With a final blast on the shofar, Jews in synagogues and temples throughout the world brought to a close the High Holiday season at sundown last night and returned home for the first meal in twenty-four hours.
Religious organizations estimated that synagogue services this year attracted a slightly larger number of worshippers than last year.
Yesterday’s service was divided into four parts: Shacharith, the morning service; Musof, the additional prayers; Mincha, the afternoon prayer, and finally, Neilah, the special evening service, after which the shofar was sounded to indicate the close of the day of penance.
New York City school authorities estimated that 400,000 children remained away from school because of the holiday.
SERMONS ON MANY TOPICS
Sermon topics varied from the Morro Castle disaster to “Religion’s Minimum.”
“When Israel is bidden to return unto the Lord, thy God,” said Rabbi S. Wise at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall, “the real challenge to him is to put an end to another and the commonest form of Jewish escape, the escape from moral obligations, from the spiritual imperatives of his tradition, the tragedy of this being that our failure to be equal to our high calling in part justifies our assailants and our assassins and leaves us unfortified against a world passionately keen to find flaws in them who are of the highest professions.”
“Assimilation,” declared Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein yesterday morning at the Institutional Synagogue, 37 West 116th street, “has failed, as evidenced by the German Jewish situation. On the other hand, the nations of the world have erred in thinking that in oppressing the Jew they are exterminating him.
“Just the contrary has been the lesson of history. The great era of good will has been foretold by the prophet Micah, who indicated that the Messianic period will be at hand when all people shall be allowed to worship their own God and sit under their own fig and vine, with none to make them afraid.”
Rabbi Louis I. Newman, speaking at Temple Rodeph Sholom, 7 West Eighty-third street, asserted that the defense of persecuted Jews is not sufficient, that the Jews must build Palestine and enrich Jewish culture.
“We must perfect those instruments of Jewish help such as the World Jewish Congress,” he said, “the Zionist Congress, and the Jewish Agency, so that we can build up the Jewish homeland in Palestine and enrich Jewish cultural and spiritual values throughout the nations.
“To be sure, it is an almost impossible task to preserve Jewish communities from attack, and if this were accomplished, it would in itself be a worthy achievement. But Jews must undertake preventive as well as curative measures.”
Speaking on “Religion’s Minimum,” Rabbi Israel Goldstein at Congregation Bnai Jeshurun, 257 West Eighty-eighth street, declared that faith in God and faith in man are the “fundamental propositions which are the common denominator of all great religions.”
Faith in God Dr. Goldstein described as “a belief that the universe is animated by an Intelligence and a Purpose which reflect themselves not only in the processes of nature but also in the progress of mankind.”
Faith in man was characterized as “faith that man is more than animal, that he is a spiritual being who has within himself the seed of goodness, beauty and truth which will in time unfold to its full possibilities.”
HIGH PRIEST’S ATONEMENT
Rabbi Milton Steinberg of the Park Avenue Synagogue took as his text the confession of the high priest in the Temple of Jerusalem and pointed out that the high priest was wont to atone not only for the sins of individuals but for the sins of peoples as well.
“Society is no different from an individual human being,” Rabbi Steinberg said. “It cannot violate a moral law with impunity. Every person who is a component member of society suffers the consequences of a social sin, and every individual must render expiation for those offenses of which all are guilty and for which none is specifically responsible.”
Rabbi Philip R. Alstat, speaking at services of Temple Bnai Israel and Sheerith Judah, 610 West 149th street, maintained that “crass materialism has never been a dominant trait of Jewish character.”
He termed Karl Marx, father of the theory of economic determinism, “an apostate Jew,” and said that Jews repudiate his offspring. He quotes Moses for what he regarded as the true philosophy of Jewish living, “For man doth not live by bread alone but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.”
MORRO CASTLE TRAGEDY
“The recent Morro Castle disaster, whose tragic events have stirred the feelings of thinking humans all over the world, reflects too truly the trend of the modern world’s philosophy of life,” said Rabbi William Margolis in a sermon at Congregation Ohab Zedek, 118 West Ninety-fifth street.
Rabbi Margolis held that the fact that the Morro Castle went down and many perished, despite the advancement of science, proves that “science, which gives us excellent sight, has not endowed us with vision.”
“The great tragedy of the spiritual life of our people,” observed Rabbi Jacob Bosniak at the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center, 546 Ocean parkway, Brooklyn, “is that we are trying to run away from ourselves, to stifle within our hearts the voice calling upon us to do our duty and perform our responsibilities as Jews.”
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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.
