St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-09-25
In Every Synagogue To-Day
to Announce the Rosh :
Hashanah. f
The Jewish New Year and
What 1t Means to the Mo-
sale Race.
This and the Day Of Atone
ment the Most Generally
Observed. I
Traditional Ideas Intimately
Associated With ROSh
HaShanah.

The Israelitish year $3.50 will a be
ushered in this "wednesday evening,
and the New Years day, as well as that
of Atonement, following ten days later,
are observed more generally than any
other throughout the whole year. Dur
ing these days the synagogues are
thrOnged with worShipers deYout, tie
prayers are recited with trembling fer
vency, and the words of admOnltiOn, as
they fall from the lips of the spiritual
teacher, find open hearts and dOcile
minds. In reality, these festive days
are the embodiment of the cardinal,
fundamental idea of the whole Jewish
religion, the representative form of the
grandeur and sublimity of the world
redeeming doctrines annunciated by
Judaism-accOuntabi and recOncilia-
ton.
The ancient traditional idea intimately
connected with Rosh Hashanah is that
of mans accountability to his creator
for his acts, commissions and omissions,
of his responsibility as free agent, VINO
may employ his faculties and endOw-
mentS in accordance with the divine
law of morality, or trail them in the
dust of sinful excuses. As Jewish ira
dition has it, God sits in judgment over
man, record of his life is kept, and he
is judged accordingly; his name is
either entered ON the book of life eter-
nal or on the book OF perishableness or
death. On Rosh Hashanah the Israelite
is called upon to institute self-investi-
count of his life to his conscience and
his god. The shofar (ram's horn) is
sounded to
WAKEN THE DORMANT CONSCIENCE,
the sluggish mortal, the lethargic agent,
to remind him that the time will come,
when sooner or later, be will have to
render that accountant event which
may drop down upon him at any mo-
ment, in the midst of ruddy health
while on the eager hunt for worldly
possessions, in the midst of ambitious
pursuit Annually these Shofar sounds
reverberate in the Jewish temple and
in the hearts of trembling, SHINING
men. and wake up the conscience and
remind man of his perishable existence.
Man, $50 the ShOfar says, ''you are moth
ing but being of ephemeral existence;
you continually carry your life in your
hand, and when it comes to an end,
what remains of that around which YOU
centered all your toll and labor and
anxiety? Nothing but dust. Can you
then believe that that is all for which
this vast universe has been in
Stituted; that your intelligence
which scans the heavens, penetrateS
the depths, reads the unalterable laws
that hold the world together; that var
heart, with its tndulating motions'ahd
emotions. is naught but the playfof
chance-the result of fitful develop
ment-and that eternity is nothing but
sound2 Your mind may not decipher
the secret of the great mystery, but
your soul can conceive it. and this soul
is eternal--the spark of the Spirit Eter-l
nal. And this spirit life ends not with
the close of mans earthly career: it is
God-born and cannot cease. And when,
called away from its dust-invested
career, what will you meet-whem?
Rosh Hashanah answers: IAN exist
ence everlasting, loving Father, who
has appointed you to live eternal,
and wills not the death OF the sinner,
but that he return from his evil ways
and live."' We are accountable beings,
reaping the deserts of our own action,
and are held responsible, while at the
same time s's
WITHOUT ANY MEDIATOR
we can approach our Creator; the soul
can soar upward to its divine source,
and can east off all impurities and be
bathed again in the glory Of innocence
and virtue. 80
AS long as Israelites do observe Rosh
Hashanah in its true intent, they re-
main worthy and true members of that
religion, which has the Creator for its
father and mankind for its family. But
if the observance of that day is merely
sacrifice thrown before the eXacting
demands of superstition filled con-
science, it were better that its observ-
ance be left unfulflled. Form alone,
without the idea. is a body without
soul, cadaver defiling and corrnpting.
If New Years day is not coupled with
the firm resolve to institute reform, to
right the wrong and purify our life, it
fails of its object ana is a waste of time.
The sounding of the ThOfar becomes
idolatrous and-the recital of prayer
blaspheiny. That the mortal life be
immortalized, is the aim and intent of
the day, and such must be its effect.