Part 93 (2/2)
”But--” began Raphael.
Strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned.
”My G.o.d!” he cried hoa.r.s.ely. ”Leon, listen to me,” he said, turning round suddenly. ”Do you realize what sort of a position you are asking me to keep? Do you realize how it makes me the fief of a Rabbinate that is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of the _Shulcan Aruch_ (a book the Rabbinate would not dare publish in English), the professional panegyrist of the rich? Ours is a generation of whited sepulchres.” He had no difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent. ”How can Judaism--and it alone--escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent--which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal.
Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive--while they kill Judaism.”
”Oh, I can't quite admit that,” said Raphael. ”I admit that scepticism is better than stagnation, but I cannot see why orthodoxy is the ant.i.thesis to Judaism Purified--and your own sermons are doing something to purify it--orthodoxy--”
”Orthodoxy cannot be purified unless by juggling with words,”
interrupted Strelitski vehemently. ”Orthodoxy is inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern.”
”But our ceremonialism is pregnant with sublime symbolism, and its discipline is most salutary. Ceremony is the casket of religion.”
”More often its coffin,” said Strelitski drily. ”Ceremonial religion is so apt to stiffen in a _rigor mortis_. It is too dangerous an element; it creates hypocrites and Pharisees. All cast-iron laws and dogmas do.
Not that I share the Christian sneer at Jewish legalism. Add the Statute Book to the New Testament, and think of the network of laws hampering the feet of the Christian. No; much of our so-called ceremonialism is merely the primitive mix-up of everything with religion in a theocracy.
The Mosaic code has been largely embodied in civil law, and superseded by it.”
”That is just the flaw of the modern world, to keep life and religion apart,” protested Raphael; ”to have one set of principles for week-days and another for Sundays; to grind the inexorable mechanism of supply and demand on pagan principles, and make it up out of the poor-box.”
Strelitski shook his head.
”We must make broad our platform, not our phylacteries. It is because I am with you in admiring the Rabbis that I would undo much of their work.
Theirs was a wonderful statesmans.h.i.+p, and they built wiser than they knew; just as the patient labors of the superst.i.tious zealots who counted every letter of the Law preserved the text unimpaired for the benefit of modern scholars.h.i.+p. The Rabbis constructed a casket, if you will, which kept the jewel safe, though at the cost of concealing its l.u.s.tre. But the hour has come now to wear the jewel on our b.r.e.a.s.t.s before all the world. The Rabbis worked for their time--we must work for ours. Judaism was before the Rabbis. Scientific criticism shows its thoughts widening with the process of the suns--even as its G.o.d, Yahweh, broadened from a local patriotic Deity to the ineffable Name. For Judaism was worked out from within--Abraham asked, 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'--the thunders of Sinai were but the righteous indignation of the developed moral consciousness. In every age our great men have modified and developed Judaism. Why should it not be trimmed into concordance with the culture of the time? Especially when the alternative is death. Yes, death! We babble about petty minutiae of ritual while Judaism is dying! We are like the crew of a sinking s.h.i.+p, holy-stoning the deck instead of being at the pumps. No, I must speak out; I cannot go on salving my conscience by unsigned letters to the press. Away with all this anonymous apostles.h.i.+p!”
He moved about restlessly with animated gestures as he delivered his harangue at tornado speed, speech bursting from him like some dynamic energy which had been acc.u.mulating for years, and could no longer be kept in. It was an upheaval of the whole man under the stress of pent forces. Raphael was deeply moved. He scarcely knew how to act in this unique crisis. Dimly he foresaw the stir and pother there would be in the community. Conservative by instinct, apt to see the elements of good in attacked inst.i.tutions--perhaps, too, a little timid when it came to take action in the tremendous realm of realities--he was loth to help Strelitski to so decisive a step, though his whole heart went out to him in brotherly sympathy.
”Do not act so hastily,” he pleaded. ”Things are not so black as you see them--you are almost as bad as Miss Ansell. Don't think that I see them rosy: I might have done that three months ago. But don't you--don't all idealists--overlook the quieter phenomena? Is orthodoxy either so inefficacious or so moribund as you fancy? Is there not a steady, perhaps semi-conscious, stream of healthy life, thousands of cheerful, well-ordered households, of people neither perfect nor cultured, but more good than bad? You cannot expect saints and heroes to grow like blackberries.”
”Yes; but look what Jews set up to be--G.o.d's witnesses!” interrupted Strelitski. ”This mediocrity may pa.s.s in the rest of the world.”
”And does lack of modern lights const.i.tute ignorance?” went on Raphael, disregarding the interruption. He began walking up and down, and thras.h.i.+ng the air with his arms. Hitherto he had remained comparatively quiet, dominated by Strelitski's superior restlessness. ”I cannot help thinking there is a profound lesson in the Bible story of the oxen who, unguided, bore safely the Ark of the Covenant. Intellect obscures more than it illumines.”
”Oh, Leon, Leon, you'll turn Catholic, soon!” said Strelitski reprovingly.
”Not with a capital C,” said Raphael, laughing a little. ”But I am so sick of hearing about culture, I say more than I mean. Judaism is so human--that's why I like it. No abstract metaphysics, but a lovable way of living the common life, sanctified by the centuries. Culture is all very well--doesn't the Talmud say the world stands on the breath of the school-children?--but it has become a cant. Too often it saps the moral fibre.”
”You have all the old Jewish narrowness,” said Strelitski.
”I'd rather have that than the new Parisian narrowness--the cant of decadence. Look at my cousin Sidney. He talks as if the Jew only introduced moral-headache into the world--in face of the corruptions of paganism which are still flagrant all over Asia and Africa and Polynesia--the idol wors.h.i.+p, the abominations, the disregard of human life, of truth, of justice.”
”But is the civilized world any better? Think of the dishonesty of business, the self-seeking of public life, the infamies and hypocrisies of society, the prost.i.tutions of soul and body! No, the Jew has yet to play a part in history. Supplement his Hebraism by what h.e.l.lenic ideals you will, but the Jew's ideals must ever remain the indispensable ones,”
said Strelitski, becoming exalted again. ”Without righteousness a kingdom cannot stand. The world is longing for a broad simple faith that shall look on science as its friend and reason as its inspirer. People are turning in their despair even to table-rappings and Mahatmas. Now, for the first time in history, is the hour of Judaism. Only it must enlarge itself; its platform must be all-inclusive. Judaism is but a specialized form of Hebraism; even if Jews stick to their own special historical and ritual ceremonies, it is only Hebraism--the pure spiritual kernel--that they can offer the world.”
”But that is quite the orthodox Jewish idea on the subject,” said Raphael.
”Yes, but orthodox ideas have a way of remaining ideas,” retorted Strelitski. ”Where I am heterodox is in thinking the time has come to work them out. Also in thinking that the monotheism is not the element that needs the most accentuation. The formula of the religion of the future will be a Jewish formula--Character, not Creed. The provincial period of Judaism is over though even its Dark Ages are still lingering on in England. It must become cosmic, universal. Judaism is too timid, too apologetic, too deferential. Doubtless this is the result of persecution, but it does not tend to diminish persecution. We may as well try the other att.i.tude. It is the world the Jewish preacher should address, not a Kensington congregation. Perhaps, when the Kensington congregation sees the world is listening, it will listen, too,” he said, with a touch of bitterness.
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