The Denver Jewish news., 1923-09-06

Ours is an age of transition. The
long period of the Galuth may be said
to be now definitely behind lis. With
the downfall of Tsarist Russia there
has disappeared, we may hope for ever
the last stronghold of mediaevalism
from the political life of Europe. The
revolutionary changes effected by ap-
piled science in the social and economic
life Of the nations have placed n re
viyal of the mediaeval state outside the
nlly emerged from the condition of par
ishhOod which had been his lot through
out the Middle Ages. Civil emancipa-
tiOn has secured for the Jew legal
tions of the Jewish people are now
struggling painfully and lab0riOuSiy to
complete this emancipation by securing
II legal status also ms n nation. When
doubt 1t will be, crowned with success,
we shall at last enter upon new epoch
In the history of our eternal people.
Jewish life i'm that new epoch Of the ma
tional home in Palestine will be vastly
different from Jewish life In the near
past. just as life in the Biblical period
was different from Jewish life in the
Middle Ages. What kind of n life Jews
will build up in that new epoch it is
impossible to prOgnOSticate. Jewish
life today is throughout the world In
too chaotic condition to enable us to
judge with any certainty as to future
developments.
One thing. however, is quite certain.
The new epoch will not witness n reviv-
al In Jewish religious life of the medi
aeval conditions which are now crumb-
ling to pieces before our very eyes
Witt the disappearance of the mediae
val State has also disappeared the med
iaeval mind. both from Gentle and
from Jewish life. The Agudath Israel
may strive its hardest to resuscitate
the old Ghetto life and the old Ghetto
outlook. but its efforts, like the cOgnate
efforts of the Neo- CathOlic romanticism
of n Chesterton and n Belize. are
doomed 10 faifure..~' We may deptore
the loss Of much that wns beautiful and
valuable I'm the old Ghetto life, but we
have no power to prevent its disappear
ance. Religious institutions and cere-
monies are subject to tire same inexor-
able law of change as everything else
sublunary. They cannot be preserved
artificially once the life is gone out of
them. But this applies only to the form
of religious life. not to the substance.
The spirit is indestructible. If we can
tch the spirit and retain it, it will find
its embodiment in life in conformity
with the new times and the new en-
vironment.
This is just the great problem which
confronts us in this age of transition.
viz: how to preserve in us the spirit
Of Judaism amidst the present disinte-
grafton of its forms and the decay of its
mediaeval embodiment. On the right
solution of this difficult problem de-
pends our survival as a nation and as
n religion Happily, the problem is not
quite new in our history, and we have,
therefore. some precedents to go by. 1t
confronted our fathers more than once
in the past. They solved 1t successfully.
By following their example we, too,
may succeed amidst the present decay
of Jewish life in preserving the spirit
of Judaism in al its old vigOur, and
enabling it to take on new forms, and
to find its full expression in our cOrpo-
rate and individual life in the new
epoch which will open in the future.
For the spirit of Judaism is embodied
not in Jewish life alone. 1t has found
n more accurate and n more perman-
nent expression in Hebrew literature.
That is why the study of Hebrew litera-
ture, or the TOrah, has been made to
the Jew a supreme religious duty. And
So. when at the end of the Classical
period in our history our fathers were
faced with the problem of how to pre-
serve the spirit of Judaism amidst the
tlecaying forms of Jewish life. they
found the solution in the preservation
and study of those literary productions
of the past which in their view gave the
fullest and most accurate expression