Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Twenty-Si. MASMID Aspects of Judaism By Rabbi Dr. Leo Jung I. SOME ASPECTS OF JUDAISM Judaism is the religion of the Jew. It is based on the Torah of Moses. Torah means direction. We look upon the Torah as the direction to happy and noble life. The faith in the revelation of God ' s Will is the immovable foundation of Jewish survival. Without acceptance of the authority of the Torah, a Jewish generation, however brilliant, powerful, philanthropic, has in the many instances of our historical experience proved too weak to withstand the assaults of outside influences. With the elim- ination of that faith, the Jewish community had eliminated its vital force, and rapidly disappeared in the majority. Beyond this principle Judaism has no dogma. From time to time problems have arisen, the formu- lation of which, or the solution to which, seemed to touch foundations of the faith, and during cer- tain of these periods Judaism ' s attitude toward these ideas was considered as of dogmatic importance. But their importance shrunk as new problems be- gan to focus general attention on themselves. Judaism knows no literalism or fundamentalism. The text of the Bible is subjected to ever new interpretations, and each new interpretation has been hailed as the fruit of the faith, and welcomed as an additional source of mental and spiritual en- richment. This principle is not a child of our liberal age, but has been acted upon for the last two millennia, by rabbi and learned layman alike. II. THE METHOD OF JUDAISM For Jewish life, however, this interpreting ac- tivity, whilst fruitful and encouraging, is not all- important. When a Jewish boy reaches religious maturity (at the age of thirteen), he is not asked or admonished as to faith and interpretation, he is enjoined as to the traditional ideals and observances of Jewish life. In Jewish thought the division has long been recognized between obvious social postu- lates like honesty, chastity, love of one ' s neighbor, and between what are called ceremonies. This division, however, was not made in the Bible. The Torah embraces every aspect of life and its text knows of no division between ceremonial and moral law. In Judaism they are co-ordinated. Judaism has demanded from its adherents loyalty to its social ideals. But Judaism has never been satisfied with the mere call to great ideals. Hu- manity, according to the Torah, needs more than announcements, however solemn or emphatic, of abstract goals. General great ideals have a habit of impressing our emotions without influencing our conduct. Judaism holds that a training is necessary in a habit which will always consider the ideal, that the ideal must be brought home, first by humani- tarian exercises, then by symbols and ceremonies, conveying emotional experiences which keep the vision of beauty and goodness before the people, without which view the ideal becomes stale, a futile phrase. Thus Love thy neighbor as thyself is twice enjoined in Leviticus, the third book of the Torah of Moses. But the very same chapter insists on the practical realization of its implication. It de- mands part of our annual harvest as our minimum contribution to our poor neighbor. The ceremonial of Jewish holidays is a veritable symphony of good- ness, from the gift to the poor on the eve of the holy day so that the stranger at our gate too, may rejoice on the day of our feast, to the many religious acts and symbols expressive of cosmo- politan human sympathy. The ceremony indeed is the method of Judaism. It connects practical life in all its variety and all its activities with the spiritual truths of religion; it gives tang ible form to those ideas and ideals. Judaism not only states the ideal, but consistently.

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M ASM ID D ' ludi tuili sibi Fr. Bacono nati ( I hese plays, en- trusted to llieinselves, proceeded from Francis Ba- con). Now, a different form of the same word is found on a private document of Bacon. I here the word is honorificabihludino which, they say, is the anagram for . . . Initio hi ludi Fr. Bacono. (In the beginning these plays are from Francis Bacon). These anagrams have a strangely coin- cidental persistence, and it is little wonder that numbers of people stake their reputation in de- fence of this theory. On page 53 of the Shakespeare Folio Comedies, the name Bacon is introduced. And to render the Bacon-Shakespeare secret apparent, the number of words on page 53 is exactly I 77 which is the simple clock or Cabbala count for William Shakes- peare. The word honorificabilitudinitatibus , re- ferred to above, is by simple clock count 287, which is in turn the sum of F. Bacon-W . Shakes- peare by the Reverse Count. The sum of Fra Rosicrosse, the designation of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, is 157 by the simple clock count. The sum of Bacon-W. Shakespeare is also 157 by the same count and the same number of letters is found in the garbled inscription from the Tempest on the Shakespeare monument in Westminster Abbey. In my opinion, there is no more effective refu- tation of this sort of manipulation of figures and letters than the cryptogram of S. James of Leeds who, by proper arrangement of the titles of several of the plays, proves that Bernard Shaw wrote Shakespeare. Mac Beth Oth £llo Comedy of ErRors Merch of Ve Vice Coriol Inus Mids Night DReam Merry Wiv. of Dsor Meas. for MeaSure Much Adoab NWing Anth. and CI. Atra. All ' s well .... Well I Ins reduclio ml abmrdum hould ($jv p our credence in acrostics, anagram , or imagined i iphei One of the caustic critics of this theory has said, The idea of robbing the world of SI pcare for such a stiff legal-headed old jackass as Bacon i ,i modern invention of fool Any reasonable person would object to the vio- lence of this denunciation. It is unfair to the scholars who have devoted years of their life in producing evidence in support of this theory. But belief in their sincerity should in no way restrain us from rigorous criticism as to the validity of their arguments. Defamation proves nothing. Reason may convince even avowed anti-Stratfordians. Il would be beyond the scope of this discussion to present in detail the other theories of the Shakes- pearian authorship. They are built largely on surmise, and the few proofs discovered to support their contention are of a shadowy nature. The Rutland theory depends mainly on the connection between Rutland ' s report of his embassy to Den- mark in I 603, and the references to Danish habits and customs in the 1604 Quarto of Hamlet. Since Shakespeare may have read the report or spoken to Rutland, the weight of this argument is negli- gible. Two other gentlemen, the sixth Earl of Derby and the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, have been offered as candidates for this enviable post. The evidence in support of these latter two is as limited as that of the Rutland theory. And we feel impelled to conclude that the Great Un- known , proposed by some critics as the author of the works, despite all the theories, might just as well have been William Shakespeare. In the field of literature, the mysteries are legion. Did a sightless bard chant thousands of years ago the story of the siege of Troy, and was that bard Homer? Or is he the innocent bearer of a fame that belongs to many? Were the gossamers of struggle and triumph and defeat that we know as the epic cycles of the Middle Ages the product of single geniuses, or are they merely the collec- tions of the labors of a group? Did an Ossian (Continued on page 53)

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M ASM ID in every instance, provides the method and oul lines the padi, toward its realization. This is an- odier aspect of the comparative mistrust the I brah has for mere theoretical speculation unrelated i conduct, The Mit .vah or ceremony speaks bnlli to the Jew and for him. By insisting on certain actions and prayers in moments of great emotional dis- turbance, the ceremony reduces the expenditure ol emotional energy and steadies our heartbeat, pre venting us from losing balance, in hours, alike, of extreme happiness or unliappiness. III. TIIK WORKMANSHIP OF JUDAISM The ceremony speaks to us, pointing out spiritual vistas to encourage our moral effort ; the ceremony speaks for us, articulating our sorrows and joys, when expression, though vital, is impossible because of pent-up feeling. The ceremony thus tra ins us in self restraint and in constant vision of that good and beauty which we are to achieve by our own effort. Recognizing the need for occasional up- lifting above the humdrum drabness of life, the Torah through ceremony, diverts our gaze above the sphere of cut-throat competition, social annoy- ances and personal disabilities, toward a contem- plation of a better world, of which we should not merely dream but for the consummation of which the ideal calls and the ceremony guides our steps. The Torah stated the divine command Love thy neighbor as thyself. As a means towards the realization of this precept, the Torah has the principle of the foreigner ' s equality before the Law; of the civic duty to help the poor, and to take care of the stranger. Such activity, not de- pendent upon a man ' s temper, or mood, but rep- resenting the legal minimum of his contributions to social welfare, is the first step towards the reali- zation of that ideal. The obligation to take care of non-Jewish poor as well as of the Jewish desti- tute, tends to make these steps more valuable, to train the Jew towards a general humanitarian tend- ency. Our ceremonies, such the one described, are the source of humanitarian vision, the springs of kindliness which feed interdenominational friend- ship and influence action. IV. G i- CON I 101 Bui behind them .ill i the revelation thai all tin ' thing an nol merely fine deeds, they derive theii importance from the fad thai theii performance is the revealed will ol , d. I ., the Jew, lb,, one good in life is conformity with the will -.( G-d Sin is refusal to accept tin law oi G-d 01 action against it. The Jew, according to the |ewi h Bible, i nol the on ji child ol G-d, bul In piritual fit tborn, carrier of the Father ' s message. He is charged with the message and to safeguard it; he must go his own way, live his own life, protect the scparatc- ness of his march thru history, protect the pristine purity of his failh, protect the very uniqueness of his destiny, resist every influence, that would change his message, develop thru centuries his mode of expression, the force of his example, the influence of his heirloom, the Torah, so that his labor for the ideal might be successful. The ultimate goal is the penetration of every nation with the living ideal of ethical monotheism to a degree which will beautify life, unite man and banish wickedness from the world. The task is dependent on the capacity of Israel to walk his way thru the ages, trained in G-d- consciousness, isolated during the centuries of struggles, in the world but not of it. The discipline of suffering for the ideal, the discipline of struggle for freedom of conscience, the hard battle against passion, desire, vanity, they are to help the Jew to retain his identity, and thru his identity the un- diluted strength of his message, his G-d-conscious- ness as the single propelling force in his individual and collective life. Hence every Jewish ceremony is part of the G-d-given way of life, every com- mandment based on the will of G-d, every step prescribed by G-d. or nullified by its non-con- formity with His will. When the message underlying the Jewish cere- monies is appreciated these latter become the wings by which the Jew lifts himself into the sphere of his historical ideal, which help him to defeat the downward pull of gravitation. But if they are not related to the totality of Jewish life, they be-