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by Isaac Leeser
In our January number we announced, in a
postscript
to our News Items, that a letter had been received, which brought the
information that the Rev. Dr. Nathan Adler, late Rabbi of Hanover, had
been elected Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. Since then the particulars
have reached us, and it appears from them that the election, which took
place, as we stated before, on Sunday the 1st of December
last, was conducted with singular unanimity, Dr. Adler receiving 121
votes, Dr. Hirschfeld 13, Rabbi Hirsch 2, and three congregations,
having seven votes, declining to exercise their elective franchise. It
thus appears that the office, so long vacant by the demise of the late
Dr. Hirschell, has at length been, and we doubt not worthily, filled. We
are wrong, however, in stating that it is the office of Mr. Hirschell
which has been filled only by the choice of Dr. Adler, since the late
Rabbi was only elected by the great Synagogue of Duke’s Place, whereas
the present incumbent has been called to his post by the concurrent
votes of nearly all the Synagogues of German Jews in Great Britain,
since they entered some months since in a species of convention to elect
their presiding Rabbi, not through the instrumentality of one
congregation only, and to contribute also pro rata to his support. This
election therefore has vested in Dr. Adler a power not before enjoyed by
any Rabbi in England, and he has been virtually placed by the free
suffrages of a body of Jews, powerful through their wealth and
attainments, in a position rarely if ever enjoyed by any of our
spiritual guides.
He has thus assumed a post of honour; but also one
of responsibility, if not of danger: we do not mean personal danger, for
such does not exist, but one of danger to his reputation on the one
side, and to the religion he represents on the other. We live in times
of agitation and movement; and especially in London, there has latterly
manifested itself, as our readers well know, a spirit of restlessness in
some families, few it is true, but powerful through their wealth,
intellect, and standing, which resulted in their secession from the
ancient order of the Synagogue. How far they have been secretly or
openly countenanced by persons in regular attendance on the other
Synagogues, we cannot tell with any degree of certainty; but there is no
doubt from certain infallible indications, that there is a large body of
semi-reformers, who deplore, as we do, the occasional disorder
discoverable in our church polity, and who believe that there are
legitimate means within the strictest limits of rabbinical authority, to
remove the evil, which we in common with many good men deplore. Let us
be understood; we believe the Portuguese form of prayers, with very few
exceptions indeed, perfectly unobjectionable, and this we are willing to
maintain by argument, whenever occasion requires our so doing; so also
we maintain that the German liturgy is by no means so defective as some
would make the world believe; and there are in the poetical prayers of
the middle age, some splendid composition, full of the spirit of poetry
and devotion, which we should be sorry to see removed. Still there are
some things which have given cause for animadversion in the mode in
which our public worship is conducted: the chaunting of the prayers, the
sale of the honours of the Synagogue, the compulsory voluntary
offerings, the inharmonious singing witnessed in many places, and
similar anomalies, which have become obnoxious to many a thinking
Israelite. their existence hitherto has been owing to the state of
separation in which we have lived, and the impossibility which existed
of bringing public opinion to act on any subject. There were before our
days no public journals to give voice to the thoughts of the people; and
though we do not approve of, nay, sincerely deplore, the tone which some
of our periodicals have assumed, still the partial evil must ultimately
lead to the good result of exciting the attention of Israelites to their
spiritual concerns, and to arouse them to a sense of what is due to
themselves, as well as their religion. Good or evil, however the so
called Jewish religious and literary journals may be, is nothing to the
question as regards the present; were it to be determined whether they
should be commenced, there might be a discussion of their use and abuse;
but since they do exist already, and are in all probability sufficiently
strongly fixed in the affections of the people, that they are more
likely to increase than to diminish, though no one of them all enjoys
much public patronage, if we are allowed to judge from circumstances:
they must be regarded as an element in our religious government, and,
let us add, one which cannot be left unheeded without great danger, for
they who come every week or month into the remotest district of the
diocese of even the greatest man, with or without his knowledge, must be
endowed with a power for good or evil, which will be felt in despite of
opposition and denunciation, should these even be resorted to.
To return then from our digression. Some abuses
which our fathers did not feel onerous, have in our day been felt a
burden by many; and public opinion, we mean by this the opinion of the
not-learned, has become aware of the fact which in former days may have
presented itself to the learned only. It is therefore not possible now
for even the greatest intellect to stand still, if he wishes the welfare
of his religion. We do not mean to say that reforms in our religion
are required, not such reforms, at least, as the different schismatics
of modern days wish to introduce without authority, and urged only by
their fancies of right and wrong; but there can be no doubt that the
ancient system of school-teaching, happily exploded in many countries,
the manner of raising the revenues for the support of public worship,
the qualifications of our ministers and teachers, and the absence of
decorum in many places from the service of the Synagogue, require a
thorough and searching reform, or rather improvement. Another thing, of
far greater importance yet, demands the immediate attention of all our
leaders: the diffusion of more spirituality among the masses of our
people, that they may look upon the outward acts of religion as the
exponents of a pure spirit, and as evidences merely of a sense of
dutifulness which we owe to the Author of our faith. We cannot deny that
many Israelites have been brought up to think every duty discharged,
when they have faithfully obeyed and followed up all the ceremonies,
though the thought of serious earnestness has been absent. It is this
want of appreciation of mental religion, which has caused all the want
of decorum with which we are charged by gentiles, who occasionally
attend our worship. It needs not our assertion to prove that the ancient
Rabbins did not think outward religion enough for Israel; they ascribed
to every act a higher aim than its mere performance, they looked upon
precept performed as a purification of the spirit, and they wished to
impress upon the people that, on entering the house appointed for
worship, they came in the more immediate presence of the great King, on
which account they ought to stand in a becoming posture, and listen
devoutly to the words of the minister as he recited the prayers, even if
any one or more of them should be themselves ignorant of the mode of
praying in the accepted manner. They recommended, therefore, that upon
the minister’s reciting any blessing, the people should respond, as he
pronounces the name of the Lord: “Blessed be He, and blessed be His
name;” and at the conclusion of each benediction, to affirm the truth,
or to assent to the aspiration with a hearty “Amen,” meaning either
“It is so!” or “May it be so.” We therefore do not charge the
absence of spirituality to our ancient teachers, as some zealots for
reform have unwisely and ignorantly done; not they who were ready to
sacrifice life and liberty, and all they possessed, so as not to deny
the Lord’s unity and truth, can with truth be accused of not leading
the multitude to true devotion; for the very formula of prayers,
commencing, for instance, at the laying of the Tephillin, “In the name
of the Only God the holy One, praised be his name, and his majesty, and
in perfect worship of his being, and in the name of all Israel, I now
prepare myself to obey the commandment,” &c., proves that they
thought a mental preparation requisite to sanctify every act of outward
worship, to render it efficacious in promoting purity, and to render it
acceptable before God. But we think that the cause of the want of
earnestness may be discovered in the want of capacity of those in whose
hands the education of children was formerly placed, who were often men
with some learning, but in many instances totally unfit to rear up the mind
to reach any elevation. Another cause was the neglected state in which
the small congregations were left seldom or never having the presence of
a spiritual chief among them, to see whether or not there was a defect
which he could remedy, or at least abate, through the means which his
station had placed in his power. Though we are now speaking of Europe,
we cannot say that we in America are much better off; for though our
children born here have not had incompetent teachers in worldly things,
they have had but little religious instruction, and in many places none
whatever. Of spiritual guidance through their elected ministers, there
has been deplorably little, and a chief, who has the direction of the
synagogues, has never existed here. We do not wonder, therefore, that
both in America and Europe, spiritual religion is so rare, but it is on
the contrary, a matter of thankfulness and surprise, that our faith has
survived the long neglect of the means to urge its growth. Herein, too,
we have evidence that the hand of the Lord has supported us; and were it
not that He had sustained us in all the tribulations, which four hundred
years of the darkest oppression had brought upon us, we would long since
have perished in our affliction.
We say, therefore, for all the above reasons, that
the newly elected Rabbi of Great Britain, has a difficult task before
him, which if he executed as becomes a shepherd of a large portion of
the flock of the Lord, he will earn unto himself an enviable and
imperishable reputation. On the one side, he will be appealed to by
those who demand ample changes, who wish to assimilate Judaism to what
is termed the spirit of the age, who want to gentilize our worship, and
bring us within the circle which approaches nearer the “Christian
state” of certain politicians than our system will permit us. On the
other wise, however, he will be assailed by those who are fond of every
thing stationary, with whom the very cobwebs on the walls of the
synagogue are something too sacred to be brushed away by the
sacrilegious hand of some industrious housemaid. We do not speak in
derision, for, to us the subject is one too serious to admit of a jest,
even for argument’s sake; we speak the sober truth, and sure we are
that some of our European readers will confirm what we have asserted, to
be literally true. Such as these would oppose an English sermon, because
it is customary to preach in Christian churches; they would refuse to
stay out the period of the service of the Synagogue, because their
grandfathers did not deem it an interruption to the worship to run in
and out as often as they liked; they would oppose the abolishing of the
sale of the Synagogue honours; they would consider it an innovation,
leading to direful unknown consequences, if a plan should be proposed to
do away with the voluntary compulsory offerings, and to substitute in
their stead a uniform simple method of raising sufficient funds for the
use of the congregation; they would probably deem it a sin to introduce
new school-books, from which children might imbibe a better appreciation
of their blessed religion, than they can do from the senseless method of
merely learning a little Hebrew by rote without any knowledge of the
principles of grammar or of rational religion; and, lastly, who would
think it s downright infringement of their prerogative, were the Rabbi
to demand that each candidate for the ministry should be examined by him
before he could be permitted to assume the office of reader or teacher
in any congregation. To be sure they would cheerfully admit that the
Rabbi should examine the Shochatim (our non-Israelite readers must know
that by this term we mean those persons authorized to kill the animals
which we use as food), because it is requisite, and justly so, that
those who are to pronounce for us judgment between the clean and the
unclean, ought to be men of sufficient information as regards their
duties, and of unblemished character; but they do not see the necessity
of those addressing, for them, the throne of Grace, being men of
learning and capable of guiding the people under their charge. It will,
therefore, be no post of ease for the Chief Rabbi to know how to act
amidst such opposite ideas urged upon him, as no doubt they will be,
upon his first arrival; he will have to ward off all importune advice,
and not decide hastily until he has become thoroughly acquainted with
the wants and wishes of the people who have voluntarily placed
themselves under his charge. And we trust that they will have the good
sense not to expect a sudden change for the better by the ministration
of Dr. Adler; since they ought to be convinced that improvement, to be
permanent, must be of slow and gradual growth, for any thing which
springs up in a night as uniformly perished in a night. But when they
see, as we hope they will, that their Rabbi is the leader in all useful
reforms, that he aims by his own personal exertions to diffuse light in
every town of his diocese; that he preaches frequently, eloquently, and
fearlessly the word of God; that he rebukes vice whether it be seated in
high places, or found in the hovels of poverty; that he urges on the
friends of religion to establish schools for all classes, whence they
may draw the wholesome instruction of science, combined with and based
upon the principles of our faith; that he endeavours to heal the
breaches when a state of interregnum has produced; we trust that when
all this is seen, that they will unite heart and hand to aid the pious
efforts of their religious chief, and do all that lies in their power to
forward the blessed cause for which we have been ordained a nation.
Some of our readers may, perhaps, think that we
have exceeded our province in speaking about the prospects of our
English brethren, with respect to the choice they have lately made. But
in thus judging they would do us injustice. America is more allied to
England than with any other country; there prevails between them an
identity in the origin of the people and the laws; the language is the
same in both, and the intercourse between them is daily becoming more
rapid, certain, and intimate. If this is undeniably the case in
commercial and political relations, it is not the less so in religious
concerns; and matters which, when agitated on the continent of Europe,
would have passed unobserved by the majority of our brethren in this
country, assume an important bearing when they reach us from England.
Moreover a large portion of English Jews are domesticated in America,
and these naturally look to their native land for all religious
impulses, and consult what is done there before they can resolve to act
here. It is therefore with just cause that we feel a deep interest in
the progress of our religion in England, and this is intimately
connected with the acts and opinions of the man whom the people have
just raised to the chair of authority. If the impulse thus imparted will
be for good, we have the best founded hopes that the same impulse will
be felt here; but if the reverse be the case, we fear that we shall
suffer here also. Moreover, we confidently trust that, if Dr. Adler can
show by his acts the usefulness of a spiritual chief, it will not be
long before the American Israelites will also demand the election of a
chief with several associates to preside over our worship and education;
and hence the course of the English Rabbi will be watched with a double
anxiety by many who deeply feel how important a thing their religion is
to them and to the world at large. We indeed candidly think that we
require in this country some ecclesiastical authority over and above the
independent ministers who are elected without any examination, and act
irrespective of each other’s wishes, being as they are only bound by
the will of their respective congregations. But we have at present said
already so much that we must defer any farther remarks to a future
occasion; in the mean time we beg of all our readers to ponder will on
the question “whether a greater union and uniformity of action is not
highly necessary, and would be productive of much good among the
Israelites who are settled in America, who are, moreover, daily
increasing in numbers, in wealth, and respectability.” |
