Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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A S M I I ; i dating foreign nations, wliic.h seemed miraculous and which did work wondri -,. I lir-sr uir-dirv.il monarchs were nol actuated t y ovr-i nun li love of the Jew. They rather understood his value to them. It was not accident thai made tlir- Jews translators and transmitters of the classic and Arabic culture at the end of the middle ages. It was thus, they became apostles ol 1 1 1 - renaissance, planters of Greek and Hebrew lore and thought in emergent Europe. It was not accident thai Jews pioneered with Columbus in tho Age of Dis- covery, pioneered with movable type in the great days of early printing — and since. For these were concrete ways in which the Jew assisted in living beyond the day, in tying the strands of yesterday to today so that the morrow might be just a bit closer to the universal harmony all peoples have hoped for. As in the Middle Ages, so today. Discrimina- tion, persecution numerus clausus, pogroms, No Jews need apply, golf club indecencies, Harvard I om Kipur exams, etc., etc., ad infinitum, force the Jew to overlook today ' s misery for tomorrow ' s hope, force the Jew to span the horizon, to look for the blessed land beyond, force the Jew to im- bibe, compare and weigh the various cultures and nations of the world in order to discover a more tolerable citizenship, a less excruciating social life — and thereby develop in the Jew a wider out- look, a deeper comprehension. It is this compre- hension that fosters Harmonkation. It is because of this harmonizing comprehension that we find the Jewish mind eager to assist, to take a place in the rank of pacifists and social re- formers and in that increasingly larger group of persons who realize that only through international settlements can come the local, regional and na- tional settlements so necessary today. Because the Jew is never completely enwrapped by the local problems of victorious majorities, he, there- fore, has a normal appetite for cosmopolitan fare and a ready sympathy for e ery minority. India had no viceroy to advance her claim to freedom, more sympathetic, more intelligently benevolent than Rufus Isaacs, whose forebears had been mem- bers of a persecuted minority for two thousand years; nor a more progressive Secretary for India than young Edwin Montague, whose fathei had emigrated from Ru ia and had scaled die ladder ol temporal success from steerage to pet i I od.iy tlii ' li.irmoni ing |ii.ilily ol the [( more vital .ui ' l nece lary than world is sick with nationalism, .1 m.ilignanl dj 1 deadly elephantiasis, a venomous hatred ol thing that is unlike. Each group think in il terms and has the universe cribbed within its own stair-. Each clan sees salvation for itself only in the reduction, or annihilation of the rest of man. Even where efforts arc being made for international harmony, they seem often dictated by political mo- tives, by opportunism, by maudlin sentimentality rather than by constructive goodwill. Upon the conscience and intelligence of contemporary man rests all hope for No war and All peace for the future. But meantime fundamentally every nation un- derstands one language only — its own, — sees but through its own spectacles, conveniently colored, and views but its own vista. How can matters be remedied? The Jew, however, is as motherless and brother- less today as Joseph had been almost 4,000 years ago. He is more than eager to enrich the lands in which he lives and to give of blood and brain and brawn the best that is in him. But he is still not completely at home, not as utterly at rest as the Indiana farmer, or the French vinegrower or the Czechoslovakian beetroot peasant. He is still discriminated against, still Englishman plus some- thing else, German plus something else. And this ' something else ' precisely is the international, cosmopolitan, in him, rooted in no soil but in humanity, fully at home nowhere except in the unrestricted empire of ideas. The Jew hence, if a Frenchman, can find gocd in Germany in spite of Hitler and Ludendorff: or, if a Dutch- man, can get inspiration from America in spite of Hollywood; or, if an American, can feel :he attraction of Austria in spite of her political in- eptitudes. This citizen Jew, because he is the historical minority, has heart and mind attuned to the prob- lems of minorities and because he has been the victim, for millennia, of majorities, has learned to

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Twenty-Si. MASMID Rachel. He grew up without mother, without brothers. The children of Bilhah and Zilpah looked up to him, spoilt him, flattered him. He had none of the sweet normalcy of childhood. In the terms of a modern psychologist, life made of him an introvert. The life without was unsatis- factory. He turned to the life within, paying in- creasing attention to thought, dream, ambition. He learned to reflect on himself, to think of his fellow man. As he grew up, he began to assume in youth some of the accomplishments of maturity. He began to interpret other people ' s dreams. The chief butler and the chief baker entrust to him the somber account of their hopes and fears ( The dreams of night are but the thoughts of day say our Rabbis) and he realizes what is their problem. In the dungeon he learns to understand so much about Egypt that under divine guidance he readily explains to Pharaoh his dream and its portent. He had to occupy himself with things of the spirit and thus he became accustomed to look beyond the four walls of his existence, below into the depth of human suffering, above into the heights of human potentiality, beyond the local scene into the arena of Man. Pharaoh ' s Empire reaped the harvest of his unconfined wisdom. II. Remarkably alike is the fate and position of Israel in exile. What the mother is to an individual child, its own land is to a nation. We too have lived like Joseph, growing up without mother and brothers. Since the gate of Palestine was first closed to us, we have been without the air of Eretz Israel, without the mystic influence of soil on soul. We have been wandering footsore from shore to shore, everywhere aliens, strangers, every- where Luftmenzchen, insecure, bereft of tender- ness, destitute of those fundamental energies and psychic vitamins, which life in one ' s own country gives one. There have been in the course of Israel ' s tragic history, a number of non-Jews, who have summoned man to humanity, who have seen in us also human beings, who in rare cases have even acknowledged our assets, our service, but they tolerated us with Leibnitz as also Monads, they knew us not — althotsgh they pitied our Goluth, — they were not brothers. Two thousand years without the mothering, strengthening influence and shelter of our own soil, without cooperation or security — the normal life among brethren. Sad has been Jewish history. Bereft of many vital elements of health and growth. But this very impoverishment in matters of physical health and pyschic joy, has had in its train an extraordinary enrichment in spiritual things. Our outward life was comfortless, dangerous. Our inward life, to which the accidents of history drove us, thus reinforcing the call of the Torah, our inward life acquired marvelous qualities. Above all we were ever obliged to stay introverts. We had to disregard the facts of our environment. Unless we could rise superior to our milieu, we had to succumb. Unless we could rivet our view to what was beyond Ghetto and present age, we should have disappeared from the concert of the nations. Thus we never became sunk in the con- temporary scene. We had to see humanity as a whole, human history as a large unending book. The nations among whom we lived had all the assets and liabilities of majorities. They had to exploit the local milieu. They had to occupy themselves with home and hearth. They dare not look beyond their natural borders. They were afraid. For the Germans: Outside Germany there were no German oaks. For the Frenchmen: Outside France the barbars spoke some bar- baric Kauderwelch. Outside Russia, said the Czar, there were foreign deviltries. Boccaccio praising Italy for its polished Latin letters, goes on to remark that outside there was German bar- barism, French savagery, English craft and Span- ish coarseness. Only the Jew lived beyond today. Only the Jew felt in Germany as in France. Nowhere was he quite at home. Hence his restlessness, yes, but hence his relentless perspicacity, his ability to see the needs, to study the dreams, to appreciate the problems of other races, groups, religions. It was no accident that caused early Christian and Mo- hammedan rulers to appoint Jews to high diplo- matic posts. Their common sense had not yet been destroyed by some mythical race theory. They saw that the Jew has real power of appre-

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Tn-cntV-Eisht MASMID understand their fundamental attitudes and per- plexities. Hence the Jew can again, will again, be The Ambassador of Goodwill, The Interpreter, The Apostle of Harmonization. In some cases he will even lose contact with his own people in search of a wider humanity. He is then one of the seeds of Israel that goes to bear fruit in far off lands Israel sending its bread upon the wide waters. The dreamer par excellence, the in- terpreter par excellence, the Jew, like Joseph, does not bow to his fate, but forces it to yield to him grace, strength, breadth of view, infinite strength of heart. One more experience does the historical Jew share with Joseph. When that youthful prisoner had interpreted the chief butler ' s dream, he asked but one reward: Put a good word in for me with Pharaoh. I suffer without guilt. The Chief Butler was happy with the interpretation, which would bring him promotion from prison again to the Pharaoh ' s grace. But when the in- terpretation had come true, The Chief Butler did not remember Joseph, he forgot him. Joseph had served Pharaoh, building up for him un- dreamt of riches and power. But there arose soon a Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph. Throughout antiquity and the middle ages, into our very years the Jew has gone dreaming for others, interpreting their dark urges. Maturer than the non-Jew by reason of his cosmopolitan faith, his cosmopolitan urge, his cosmopolitan suf- fering, he has been able to explain their uncon- scious problems, as expressed in their group dreams, in the phenomenon of their poets, thinkers, musicians. Son of antiquity, dynamic in medieval times, alert today — the Jew has been ever eager to reconcile groups that hated each other, to preach harmony and work peace among cultures, races, schools of thought. Like Joseph so did he fare. When the chief butlers and kings of history had been liberated, they promptly did not remember the Jews and forgot Joseph. They went to their joys and left the Jew in the peril of the dungeon. Joseph was not discouraged. This disappointment did not dull the edge of his intellect. He went on dreaming and interpreting. The Pharaoh needed him and Joseph was here to save his land. Infinite his dream, but efficient his service. One of the great bearers of the seed of harmony has been the Jew. The great Understander, Harmonizer, In- terpreter. He has helped — and been forgotten. He has harmonized — and been left in disharmon- ious exclusion. But with Joseph, he realizes that the gift of interpretation comes from God and thus is unaffected by ingratitude. He will go on, sympathetic to all oppressed, deeply appreciative of the danger of smug, self-destructive power and the blandishments of majorities; he will go march- ing on — his historic dream in his heart, peace and justice as the song of his lyre, as the victorious vitality of his life, as his offering on the altar of humanity. Note creeds; world. — Heine as mediator between France and Germany; Jehudah Halevi between different Zamenhoff between different tongues; Fried and Levinson between the nations of the