A Book of Jewish Thoughts. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ But then he said, ‘Since the Israelites are in trouble, lo, I will bear my part with them, for he who bears his portion of the burden will live to enjoy the hour of consolation’. Woe to one who thinks, ‘Ah, well, I will neglect my duty. Who can know whether I bear my part or not?’ Even the stones of the house, ay, the limbs of the trees shall testify against him, as it is written, ‘For the stones will cry from the wall, and the limbs of the trees will testify’.

      TALMUD.

II10

       Table of Contents

      ‘IT is high time’, wrote Leopold Zunz, in the days when the emancipation of the Jews in Europe was being constantly postponed, or was being dealt with in a huckstering and grudging spirit, ‘It is high time that instead of having rights and liberties doled out to them, they should obtain Right and Liberty.’ It was well said: ‘Right and Liberty’ are one and indivisible, and belong to all men as such. Well, ‘Right and Liberty’ are ours, if any people on the face of the earth can be said to possess them. Surely we owe something to the land and the people where and among whom our lines are fallen, and of which we are an integral part. We owe it to them to take our share of the national burdens and in the national life, to seek our prosperity in theirs, to respect the law and its representatives, from the humblest officer of justice to the Sovereign upon the throne.

      SIMEON SINGER, 1894.

THE DUTY OF SELF-RESPECT

       Table of Contents

      NOTHING is more dangerous for a nation or for an individual than to plead guilty to imaginary sins. Where the sin is real—by honest endeavour the sinner can purify himself. But when a man has been persuaded to suspect himself unjustly—what can he do? Our greatest need is emancipation from self-contempt, from this idea that we are really worse than all the world. Otherwise we may in course of time become in reality what we now imagine ourselves to be.

      ACHAD HA’AM, 1891.

ANTI-SEMITISM

       I

       Table of Contents

      JEWISH misery has two forms, the material and the moral. In Eastern Europe, in those regions which shelter the vast majority of our race, we see a painful fight for the maintenance of a bare existence. In Western Europe, the Jew has bread; but man does not live on bread alone. His misery is moral. It exists in the constant wounding of self-respect and honour.

      MAX NORDAU, 1897.

      I REMEMBER when I used to come home from the Cheder11, bleeding and crying from the wounds inflicted upon me by the Christian boys, my father used to say, ‘My child, we are in Golus (exile), and we must submit to God’s will’. And he made me understand that this is only a passing stage in history, as we Jews belong to Eternity, when God will comfort His people. Thus the pain was only physical; but my real suffering began later in life, when I emigrated from Roumania to so-called civilized countries, and found there what I might call the Higher Anti-Semitism, which burns the soul though it leaves the body unhurt.

      S. SCHECHTER, 1903.

II

       Table of Contents

      NOT rarely a Jew is heard to murmur that we must learn from our enemies and try to remedy our failings. He forgets, however, that the anti-Semitic accusations are valueless, because they are not based on a criticism of real facts, but are merely due to the psychological law according to which children, savages, and malevolent fools make persons and things against which they have an aversion responsible for their sufferings.

      Pretexts change, but the hatred remains. The Jews are not hated because they have evil qualities; evil qualities are sought for in them because they are hated.

      MAX NORDAU.

      MY grandmother, the beautiful daughter of a family who had suffered much from persecution, had imbibed that dislike for her race which the vain are too apt to adopt when they find they are born to public contempt. The indignant feeling that should be reserved for the persecutor, in the mortification of their disturbed sensibility, is too often visited on the victim; and the cause of annoyance is recognized not in the ignorant malevolence of the powerful, but in the conscientious conviction of the innocent sufferer.

      BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1848.

III

       Table of Contents

      ANTI-SEMITES accuse the Jewish people of an incapacity for forgiveness and love. Let these preachers of love first practise it. Let them refrain, at least, from incendiary slanders against Israel who, among all the peoples of the world, has agonized and suffered most from hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness at the hands of others. Let such preachers of love remember the Mosaic Law: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’.

      J. H. HERTZ, 1919.

      NOT one man alone has risen up against us to destroy us, but in every generation there rise up against us those who seek to destroy us; but the Holy One, blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.

      PASSOVER HAGADAH.

      NO weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgement thou shalt condemn.

      ISAIAH 54. 17.

THE JEW AS A PATRIOT

       Table of Contents

      EVERY student of the Hebrew language is aware that we have in the conjugation of its verbs a mood known as the Intensive (Piel) Voice, which by means of an almost imperceptible modification of vowel points intensifies the meaning of the primitive root. A similar significance seems to attach to the Jews themselves in connexion with the people among whom they dwell. They are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt.

      EMMA LAZARUS, 1882.

      LOYALTY to the flag for which the sun once stood still, can only deepen our devotion to the flag on which the sun never sets.

      Col. A. E. GOLDSMID, 1902.

THE JEWISH SOLDIER

       Table СКАЧАТЬ