Then again, Judaism seems destined to survive because it represents
at once the God-idea and the ethical idea. The liberal Jew, as well as
the orthodox, believes that no other religion does this in the same way
as does Judaism. Putting it crudely, the Jew would perhaps admit that
Christianity has absorbed, developed, enlarged and purified the Hebrew
ethics, but he would, rightly or wrongly, think that it has obscured by
dogmatic accretions the Jewish Monotheism. On the other hand, the Jew
would admit that Islam has absorbed and purified the Jewish Monotheism,
but has done less of the flattery of imitation to the Hebrew ethics. Islam
has certainly a pure creed; it freed itself from the entanglements of
anthropomorphic metaphors and conceptions of God, which are apparent in
the early strata of the Hebrew Bible, and from which Judaism, because
of its reverence for the Bible, has not emancipated itself yet. But that
it can emancipate itself is becoming progressively more clear. And even
if we drop comparisons, Judaism stands for a life in which goodness and
God are the paramount interests.
But, beyond all, the Jew believes himself to be a Witness to God. He
thinks that on him, in some real sense, depends the fulfilment of the
purposes of God. It may be an arrogant thought, but unlike most boasts it
at once humiliates and ennobles, humiliates by the consciousness of what
is, ennobles by the vision of what might be. After enumerating certain
ethical and religious ideas which, he holds, Judaism still has to teach
the world, the Rev. M. Joseph adds: 'But to the Jew himself, first of
all, these truths are uttered. He is to help to win the world for the
highest ideals. But if he is to succeed, he must himself be conspicuously
faithful to them. He is the chosen, but his very election binds him to
vigorous service of truth and righteousness. "Be ye clean, ye that bear
the vessels of the Lord." Only when Israel proves by the nobility of his
life that he deserves his holy vocation will the accomplishment of his
mission be at hand. When all the peoples of the earth shall see that he
is worthily called by the name of the Lord, the Divine name and law will
be near to the attainment of their destined empire over the hearts of men'
(_Judaism as Creed and Life_, p. 513).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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