You
are correct in concluding, from my style of writing, that I purpose to publish my letters.
Thus, if I fail to induce you to return to belief in Judaism proper, and then to graduate
to Judaism full-blossomed, the letters may be of use to those Jews who will examine the
arguments presented in them, with minds that are not obscured by dislike of the writer. It
is my love of you, as a soul made in the same image and likeness as mine, and not fear of
your expressed hostility towards converts from Judaism to Catholic Christianity, that
prompts me to continue. I do not think you are as dangerous as you appear in your letters,
save to yourself, for, as a writer once said,
"The greatest hatred, like the greatest
virtue and the worst dogs, is silent."
You may continue to write in
your unrestrained manner, if you so will, with the assurance asked, that your letters will
not be published, nor your identity revealed.
Now that another obstacle to an examination of the matter at issue has
been brushed aside, a return may be made to the question of Judaism.
You no doubt know, that, when speaking favorably of the religion of
Israel, I have in mind the Judaism of old, which has been called Orthodox since the days
of the Paris Sanhedrin assembled by Napoleon I. It represents the major portion ofthe
synagogued Jews. Its voice on the platform, through the etheric waves, and in the press,
is not as loud as the number of Orthodox Jews, relative to the number of Reform Jews,
warrants, as the Rabbis in the limelight are, with a few exceptions, of the Reform
variety. Perhaps that is why Professor Horace M. Kallen, the active Zionist member of the
American Jewish Congress, said:
"The religion of orthodoxy is more
organic than reform, however, for orthodoxy is a way of living,
while reform is only a way of talking" ("Judaism
at Bay," N.Y. 1934, p.84)
If God has not as yet made
the "new covenant" predicted by Jeremiah (31:31); if the thousands of
millions of Christians have been in error in believing during nearly twenty centuries, and
continuing to believe, that Jesus is the expected of Israel, the Messiah foretold to come
by the greatest and holiest Jews, then is Orthodox Judaism the only Judaism of the Torah,
despite the many Talmudic additions that have made obedience to its mandates a burden that
many in Israel have found to be unbearable.
Of course, to hold any Judaism to be true Torah Judaism, as is sincerely
believed by members of synagogues, is an unsound notion. First, because ancient Judaism
was a divinely instituted, authoritative religion. Its authority centered in its
priesthood. Its high priest was, as Vallentine's Jewish Encyclopedia says, "the
supreme ecclesiastical authority and chief representative of Israel before God" (London,
1938,p.284). This priesthood exists no more. The worship of ancient Judaism centered
in divinely ordered sacrifices, which are no more, as there are no priests to offer the
oblation called for in the Torah. Besides the Temple, the single central sanctuary, where
"the burnt offerings and sacrifices and tithes" were commanded in Dueteronomy 12
to be offered has not existed since the days of Titus nineteen centuries ago.
These three holy things, basic to the Mosaic religion - priests,
sacrifices, and Temples- being of the historic past, the Orthodox Judaism of today is but
a reflection of what has "gone glimmering through the dream of things that
were."
If reasons in the minds of Jews for adhering to Orthodox Judaism, or any
other present-day Judaism, were as plentiful as blackberries in the summer season, it
would be a difficult task to find one sound among them with which to refute the last two
paragraphs of this letter. |