Exile and the suffering the Jews un of spirituality, resulting in cessation dergo in dispersion. How does this of prophecy and ultimately, through a situation tally with the attribution to concatenation of causes, led to a second Israel of superiority and of a special exile. manifestation of Divine Providence? In answer to this query, which is in JJA LEV I is again confronted by a fact raised by the Khazar King, the problem. W hat about the present philosopher posits a limitation to the state of the Jews in exile? Do they activity of the special spiritual qual- retain their special spirituality, or have 30

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they fallen so low that the Divine in fluence will never again be realized? The answer is negative. True, says Halevi, there is a lowering of spirit uality, but much of that influence is left both in its possession by every Jew and in the special providence in the life of the people. Otherwise, Israel would not survive in such a state of suffering. Israel is always close to G-d by the practice of its religion; in Exile it is only in a state of sickness, and is expecting, through Redemption, to be restored to health. Furthermore, the spirituality of the people acts both as a cause of its suffering and as means of its endurance. The heart suffers not only because of its own defects, but also because of the defects in other organs. Israel then suffers because of the moral defects of the nations among whom the Jews reside. On the other hand, the heart because of its sensi tiveness feels immediately any defect in any organ and endeavors to restrain its spread. Likewise, Israel is the first to feel any moral defect, even any ma terial disturbance, and it mobilizes all means for resistance, and this is the source of its withstanding all tribula tions. However, the problem of Exile was not solved yet; why this great suffer-

ing? The answer that it is punishment for sins is not satisfactory, for are the Jews then more sinful than other na tions, and why is the Exile so long? W ill they ever be purified from their sins? Halevi offers two answers. First, says he, exile is a means to prepare the people for the realization of that qual ity with which it is endowed, for "the Divine light is better reflected in the souls of the contrite” (LV, 22). In other words, the Exile serves as a means of purification of the souls, re moving from them all dross and bring ing them to a high degree of purity. When the King of the Khazars repeats frequently the argument that the low political and social position of the Jews reflects their spiritual inferiority, emphasizing that the Jews suffer exile by force, not by their own will, the Jewish sage answers that it is not true. The leading men suffer by their own will, for they could easily exchange their faith by adopting the religion of their oppressors. They suffer it for the love of the Torah and this raises their spirituality. He admits though that a large part of Jewry suffers it through force and does not utilize it as means of spiritual elevation and this prolongs the Exile.

/ niter Force j p IN ALLY, Halevi avers that exile is a means also for raising the spirit uality of humanity at large, and ex plains it by a parable from plant life. The kernel placed in the ground ap parently rots and assimilates gradually to the elements of its environment, water, manure, and earth. In reality it is not so. The kernel only utilizes the material and changes them to its form, and then it begins to grow. First May-June, 1957

there appear leaves and gradually there comes forth the complete fruit. Israel then is the kernel hidden in the ground; i.e., Exile. His Torah and spirituality represent the inner force of the kernel. The two other religions accepted part of Israels teaching, but the real fruit is not here yet. When it will arise in Messianic times, the followers of the other religions will participate in the full spiritual fruit and will revere the 31

root whence it comes. The Galuth thus does not lower the position of the Jew; on the other hand, it is their pride and even gives them a certain glory, for they are ready to suffer in order to help the nations change their nature and rise in spirituality. Despite this, Yehudah Halevi does not justify the Galuth and does not, like the leaders of the Reform move ment, utilize the missionary function as a reason for its acceptance as a permanent state. On the contrary, he repeats again and again that the per fection of the Jewish people can be attained only in the Land of Israel; dwelling there is a condition for real izing its quality of Divine influence. He made this statement for two rea sons. First, to explain the length of the Golah, so that the Jews themselves should not despair of redemption and begin to possess a feeling of inferiority, and secondly, to refute the view of the followers of the other religions who impute spiritual inferiority to the Jew by analogy with their political in feriority. He, however, points out an

other way to attain redemption, and that is to rebel against Exile by striv ing to settle in the Holy Land where their real perfection will be attained. If this cannot be accomplished by a mass movement, then at least individ uals should settle there and thus gain their own perfection. He hoped that his own departure for the land of Israel would serve as an example for others to follow. TH U S, we see the leading elements of Yehudah Halevis philosophy as expounded in the Kuzari. He vindi cated the authenticity and the eternity of Judaism. He saved the Jew from yielding to despair because of the length of the Golah, endowed them with a spirit of pride and of striving to live up to their destiny of being the people chosen for their special spiritual quality, and placed the land of Israel in the center of Jewish as piration. That the Kuzari has- many other important contributions to the understanding of Judaism goes with out saying.

«m »-

THE DIFFERENCE The Ten Commandments begin with "I am . . . who has taken you out from the land of Egypt." Why does it not state the greater ac complishment, who created heaven and earth? Because no human eye beheld Creation while the Exodus from Egypt was experienced by all the people. Yehuda Halevi, "Kuzari."

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MEMO TO: THE FRIENDS OF THE UOJCA FROM: Moses I. Feuerstein, Nat'l President SUBJECT: ORTHODOX UNION ASSOCIATION 1. The goal of the Orthodox Union Associa tion, the individual membership arm of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congrega tions of America, is the preservation of our Jewish ideals and the perpetuation of our faith and way of life. 2. It is essential that every loyal Jew participate in this national, vibrant, traditional Jewish movement. O.U.A. mem bership identifies you personally with our great program of religious resurgence. 3. As an O.U.A. member you will receive: a. JEWISH LIFE. b. Holiday Pamphlet Service — bringing in to your home informative and authentic booklets and pamphlets on Jewish holidays, beliefs and practices. c. Kashruth Bulletins — keeping you posted on new (u) developments. 4. The annual membership fee of O.U.A. is $10. 5. I urge you to join now by filling out and mailing the application below. Union of Orthodox Jewish Cong, of America 305 Broadway New York 7, New York Please enroll me as a member of the Ortho dox Union Association. I understand that I shall receive JEWISH LIFE, Holiday Pam phlets, & © K a s h r u t h bulletins. NAME____________________ ADDRESS_________________________________________ CITY____________ _ ____________ _ S TATE__________ □

Check for $10 is enclosed. Q Please bill me.

A Few Kind Words About The Shamosh By BERTHA Z. BECK

J HAD been attending one of those ing,) 'Mrs. Cohen and her helpers regular Sunday morning breakfastMinyonim, eating the bagel that is sometimes hard as rocks, the butter melting, and the coffee bitter. No one ate before he davenned with tallith and tefillin and had listened to the Rabbi’s ten-minute talk. Every Sunday morn ing another member of the Minyon was called on to speak after the break fast. Nobody knew who it would be. The Rabbi put the finger on you at the last minute. Last Sunday I was chosen to speak. I felt the finger on my shoulder just as I was beginning to drink my coffee. For the moment I thought I’d choke. I didn’t know what to talk about that would interest the Minyon. I looked up and saw the Shamosh watching me. He was my subject! The Shamosh! Now the Shamosh isn’t much of a popular man— as a subject for an early Sunday morning talk. In all my ex perience in Jewish groups I never heard anybody put in a good word for the Shamosh. I was going to do him justice. I stood up. I said: #/JJONORABLE Rabbi and members of the Minyon, esteemed presi dent and vice-president, officers of the Executive Board and other members of this fine organization” (you have to be careful not to omit anybody in one of these Sunday morning bageland-lox get-togethers because every body is so touchy early in the morn34

who made the coffee and this fine breakfast, and Mr. Gittle, our Shamosh —” (when I said his name I gave him a quick once-over. If I was going to do justice to the man I had to know what he looked like at the moment, didn’t I?) He had gray hair that was curly; even from under the yarmulke which sat precariously on the back of his head, his hair curled. It had a reddish tint under the gray. I’d never noticed before that he had red hair. Now I noticed that he even had blue eyes. He had a long, narrow face, and his eyes looked up at me, inscrutable, measuring me. I looked down at my cup of bitter coffee. I realized that if it hadn’t been for the Shamosh I would have been spend ing this Sunday morning in bed—in fact I would have been spending all my Sunday mornings in bed—since the 21st of August. O n , the day of my Grandfather’s funeral the Shamosh button-holed me in a quiet corner and I thought, well, this is going to cost me money. It didn’t cost me a cent. "Your Grandfather left no other kin beside you,” he said to me in a gentle voice. "You are his Kaddish.” The way he said it I got the feel ing it was an honor to be my Grand father’s Kaddish. W hen the time to daven came he opened the siddur for me and pointed to what was laJEWISH LIFE

beled, in English— (I always read the English because I like to know what I’m praying for—that’s what I used to think, anyhow. I thought it was more sensible to know the words I was saying in the prayer. I have sure found out it isn’t the words at all. It’s what you have in your head. Or in your heart.) So the Shamosh opened the EnglishHebrew siddur and showed me where to find the service. He also showed me where to find the "Mourner’s Kaddish.” I read it over. Not one word of mourning in it. That’s what I puzzled about when I first started saying it three times a day. W hat did it mean? Nothing, I thought then. But it did something for me. It made me like to pray. So if my Grandfather gets time, one of these days, to look down on this earth, I hope he has a little satisfaction in seeing what the Shamosh did for me. The Shamosh managed to do for me in one quiet sentence what my Grand father couldn’t manager to do for me with all the arguments in the world. The Shamosh made a praying man of me. Sure, years ago, my Grandfather had said something about me learning how to read Hebrew. But it was the Shamosh who made a praying man of me. A Jew, again. And I became a curious Jew. Not critical, just curious, just wanting to know. First it was about the tefillin. Were they in good order? I hadn’t used them since the fourth day after my Bar Mitzvah. gE T W E E N minchah and maariv the Shamosh and I would talk. The Shamosh remarked that it was custom ary for the person saying Kaddish to daven at the Omod—that is, to lead May-June, 1957

the others in prayer, in Hebrew, of course. So, in the evenings, instead of watching those late TV shows, I took to saying the Hebrew prayers aloud, just so I’d be in good practice if the Shamosh ever asked me to get up there, before the others, and lead them. Looking back now I can remem ber how the Shamosh used to circulate around me listening to the way I was saying them before he asked me to go up, for the first time, and lead the others. He waited for me to get the lilt and the ease and the profi ciency. He wasn’t out to make a fool of me. One time I asked him if he’d ever known my Grandfather. But he hadn’t, so that was out, as far as any kind of a promise he might have made to the old man to see that I learned how to pray like a Jew. After a few weeks I got so that I looked forward to those prayers, morning and evening. I came to terms with myself in those few minutes. It was always the same for me as I stood up to say the same words of praise. My lips said the words, but my mind began to take stock of me, the fellow who was saying them. I saw myself as one infinitesimal link in the chain— and that’s corny, but it is a chain— between the first man that G-d created and the coming of the Messiah. And when I looked up I could see that the Shamosh had been watching my face as I prayed, and there he was with that understanding nod he always gave me, as if he were saying, "Good!” J HAD began to think of him as a man with a job, but with no more training for what he was doing than I had. I began to take his friendship for granted. And then I discovered, by accident, from a friend who lived far from the shool, but who knew him, 35

that he had a rabbinical degree—and not just a "degree” but a bonafide semichah, awarded to him in a recog nized yeshivah, after a prescribed course of study. After that I began to understand some new things about human nature. I thought a man had to be praised and recognized for the

services he offered humanity. It was on my mind as I stood up to speak. But when I looked at the Shamosh I saw that I couldn’t say a word about it. He made me change my mind. Some men are born to be kings, his eyes told me. Some men are born to be generals. Or presidents. I have my

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work to do as a Shamosh. Leave me be in peace. J DON’T remember what I did say. It had something to do with bagels and lox. I remember telling them that my coffee was getting cold. They laughed. I did too. I sat down. My coffee was cold. Mrs. Cohen came and gave me a fresh cup of hot coffee, more bitter than the last one. And another bagel and lox. I thanked her.

When I looked for him again, I saw the Shamosh busy folding up taleythim and stacking prayer books. He was humming Yigdal. He moved about quickly, and once or twice it seemed as if his yarmulke would fall off his curly hair. But he always reach ed up in time and made it secure again, putting it right where it be longed with a quick, graceful touch of his hand. The Shamosh . . . being what he wanted to be . . . a man to be blessed.

KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF

ipf..

There are many in our time who have dabbled a little in science and who are not able to hold both lights, the light of belief in their right hand and the light of knowledge in their left. Since in such men the light of investigation has extinguished the light of belief, the multitude think it dangerous and shrink from it. In Judaism, however, knowledge is a duty and it is wrong to reject it. Abraham Ibn Daud, 1110-1180

REFUSING THE POOR Rabbi Johanan and Resh Lakish went down to bathe in the public baths of Tiberias, and a poor man accosted them. He said to them, "Give me something." They answered, "When we come out we will give it." When they came out they found him dead. They said: "Since we did not assist him during his life, let us attend to him after his death." After washing his body they found a purse of dinars by him, and they said: "We should be grateful even to imposters among them, for were it not for the imposters among them, were a man to see a beggar begging alms and refuse him, he would be punished with d'aath immediately." Midrash Rabbah, Ruth V.9.

May-June, 1957

Lag Baomer In Meron Lag Baomer, the thirty-third day of the Omer, held as a festive day by Jews the world-over in commemoration of the ending of a plague which ravaged Eretz Yisroel in the second century, is also marked as the Yortzeit of Rabbi Shimon Ben Yocbai. This great sage, to whom is traditionally ascribed the enunciation of the Kabbalistic teachings of the Zohar, is buried in the city of Meron in Upper Gallilee in Israel. Each Lag Baomer many thousands flock to Meron as a Pilgrimage to Rabbi Shimon's grave. Since it is considered an honor to be close to the tomb, the pilgrims come to Meron as much as a week in advance and reserve their place near the tomb, encamping nearby. This year was no different. The Pilgrimage drew a record number to Meron, with families bringing their kitchen utensils for the extended vigil. Numerous customs have evolved in the commemoration of the Yortzeit. It is considered an honor to perform the first hair-cut of a child who has reached the age of three at the tomb. Candles are lit on the tomb and the flames burn through the night. A sefer Torah, usually kept in nearby Safed, is brought to Meron. On rooftops and hillsides, mitzvah dancing, singing and bon fires go on for a full 24 hours. The atmosphere at Meron on Lag Baomer, as pictured in the accompanying photo graphs, is one of dedication, prayer and rejoicing. Overlooking the city of Meron.

Praying at the tomb.

Hebrew: Its Role In Jewish Life By ZEVI T A B O R Y *pHE JEWISH philosophy of life acknowledged thousands of years ago that "life and death are contingent upon language.” For the unique at tribute which makes man "lord of na ture” is speech, the special gift which G-d conferred upon man to make him the crown of His creation. The Torah tells us that when G-d breathed the breath of life into man, he became a "living spirit.” And according to the Targum this term "living spirit,” nefesh hayah, means "a speaking spirit,” much memalelah. Speech is the ex pression of human existence. This is true with respect to peoples and nations no less than to the indi vidual. Indeed, the Hebrew term loshon, tongue, is also used to desig nate "people” or "nation.” Ummah, nation, and loshon, tongue, are often used synonymously. For a people ex presses its essence, its spirit, through its language. A people’s spirit and tongue interact mutually upon each other. The uniqueness of each people is clearly revealed in the special char acter of its language. And just as the Jewish people is different from all the peoples of the world, so is the Hebrew language different from all the lan guages of man. Each language, like every object, has a soul, a spirit of its own; Hebrew has an added soul, a neshomah y etherah. All the languages of the world are in the category of the six days of crea tion— p ra c tic a l, im p o rta n t, b u t worldly, prosaic. Hebrew is the Sab40

bath among the languages — divine, holy. As we say in our festival pray ers: ". . . veromamtonu mikol halshonoth — O G-d, we thank Thee for having exalted us above all tongues.” J H E SUBLIMITY of the Hebrew language consists not so much in its outstanding poetic beauty or in its extraordinary succinctness, but in its sanctity. This holiness is the quality that unites all -B G-d, His chosen peo ple, His chosen land and His chosen tongue. Just as Israel is the holy people, just as the Land of Israel is the Holy Land, so is Hebrew the Sacred Tongue. Loshon Hakodesh, S acred Tongue, means not only the language of holi ness, the language of the Torah and of prayer. It means this and much more. It means: the tongue which in and of itself is holy, the tongue in which G-d created the world and gave it light. The declaration of the Torah that the whole earth was of one language and of one speech (Bereyshith 11:1) is said by one of the great Talmudic sages to refer to the Hebrew language, the language of Him Who is One in the universe, the language of the Cre ator. As Maimonides said: The holi ness of our language is clearly reflected in the single fact that it possesses no terms expressing the base and the brutish in human existence. It is the G-dly language and must remain holy! And even as the Hebrew tongue exerted its influence upon Creation, JEWISH LIFE

Genesis, so will its influence be felt in Acharith Hayomim, in the End of Days. In the ultimate future, when mankind will have been purified and sanctified, the only tongue of man will be the tongue of purity and sanctity, the Sacred Tongue, Hebrew. As the prophet Zephaniah said: For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord (3 :9 ). Then, in that glorious time, the tongues of all na tions will become one clear, pure tongue, sofah berurah. On this our Commentators say: The words sofah berurah contain the numerical value of the words biVshon hakodesh, which mean "in the Sacred Tongue.” In other words, the tongue of clarity means the tongue of purity and sanctity, Loshon Hakodesh, the Sacred Tongue. ■

ITS childhood, in its innocence, mankind spoke the Sacred Tongue. And after many millenia of cataclysm, struggle and travail, the world will May-June, 1957

again become pure and it will again speak its original language, the Sacred Tongue. The Jewish people therefore instinc tively sensed the vital need to maintain under all circumstances its inner bond with its Sacred Tongue. And even when Hebrew was for á time torn from the mouth of Jewish people, it was not torn from its heart. Even when it ceased to be the vernacular of the Jewish street, it never ceased to be the idiom of the Jewish soul. Most of our great spiritual treasures were deposited in the storehouse of Hebrew and thus preserved for all time. Indeed, the few great works which were created in alien tongues and were not recast in the Sacred Tongue are, unfortunately, forever lost to us. It is true that Maimonides wrote many of his great works in Arabic, but these were written only for select readers of his time. His magnum opus, Yad Hahazokah, which he intended for all generations of Jews, was written in Hebrew. And the fact is that he 41

deeply regretted having written any Jewish works, even his philosophical works, in an alien tongue. W ith pained heart he wrote: "i pray that G-d may grant me the privilege of restoring to the Jewish people and to the Hebrew language that of which I have deprived them.” He suffered deeply until his Arabic works were translated into Hebrew. Thus the Jewish people, especially the observant Jew, has maintained an inner eternal bond with the Sacred Tongue. The day of the religious Jew begins with the recitation, at his first waking moment, of Modeh Ani, "I thank Thee, Eternal King . . and ends with the utterance, before he goes off to sleep, of Shema Yisroel, "Hear, O Israel . . .” Even in such Jewish communities that do not know a single word of Hebrew, the Torah must be read in its original Sacred Tongue; and where there is a Tewgum, a trans lation of the Torah, the Torah must be read only once in translation but twice in its original Hebrew. Each verse must first be read in Hebrew, arid then, after it has been translated, it must again be read in the original Hebrew. And the translation must be uttered in a softer tone than the Hebrew original, thus emphasizing the supremacy of the holy tongue.

more in every corner of Jewish life. And behold the remarkable develop ment of our language: there is today not a single concept, not a single nu ance, for which Hebrew lacks the term. It was not too long ago, I recall, that we were at a loss for a Hebrew term for "telescope,” an object which is to day so simply and naturally designated: makreveth (literally: "near-bringer”). At that time we described "telescope” rather tortuously as follows: "the in strument which transforms the tiniest blade of grass growing in the wall into a cedar of Lebanon.” To express "tele graph” we had to invoke the assistance of Psalms 19:4-5: There is no speech, there are no words, neither is their voice heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. How droll this appears beside the Hebrew of to day, which is as natural as the air we breathe. It does not matter that the language today is known as ((lvrith![ Already in ancient sources we find it referred to as "Ivrith,” and even "Yehudith” and "Canaanith.” Whatever its desig nation, it remains the one and only Sacred Tongue, Loshon Hakodesh, and whoever speaks it and makes it the idiom of his soul will never betray his people.

IS a fact that before any Jewish ANDTHIS is why we have been J Tcommunity alienated itself from our

privileged to behold the great re vival of our national language, not only in Eretz Israel but also in the Diaspora. Wherever there is a Jewish community we are again delighted to hear the musical tones of the Hebrew language in home and street, in field and fac tory, in kindergarten and university, in cheder and yeshivah. The tongue of our fathers has, as it were, cast off the fetters of Exile and reigns once 42

traditions, it first severed all bonds with our national language. This was the way of assimilation in Germany, as it was in Spain before that and in Egyp tian Alexandria before that. Inherent in our national language is a powerful guarantee of an everlasting attachment to the people of Israel and to all its values. Whenever I hear a Jew speaking JEWISH LIFE

Hebrew I experience a sense of kin ship with him even if he happens to be as yet far removed from our other sanctities, because I sincerely believe that the sanctity of the language will yet rouse in him a powerful nostalgia for all other Jewish values. The Tal mud has it: "Cursed is he who teaches his child Greek and cursed is he who breeds swine in the Land of Israel.” Why did our Sages link these two phenomena? To teach us that he who makes an alien tongue the idiom of his child’s soul will cause his grandchildren to be swine-breeders. But the converse is also true: He who makes Hebrew the idiom of his soul will merit chil dren and grandchildren who will dedi cate themselves to the study of Torah and the fulfillment of its precepts. It is therefore absurd and un-Jewish to maintain that Hebrew is not an integral part of true Judaism, an idea

that does not justify sacrifices. The idea that a strong, creative Jewry can develop without Hebrew, without our Sacred Tongue, is an alien, unholy, assimilationist idea. yffJE KNOW that the great Rabbi Meir did not shy from including the speaking of Hebrew among the three principles which, implemented together, assure the immortality of the Jewish people? Living in Eretz Yisroel, reciting the Shema — that is to say, accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven — and speaking the Sacred Tongue assure a man his portion in the World-to-Come. Let us therefore spare no effect and stint no necessary sacrifice to train our children in the Hebrew language, which is the key to our treasures, the key to eternity.

m HEART AND BODY "As is well known to all, our duties towards G-d are of two kinds: thos*e which we perform with our body and are visible, and those which pertain to the heart and are invisible. 1 have inquired dili gently to know what is their mutual relation, and to that end I have consulted the three sources of our faith, vis: Reason, Revelation and Tradition, and 1 have found all three to agree in the conclusion that the duties of the heart are the foundation of those of the body, so that the latter lose all religious meaning if the heart and the mind of the doer have no part in them." Rabbenu Bachya ben Joseph, in the preface to his work: "On the Duties of the Heart."

May-June, 1957

Schechitah At Stake [We are Happy to present to our readers the text of a document of unique interest and historic importance— the testimony given on Rosh Chodesh N is a n , 5717— April 2, 1957 before a Congressional committee holding hearings on proposed "Humane Slaughter" legislation, in behalf of a record number and range of major American Jewish organizations and agencies. The testimony was given by Dr. Isaac Lewin, accompanied by Leo Pfeffer as counsel for the group. The text was prepared by Dr. Lewin, spokesman for and a member of the Executive Committee of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and professor at Yeshiva University, in conjunction with an editorial committee headed by Mr. Pfeffer, who is the director of the Commission on Law and Social Action of the American Jewish Congress, and including: Jules Cohen, national coordinator of the National Community Relations Advisory Council; Rabbi Israel Klavan, executive secretary of the Rabbinical Council of America; Rabbi Dr. Michael Munk, Research Institute of Religious Jewry; and Dr. Samson R. Weiss, executive vice-president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congrega tions of America. Of absorbing interest in itself, this document is notable as perhaps the most compelling summation of the case for Shechitah vis-a-vis "humane slaughter" propaganda ever presented to a modern legislative body. It is notable too, by the character of its sponsorship, inclusive of an unprecedented array of organizations and agencies representing practically every grouping and re ligious philosophy in American Jewish life. As reported in an editorial in the previous issue of JEWISH LIFE, the formulation of a common platform on this issue was due to the efforts of the National Community Relations Advisory Council and the initiative of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. The proposed legislation against which the testimony is addressed bears, despite its seeming purpose, a potential threat to Shechitah and to religious freedom. It is to be anticipated that, on European precedent, agitation in behalf of such measures will go forward with constantly increasing intensity. We believe that our readers will welcome the opportuninty not only to peruse this fascinating document but to have it available as a source of permanent reference for themselves and as a medium of enlightenment on the subject for others whom they may wish to guide. Reprints of this article, in leaflet form, may be obtained at the office of JEWISH LIFE, 305 Broadway, New York 7, N. Y. Price for single copies, ten cents each; in quantities of fifty or more, six cents per copy.] 44

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STATEM ENT, Submitted to a Subcommittee of the Committee on Agricul ture of. the House of Representatives, Holding Hearings on H.R. 176; H.R. 2880; H R . 3029, and H.R. 3049, Bills to require Humane Methods in the Slaughter of Livestock and Poultry, April 2, 1957, on behalf of Agudas Harabonim (Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada); Agudas Israel World Organization, American Section; Agudath Israel of America; American Jewish Congress; Association of Grand Rabbis; Central Conference of American Rabbis; Jewish Labor Committee; Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A.; Mizrachi and Hapoel Hamizrachi of America; National Council of Young Israel; N ew York Board of Rabbis; Poale Agudath Israel of America; Rabbinical Alliance of America; Rabbinical Assembly of America; Rabbinical Board of Greater New York; Rabbinical Council of America; Research In stitute of Religious Jewry; Synagogue Council of America; Union of American Hebrew Congregations; Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, United Synagogue of America and the National Community Relations Advisory Council, ivhich is a coordinating agency for some of the above organizations and 36 regional, state and local community councils throughout the country. \XJTE [the above-mentioned organizations} oppose these bills [H.R. 176, VV H.R. 2880, H.R. 3029, H.R. 3049, H.R. 6422, and H.R. 6509} because all of them give a completely false impression of the Jewish kosher method of slaughtering animals (shehitah) and may become the basis of restriction against one of the most important precepts of the Jewish faith, thus endangering a primary civil liberty-^—freedom of religion. Bill H.R. 176 and H.R. 2880 provide for stunning of livestock prior to its slaughtering by 'mechanical, electrical, chemical or other means determined by the Secretary (of Agriculture) to be rapid, effective and humane.” In the case of poultry, the bilk require that the fowl be first "rendered insensible by the severing of the head from the body or by an electrical or other means determined by the Secretary (of Agriculture) to be rapid, effective and humane.” Paragraph (c) of Section 2 then provides that the "requirements of this section shall not apply to any individual slaughtering in accordance with the requirements of any established religious faith.” Bills H.R. 3029, 6422, and 6509 have a different text. They mention three "approved” methods of slaughtering. The first is after stunning "by mechanical, electrical, chemical, or other means determined by the Secretary to be rapid, effective, and humane.” The second, referring to poultry, is that of "instantaneous severing of the head from the body or, if poultry is otherwise cut or stuck, by first rendering such poultry insensible by mechanical, electrical, or other means determined by the Secretary to be rapid, effective, and humane.” The third is "slaughtering in accordance with the requirements of any religious faith.” Bill H.R. 3049 recognizes two so-called "humane methods of slaughtering” which are equivalent to the first two "approved methods” of Bill H.R. 3029, with the added clause: "provided, however, that nothing in this Act shall pro hibit slaughtering in accordance with the practices and requirements of the Jewish religious faith by a qualified slaughterer, commonly called a shohet, May-June, 1957

authorized to engage in such slaughtering by an ordained rabbi of the Jewish religious faith.” There can be no doubt that in formulating the Bill as a general rule provid ing for the use of humane methods in the slaughter of livestock and poultry, with an exception for the "individual slaughtering in accordance with the requirements of any established religious faith” (H.R. 176 and 2880) or for the "slaughtering in accordance with the practices and requirements of the Jewish religious faith by a qualified slaughterer, commonly called a shohet, authorized to engage in such slaughtering by an ordained rabbi of the Jewish religious faith”-?—there arises the inescapable implication that "slaughtering in accordance with the requirements of any established religious faith” or "slaugh tering in accordance with the practices and requirements of the Jewish religious faith,” are inhumane but are permitted only because they are prescribed by religion. This false and defamatory implication must be categorically rejected. Method of Slaughter TEWISH religious practices require that any animal whose meat is to be used for food must be slaughtered in accordance with specific and detailed require ments. A religious Jew will refrain from eating any meat rather than eat nonkosher meat. The person who slaughters the animal in accordance with Jewish ritual is called a shochet. His is a religious function and he must meet very high moral, religious and educational qualifications. This process of Jewish method of slaughter and the qualifications of a shochet were described by the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Dr. Herzog, as follows: "The Jewish method consists of cutting the throat of the animal with a single swift and uninterrupted sweep of the knife, which is of more than surgical sharpness and smoothness, horizontally, across the throat in such manner that it severs the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins. The knife-edge must be perfect, without the least perceptible unevenness, indentation or roughness. The knife must be minutely examined by a specific method before killing to test its sharpness and smoothness. It must also be examined after killing and if any indentation is found, thdv beast is regarded as having been improperly slaughtered and its flesh is 'nebelah,* i.e., is regarded from the standpoint of our Dietary Laws like the flesh of an animal which died of itself (carrion) and may not be consumed by Jews. The knife must be twice as long as the breadth of the neck of the animal; for larger cattle fourteen finger-breadths. "The slaughtering of animals for Jewish consumption, must be carried out by an edu cated, refined, and cultured man, known to be God-fearing, who is appointed an official of the community, properly trained, duly licensed, authorized and supervised by the religious head of the community, whose duty it is in the case of the slaughterer’s misconduct or inefficiency to suspend him or even to annul his license.”

T H IS COMMANDMENT is derived not only from the Torah (Bible) with its famous prescriptions concerning Sabbath rest for animals and human beings alike, or with its prohibition against muzzling oxen while they are threshing the grain, or against killing the cow or the lamb and their young both on the same day. The Talmud which, sanctified by the centuries, is the source of Jewish religious law, proclaims that the perpetration of cruelty upon animals is forbidden by Scripture ("Tzaar baaley chayim d’oraytha”—causing pain to animals is forbidden by the Torah). The Talmud even prohibited the owner of 46

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an animal from partaking of food before he had fed his beast. It also deprecated hunting for sport. And according to a standard medieval ethical work, "Sefer Chassidim,” (Book of the Saints)-, "man will be called to account for any pain he has caused an animal; e.g., loading upon it a burden too heavy for it to carry, or striking it when it cannot move.” Maimonides, the first and greatest Jewish codifier, and a famed physician in his day, in his "Guide for the Perplexed,” declared the following with regard to religious slaughter of animals: The commandment concerning the killing of animals is necessary, because the natural food of man consists of vegetables and of the flesh of animals; the best meat is that of animals permitted to be used as food. No doctor has any doubts about this. Since, therefore, the desire of procuring good food necessitates the slaying of animals, the law enjoins that the death of the animal should be the easiest. It is not allowed to torment the animal by cutting the throat in a clumsy manner, by poleaxing, or by cutting off a limb whilst the animal is alive.”

Opinions of Experts ^ JO D E R N EXPERTS, mostly non-Jewish, have carefully studied the Jewish method of slaughter and their testimonials have been published.* More than 800 notable authorities in the field of physiology, pathology and anatomy heads of veterinary schools have so testified. May I mention here only some of them: P r o f e s s o r A u g u s t e K r o g h of the Physiological Institute of Copenhagen, Nobel Prize winner of 1926, wrote as follows: In reply to the question on the Jewish method of slaughter from the physiological point of view; the sudden severance of the carotid arteries, the main point of Shehitah, causes such immediate and complete drainage of arterial blood that the brain centers are paralyzed very quickly, at longest in a few seconds. There is apparently a shock suspending all con sciousness and arresting the eye reflect. The flow of blood to the brain by the vertebral arteries is exceedingly feeble owing to drainage from the severed carotids; artrial pressure to the brain is extremely low since, subsequent to the opening of the carotids, there is only a trickle of blood. Shortly after, the muscles begin to work violently; at first with coordinated movements, then irregularly. These movements could probably be suppressed by a blow on the nape of the neck or the head, a shock that would act automatically on the medulla oblongata. I must, however, assert emphatically that this is without importance or effect for the consciousness, which is destroyed instantaneously by Shehitah. “The movements taking place during the last stage of drainage of the blood obviously play an important part in the blood evacuation, and if they were checked the last phase would undoubtedly take much longer, while the blood-letting would be less complete, since the circulation to the heart would be interfered with. “Having been personally at Jewish slaughterings and having had occasion to observe the animals, I do not hesitate to declare that the Jewish method of slaughter is a proceeding fulfilling every requirement demanded by the dictates of mercy.” S i r C. A. L o v a t t E v a n s , Professor of Physiology at London University, made the following statement: “My opinion as a physiologist is that I should think this method is as humane as any other method in use or likely to be brought into use for the purpose. “My reasons for regarding the method as practically painless are based on two thing i: (1) common sense, and (2) a knowledge of physiology. Common sense tells me that if the animal suffered he would kick immediately the cut was made. As everyone who has ever witnessed the act is well aware, the animal lies absolutely still the moment the vessels are * Many of them are contained in the book “Religious Freedom: The Right to Practice Shehitah” published by the Research Institute of Religious Jewry in New York in 1946.

May-June, 1957

severed, and it is only a minute or so later that asphyxial convulsions set in. Consciousness, we know, is lost long before this. "On physiological principles, again, it is clear that when such large vessels are severed, the arterial blood pressure falls at once to a very low level, and, moreover, the carotid arteries being severed, much of the blood supply to the brain is immediately lost. The remaining .vessels to the brain, in any case, even at the normal arterial pressure, supply only a fraction of the blood, and with the immediate fall of blood pressure this fraction is still further reduced; the result is, I think, almost immediate loss of consciousness. The fact that the conjunctival reflex persists is, as everyone knows, absolutely no criterion of the existence of consciousness. To consider that the animal suffers appreciable pain is, in my opinion, quite absurd. I consider the method to be equal to any.” Lord H o r d e r ,

G.C.V.O., M.D., F.R.C.P., wrote on February 3, 1955, as

follows: "In January 1940 I was asked by the Board of Deputies of British Jews to give my opinion on the character of the slaughtering of cattle for food after the Jewish fashion. "I made careful observations of the process called shehitah. I reported as follows: "The animal to be killed is isolated from the rest, placed in a padded pen which is rotated so as to bring the neck of the beast into position for the shohet’s operation,. This consists in a clean and instantaneous cutting off all the blood vessels of the neck together with the windpipe and gullet— in fact, all the soft structures up to the spine. "The animal loses consciousness immediately. It is difficult to conceive a more painless and a more rapid mode of death. For a few seconds after the cut is made the animal makes no movement. Its body is then convulsed; the convulsive movements continue for about a minute and then cease. "The interpretation of these facts is clear. The cut is made by a knife so sharp and so skillfully handled that a state of syncope, with its associated unconsciousness, follows instan taneously upon the severing of the blood vessels, the rapid loss of blood, and the consequent great fall in blood pressure. The movements of the animal, which begin about 90 seconds after the cut and continue for about 90 seconds, are epileptiform in nature and are due to the bloodless state of the brain (cerebral ischaemia with complete anosaemia). Sensation has been abolished at the moment of the initial syncope. "Careful and critical scrutinizing of this method of slaughtering leaves me in no doubt whatever that it is fraught with less risk of pain to the animal than any other method at present practiced. "I was asked to repeat my observations with a view to a new statement which should be identical with this opinion or modify it if necessary. I made these new observations on January 27 last (1955), and I have no modification to make in my original statement.” S i r W m . B a y l is s , M.A., D.S.C., LLD., F.R.S., professor of general physiology in the University College, London: "I visited the abattoirs at the Metropolitan Cattle Market at Islington when a large number of animals were being killed. I directed special attention to the Jewish method. I arrived at the following conclusions: "The Jewish use of the knife is a humane method of slaughter, which compares favor ably with any other process. The result of the cut made by the Jewish expert is to produce immediate insensibility, from which the animal does not recover. The pain, if any, is momentary, and at the worst is but slight. This is a fact well known to surgeons and to those who cut themselves with an excessively sharp knife. The effect of the cut is to produce unconsciousness by instantaneous cessation of the supply of fresh blood to the brain, and to drain the body of blood. The description of the method as bleeding an animal to death,” is, in my opinion, unfair. It omits to express the fact that the bleeding animal is throughout incapable of sensation and that the bleeding is very rapid.” L e o n a r d H i l l , Director of Department of Applied Physiology, National Institute for Medical Research in England, made the following statement: "Several years ago I made a special study of the cerebral circulation, and later inquired

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into the methods of slaughtering at a time when the Jewish method was called into question by an Admiralty Committee. "All the evidence shows that complete cessation of blood-flow in the brain immediately abolishes consciousness in man, whether this be brought about by sudden compression of the carotid arteries in the neck, cutting of these arteries, or pressure applied to the brain. The very name "carotid” betokens the sleep which the ancients knew could be produced by compression of these arteries in a goat. Boys who accidentally kill themselves by playing at hanging do so because the pressure of the rope on these arteries suddenly deprives them of consciousness, and then they die of asphyxia, the weight of the unconscious body com pressing the windpipe. Similarly it is very dangerous to breathe deoxygenated air because the loss of consciousness from want of oxygen is sudden and no warning sign is given. The brain loses its highest function, viz. consciousness, instantly on deprivation of oxygen, while all the lower functions of the nervous system and other organs continue to act for some time. "Now the Jewish method of slaughter consists in the sudden cutting of the neck right back to the bone, including the carotid arteries and jugular vein, the highly trained official using a very sharp knife. At once the whole of the blood is spilt out of the brain, and consciousness is abolished. No death could be more merciful, taking into account the fact that the animal, unlike man, has no knowledge or fear of impending death.”

Further Certification 'p H E FOLLOWING are some of the additional experts who have certified that shehitah is a humane method of slaughtering: Lord Joseph Lister, Professor of Physiology, University of London, "father of modern antiseptic surgery”: "To charge the Jews with cruelty in this matter seems to me grossly unjust.”

T h . W. En g elm ann , Director of the Physiological Institute, University of

Berlin: "Both in the interests of hygiene and humanity, Shehitah is to be preferred to the methods of slaughter usually recommended.” J. Orth , Director of the Pathological Institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelm

University: "Like many other pathologists I perceive no cruelty to animals in the ritual method of slaughter, but am of opinion that . . . it is preferable to other methods.” Prof. R ubner , Director of the Institute of Hygiene, Berlin University: "In the application of the method of Shehitah I can see no cruelty to animals.” Prof. H ertwig, Director of the Anatomic Biological Institute, Berlin Uni

versity: "I associate myself with the opinion of numerous physiologists and pathologists that no cruelty to animals in involved in the method of Shehitah.” Prof. R. D u B ois-Reymond , Director of the Department of Specialized

Physiology in the Physiological Institute, Berlin University: "Shehitah can appear cruel only to those who . . . have an erroneous conception of the manner in which death ensues in the case of an animal slaughtered by this method.” W. N agel, Director of the Physical Department of the Physiological Institute,

Berlin University: "Shehitah, carried out in the requisite expert manner, I do not consider involves cruelty to animals.” E. Salkowski, Privy Medical Councillor, Director of the Chemical Laboratory

of the Pathological Institute, Berlin University: "From the standpoint of humanity Shehitah is unobjectionable. On the contrary, as death ensues very rapidly the method is to be regarded as eminently humane.”

May-June, 1957

C h r i s t i a n B o h r , Professor of Physiology, Copenhagen University: "No justification for the charge of cruelty.” ' C a r l J u l . S a l o m o n s e n , Professor of General Pathology, Copenhagen Uni

versity:

"There can be no question of any consciousness on the part of the animal. G i u l i o F a n o , Director of the Physiological Laboratory, Florence: "Deserves preference in every respect,

P. GRASSI, D i r e c t o r of the Institute for Comparative Anatomy, Rome University: "Certainly deserves the preference. Attacks on Shehitah are actuated not so much by sympathy for the animal as by anti-Semitic prejudice. B. B a n g , Professor at the Royal High School for Veterinary Science and

Agriculture and Veterinary Surgery, Copenhagen: "I adhere to my previously expressed opinion as to the value of the Jewish method of slaughter.” • C. O. J e n s e n , Professor of General Pathology and Pathological Anatomy

at the Royal High School for Veterinary Science and Agriculture, Copenhagen: "I adhere in every respect to my opinion as to the humanity of the Jewish method.

DR. E s s e r , Director of the Veterinary Clinic, Goettingen University, for merly District Veterinary Surgeon: "A humane method, satisfying all the requirements of humanity to animals. . . The possibility of cruelty is out of the question.” DR. Olt , Prof, of Veterinary Medicine, Giessen University: "Shehitah is the best method.” D r . M a r t i n , Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Giessen University: "I cannot approve of the continued attacks on the Jewish method of slaughter.” DR. R u b e l i , Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Berne University: "I still adhere to my previously expressed opinion as to the humanity of Shehitah. J o s e p h S z p i l m a n , Rector of the Royal Veterinary College, Lemberg: "Very desirable, if Shehitah . . . could be generally employed.” J. B u r g e r , District and Court Veterinary Surgeon, Retired, Coburg: "Neither Shehitah, nor the preliminary operations, therefore, are to be regarded as cruelty to animals.” 1 c r^* V e t e r i n a r y C o u n c i l l o r H e y n e , Departmental Veterinary Surgeon, Dis

trict Posen:

"Cannot be regarded as cruel; it is neither more painful nor cruel than the method of slaughter involving preliminary stunning.” . J. R o s e n t h a l , Director of the Institute of Physiology, University or Er

langen:

"Shehitah, one of the best methods of sparing the animal to^be killed unnecessary suffering, and of producing unconsciousness as speedily as possible.” DR. D a m m a n n , Director of the Veterinary College, Hanover: "There is therefore no justification in characterizing death from hemorrhage as torture. On the contrary, Shehitah entirely satisfies the requirements of the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals— a very proper and ethical requirement— that animals must be killed by the quickest and most merciful method possible. Shehitah has the great advantage of never failing, but invariably swiftly and unerringly achieving its CARL M u e l l e r , Dep’t Veterinary Surgeon, Retired, Stettin: "For the animal Shehitah is the least painful and cruel; hygienically it is the most advantageous and suitable . . . the general introduction of the Jewish method can be recommended as eminently desirable.”

JEWISH LIFE

Sanitary Councillor K lemsiewicz, Professor of General and Experi

mental Pathology, Graz: "Both from the hygienic and humanitarian standpoints Shehitah is superior to all other methods.” A. Lode, Director of the Institute of Hygiene, Innsbruck University: “There can be no question of cruelty to animals . . . Shehitah is not only desirable but, from the standpoint of the better lasting properties of well-drained meat, is superior to all other methods of slaughter.” Joseph Loete, Professor of General Pathology and Anatomy, Kolozsvar: “I should regard that man as lucky who could go to his death with as little pain as an animal killed by the Jewish rite.* A dolph Beck, Director of the Physiological Institute, Lemberg University: “The absolute minimum of suffering .' . . Produces immediate loss of consciousness.” P. KUCERA, Director of the Institute of Hygiene, Lemberg, University: “Absolutely no cruelty . . . with regard-to the quality and preservation of meat, the speedy complete evacuation of blood by Shehitah can only be regarded as favorable.” F. Mares, Professor of Physiology, Prague University: “Anaemia of the brain is the most gentle and natural mode of anaesthesia.” D r. Spira , Professor of Experimental Pathology, Prague University: “The objections to the method of the throat-cut on the ground of cruelty to animals are unjustified.” Siegmund Exner , Professor of Physiology, Vienna University: “One of the gentlest ways of killing an animal.” W. K olle, Prof, of Hygiene and Bacteriology, Director of the Institute for

investigation of Infectious Diseases, Berne University: “Represents an unobjectionable method of slaughter both from the hygienic and humanitarian standpoints.” H. K ronecker, Professor of Physiology, Director of the Physiological In

stitute, Berne University: “I entirely share the views of my colleagues as to the humanity of Shehitah.”

H. Strasser, Director of the Anatomical Institute, Berne University: “The safest method of producing as painless and speedy a death as possible. . . There can be no question of cruelty to animals.” H. Christiani, Professor of Hygiene and Director of the Public Health

Bureau, Geneva University: “Is not inferior to other methods.”

I. L. Prevost, Professor of Physiology, Geneva University: “No more cruel than the methods usually employed. Presents great advantages for securing good quality meat by more effectually evacuating the blood than in the case of an animal previously stunned.” L. Bolk, Director of the Anatomical Institute, Amsterdam University: “I emphatically deny that this represents cruelty to animals.” T. Place, Professor of Physiology, Amsterdam University: “The best method of slaughtering, and therefore in every respect preferable.” W. Einthoven , Professor of Physiology and Director of the Physiological

Laboratory, Leyden University: “Cannot be described as cruelty to animals, and represents a sure and speedy method of slaughter.” J. W. LANGELAAN, Director of the Anatomical Faculty, Leyden University: “Shehitah is one of the best, perhaps the best, method . . . is far from being cruel to animals.” C. H. H. SPRONCK, Director of the Pathological Institute, Utrecht University: “A humane method of slaughter . . . The Jewish method is so desirable that it should be universally adopted.”

May-June, 1957

H a n s V i r c h o w , Professor of Anatomy, Berlin University: "Involves no cruelty to animals, as consciousness is almost immediately lost.”, F. R o e h m a n n , Director of the Chemical Laboratory of the Physiological In

stitute, Breslau University : "The agitation against Shehitah is not justified by the facts . . . Involves no cruelty to animals.” L. G e r l a c h , Director of the Anatomical Institute, Erlanger University: "A thoroughly humane method of slaughter, absolutely unsuggestive of cruelty to animals.” ^ . L. A s c h o f f , Professor of Pathological Anatomy, Director of the Pathological

Institute, Freiburg: "Produces speedy unconsciousness.”

R. W i e d e r s h e i m , Director of the Institute of Anatomy and Comparative Anatomy, Freiburg: "There can be no question of cruelty.”

DR. BOSTROEM, Director of the Pathological Institute, Giessen: "Shehitah is to be preferred to all other methods of slaughter.” V o n E s m a r c h , Director of the Institute of Hygiene, Goettingen University: "Involves no cruelty to animals, but is a method of slaughter thoroughly in accordance with the dictates of humanity,” F r . M e r k e l , Director of the Anatomical Institute, Goettingen University: "Thoroughly free from any kind of cruelty to animals.” G e o r g S c h n e i d e m u e h l , Professor of Comparative Pathology, Kiel Uni

versity: "Can see in Shehitah no cruelty to animals.”

J. R u e c k e r t , Chairman of the Council of the Royal Anatomical Institute, Munich: "Cannot be regarded as cruel, because the severance of the arteries of the throat produces immediate anaemia of the brain and consequent unconsciousness.” R. R o b e r t , Director of the Institute of Pharmacology and Physiological

Chemistry, Rostock University: " I have long since settled the question in my own mind that Shehitah expertly prac tised is no cruelty to animals.” D r . L a n g e n d o r f f , Director of the Physiological Institute, Rostock University: "I have no doubt at all that the ritual method of slaughter is to be preferred to all other methods as being the best adapted to its purpose and the least cruel.” DR. VON G r u t z n e r , D i r e c t o r of the Pathological Institute, Tuebingen

University: "Is not only the best and safest method of slaughter, but owing to its simplicity gives the animal the minimum of pain . . . I hope that very soon all animals will be slaughtered by the throat-cut.” A n t o n V o n G e n e r i s c h , Director of the Pathological-Anatomical Institute,

Budapest University: "By no means cruel; produces speedy and certain death.”

H. P r e i s z , Director of the Bacteriological Institute, Budapest University: "There c'an be no question of cruelty to animals.”

H. E p p i n g e r , Director of the Pathological-Anatomical Institute, Graz: "The most suitable method of slaughter . . . Involves no cruelty.” M . H o l l , Director of the Department of Anatomy, Graz: "An absolutely unobjectionable method of slaughter . . . superior to all other methods.”

JEWISH LIFE

V eterinary Councillor W allm a n n , Department Veterinary Surgeon,

District Erfurt: “From the humanitarian and sanitary standpoints it is to be regarded as the most perfect method of slaughter.** M. A. Chauveau , Member of the Institute, Inspector General of Veterinary

Colleges, Professor at the Natural History Museum, Paris: “All the depositions made by the physiologists go to prove that Shehitah is not more cruel than other methods of slaughter—indeed, one may assert that it is less cruel to slaughter animals according to the Jewish method than to kill them by any other of the customary modes of procedure.** V. Pollinger/ Director of the Pathological Institute, University of Munich: “Ritual slaughtering of animals, performed in the requisite expert manner, satisfies the requirements of the Society for the Prevention • of Cruelty to Animals, and is equal to other methods of slaughtering animals.** Max Borst, Director of the Pathological Institute, Wuerzburg: *T consider Shehitah, rightly performed, to rank with any modern method of slaughter Involves no cruelty to animals.** A lfred T rawinski, Professor at the Veterinary Academy, Lwow: “The prescriptions issued by Moses and the Jewish talmudists (concerning Shehitah) conform to the general principles of modern surgery, *cito, tuto, iucunde,* that its per formance should be speedy, certain, and painless.’* D r. J. B ongert, Director of Institute of Nutritional Science, Veterinary

College, Berlin: “When the animals are slaughtered by a qualified Jewish official ('Shohet’) in the manner prescribed by the Jewish ritual no cruelty to animals can be seen in this mode of slaughter.** D r. M. Cremer, Director of the Physiological Institute, Veterinary College,

Berlin: “After what has been said I can perceive no cruelty to animals in Shehitah.**

D r. M. R ubner , Director, Physiological Institute, Berlin: “To sum up, I maintain the decision given by me in 1908, namely, that no cruelty to animals can be perceived in the practice of Shehitah.” D r. W . K lein , Professor at the Institute for Anatomy, Physiology and

Hygiene at the College of Agriculture, Bonn: “In my opinion the prohibition of Shehitah according to rite as a method of slaughter must appear to any unbiased expert to be wholly absurd.”

Bills Unanimously Opposed JEW ISH religious law requires that the animal be in a state of health and shall not have suffered any injury in a vital organ prior to the act of shehitah. Any method of rendering the animal insensitive produces or may produce such lesions or injuries. Many noted authorities, most of whom are not Jewish, have established that shehitah is at least as humane as any other method of slaughtering, including rendering the animal insensitive by mechani cal, electrical or chemical means. For example, Sir C. S. Lovatt Evans, D.S.C., F.R.S., Emeritus Professor of Physiology at London University said categorical ly: "My opinion as a physiologist is that I should think this method is as humane as any other method in use or likely to be brought into use for the purpose.” Sir William Bayliss, M.A., D.S.C., LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of General Physiology in the University College, London, was equally emphatic: "The May-June, 1957

Jewish use of the knife is a humane method of slaughter which compares favorably with any other process.” It is not surprising that within the Jewish community there is such unanimity of ppposition to the bills being considered by this committee. There is a sorrow ful history behind legislation such as this. W e do not impugn in the slightest the motives of the proponents of the bills before this committee. Unfortunate ly, however, the motivations of those who have pressed for legislation such as this in other countries and at other times have not been as benevolent. p O R MANY years the false slander that shehitah is inhumane has been used as a weapon by those who would exterminate the Jewish people. It is significant that one of the first acts of the Nazis upon securing power in Germany was to promulgate laws forbidding shehitah under the guise of humane considerations. In every country that came under Nazi domination and control one of the first laws to be promulgated was a law banning shehitah. In Norway, for example, the principal proponent of the anti-shehitah was a collaborator of the notorious Major Quisling. Our concern is further heightened by the fact that even in England where shehitah is exempt from the humane slaughtering law, that law has been used as a springboard for a continuous campaign to label shehitah as inhumane and to ban it. Mrs. Griffith, the author of one of the bills now on the agenda, testified before the Senate Sub-committee on Humane Slaughter of Livestock and Poultry on May 10, 1956 that "we have lagged behind other nations” with regard to Humane Slaughter bills. The United States of America need not take a lesson from any country as to what legislation must be enacted concerning animals. W e are proud of the fact that the United States has reached a higher standard of com passion and tolerance towards both its human beings and animals than has been achieved anywhere in the world. W e take pride in our mutual understanding and religious tolerance. W e all want to preserve this harmonious spirit. A bill of this kind will, however, set off counter reactions. Such a bill might certainly foster repercussions in the form of hatred and propaganda against law-abiding citizens. I wish therefore to state in conclusion, that American Jewry, more than five million in number, is united in its opposition to the proposed legislation. UNITED "And he encamped before the mountain." This encampment at Mt. Riwffi is referred to in the singular form while all other encamp ments are referred to in the plural. We may learn, therefore, that although there existed strife and divisiveness among the people as a result of the many problems they had to solve in their wanderings through the desert, when they came before Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah, unity and harmony prevailed. All Israel became "like one man with one heart." After Rashi from Mechiltah on Shemoth, 19:12. 54

JEWISH LIFE

A Synthesis That Failed By JUSTIN HOFFMAN TW O WORLDS, The Story of an Edinburgh Jewish Childhood, by David Daiches. Harcourt Brace. 192 pp. $3.50. HIS BOOK is more than the story of a Jewish childhood in Edinburgh. An autobiography of Dr. David Daiches, University Lecturer in Eng lish at Cambridge University, it is also, in the author’s statement of dedi cation to his mother, a “new perspec tive on familiar scenes” which he hopes “will explain rather than dis turb.” His purpose in writing this book thus is his desire to explain him self and his life; to help his mother and other interested parties gam an understanding of himself and his ac tions. And yet, one cannot help but won der as one reads the book whether the author’s real intent was to explain himself or whether it was not rather an attempt to ease a troubled con science and to bind up old wounds which he had inflicted on his family.

May-June, 1957

Perhaps, in paying tribute to his father, he hoped to quiet the inner voice that told him that his life might have taken a different course. “These chapters from my autobiography,” says the author on the last page of his book, “turn out to be a tribute to him. He is the hero, not I.” Indeed, the elder Dr. Daiches, not the author, is the central character of this account. As an explanation of the author, of his family or of the forces which shaped them, "Two Worlds” leaves too many things unsaid; too many ques tions unanswered. The author should have described more fully the “bril liant” synthesis between the world of Judaism and twentieth century Eng land which his father supposedly achieved. Was it an intellectual syntheis? If so, it is hardly reflected in a statement like this one: “Historical or anthropological arguments about the Bible never disturbed him in the least: this was all very well, he would say*in 55

effect, but you must believe in the lead to any perceivable changes in Divine origin of the law if society is Jewish observance in the author’s to flourish.” Perhaps the synthesis case. His devotion to the traditional was more of a practical nature. “He, Jewish way of life remained unim as an orthodox Jewish rabbi and a paired even at the time of his entry to student of Hume and Kant, had finally the University of Edinburgh. “My solved the relation between Judaism , non-Jewish friends,” he says on that and modern secular culture and showed occasion, “made things as easy as they how one could be a free and equal could. They knew that I ate no meat citizen of a Western democracy while at their houses; they knew that F ri keeping up all orthodox Jewish obser day night and Saturday were impos sible times for me.” Why, then, the vances.” Whatever the case may be, his seemingly sudden change? What was father’s synthesis “proved incapable it that led him to reject so abruptly of transmission to his children.” But one of the worlds in which he had why was this so? Why did David grown up and which he had learned Daiches reject his father’s way of to love and to enjoy? No sudden emer life? No adequate answer to this ques gence from a ghetto-like existence had tion is explicitly given. On the basis occurred. No first' and startling ac of what is said, there would have been quaintance with Western culture had every reason to assume that David taken place. Reared in a home in would follow in his father’s footsteps. which modern culture occupied a place He speaks respectfully about the sim of respect and educated in English plicity and sincere piety of his home. schools, young Daiches could hardly He talks admiringly about his father’s have been dazzled by his university dedication to his rabbinic calling and experiences like one who suddenly heartily approves of his father’s fine steps from darkness into light. If there is no conclusive evidence of Jewish and general education. He looks back, not without a feeling of any marked intellectual changes that pride, to the distinguished position his might have shaken the author’s reli father and, through him, his entire gious outlook and observance, what family occupied. It is a m atter of little then may account for his withdrawing surprise to the reader to learn that from his Jewish world? The reader young David Daiches unreservedly ac has good reason to suspect that the cepted the Judaism of his father; that chain reaction that resulted in es he accepted it in a natural and joyful trangement from Judaism was actu way. There is no intimation of resent ally set off on the social level. More ment or even of a feeling of a burden specifically, romantic involvements that might well be put down by the with a non-Jewish girl may largely account for the severance of ties wayside and left there. with Jewish tradition. “No one had

WHILE later, in his teens, there arose some religious doubts in the author’s mind—doubts about the exis tence of G-d and about Divine Revela tion. But such doubts are by no means unusual among teenagers nor did they 56

warned me of the possibility that I might find some non-Jews more sympathique than any Jews I knew” (p. 183). This statement may provide the clue to an explanation of David Daiches’ life. A first romance involvJEWISH LIFE

ing a non-Jewish girl was terminated by him. His religious roots and family loyalties proved victorious. But when he fell in love the next time, with an other non-Jewish fellow-student, he succumbed to the temptation. “All the time I was at Oxford,” he confesses, “I was wrestling with the problem of reconciling my deep love for my pa rents, and my persisting affection for the Jewish traditions with which I was brought up, with the psycholog ical realities of my present situation.” Is it a mere coincidence that, at about this time, the author began to “read Jewish apologetics with an in creasing critical eye” and that he “studied the Jewish prayerbook, and noted the difference between the strains of noble piety and crude superstition”? As so often in human affairs, the heart had made its decision and the mind proved eager and willing to de fend it. UT WHILE the book contributes B little by way of clarifying either the clash or the synthesis of the two worlds, it does provide a consistently interesting account of the life of the Edinburgh Jewish community and of the career of its distinguished rabbi. The reader is introduced to some of the internal problems of Edinburgh Jewry. Much of the ra b b it time was taken up with being a good-will am bassador to the non-Jewish commun ity. He was looked upon as the official representative of the - Jewish people to the non-Jewish population much more so than is the spiritual leader of an average American Jewish congre gation. Upon him rested the respon sibility not only of interpreting Juda ism to the general community, but also of defending the good name of his May-June, 1957

flock by means of letters and state ments in the press. The reader is taken on intimate visits to the rabbis home, and is also allowed to join Rabbi Daiches and his family on their vacations by the sea, to watch him lay aside the burdens of his office and in dulge in some rather astonishing laxi ties in the observance of orthodox pre cepts. The reader is also provided with some highly humorous glimpses of the “characters” of the congregation, and of the Scots-Yiddish they spoke. But above all, the image of the short, stubby rabbi, imbued with the “Hildesheimer” ideal of a twentieth century Orthodoxy and the Kantian sense of duty, both of which he acquired while studying in Germany, is vividly im pressed upon the reader’s mind. The central theme of “Two Worlds” —the relationship between the worlds of Judaism and modern culture—has been a persistent theme of Jewish in tellectual history ever since the era of emancipation. But, fortunately for the Jewish people, scores of Jewish intellectuals have succee4ed in achiev ing a happier solution and a more constructive synthesis than did David Daiches. JUST P U BLISH ED

THE TENT OF JACOB Selected Essays by

JACOB ROSENHEIM Illustrated, with an introduction by

H. A. GOODMAN Price 25 cents post free, from publishers, or at all booksellers.

Agudas Israel Youth Council 5 Beekman St. New York 38

Old Traditions In New Beauty By SAMSON R. WEISS PRAYERS FOR THE according to the Custom of the Span ish and Portugese Jews, edited and translated by Dr. David de Sola Pool, Rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in the City of New York, revised and reprinted 1957. fllHIS REVISED edition and translation of the Spanish-Portugese Madhzor for the Festivals excels ‘by the scholarly perfection and the beauty of its translation which cap tures the devotional strength and ma jesty of our holiday prayers. It is of great interest also for the Ashkenazi Jew, in whose Maehzor many of the enchanting liturgical poems, retained in the Sephardic ritual, are missing. Rabbi Pool (whose edition and trans lation of the Ashkenazic iSiddur, to be published by the Rabbinical Council of America, the Jewish community is awaiting with keen anticipation) has included in this volume a very fine in troduction from which the following quotation looms to great importance in view of the constant attempts to “revise” the traditional order of prayers: This historic ritual is derived basically from the Torah itself. Immutable and everlasting as the Bible itself is the Biblical inheri tance of our liturgy. Other pages in the prayerbook are designed for study and instruction. They reflect the piety of the rabbis of old and the primacy of learning enjoined by the Torah. The in spired poets of the Golden Age of Sephardic life in Spain, Solo 58

mon ibn Gabirol, Abraham ibn Ezra, Jehudaih Halevi, and other medieval poets of spiritual genius, enriched for all time the pre ciously preserved prayers that this volume humbly seeks to help perpetuate. It is this f ervant mil lennial praying by our fathers and forefathers which we in our generation must uncompromising ly preserve unchanged in its classic expression and devotional fervor. The type-setting and the binding are a further testimony to the loving care with which this volume was edited. Its publication was made pos sible by Mr. Ivan Salomon, promi nent member of the Executive Com mittee of the Union of Orthodox Jew ish Congregations of America, in mem ory of his beloved parents. ¡Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congrega tion in the United States and the mother congregation of the Union, has made by this publication another ex emplary contribution to traditional Jewry. This prayerbook is a most valuable addition to the library of each tradi tional Jewish home. It is available at Congregation Shearith Israel, 8 West 70th St., New York 23, N. Y. at $3.50 a copy. ------ JEWISH POCKET BOOKS---- — A series of 12 attractive books illuminat ing the Jewish way of life and thought W ITH P LA S T IC BOOK STAN D $3.98 OR IN ONE D E L U X E BOUND V O LU M E WRITE FOR BROCHURE

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JEWISH LIFE

Cleveland, Ohio It was gratifying to read in your Nisan, 5717 issue of the results of tihe vigorous 'campaigns to make “Jewish” hospitals Jewish. The spark of Torahlore still flickers in the heart of every Jew and we need only warm it with affection, respect and.example. Mr. Fried, however, is in error in his plans in the paragraph headed “What Have We Learned?” It is a mistaken assumption to “blame” the social worker for the lack of “vital awareness and understanding of what the Jewish community wants from its institutions.” Mr. Fried overlooks the control the laity on boards exercise, and their resistance to the observance of Halochic laws in our agencies and institutions. It is the laity that must be moved from their positions as “marginal men” who are more con cerned with the wishes and opinions of the larger community, rather than concerned with the wishes of the Jews who turn to the agencies these laity direct. While social workers may or may not have strong positive feelings about Jewish observances, the ethics of our profession make us responsive to the interests and needs of our agencies’ boards, members and clients. While so cial workers advise, enable and assits in policy making, they are not the final May-June, 1957

determiners of the policies under which they work. Social workers can affect policies in how they carry them out. Boards create policies out of their own experience and knowledge; where these are limited, Jewishly, policies are bound to reflect this lack—depriv ing Jewish members and clients of their rightful respect as Jews. Hence, if there is to be any educa tional campaigns, it can best be served if the laity and social workers are seen as co-workers needing the same “refuah.” “Compulsory education” never can and never will teach re spect; “compulsory education” cannot create a sympathetic and understand ing heart in the board member or the social worker. Let us encourage the setting up of such institutes as Mr. Fried suggests; let us prepare book lets, train ¡speakers and discussion leaders for these institutes; and let us “sell” these institutes on the basis of the need for the professional to know his members and clients, on the basis that the board member must know for whom he “legislates.” The sincere board member and the true professional social worker will use this material and these resources. Our ex perience proves they will; but our ex perience also’ proves “it takes a lot of work to do a little convincing.” The psychological barriers to “learning” are too many to discuss in this letter. 59

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JEWISH LIFE

May I suggest another approach— one that will take a little longer, but may produce more lasting results. Jewishly committed and observant Jews must become more involved in every phase of Jewish communal life; the Jewish /Community Center, case work agency, treatment homes and fund raising agencies need their time and interest as much as does the school and the Talmud Torah. No orthodox Jewish layman, no rabbi can consider his participation at all meet ings of these bodies as Bitul Torah or a waste of time or useless. Attendance at board meetings, community wide meetings and planning meetings is nec essary so that the Jewish viewpoint is always represented; How often Torah Jews “maichen avec mit de jth|p|l such meetings, and then condemn the results of these meetings. Never be fore has the dictum A l Tifrosh Min Hatzibur been so important and been so neglected. The Torah - educated board member has a role to play, this is more effective education than “com pulsory” institutes. The next step is to encourage the entrance of religious Jewish youth into the various fields that comprise the social work profession. The Toraheducated professional educates by ex ample and by representing the Jewish viewpoint to agency staffs, to volun teers and to boards. The Torah-edu cated professional or board member can enrich the lives of everyone who comes in contact with him and can widen the horizons of Jewish living for the community in which he serves. We cannot isolate ourselves and ful fill our responsibility to the Jewish people. We must better serve the orth odox members of the community, who find themselves isolated when they come to use communal agencies and May-June, 1957

find no one who really understands their way of life. Another step that needs to be taken is to develop an atmosphere in the Torah organizations that will be con ducive to (attracting the observant Jew who, once trained in a school of social work, seeks to serve the Jewish community. In recent years, a number of orthodox young men graduated from accredited schools of Social work but they have refused to consider work in synagogues where they are desper ately needed to establish and conduct programs for young and old alike. They are needed to staff day camps and resident camps and to work with youth groups. Despite their desire to work in Torah institutions, they do not. Why? Because they seek a “pro fessional atmosphere” where they can work with people who understand how social workers practice; they seek the degree of autonomy necessary to the fulfillment of their responsibilities ; and they wish to avoid the crush be tween Synagogue functionaries. Such competent people wish to work where their training is accepted and recog nized, not where they are required to carry four types of jobs under our job description. An organization like the Union of Orthodox Jewish 'Congregations of America can make a significant con tribution to Jewish communal life by setting up standards for synagogues to achieve, so that synagogue mem bers will get the best out of all the people serving the congregations. The UOJCA should establish scholarships to schools of social work for Torah educated youth; the UOJCA can set up seminars for its membership to train them to be effective board members in serving the Jewish community ; the UOJCA can work to establish a work ing relationship between the rabbi and 61

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place to work in. There is no reason why a synagogue, for example, should not become a “field agency” for a school of social work, if one exists in that community. There are many other fronts that need to be manned to achieve the de sired results all of us seek. May I sug gest that the proposed commission look into the suggestions made above —made in humility and with the de sire that Am Yisroet be united with the G-d and Torah of Israel. Solomon H. Green Just Published

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PURE • HARMLESS • ECONOMICAL

GUARANTEED N O N -F A T T E N IN G

4 Oz. bottle Only 75c

SU G A RIN E is Kosher and is Approved by The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.

Famous TAAM-TOV Kosher Cheese • American

• Swiss

• Sliced American • Edam • Cheddar

• GOUDA

• Spread

• MUENSTER

Supervised by: Rabbi Dr. J. Breuer New York City Prepared under Rabbinical Super vision, in America's most modern Ice Cream Plant ©

Also ask tor our SCHMERLING'S Kosher Imported Gruyere Cheese

SCHNALL PRODUCTS COMPANY Brooklyn 25, N.Y.

PResident 2-3615

FOR FINEST QUALITY

JEWISH LIFE

UNION OF ORTHODOX JEW ISH C O N G REGA T IO N S OF A M ERICA

KASHRUTH