As a matter of fact, the Code of Law aimed to separate Israel and the nations in order to avoid the crude worship of idols, animals and stars practiced by the heathen of antiquity. It was not framed for masters like Socrates, Buddha, and Confucius, with their lofty moral views and their claims upon humanity. The God who revealed himself to Abraham, Job, Enoch, and Balaam, as well as to Moses and Isaiah, spoke to them also, and the wise ones of Israel have ever hearkened to their inspiring lessons. Their words are echoed in Jewish literature together with Solomon’s words of wisdom. Plato, Plotinus, and Aristotle received the most friendly hospitality from the rabbinic philosophers and mystic writers of Jewry, and so Buddhist sayings and views penetrated into Jewish ethics and popular teachings. Both the Jew and his literature are cosmopolitan, and Judaism never withholds its appreciation of the merits of the heathen world.(1291) 11. We must especially emphasize one claim of the Jewish people above other nations which the rabbis call _zekuth aboth_, “the merit of the fathers,” and which we may term “hereditary virtue.” The election of Israel, in spite of its own lack of merit, is declared in Deuteronomy and elsewhere to be due to the merit of the fathers, with whom God concluded His covenant in love.(1292) The promise is often repeated that God will ever remember His covenant with the fathers and not let the people perish, even though their sins were great; therefore the rabbis assumed that the patriarchs had accumulated a store of merit by their virtues which would redound before God to the benefit of their descendants, supplementing their own weaknesses.(1293) This merit or righteousness of the fathers formed a prominent part of the hope and prayer, nay, of the whole theological system of the Jewish people. They regarded the patriarchs and all the great leaders of the past as patterns of loyalty and love for God, so that, according to the Midrash, Israel might say in the words of the Shulamite: “Black am I” considering my own merit, “but comely” when considering the merit of the fathers.(1294) Whether this store of merit would ever be exhausted is a matter of controversy among the rabbis. Some referred to God’s own words that He will ever remember His covenant with the fathers; others pointed to the verse in Deutero-Isaiah: “For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall My covenant of peace be removed,” which they interpreted symbolically to mean: when the merit of the patriarchs and matriarchs of Israel is exhausted, God’s mercy and compassion for Israel will be there never to depart.(1295) Translated into our own mode of thinking, this merit of the fathers claimed for Israel signifies the unique treasure of a spiritual inheritance which belongs to the Jew. This inheritance of thousands of years provides such rare examples and such