Part 6

"The Holy Land did beautify what womb of Shinar gave; And now Tiberias' tear-filled eye weeps o'er her treasure's grave."

On seeing the dead body of the Patriarch Yehuda, a rabbi laments:

"Angels strove to win the testimony's ark. Men they overcame; lo! vanished is the ark!"

Another threnody over some prince in the realm of the intellect:

"The cedar hath by flames been seized; Can hyssop then be saved? Leviathan with hook was caught; Alas! ye little fish! The deep and mighty stream ran dry, Ah woe! ye shallow brooks!"

Nor is humor lacking. "Ah, hamper great, with books well-filled, thou'rt gone!" is a bookworm's eulogy.

Poets naturally have not been slow to avail themselves of the material stored in the Haggada. Many of its treasures, tricked out in modern verse, have been given to the world. The following are samples:

BIRTH AND DEATH

"His hands fast clenched, his fingers firmly clasped, So man this life begins. He claims earth's wealth, and constitutes himself The heir of all her gifts. He thinks his hand may snatch and hold Whatever life doth yield.

But when at last the end has come, His hands are open wide, No longer closed. He knoweth now full well, That vain were all his hopes. He humbly says, 'I go, and nothing take Of all my hands have wrought.'"

The next, "Interest and Usury," may serve to give the pertinacious opponent of the Talmud a better opinion of its position on financial subjects:

"Behold! created things of every kind Lend each to each. The day from night doth take, And night from day; nor do they quarrel make Like men, who doubting one another's mind, E'en while they utter friendly words, think ill. The moon delighted helps the starry host, And each returns her gift without a boast. 'Tis only when the Lord supreme doth will That earth in gloom shall be enwrapped, He tells the moon: 'Refrain, keep back thy light!' And quenches, too, the myriad lamps of night. From wisdom's fount hath knowledge ofttimes lapped, While wisdom humbly doth from knowledge learn. The skies drop blessings on the grateful earth, And she--of precious store there is no dearth-- Exhales and sends aloft a fair return. Stern law with mercy tempers its decree, And mercy acts with strength by justice lent. Good deeds are based on creed from heaven sent, In which, in turn, the sap of deeds must be. Each creature borrows, lends, and gives with love, Nor e'er disputes, to honor God above.

When man, howe'er, his fellowman hath fed, Then 'spite the law forbidding interest, He thinketh naught but cursèd gain to wrest. Who taketh usury methinks hath said: 'O Lord, in beauty has Thy earth been wrought! But why should men for naught enjoy its plains? Ask usance, since 'tis Thou that sendest rains. Have they the trees, their fruits, and blossoms bought? For all they here enjoy, Thy int'rest claim: For heaven's orbs that shine by day and night, Th' immortal soul enkindled by Thy light, And for the wondrous structure of their frame.' But God replies: 'Now come, and see! I give With open, bounteous hand, yet nothing take; The earth yields wealth, nor must return ye make. But know, O men, that only while ye live, You may enjoy these gifts of my award. The capital's mine, and surely I'll demand The spirit in you planted by my hand, And also earth will claim her due reward.' Man's dust to dust is gathered in the grave, His soul returns to God who gracious gave."

R. Yehuda ben Zakkaï answers his pupils who ask:

"Why doth the Law with them more harshly deal That filch a lamb from fold away, Than with the highwaymen who shameless steal Thy purse by force in open day?"

"Because in like esteem the brigands hold The master and his serving man. Their wickedness is open, frank, and bold, They fear not God, nor human ban.

The thief feels more respect for earthly law Than for his heav'nly Master's eye, Man's presence flees in fear and awe, Forgets he's seen by God on high."

That is a glimpse of the world of the Haggada--a wonderful, fantastic world, a kaleidoscopic panorama of enchanting views. "Well can we understand the distress of mind in a mediæval divine, or even in a modern savant, who, bent upon following the most subtle windings of some scientific debate in the Talmudical pages--geometrical, botanical, financial, or otherwise--as it revolves round the Sabbath journey, the raising of seeds, the computation of tithes and taxes--feels, as it were, the ground suddenly give way. The loud voices grow thin, the doors and walls of the school-room vanish before his eyes, and in their place uprises Rome the Great, the Urbs et Orbis and her million-voiced life. Or the blooming vineyards round that other City of Hills, Jerusalem the Golden herself, are seen, and white-clad virgins move dreamily among them. Snatches of their songs are heard, the rhythm of their choric dances rises and falls: it is the most dread Day of Atonement itself, which, in poetical contrast, was chosen by the 'Rose of Sharon' as a day of rejoicing to walk among those waving lily-fields and vine-clad slopes. Or the clarion of rebellion rings high and shrill through the complicated debate, and Belshazzar, the story of whose ghastly banquet is told with all the additions of maddening horror, is doing service for Nero the bloody; or Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian tyrant, and all his hosts, are cursed with a yelling curse--à propos of some utterly inappropriate legal point, while to the initiated he stands for Titus the--at last exploded--'Delight of Humanity.' ... Often--far too often for the interests of study and the glory of the human race--does the steady tramp of the Roman cohort, the password of the revolution, the shriek and clangor of the bloody field, interrupt these debates, and the arguing masters and disciples don their arms, and, with the cry, 'Jerusalem and Liberty,' rush to the fray." Such is the world of the Talmud.

THE JEW IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION

In the childhood of civilization, the digging of wells was regarded as beneficent work. Guide-posts, visible from afar, marked their position, and hymns were composed, and solemn feasts celebrated, in honor of the event. One of the choicest bits of early Hebrew poetry is a song of the well. The soul, in grateful joy, jubilantly calls to her mates: "Arise! sing a song unto the well! Well, which the princes have dug, which the nobles of the people have hollowed out." This house, too, is a guide-post to a newly-found well of humanity and culture, a monument to our faithfulness and zeal in the recognition and the diffusion of truth. A scene like this brings to my mind the psalmist's beautiful words: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garment; as the dew of Hermon, running down upon the mountains of Zion; for there hath the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore."

Wondrous thoughts veiled with wondrous imagery! The underlying meaning will lead us to our feast of the well, our celebration in honor of newly-discovered waters. Our order is based upon the conviction that all men should be banded together for purposes of humanity. But what is humanity? Not philanthropy, not benevolence, not charity: it is "human culture risen to the stage on which man is conscious of universal brotherhood, and strives for the realization of the general good." In early times, leaders of men were anointed with oil, symbol of wisdom and divine inspiration. Above all it was meet that it be used in the consecration of priests, the exponents of the divine spirit and the Law. The psalmist's idea is, that as the precious ointment in its abundance runs down Aaron's beard to the hem of his garment, even so shall wisdom and the divine spirit overflow the lips of priests, the guides, friends, and teachers of the people, the promoters of the law of peace and love.

"As the dew of Hermon, running down upon the mountains of Zion!" High above all mountains towers Hermon, its crest enveloped by clouds and covered with eternal snow. From that supernal peak grateful dew trickles down, fructifying the land once "flowing with milk and honey." From its clefts gushes forth Jordan, mightiest stream of the land, watering a broad plain in its course. In this guise the Lord has granted His blessing to the land, the blessing of civilization and material prosperity, from which spring as corollaries the duties of charity and universal humanity.

A picture of the olden time this, a lodge-address of the days of the psalm singers. Days flee, time abides; men pass away, mankind endures. Filled with time-honored thoughts, inspired by the hopes of by-gone generations, striving for the goal of noble men in all ages, like the psalm singers in the days of early culture, we celebrate a feast of the well by reviewing the past and looking forward down the avenues of time.

Less than fifty years ago a band of energetic, loyal Jews, on the other side of the Atlantic, founded our beloved Order. Now it has established itself in every part of the world, from the extreme western coast of America to the blessed meadows of the Jordan; yea, even the Holy Land, unfurling everywhere the banner of charity, brotherly love, and unity, and seeking to spread education and culture, the forerunners of humanity. Judaism, mark you, is the religion of humanity. By far too late for our good and that of mankind, we began to proclaim this truth with becoming energy and emphasis, and to demonstrate it with the joyousness of conviction. The question is, are we permeated with this conviction? Our knowledge of Judaism is slight; we have barely a suspicion of what in the course of centuries, nay, of thousands of years, it has done for the progress of civilization. In my estimation, our house-warming cannot more fittingly be celebrated than by taking a bird's-eye view of Jewish culture.

The Bible is the text-book of general literature. Out of the Bible, more particularly from the Ten Commandments, flashed from Sinai, mankind learned its first ethical lesson in a system which still satisfies its needs. To convey even a faint idea of what the Bible has done for civilization, morality, and the literature of every people--of the innumerable texts it has furnished to poets, and subjects to painters--would in itself require a literature.

The conflicts with surrounding nations to which they were exposed made the Jews concentrate their forces, and so enabled them to wage successful war with nations mightier than themselves. Their heroism under the Maccabees and under Bar-Kochba, in the middle ages and in modern days, permits them to take rank among the most valiant in history. A historian of literature, a non-Jew, enumerates three factors constituting Jews important agents in the preservation and revival of learning: First, their ability as traders. The Phoenicians are regarded as the oldest commercial nation, but the Jews contested the palm with them. Zebulon and Asher in very early times were seafaring tribes. Under Solomon, Israelitish vessels sailed as far as Ophir to bring Afric's gold to Jerusalem. Before the destruction of the Holy City, Jewish communities established themselves on the westernmost coast of Europe. "The whole of the known world was covered with their settlements, in constant communication with one another through itinerant merchants, who effected an exchange of learning as well as of wares; while the other nations grew more and more isolated, and shut themselves off from even the sparse opportunities of mental culture then available."

The second factor conducing to mental advancement was the schools which have flourished in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and the third was the linguistic attainments of the Jews, which they owed to natural ability in this direction. Scarcely had Greek allied itself with Hebrew thought, when Jews in Alexandria wrote Greek comparable with Plato's, and not more than two hundred years after the settlement of Jews in Arabia we meet with a large number of Jewish poets among Mohammed's disciples, while in the middle ages they taught and wrote Arabic, Spanish, French, and German--versatility naturally favorable to intellectual progress.

Jewish influence may be said to have begun to exercise itself upon general culture when Judaism and Hellenism met for the first time. The result of the meeting was the new product, Judæo-Hellenic literature. Greek civilization was attractive to Jews. The new ideas were popularized for all strata of the people to imbibe. Shortly before the old pagan world crumbled, Hellenism enjoyed a beautiful, unexpected revival in Alexandria. There, strange to say, Judaism, in its home antagonistic to Hellenism, had filled and allied itself with the Greek spirit. Its literature gradually adopted Greek traditions, and the ripe fruit of the union was the Jewish-Alexandrian religious philosophy, the mediation between two sharply contradictory systems, for the first time brought into close juxtaposition, and requiring some such new element to harmonize them. When ancient civilization in Judæa and in Hellas fell into decay, human endeavor was charged with the task of reconciling these two great historical forces diametrically opposed to each other, and the first attempt looking to this end was inspired by a Jewish genius, Jesus of Nazareth.