Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Twenty-Eight M A S M I D come a leaden weight. Ceremonies are the wheels of his progress to- wards social righteousness. But if thru ignorance, lassitude, indifference, their meaning is not known, they become clogs. Some Jews impatient with the slow progress of humanitarian effort, unaware of the fact that wheels need a driving spirit, discard the wheels, deny the value of ceremonies and then censure the vehicle for its inability to move for- ward. We are a minority. A minority comes into being out of a consciousness of some immanent difference which distinguishes it from the major- ity. A minority can survive only as long as a consciousness of this difference and a recognition of its worthwhileness prevail in the minds of its members. It may be astonishing to friend and foe that we Jews are but one percent of humanity. It is a surpassingly hard task for a scattered minority of one percent to reach longevity. The struggle for national survival is accentuated by the levelling tendencies of the industrial age, by the rearousing of cosmopolitan hope and endeavor, by international, interracial, interdenominational class struggle. All these tendencies represent so many unceasing assaults on our personal Jewishness, on our national existence. We have no refuge, no unassailable fortress other than the Jewish life, the atmosphere, in which the Lord is set continually before us. The laws of the Torah in their totality create the Jewish environment, in which the Jew works out his salva- tion for the salvation of man. Thru a number of customs, laws, regulations, admonitions, en- couragements, cognitions the Jew is to be kept in contact with the divine spirit. No secular pursuits need interfere for one moment with this essential relationship, which is the true object of religion. On the contrary, by means of customs, and laws, ev ery action becomes sublimated into a channel of communion, into an act of worship. The Jew can thus achieve spiritual victory without doing violence to human nature, without hermit-like fleet- ing from the world, without sealing his senses her- metically to the beauties and blessings of life. V. THE TORAH AS JEWRY ' S SHIELD The double impact of economic struggle and the unceasing assaults on the Jews should have de- stroyed us long ago. But the Law has been our shield and defender. The seventh day Sabbath, with its prohibition to engage in any kind of work, with its insistence that the Jew keep away from business, business thought, and from all mechanical devices, establishes for the Jew a day of a dif- ferent attitude, and affords him tremendous pro- tection against the life-destroying strain of the in- dustrial age. Family life so arranged as to retain woman ' s self-respect and freedom in marriage, family worship, home celebrations, all strengthen his Jewish integration. The dietary laws not only enhance G-d-consciousness, they also help to pre- vent intermarriage, the safest and speediest way to racial suicide. VI. THE LIFE IN THE TORAH There may be a notion in the minds of the uninitiated that the ceremonies and symbols con- stitute indeed a great burden. Such minds do not sufficiently appreciate the fact that these customs and observances are trained into the child ' s mind and life from early infancy, so that they become its natural environment. The nearest analogy would be the Oxford and Cambridge training, one major purpose of which is to produce gentlemen. There are a number of Cambridge customs, attitudes, observances which a Cambridge man would normally and naturally re- tain or perform and the suggestions of which would continue to exercise an encouraging, a pleasing and also a definitely spiritual influence on him. The Oxford man will not feel selfishly proud of his training, but he will look upon it as a special opportunity which is his special responsibility, to spread, in the most intelligent, effective manner, the ideals of his Alma Mater. So does the Jew welcome and hail with native expectant joy the thousand and one intimate touches and suggestions of the Jewish life which are his abiding, living commentary to Judaism.

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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-

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M A S M I D oenljf-Nint ON THE WIINGS OF INK -I I I Aakon Ke In the darkness there loomed before me the tall, shadowy mass of a tenement. Silhouetted against the night sky, the building appeared cold and grim, except where here and there a lighted window gleamed and blinked like the eye of some weird monster. In the darkness, the gray brick walls appeared like huge levees, between whose bounds flowed, the river of life, at times seething and whirling in turbulent rapids and at times flowing calm and deep and crystal clear. Behind those very walls the stream was rushing on swiftly and silent- ly, carrying with it its human driftwood which, at the end of the long journey, it would cast wearily into the sea. I entered the tenement and found myself in a long corridor flanked by two rows of doors. These doors — blank slabs of wood — were all outwardly identical, yet each was the curtain to a different stage, and behind each a different scene from the eternal drama of life was being enacted. Behind each door, life ebbed and flowed, yet outwardly one could hardly discern a ripple. How fas- cinating, I thought, to brush aside the curtain for a moment and glimpse the life that throbbed be- neath ! I walked down the corridor, chose a door at random, opened it quietly, and entered. I found myself in a brilliantly lighted room with sleekly dressed men and painted women. The air was full of loud, boisterous voices and coarse laughter. On all sides I saw gayety, merriment, and carousing. Lithe young bodies were swaying and whirling to a barbaric rhythm. The movement gradually gained momentum, until it became a frenzied revel. Faster and faster beat the music ; faster and yet faster whirled the dancers, until sweat stood out on their foreheads, their nostrils dilated, and their eyes bulged. The room became hot. The noise of blaring music and stamping feet grew louder and louder until it seemed that the very gates of Hell had burst and spewed its vile brood on earth. The mad orgy Mfkened rn»- I turned and left. Proceeding a little farther down the corridor. I was attracted toward another door by familiar strains of music. Again the same feeling of mys- tery and curiosity seized me. I entered silently and unseen. The room was dark except for one cor- ner, where a lamp cast a soft light and illuminated the features of a youth of about twenty. He sat motionless, staring fixedly into the darkened corner from which the beautiful strains seemed to emanate. There was a strange familiarity about the music. In a flash I recognized it — Beethoven ' s immortal Fifth. The youth ' s lips were parted in rapture. He was oblivious of his surroundings; he was conscious only of that harmony, that divine har- mony that stirred the soul to its innermost depths. The music had now an ineffable sweetness and now a roaring fury. It seemed like some vast ocean: its heaving bosom now rolling in long gentle swells, now rising into towering combers that crashed with a deafening roar. Above the surging waves, the sunlight played upon the flying spray and filled the air with flashing rainbows. In the rising cre- scendo of sound could be felt the spirit of man struggling to the heights, baring his breast in de- fiance of the fury of the elements. The music depicted the titanic struggle of man, and culminated in a stirring song of victory. The sheer beauty of the music thrilled the youth; it bore him aloft far from the pollutions of earth. He jumped up and paced back and forth ecstatically. All his being appeared suffused with a glowing warmth. For one ecstatic moment he seemed happy, su- premely happy. I slipped out as silently as I had entered. Again I found myself in the corridor viewing the row of doors, and again I reflected upon the unfathomable human secrets that each concealed. I softly opened a third door. A touching scene greeted my eyes. A mother was tenderly lulling