Your comeback to my explanation of the sacrifices of the Law, in
relation to the Sacrifice of the Mass, is that I "scribble along as if there were not
two sides to a question." This fling could be dismissed with the equally terse and
trite statement that there are two sides to a fly-paper as well as two sides to a
discussion. Though there is a world of difference to the fly whether it gets on the sticky
or the smooth side of the fibrous material; just so it makes a world of intellectual and
spiritual difference which side you or I get on in the discussion of Judaism and
Christianity.
It were well to hold in mind the fact that there are two sides when
discussing Reform Judaism in relation to Orthodox Judaism. Reform Judaism denies what
Orthodox Judaism affirms regarding (1) a personal Messiah, (2) miracles, (3) the
priesthood and (4) sacrifices, therefore one of these two sides must be wrong. I have held
that Reform Judaism, according to the requirements of the Torah, is to Judaism of old what
Unitarianism is to sound Christianity, biblically in error. Is that not a recognition that
there are two sides to our discussion? I, who am contemptuously branded as a
"meshumad," for passing from the Synagogue to the Church, firmly believe in
these four-square fundamentals of Torah Judaism, while you deny them, and assume at the
same time to be one of the faithful of Jewry. While I am one with the Orthodox Jews in
upholding those basic Mosaic principles, just enumerated, I have found myself
conscience-bound to break with them, because the Messiah they look for I believe to have
appeared on earth nineteen hundred years ago; that their hope for the reinstitution of the
Aaronic priesthood and sacrifices is in vain, as they have been displaced by the
priesthood of the Catholic Church and the Sacrifice of the Mass. That's my side. It is
explicit and affirmative; whereas your side is a negation, a rejection of the faith of
your fathers of old in Israel. Reform Judaism is as far from having any right to claim to
trace its source in the Books of Moses as its rabbis have for claiming to trace the origin
of their bodies from the Pithecanthropus Erectus. The Orthodox Jews rightly declare Reform
Judaism to be:
"Essentially a developmental evolutionary religion. It has
reduced Judaism to the status of an abstract missionary faith and removed the bonds of
religious duty and obligation.-It retains verbal allegiance to the Jewish faith without
abiding with its restrictive statutes" ("The Jewish Outlook," N.Y.,
Dec., 1940).
Secondly, you present a sort of a I don't care a d---
statement, from the "Book of Jewish Thoughts" (p.189, N.Y., 1941), to
sustain your side of the argument, imagining it to be indisputable because it came from
Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler the editor of the department of theology and philosophy of the
Jewish Encyclopedia, viz.:
"What did it matter, if the Temple fell prey to the flames for
the second time, or if the whole sacrificial cult of the priesthood with its pomp were to
cease forever? The soul of Judaism lived indestructibly in the House of Prayer and
Learning" (the Synagogue).
It seems to matter a great deal to the Orthodox Jews,
who comprise the great majority of the synagogued Jews of the world. They bemoan the loss
of the Temple and the culmination of the sacrificial cult continually in prayer and
fastings.
If it matters not, then why is the 14th of the "Eighteen
Benedictions" recited by Orthodox Jews three times a day, thus calling for the return
of the Shekinah (special presence of God) which took place in the Holy of Holies of the
Temple and for the restoration of the sacrificial ceremonies (Abodah)?
If it matters not, then why are special prayers said on Sabbath days, called
musaf (addition), in sorrowful commemoration of the loss of the Temple and sacrifices?
If it matters not, why is instrumental music forbidden in Orthodox
synagogues? Why are Jews forbidden to use exact replicas of the utensils used in the
Temple until the Temple is restored?
If it matters not, why is the destruction of the Temple remembered by the
bridegroom breaking the glass, from which he drank wine, during his wedding ceremony?
If it matters not, why is deference paid to the Temple by forbidding kneeling
in prayer, save on New Years Day and Yom Kipper (Day of Atonement)? Why are Temple
prayers, including those of the high priest, recited on Yom Kipper?
If it matters not, then why is Capuroth (means of atonement) celebrated the
day before Yom Kipper reminiscent of the scapegoat in the Temple?
If it matters not, why is the loss of the Temple, and its sacrificial cult,
solemnly remembered on the Ninth of Ab (5th month), Tisho B'ab, the day of mourning, with
a strict fast, reading the Book of Lamentations, etc.?
It is an anomalous thing for rabbis to claim to be Jews, in the Old Testament
sense of the term, and to dismiss the nonexistence of the priesthood, sacrifice and
Temple, as if they mattered not to Judaism, imagining that the synagogues fill the void.
Yet these same rabbis (as well as others) celebrate the Feast of Chanukah every year. This
is the feast of the rededication of the Temple after the destruction of it by Antiochus
Epiphanes, King of Syria, who despoiled the Altar with a burnt offering of swine. This
feast is the remembrance of the reinstitution of the sacrificial worship in the days of
the Machabees, as well as the miracle of the cruse of undefiled oil, which burned for
eight days, when formerly the oil therein lasted but one day.
The greater part of the story of this feast is in the Books of the Machabees;
books (rejected in the canon of the Jews of the diaspora) which the Catholic Church placed
in the Canon of Holy Scripture. It is the story of Mattathias, the High Priest, who
refused to respond to the King's command to begin a pagan worship in honor of Zeus, the
Greek god; the priest who seized the sword and killed the apostate Jew who attempted the
blasphemous worship. This challenge of the High Priest, the defender of the priesthood and
sacrifices that the editor of the theological and philosophical departments of the Jewish
Encyclopedia says matters not, was followed by his brave battle cry, "Whoever wishes
to support the Covenant of the Lord, follow me."
The Feast of Chanukah is in remembrance of Judas Machabees, who took up the
sword, when the high priest was killed, and led the defenders of the faith of Israel of
old on to victory. It is the story of the heroic martyrdom of Hannah and her seven
lion-hearted sons, whom the Catholic Church honors in the Sacrifice of the Mass annually
on August first; whose alleged relics rest today beneath the altar of the Church of St.
Peter in Chains, in Rome. After encouraging her seven sons to die rather than forsake the
true faith of Israel, Hannah bared her breast to receive the death blow rather than to
deny belief in the One True God; rather than to deny the priesthood and sacrifices as
called for in the teachings of Moses, things that matter not to modernized rabbis.
Chanukah is an inspiring feast that helps to keep alive the love of the faith
of Israel of old in the hearts of converts from the Synagogue to the Church. My hope is
that Chanukah will some day be made a first class feast in the Church. It would then be
devoted entirely to the principle of religious faithfulness, and not a prayer for the
impossible, the rebuilding of the Temple Herod desecrated and the soldiers of Titus
destroyed; nor the reinstitution of the sacrifices of those intense historic days, as God
displaced them with a priesthood and Sacrifice of a higher order.
I will return to your letter again next week. In the meantime, permit me to
say, prayerfully, that if ever the grace of God leads you, as it did me, into the Catholic
Church, it will be because you believe the Aaronic priesthood, its sacrifices and Temple,
to have been of vital import to the Judaism of the days before the Messiah rose from the
dead and ascended into heaven; and that the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who
instituted them instituted the priesthood and Sacrifice of the Catholic Church. |