Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-10-12
RELY, unllestatingly, and unshirkingly.
The CONGREGATIONAL Life.

II. To do this requires that the Jew
| shall identify himself with the congre-
cation of Israel, that he shall affiliate
with his brethren in our specific Cuty OF
| the maintenance Of our distinctive reli-
gious life, which is the source and
strength Of the individual life. Hillel
taught do not separate myself from the
congregation" This means spiritually as
| well as physically. Your full duty is not
done when your dues are paid. The con-
gregation needs you as well your purse.
Your substantial assistance. no matter
how generously or willingly given IS
needed only as a means toward an end.
It is to our congregational life only what
the body is to the soul. Your money con-
tributions gave and maintain this building
and it's physical appurtenances. that is the
body Of our congregational life, but you
yourselves are the soul. The body dies.
the soul lives on. So have persisted the
buildings that have been built, the worlo
over. and the ages through. The spirit
within them has lived on. Synagogues
and temples, shrnes and affairs come and
go, as the generations of men arise and
live their hour and pass away, but Juda-
ism, immortal as truth itself, survives
the aeons of the ages and sits enthroned
on the dais Of eternity. This eternal
spirit Of our faith lies in you of to-day, as
it did yesterday in your fathers, as it will
tomorrow in your children. Therefore
does it need you, yourself, more than 1t
needs your money. do not argue against
wealth or the pursuit of wealth, as some
preachers do There is a necessary and
legitimate use of money in all things, but
I do denounce the life that makes money
and the getting of money the be-all and
end-all of it's existence. True 1t is, money
can purchase many things, but after all.
its world is the venal and purchasable
world in which the best, the noblest, the
most beautiful things, the things OF real
and human value, are not to be 1ound.
They are not purcha able. Money may
buy mems flattery, but it will not buy
their respect. It may buy their votes and
their following, but not their friendship,
or devotion It may buy wife, but never
a. woman's pure love. It may buy mag
nifcent mausoeum Ior dead ashes, but no
memory for blessing" among the living.
It may buy you pew, but not clean
conscience.
So it is not the material, venal. purchas-
able world that Judaism asks Of yJu.
but the world of your own. truer, better.
nober self True, your material gifts
have some value. but TO obey IS bette.
than sacrifice" said Samuel to Saul. and
Isaiah Chapter y repeated the uplifting
thought, For what serveth me the multi
tuae of your sacrifices saith God. Wash
;
to do evil: learn to do well; seek tor
Justice; relieve the oppressed; do justice
TO the fatherless: plead for the widow.
.sThis is the CALI
TIT. This is the call which a Jewish
congregation makes upon you. its mem
bers. This the demand which it puts
forth, and which the Jewish conscious
ness answers as did our fathers at Sinais
trembling mount. We will do and we
will hear" You recognize that demand
to-day: you hear that call at this solemn
hour. You feel that you are to-day one
of. band of sacred brotherhood devoted
to the noblest task which God has as
signed to any people on earth. BUT now
long or how often do you feel that! HOW
often does the recognition OF rhis pact
come home to you during the year! Does
it ever come except through some obJcc-
tive impulse, when you read perhaps OF
something that some Jew has done, good
or bad, or when you hear Of fresh
persecution In distant Russia or Rou-
mania, or when. perhaps, you THINK the
Jew is being Disseminated against SIM
ply because he is Jew! Ihen tneTe
arises in you a sense OF that world
brotherhood-a reaiizat1on OF the JUSTINE
five existence OF Israel. OF which you are
4 part and whose chord OF sympathy
rea ches around the earth. Even then
vour feeling IS one Of impotent wrath. OF
= resentment against the injustice and
br1,ta lity Of the world; but the resent
ment dies away and with 1t the con- i
seriousness Of your Jewish life.
why should your Jewish consciousness
be thus only effectively and sorroWfuily /
aroused? why do you not always remen1-
her that you belong to this wider consre- !
"a ton Of Israel? dare say that many,
Fl not the majority Of you are ignorant |
AZ the conditions and activities that OBJ
tain in that wider congregation even
Israel, not to speak Of foreign /
lands.
we should keep IN touch with our
brothers Of other cities. to know what /
thev are doing. what they are striving [
!, nd q accomplishing, and hoping ana reallz-
nr. We need a wider and stronger unity I
- sympathy, an effective esprit de corps,
"a hind us in closer. more vital union W g I
need Ia have our Jewish consciousness
,ronsed. that it may upllft and improvs
"a s that 1t may direct our footsteps and +
,orrect our errors; that 1t may be q
n1nn,lse and motive &c us. that Its
enthusiasm may ignites our hig hest enores.
.ud 6. our hottest endea vors that the
SSnA