Convention of American Jewish Reform Leaders Listens to Symposium on Perpetuation of Judaism

Henry Morgenthau Urges Cooperation Between All Creeds; Conditions Today Necessitate New Approach of Jew Toward Religion, Declares Dr. Lee K. Frankel; Asserts Large Number of Reform and Orthodox Jews Have No Congregational Affiliations; Rabbi Fineshriber Criticizes Layman’s Attitude to Rabbis (Jewish Daily Bulletin)

Henry Morgenthau presided at the evening session of the convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which was devoted to a discussion on the perpetuation of Judaism. Mr. Morgenthau called for the cooperation and unity of all believers–Jews and Christians.

Dr. Lee K. Frankel, whose subject was “a statement of the case” of Judaism versus modernity, reviewed a number of recently published articles the authors of which, representing various schools of modern thought, contend that the religion of their ancestors is out of step with the march of progress. He also referred to a number of letters which had been written in response to a joint inquiry by him, by Ludwig Vogelstein, chairman of the Union’s Executive Board and Adolph S. Ochs, most of which were of similar tenor, Dr. Frankel presented the following conclusions: That a considerable proportion of Reform and Orthodox Jews have no congregational or other Jewish religious affiliations; that a considerable number, particularly younger men and women, are apathetic and indifferent to formal religious observance; that many so-called Jewish intellectuals have severed all relations with Judaism; that cults like Christian and Jewish science are receiving an increasing number of Jewish followers and that there is a small percentage of apostasy.

URGES COOPERATION OF ALL CREEDS

“To what avail is all the present rivalry of creeds?” Mr. Morgenthau asked in his address. “How much better would it be, if all believers in the divine force should freely share their treasure, cooperate with one another, strengthen one another, open their hearts to brotherly love! For is not this divine force itself, in reality, only another name for love–the universal love, the love of the Golden Rule that bids us do unto others as we would they should do unto us? Surely this is the love of God that passeth all understanding; which, if we learn it and live by it, is the law of life itself, revealed to the Jews first and then to the Christians, and now a free gift to all who will but hearken to it,” continued Mr. Morgenthau.

“It is the jewel of divine truth. How selfish to believe that only the Jew can have it! How false to believe that only the Christian can hold it. No! To each has been given the jewel. In the past, each has thought to hide it from all others. The Jew thought he had safely hid it behind his ceremonials, or within the ark of his altars. The Catholic thought he had concealed it under his ritual, or within the cup of his communion. The Protestant thought he had wrapped it from sight in the creed of his sect, or within the covers of an infallible Book. And none could see beneath the outward trappings of his neighbor’s religion.

“But all these were deceived! Modern thought, scientific discoveries, new inventions are doing their part to strip these coverings away from the jewel. Slowly but surely the fire of divine love that flames within the jewel itself is burning through these age-old incrustations of pride and prejudice and hate that have sundered the hearts of men. Brothers all, they may now see that each one has the jewell Behind the ceremonies that separated us, above the altars that divided us, beyond the creeds that cramped us and confused, there shall one day shine in eternal glory before the eyes of all that great diadem of truth, one and the same for all men whom it makes brothers because they are all sons of the One God!

THE NEED FOR A SPIRITUAL EYESIGHT

“Today we still need a special spiritual eyesight to see through the wrappings that hide this jewel, which others, as well as we, possess. Decades may pass before this spiritual vision becomes general–centuries perhaps. Meanwhile those who are entrusted with the. Jewish jewel must see to it that it is revealed to all the world so that those men of other faiths who are possessed of spiritual eyesight, may perceive its beauty and recognize its oneness with their own.

“Our duty is not to take our jewel back to that ancient land where our forefathers found it and bury it there. Our duty is rather to lift it up in our own hearts, to hold it aloft in all lands and among all peoples, that its light may be seen of all men,” Mr. Morgenthau concluded. “Judaism is the basic truth of religion, and as truth is eternal, the perpetuation of the Jewish religion is fixed,” Mr. Morgenthau declared.

Dr. Frankel said that it was the conviction of the sponsors of the Reform movement, begun fifty years ago in this country by men like Isaac M. Wise and his contemporaries, that conditions in American Israel necessitated changes in the approach of the Jew toward his religion. The progress of science during the same period has been greater than in the previous 5000 years. So rapid, that the world is suffering from “cosmic indigestion.” It is this which is the underlying cause of the alleged religious unrest.

“But even in the older days we had the doubter, the scoffer, the sceptic and the agnostic,” he declared. “They are not recent creations. They have always been with us and always will be with us so long as human thought and human ingenuity find new revelations and make new discoveries However the changes that have occurred have been so rapid that it has been impossible fully to assimilate them,” he said.

“The old-fashioned home has largely disappeared. Children have a sophistication which we older ones did not possess. Contact between parent and child have become tenuous. In many homes religious observance no longer finds a place. Outward expression of Jewish consciousness through symbolism or ceremonialism is not the fashion.”

While the home has suffered, Dr. Frankel declared, the school shows remarkable growth for the better. But that improvement does not extend to the religious school.

“Are the doubts and uncertainties of our modern Jewish youth due, in part, to inadequate and unintelligent training in our childhood?” Dr. Frankel asked, and he expressed the opinion that a survey of the system of religious instruction would probably lead to marked changes in curricula and to greater coordination between the school and home. One result of such a survey, he thought, would be consideration of parental education, so that parents may be competent to assist in the religious training of their children.

Dr. Frankel said that it has become necessary to determine whether the ritual, ceremonialism and symbolism meet present needs. The Rabbi has become too preoccupied with public service to maintain personal contact with his parishioners, and the old relationship of guide, adviser and friend has been largely lost. He doubted whether the modern community houses and social centers are a sufficient substitute. At any rate, the disappearance of this personal contact has had something to do with the spiritual degeneration in the home.

JEWS MORE RELIGIOUS, SAYS DR. FRANKEL

Nevertheless, Dr. Frankel maintained the Jews are not less, but more religious. The fundamentals of Judaism are more recognized today than ever.

“Our young men and women are not desirous of breaking away from Judaism as they understand it,” he said. “They are unsympathetic to our present practices. The approach of religious belief today must be made through the realm of science. We must begin to appreciate that in these modern days religious instruction must conform to the methods used in secular instruction,” he declared, and asked for the formation of an educational council to determine the changes to be made in the home and the school and the synagogue as a result of the advance of science.

“Of one thing, however, I am certain,” he said. “If we are to make progress we must do so by retracing our steps. Progress, in our case, means not only discovering something new, but refinding something we have lost. I refer, in particular, to the home and to the religious atmosphere which formerly surrounded it. This is something we must recover. Whatever we may think of our ancestor, the Orthodox Jew, and however we may view his rigid observance of ceremonialism, it cannot be denied that he had a religious instinct, that he had a religious consciousness which pervaded his home and his every act. Religion was part of his daily existence. He expressed it in prayer. Prayer was not necessarily supplication, not a confession of unworthiness, but communion with the Creator, a realization on his part that he possessed a spark of the divine. This daily, almost hourly communion was an expression of his sense of incomprehension, of inability to fathom the mystery of daily existence. It was his adoration of the unknowable. Whether in his home or in the synagogue, whether on the mountain top or the ocean’s strand, there came to him daily, aye, hourly, the realization of the awefulness of the universe. The simplest acts of life were mysteries–breathing, hearing, sight, speech and thought,–the commonplaces of existence brought home to him the fathomlessness of creation as vividly as did the light of the distant stars; in it all he read a divine purpose which he could not comprehend, but which he accepted in faith and in hope.

“It is the irony of the situation that these visions of our ancestors, untutored, uneducated perhaps, at least in our modern sense, are today the formulae of modern science. We are just beginning to grasp that the beautiful conception of the Orthodox Jew of what we term Judaism, is in thorough alignment with the views of modern scientists. All of their recent utterances indicate their belief in the religious aspect of their discoveries. The conflict between science and religion is rapidly disappearing. The most devout of men are the great scientists. They have the vision to realize that beyond their discoveries, there still lies the Ilimitable. It is the scientist who has the true conception of the Infinite. He does not profess to do more than daily find new manifestations of Infinite Power. Improvements in civilization which have accompanied these discoveries reveal to him not merely an Infinite Power, but Infinite Goodness and Infinite Intelligence.”

Rabbi William H. Fineshriber of Philadelphia, criticized the laymen who consider rabbis as decorative figures. The rabbis can’t think, because they are becoming tools in the hands of the laymen, he said. He answered some remarks of Dr. Frankel. Members of the audience disagreed with Mr. Morgenthau, whem he said that Rabbi Fineshriber had misunderstood Dr. Frankel. The Philadelphia Rabbi asked: “Isn’t the work of the organization in Palestine religion? Isn’t the resolution about urging America to arbitration a product of religion?” The audience rose when the Rabbi finished and applauded kira for many minutes.

Marcus Lester Aaron of Pittsburgh, spoke on “Judaism and the Youth of Tomorrow.” Mr. Aaron said that the youth of tomorrow are likely to be more earnest than the youth of today in questioning the validity of inherited ideas.