The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1950-09-01
Address over ABC Network
By RABBI ROLAND B. GITTLESOHN

By RABBI ROLAND B. GTTTLESOHN
can't possibly commence this final sermon of my
series for the month of June without expressing to
Dr. WISE my deep of personal gratitude at this
renewed opportunity to one of the Message
of Israel preachers and adding appreciation to that
of Our listeners for the energy and devotion you have
given to make this program possible am extremely
happy also to share this mornings pulpit with the dis
tnguished president of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations and to congratulate Dr. Maurice Elsen
drath the fact that in less than hours ground will
be broken here in New York for the House of Living
Judaism.
1t is not accident coincidence that | have
chosen to speak today the subject, Who Is Liberal!
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations is the
great national organization of liberal Jewish congre-
cations this continent. On this historic day. when
the first step is taken to establish its national head
quarters in New York, it would be both timely and
proprate for all of to put the word liberal under
semantc microscope, to speak, in order to what
it really haven't any hesitation at all in saying
that both in religion and in political life, liberal is
of the most popular and at the same time one of
the least understood words in current So let's
try to see, if we possibly now, what the ingred-
tents of real liberalism are
In the first place, would say that the real liberal
is the who puts human needs and human rights
above every other kind of need or right
The greatest enemy of true liberalism in world
today is system of government or of thought which
the individual human being eXpedient means
toward other end which is given higher priority
than the individual being used Russia, of course, is
Russia is far from the only present instance of iib
eralism this score
In economics generally for example, the liberal
is the who starts with premise that the most
sentia goal of all is the economic welfare and security
of the individual. Any theory system which, in
ual practice, that goal, the liberal accepts and
retains. Any SYSTEM by the same token, which falls
to give individual human beings decent measure of
welfare and security he either amends discards.
In short, the liberal is person who starts with the
human rights of man and then searches for system
which will protect and preserve those rights The con-
sentative reactonary in economics is person who
begins with the premise of system, and then
stricts the individuals security to the capacities of
such system. The liberal says the system must be
modified and improved to suit the The
dictionary insists is rather the and his needs that
must be altered while the system remains sacrosanct
and rigid.
Our rabbis tell in the Midrash that the cardinal
sin for which the people of Sodom and Gomorrah
punished the fact that they forced every visitor
who to them for hospitality to fit standard
size bed 1t the visitor happened to be shorter than the
bed then just enough of his legs was amputated to
make him fit perfectly. Thus with liberals and their OPP
posts in economics. The timid reactionary would
would stretch cut the to fit the system. The
liberal prefers to modify the system to fit the
And the thing is true precisely of the liberal
versus the conservative in theology religion. The
conservative commences with set of practices and be-
iefs which he believes fixed permanently and
by divine revelation IT, in any specific
instance that theology fails to enhance the dignity
and value of human life earth, there must be some
hing wrong with the individuals concerned; it is they
who must be changed to fit the religious system This
line it is the liberal who says He insists, to the
contrary, that in such it is the religious revela
ion which must be changed to fit the individual and
needs &c. whether it be with reference to politics
II economics or religion whatever of life you
moose, the first sign of liberal is that to him human
lights first, ahead of every vested interest and
he individual man is the most precious thing
N earth.
SECOND symptom sign of the liberal is his
teadfast stubborn refusal let anyone else do his
linking for him. For a long time there
nd women of considerable intelligence in the world
Who considered communism to be liberalism only
o. That is to say, it assumed by many that
Communist extreme form of liberal. Now
now that nothing could be further from the truth
low understand that the Communist cannot by any
tretch OF the imagination be called LIBERAL because