Statements which startled the audience, concerning the new message of Palestine to the world at large, were made by Captain Alexander Aaronsohn, D.S.O., Palestinian, in a lecture delivered yesterday before the League for Political Education, a non-Jewish body, in New York City. Several hundred members of the League, mainly women, were present at Town Hall, where the lecture was delivered.
“Palestine Reborn” was the theme of Captain Aaronsohn’s address, in which he claimed that, contrary to recent attempts to reclaim Jesus for the Jews, the principles of faith which will come out of Palestine will bring salvation not only to the Jews, but to the world at large.
“When you come to Palestine now,” he said, “you find a new spirit, a new mode of life–a mode which makes the living of God’s law a real fact. The Bible, the book which has been a source of inspiration for many generations, is in Palestine not a closed book, but the book of life. The tongue in which this book is written, is the tongue of daily life. The very stream at which David picked his stone to throw at Goliath is still flowing. This new and simple life we will find not on the city streets, where there is much noise as in any other city. You will not find this new spirit in the Palestine streets as you will not find it in New York. But you will find it in the small villages, where the living of God’s law is the mode of life. It is from these simple folk, from whom the great Nazarene emanated, that the new message comes to us.”
” ‘Shma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echod’ (Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One). When this principle, proclaimed centuries ago, becomes the accepted truth of all humanity, when the oneness of God is recognized by all the world, the brotherhood of man must follow. It was this principle which Jesus the Nazarene proclaimed, for which he lived and died, but in which he was misunderstood. Certainly the truth was expressed by Dr. Solomon Schechter, the Jewish scholar, when he stated that Jesus was not the incarnation of God, but the incarnation of Israel. When this great principle is accepted, the Fatherhood of God established and the brotherhood of man adhered to, Jews will cease to be Jews and Gentiles will become Israelitic.
“The brotherhood of man is an impossibility without the recognition of the oneness of God. You cannot ‘Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself’ when the oneness of God is not recognized. This was the idea advocated by Jesus. He was one of our great men who, a thorough Jew, was misunderstood and his doctrine perverted. When, dying on the cross, Jesus, it is recorded, exclaimed ‘Eli Eli, Lamah Sh’Vaktani’ (O God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me). It must be that he had foreboding of how greatly he would be misunderstood, that he proclaimed this in his last moment, to indicate that divine powers were not to be ascribed to him, but to the One God.
“On entering a church today, you will find, when the name of God is mentioned, that nothing happens, but when the name of Jesus is pronounced, all heads bow. It is as if Jesus stands between God and humanity. It is the tragedy of history. The man who lived and died for the oneness of God and humanity has been made to become an obstruction to the light of God. It was the light brought by the Nazarene which destroyed the Roman legions and Empire. It is the light coming from Palestine Reborn that will bring the new message to humanity.
“When you violate the traffic rules of a big city like New York, you must be hit. You know it. When one violates the law of God and life, he must be hit. When a toothache befalls you, when disease comes, when you are in trouble, look for the cause–it must have been the law of God that has been violated by you. Instead of looking without, let us rather look within. There are thousands of voices within us that dictate to us what is right and what is wrong, but we do not heed these inner voices–we are violating the law of God.”
Captain Aaronsohn, during his address, also took occasion to criticize the tendency which has recently manifested itself to express the religious feeling of the communities by a continually increasing activity in erecting buildings, synagogues, community centers and other institutions.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
