The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-01-05
TRIBUTE TO CHRIST
From an Eminent Rabbi of
Philadelphia.
LESSON TAUGHT BY THE PAST.
What Hatred, Jealousy and Bigotry
q Have Cost the Jewish People
in Times Past.

Only standing room could De 90
tainel in the Keneseth Israel syna-
goguel on Christmas day, says the
Philadelphia Press. The subject was
1.-THE Fast and the Feast; Christmas
and the Tenth of Tebeth." DR.. Krans-
kopf said:
at is rare that this feast and fast
come together. Let US think that their
happenings together to-day has ONE
higher purpose in it, some great truths
to teach, some good seeds to plant in
our hearts. There lis much in this
Christmas festival that gives Joy to
others, much wholesome food for
thought, many a valuable lesson for
further guidance. That Christianity is
the dominant creed of to-day we can
not deny. That we sorrow to-
day while others rejoice we have
none to thank but hatred
and ieaIousies and bigotries among the
various factions of our fathers in the
unfortunate days of the past. The hrst
temple was destroyed because the
people were addicted to idolatry. But
why was the second temple destroyed ?
Because of the ungrounded, useless
hatreds among the various factions OF
the same people. Between factions and
sets Jerusalem stood rent and torn
nineteen centuries ago. And as II o.
confusion and dismemberments there
had not vet been enough, there arose at
this juncture still mightier cause for
disunion and religious controversy,
which gave rise to still another sect.
destined to eclipse them all. 1t was tbs
advent of Jesus of Nazareth.
"Me have learned to speak and write
of the founder of the Christian Church
in a different light and with a
different spirit than we did in years
gone by. We are gradually forget
ting the centuries of unjust accusa-
tons and unmerited and unequalled
suffelings which we have been called
upon to endure in His name. We have
learned to forgive, and we are making
conscientious efforts to forget. We
have learned to separate The wrongs
that were committed in His name and
to lay the censure upon the heartless
perpetrators of crime, and not upon
Him who was the very incarnation OF
peace, good will and love unto all men,
and who, ha6 he really been the God
he was believed to be, and sill Is be-
lieved to be by credulous minds, and
had He really come to redeem man
kind, 10, end strife and bloodshed, to
promote peace and good will among all
creeds and among all races, would GER
tainiy not have looked so complacently
for nineteen centuries upon crimes COM
mitted in His name that have brought
more sufferings, more misery, that
have caused more bloodshed than was
known throughout the world prior to
His birth. Not of Jesus the Christ, the
anointed, the Messiah not of Jesus, the
myth ; MOI of Jesus as embellished by
legends borrowed from other creeds;
not of the Jesus as rendered unhistoric
by wild fiction and uncontrolled fancy,
but of Jesus the Jew, of Jesus our
brother, of Jesus born of Jewish par
ents. and initiated into the Jewish cove
nant and taught by Jewish teachers,
and lived according to the Jewish law !,
and in His life proved the excellency of
the Jewish creed, and taught and
preached the Jewish moral precepts-Of
Him it is that we speak to- day.
when He left the privacy of His
humble life as an artisan He went
out among His brethren as The re-
former. A visit to Jerusalem had
opened His eyes to the sins and by
pocrisies there in vogue, as over fifteen
centuries later the eyes of Luther were
opened by visit to Rome. He saw
how a rigid legalism had s1pplanted the
words Of, Moses and of the prophets
He began to preach and to teach Juda-
ism, pnre and simple. He defied the
authority of the hypocritical Pharisees,
He pie ded for reform in the temple,
for reform in the house, for purity of
heart, for excellence of deed. He re-
emphasized mills sermon on the Mount
the grandeur of the Jewish moral law.
Men of His mind hocked around Him.
They hailed Him Is their leader. He
accepted the good, of each sect.S He
saw that the signs of the age and the
tendencies OF the time were towards
evil, towards strife, toward annihila-
ton of the Jewish creed and the Jewish
nation, and He cried aloud for ,Ieform.,
He won the hearts of His people, es-
pecialIy of the poorer and neglected
ella ses of, what the Pharisees were
pleased to call the publicans and sin
ners. His popularity increased Ideal
lists and enthusiasts hooked about Him,
and to aid their cause they spread the
widest stories about Him. E 81
The laudatlons and generations and
worship oil, the people turned His head.
Beibelieyed Himself the appointed one
of God. He permitted Himselfto enter
Jerusalem and receive the hosannas of
the people as the king of the-ews :
He was tried Tor this before the Roman
procurator. Pilatus, was found guilty
and BY the Romans condemned to
death. But, while his life could
be taken, His name could no
more be suppressed His work
could no more be undone. His
death gave His fame a still greater
inpe tus. Legends were invented to aid
HIS followers cause. Their numbers
grew wider and wider. Rome began to
press harder and harder, but instead of
uniting to avert the fatsllcatastrophe.
their ,feuds among themselves grew
fercer and fiercer and only ended with
the capture of the city, with the burn
ing # the second temple, with the
razing of the city to the ground and
with he driving of our fathers out into
the nel world, where for eighteen