Chapter XXXIX. Repentance Or the Return To God

1. The brightest gem among the teachings of Judaism is its doctrine of repentance or, in its own characteristic term, the return of the wayward sinner to God.765 Man, full of remorse at having fallen away from the divine Fountainhead of purity, conscious of deserving a sentence of condemnation from the eternal Judge, would be less happy than the unreasoning brute which cannot sin at all. Religion restores him by the power to rise from his shame and guilt, to return to God in repentance, as the penitent son returns to his father. Whether we regard sin as estrangement from God or as a disturbance of the divine order, it has a detrimental effect on both body and soul, and leads inevitably to death. On this point the Bible affords many historical illustrations and doctrinal teachings.766 If man had no way to escape from sin, then he would be the most unfortunate of creatures, in spite of his god-like nature. Therefore the merciful God opens the gate of repentance for the sinner, saying as through His prophets of old: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”767

2. The great value of the gift of divine grace, by which the sinner may repent and return to God with a new spirit, appears [pg 247] in the following rabbinical saying: “Wisdom was asked, ‘What shall be the sinner's punishment?’ and answered, ‘Evil pursues sinners’;768 then Prophecy was asked, and answered, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die’;769 the Torah, or legal code, was consulted, and its answer was: ‘He shall bring a sin-offering, and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.’770 Finally God Himself was asked, and He answered:771 ‘Good and upright is the Lord; therefore doth He instruct sinners in the way.’ ”772 The Jewish idea of atonement by the sinner's return to God excludes every kind of mediatorship. Neither the priesthood nor sacrifice is necessary to secure the divine grace; man need only find the way to God by his own efforts. “Seek ye Me, and live,”773 says God to His erring children.

3. Teshubah, which means return, is an idea peculiar to Judaism, created by the prophets of Israel, and arising directly from the simple Jewish conception of sin. Since sin is a deviation from the path of salvation, a “straying” into the road of perdition and death, the erring can return with heart and soul, end his ways, and thus change his entire being. This is not properly expressed by the term repentance, which denotes only regret for the wrong, but not the inner transformation. Nor is Teshubah to be rendered by either penitence or penance. The former indicates a sort of bodily self-castigation, the latter some other kind of penalty undergone in order to expiate sin. Such external forms of asceticism were prescribed and practiced by many tribes and some of the historical religions. The Jewish prophets, however, opposed them bitterly, demanding an inner change, a transformation of soul, renewing both heart and spirit.

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Judaism considers sin merely moral aberration, not utter corruption, and believes in the capability of the very worst of sinners to improve his ways; therefore it waits ever for his regeneration. This is truly a return to God, the restoration of the divine image which has been disfigured and corrupted by sin.

4. The doctrine of Teshubah, or the return of the sinner, has a specially instructive history, as this most precious and unique conception of Judaism is little understood or appreciated by Christian theologians. Often without intentional bias, these are so under the influence of the Paulinian dogma that they see no redemption for man corrupted by sin, except by his belief in a superhuman act of atonement. It is certainly significant that the legal code, which is of priestly origin, does not mention repentance or the sinner's return. It prescribes various types of sin-offerings, speaks of reparation for wrong inflicted, of penalties for crime, and of confession for sins, but it does not state how the soul can be purged of sin, so that man can regain his former state of purity. This great gap is filled by the prophetic books and the Psalms. The book of Deuteronomy alone, written under prophetic influence, alludes to repentance, in connection with the time when Israel would be taken captive from its land as punishment for its violation of the law. There we read: “Thou shalt return unto the Lord thy God, ... with all thy heart, and all thy soul, then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee.”775

Amos, the prophet of stern justice, has not yet reached the idea of averting the divine wrath by the return of the sinner.776 [pg 249] Hosea, the prophet of divine mercy and loving-kindness, in his deep compassion for the unfaithful and backsliding people, became the preacher of repentance as the condition for attaining the divine pardon.

The appeal of Jeremiah is still more vigorous:

Ezekiel, while emphasizing the guilt of the individual, preached repentance still more insistently. “Return ye, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so shall they not be a stumbling-block of iniquity to you. Cast away from you all your transgressions, wherein ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn yourselves, and live.”779 The same appeal recurs after the exile in the last prophets, Zechariah780 and Malachi.781 The latter says: “Return unto Me, and I shall return unto you.” Likewise [pg 250] the penitential sermon written in a time of great distress, which is ascribed to the prophet Joel, contains the appeal:

This prophetic view, which demands contrition and craving for God instead of external modes of atonement, is expressed in the penitential Psalms as well,783 especially in Psalm LI. The idea is expanded further in the parable of the prophet Jonah, which conveys the lesson that even a heathen nation like the people of Nineveh can avert the impending judgment of God by true repentance.784 From this point of view the whole conception took on a larger aspect, and the entire history of mankind was seen in a new light. The Jewish sages realized that God punishes man only when the expected change of mind and heart fails to come.785

5. The Jewish plan of divine salvation presents a striking contrast to that of the Church, for it is built upon the presumption that all sinners can find their way back to God and godliness, if they but earnestly so desire. Even before God created the world, He determined to offer man the possibility of Teshubah, so that, in the midst of the continual struggle with the allurements of the senses, the repentant sinner can ever change heart and mind and return to God.786 Without such a possibility the world of man could not endure; thus, because no man can stand before the divine tribunal of stern justice, the paternal arm of a merciful God is extended to [pg 251] receive the penitent. This sublime truth is constantly reiterated in the Talmud and in the liturgy, especially of the great Day of Atonement.787 Not only does God's long-suffering give the sinner time to repent; His paternal love urges him to return. Thus the Haggadists purposely represent almost all the sinners mentioned in the Bible as models of sincere repentance. First of all comes King David, who is considered such a pattern of repentance, as the author of the fifty-first Psalm, that he would not have been allowed to sin so grievously, if he had not been providentially appointed as the shining example of the penitent's return to God.788 Then there is King Manasseh, the most wicked among all the kings of Judah and Israel, who had committed the most abominable sins of idolatrous worship. Referring to the story told of him in Chronicles, it is said that God responded to his tearful prayers and incessant supplications by opening a rift under His throne of mercy and receiving his petition for pardon. Thus all mankind might see that none can be so wicked that he will not find the door of repentance open, if he but seek it sincerely and persistently.789 Likewise Adam and Cain, Reuben and Judah, Korah, Jeroboam, Ahab, Josiah, and Jechoniah are described in Talmud, Midrash, and the apocalyptic literature as penitent sinners who obtained at last the coveted pardon.790 The optimistic spirit of Judaism cannot tolerate the idea that mortal man is hopelessly lost under the burden of his sins, or that he need ever lose faith in himself. No one can sink so low that he cannot find his way back to his heavenly Father by untiring self-discipline. As the Talmud says, nothing can finally withstand the power of [pg 252] sincere repentance: “It reaches up to the very seat of God;” “upon it rests the welfare of the world.”791

6. The rabbis follow up the idea first announced in the book of Jonah, that the saving power of repentance applies to the heathen world as well. Thus they show how God constantly offered time and opportunity to the heathens for repentance. For example, when the generation of the flood, the builders of the Tower of Babel, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were to be punished, God waited to give them time for Repentance and improvement of their ways.792 Noah, Enoch, and Abraham are represented as monitors of their contemporaries, warning them, like the prophets, to repent in time lest they meet their doom.793 Thus the whole Hellenistic literature of propaganda, especially the Sibylline books, echoes the warning and the hope that the heathen should repent of their grievous sins and return to God, whom they had deserted in idolatry, so that they might escape the impending doom of the last judgment day. According to one Haggadist,794 even the Messiah will appear first as a preacher of repentance, admonishing the heathen nations to be converted to the true God and repent before Him, lest they fall into perdition. Indeed, it is said that even Pharaoh and the Egyptians were warned and given time for repentance before their fate overtook them.

7. Accordingly, the principle of repentance is a universal human one, and by no means exclusively national, as the Christian theologians represent it.795 The sages thus describe Adam as the type of the penitent sinner, who is granted pardon [pg 253] by God. The “sign” of Cain also was to be a sign for all sinners, assuring them they might all obtain forgiveness and salvation, if they would but return to God.796 In fact, the prophetic appeal to Israel for repentance, vain at the time, effected the regeneration of the people during the Exile and gave rise to Judaism and its institutions. In the same way, the appeal to the heathen world by the Hellenistic propaganda and the Essene preachers of repentance did not induce the nations at once to prepare for the coming of the Messianic kingdom, but finally led to the rise of the Christian religion, and, through certain intermediaries, of the Mohammedan as well.

However, the long-cherished hope for a universal conversion of the heathen world, voiced in the preachments and the prayers of the “pious ones,” gave way to a reaction. The rise of antinomian sects in Judaism occasioned the dropping of this pious hope, and only certain individual conversions were dwelt on as shining exceptions.797 The heathen world in general was not regarded as disposed to repent, and so its ultimate fate was the doom of Gehenna. Experience seemed to confirm the stern view, which rabbinical interpretation could find in Scripture also, that “Even at the very gate of the nether world wicked men shall not return.”798 The growing violence of the oppressors and the increasing number of the maligners of Judaism darkened the hope for a universal conversion of humanity to the pure faith of Israel and its law of righteousness. On the contrary, a certain satisfaction was felt by the Jew in the thought that these enemies of Judaism should not be allowed to repent and obtain salvation in the hereafter.799

8. The idea of repentance was applied all the more intensely in Jewish life, and a still more prominent place was [pg 254] accorded it in Jewish literature. The rabbis have numberless sayings800 in the Talmud and also in the Haggadic and ethical writings concerning the power and value of repentance. In passages such as these we see how profoundly Judaism dealt with the failings and shortcomings of man. The term asa teshubah, do repentance, implies no mere external act of penitence, as Christian theologians often assert. On the contrary, the chief stress is always laid on the feeling of remorse and on the change of heart which contrition and self-accusation bring. Yet even these would not be sufficient to cast off the oppressive consciousness of guilt, unless the contrite heart were reassured by God that He forgives the penitent son of man with paternal grace and love. In other words, religion demands a special means of atonement, that is, at-one-ment with God, to restore the broken relation of man to his Maker. The true spiritual power of Judaism appears in this, that it gradually liberates the kernel of the atonement idea from its priestly shell. The Jew realizes, as does the adherent of no other religion, that even in sin he is a child of God and certain of His paternal love. This is brought home especially on the Day of Atonement, which will be treated in a later chapter.

9. At all events, the blotting out of man's sins with their punishment remains ever an act of grace by God.801 In compassion for man's frailty He has ordained repentance as the means of salvation, and promised pardon to the penitent. This truth is brought out in the liturgy for the Day of Atonement, as well as in the Apocalyptic Prayer of Manasseh. At the same time, Judaism awards the palm of victory to him who has wrestled with sin and conquered it by his own will. Thus the rabbis boldly assert: “Those who have [pg 255] sinned and repented rank higher in the world to come than the righteous who have never sinned,” which is paralleled in the New Testament: “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance.”802 No intermediary power from without secures the divine grace and pardon for the repentant sinner, but his own inner transformation alone.

Chapter XL. Man, the Child of God

1. The belief that God hears our prayers and pardons our sins rests upon the assumption of a mutual relation between man and God. This belief is insusceptible of proof, but rests entirely upon our religious feelings and is rooted purely in our emotional life. We apply to the relation between man and God the finest feelings known in human life, the devotion and love of parents for their children and the affection and trust the child entertains for its parents. Thus we are led to the conviction that earth-born man has a Helper enthroned in the heavens above, who hearkens when he implores Him for aid. In his innermost heart man feels that he has a special claim on the divine protection. In the words of Job,803 he knows that his Redeemer liveth. He need not perish in misery. Unlike the brute creation and the hosts of stars, which know nothing of their Maker, man feels akin to the God who lives within him; he is His image, His child. He cannot be deprived of His paternal love and favor. This truly human emotion is nowhere expressed so clearly as in Judaism. “Ye are the children of the Lord your God.”804 “Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?”805 “Like as a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion upon them that fear Him.”806

2. Still, this simple idea of man's filial relation to God and God's paternal love for man did not begin in its beautiful final form. For a long time the Jew seems to have avoided the [pg 257] term “Father” for God, because it was used by the heathen for their deities as physical progenitors, and did not refer to the moral relation between the Deity and mankind. Thus worshipers of wooden idols would, according to Scripture, “say to a stock, Thou art my father.”807 Hosea was the first to call the people of Israel “children of the living God,”808 if they would but improve their ways and enter into right relations with Him. Jeremiah also hopes for the time when Israel would invoke the Lord, saying, “Thou art my Father,” and in return God would prove a true father to him.809 However, Scripture calls God a Father only in referring to the people as a whole.810 The “pious ones” established a closer relation between God and the individual by means of prayer, so that through them the epithets, “Father,” “Our Father,” and “Our Father in heaven” came into general use. Hence, the liturgy frequently uses the invocation, “Our Father, Our King!” We owe to Rabbi Akiba the significant saying, in opposition to the Paulinian dogma, “Blessed are ye, O Israelites! Before whom do you purify yourselves (from your sins)? And who is it that purifies you? Your Father in heaven.”811 Previously Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanos dwelt on the moral degeneration of his age, which betokened the end of time, and exclaimed: “In whom, then, shall we find support? In our Father who is in heaven.”812 The appellative “Father in heaven” was the stereotyped term used by the “pious ones” during the century preceding and the one following the rise of Christianity, as a glance at the literature of the period indicates.813

3. It is instructive to follow the history of this term. In Scripture God is represented as speaking to David, “I will be [pg 258] to him for a father, and he shall be to Me for a son,”814 or “He shall call unto Me: Thou art my Father, ... I also will appoint him first-born.”815 So in the apocryphal writings God speaks both to Israel and to individual saints: “I shall be to them a Father, and they shall be My children.”816 Elsewhere it is said of the righteous, “He calls God his Father,” and “he shall be counted among the sons of God.”817 We read concerning the Messiah: “When all wrongdoing will be removed from the midst of the people, he shall know that all are sons of God.”818 Obviously only righteousness or personal merit entitles a man to be called a son of God. In fact, we are expressly told of Onias, the great Essene saint, that his intimate relation with God emboldened him to converse with the Master of the Universe as a son would speak with his father.819 According to the Mishnah the older generation of “pious ones” used to spend “an hour in silent devotion before offering their daily prayer, in order to concentrate heart and soul upon their communion with their Father in heaven.”820 Thus it is said of congregational prayer that through it “Israel lifts his eyes to his Father in heaven.”821 In this way prayer took the place of the altar, of which R. Johanan ben Zakkai said that it established peace between Israel and his Father in heaven.822 Afterwards the question was discussed by Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Jehuda whether even sin-laden Israel had a right to be called “children of God.” Rabbi Meir pointed to Hosea as proof that the backsliders also remain “children of the living God.”823

4. In the Hellenistic literature, with its dominating idea of universal monotheism, God is frequently invoked or spoken of as the Father of mankind. The implication is that each [pg 259] person who invokes God as Father enters into filial relation with Him. Thus what was first applied to Israel in particular was now broadened to include mankind in general, and consequently all men were considered “children of the living God.” The words of God to Pharaoh, speaking of Israel as His “first-born son,”824 were taken as proof that all the nations of the earth are sons of God and He the universal Father. Israel is the first-born among the sons of God, because his patriarchs, prophets, and psalmists first recognized Him as the universal Father and Ruler. From this point of view Judaism declared love for fellow-men and regard for the dignity of humanity to be fundamental principles of ethics. “As God is kind and merciful toward His creation, be thou also kind and merciful toward all fellow-creatures,” is the oft-repeated teaching of the rabbis.825 Likewise, “Whoever takes pity on his fellow-beings, on him God in heaven will also take pity.”826 Love of humanity has so permeated the nature of the Jew that the rabbis assert: “He who has pity on his fellow-men has the blood of Abraham in his veins.”827 This bold remark casts light upon the strange dictum: “Ye Israelites are called by the name of man, but the heathen are not.”828 The Jewish teachers were so deeply impressed with man's inhumanity to man, so common among the heathen nations, and the immorality of the lives by which these desecrated God's image, that they insisted that the laws of humanity alone make for divine dignity in man.

5. Rabbi Akiba probably referred to the Paulinian dogma that Jesus, the crucified Messiah, is the only son of God, in his well-known saying: “Beloved is man, for he is created in God's image, and it was a special token of love that he became conscious of it. Beloved is Israel, for they are called the children of God, and it was a special token of love that they [pg 260] became conscious of it.”829 Here he claims the glory of being a son of God for Israel, but not for all men. Still, as soon as the likeness of man to God is taken in a spiritual sense, then it is implied that all men have the same capacity for being a son of God which is claimed for Israel. This is unquestionably the view of Judaism when it considers the Torah as entrusted to Israel to bring light and blessing to all the families of men. Rabbi Meir, the disciple of Rabbi Akiba, said: “The Scriptural words, ‘The statutes and ordinances which man shall do and live thereby,’ and similar expressions indicate that the final aim of Judaism is not attained by the Aaronide, nor the Levite, nor even the Israelite, but by mankind.”830 Such a saying expresses clearly and emphatically that God's fatherly love extends to all men as His children.

6. According to the religious consciousness of modern Israel man is made in God's image, and is thus a child of God. Consequently Jew and non-Jew, saint and sinner have the same claim upon God's paternal love and mercy. There is no distinction in favor of Israel except as he lives a higher and more god-like life. Even those who have fallen away from God and have committed crime and sin remain God's children. If they send up their penitent cry to the throne of God, “Pardon us, O Father, for we have sinned! Forgive us, O King, for we have done evil!”; their prayer is heard by the heavenly Father exactly like that of the pious son of Israel.

Chapter XLI. Prayer and Sacrifice

1. The gap between man and the sublime Master of the universe is vast, but not absolute. The thoughts of God are high above our thoughts, and the ways of God above our ways, baffling our reason when we endeavor to solve the vexatious problems of destiny, of merit and demerit, of retribution and atonement. Yet religion offers a wondrous medium to bring the heart of man into close communion with Him who is enthroned above the heavens, one that overleaps all distances, removes all barriers, and blends all dissonances into one great harmony, and that is—Prayer. As the child must relieve itself of its troubles and sorrows upon the bosom of its mother or father in order to turn its pain into gladness, so men at all times seek to approach the Deity, confiding to Him all their fears and longings in order to obtain peace of heart. Prayer, communion between the human soul and the Creator, is the glorious privilege enjoyed by man alone among all creatures, as he alone is the child of God. It voices the longing of the human heart for its Father in heaven. As the Psalmist has it, “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.”831

2. However, both language, the means of intercourse between man and man, and prayer, the means of intercourse between man and God, show traces of a slow development lasting for thousands of years, until the loftiest thoughts and [pg 262] sublimest emotions could be expressed. The real efficacy of prayer could not be truly appreciated, until the prophetic spirit triumphed over the priestly element in Judaism. In the history of speech the language of signs preceded that of sounds, and images gradually ripened into abstract thoughts. Similarly, primitive man approaches his God with many kinds of gifts and sacrificial rites to express his sentiments. He acts out or depicts what he expects from the Deity, whether rain, fertility of the soil, or the extermination of his foes. He shares with his God his food and drink, to obtain His friendship and protection in time of trouble, and sacrifices the dearest of his possessions to assuage His wrath or obtain His favor.

3. In the lowest stage of culture man needed no mediator in his intercourse with the Deity, who appeared to him in the phenomena of nature as well as in the fetish, totem, and the like. But soon he rose to a higher stage of thought, and the Deity withdrew before him to the celestial heights, filling him with awe and fear; then rose a class of men who claimed the privilege to approach the Deity and influence Him by certain secret practices. Henceforth these acted as mediators between the mass of the people and the Deity. In the first place, these were the magicians, medicine-men, and similar persons, who were credited with the power to conjure up the hidden forces of nature, considered either divine or demoniac. After these arose the priests, distinguished from the people by special dress and diet, who established in the various tribes temples, altars, and cults, under their own control. Then there were the saints, pious penitents or Nazarites, who led an ascetic life secluded from the masses, hoping thus to obtain higher powers over the will of the Deity. All these entertained more or less clearly the notion that they stood in closer relation to the Deity than the common people, whom they then excluded from the sanctuary and all access to the Deity.

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The Mosaic cult, in the so-called Priestly Code, was founded upon this stage of religious life, forming a hierarchical institution like those of other ancient nations. It differed from them, however, in one essential point. The prime element in the cult of other nations was magic, consisting of oracle, incantation and divination, but this was entirely contrary to the principles of the Jewish faith. On the other hand, all the rites and ceremonies handed down from remote antiquity were placed in the service of Israel's holy God, in order to train His people into the highest moral purity. The patriarchs and prophets, who are depicted in Scripture as approaching God in prayer and hearing His voice in reply, come under the category of saints or elect ones, above the mass of the people.

4. Foreign as the entire idea of sacrifice is to our mode of religious thought, to antiquity it appeared as the only means of intercourse with the Deity. “In every place offerings are presented unto My name, even pure oblations,”832 says the prophet Malachi in the name of Israel's God. Even from a higher point of view the underlying idea seems to be of a simple offering laid upon the altar. Such were the meal-offering (minha);833 the burnt offering (olah), which sends its pillar of smoke up toward heaven, symbolizing the idea of self-sacrifice; while the various sin-offerings (hattath or asham) expressed the desire to propitiate an offended Deity. However, since the sacrificial cult was always dominated by the priesthood in Israel as well as other nations, the lawgiver made no essential changes in the traditional practice and terminology. Thus it was left to the consciousness of the people to find a deeper spiritual meaning in the sacrifices [pg 264] instead of stating one directly. The want was supplied only by the later Haggadists who tried to create a symbolism of the sacrificial cult. The laying on of hands by the individual who brought the offering, seems to have been a genuine symbolic expression of self-surrender. In the case of sin-offerings the Mosaic cult added a higher meaning by ordering a preceding confession of sin. Here, indeed, the individual entered into personal communion with God through his prayer for pardon, even though the priest performed the act of expiation for him.

5. The great prophets of Israel alone recognized that the entire sacrificial system was out of harmony with the true spirit of Judaism and led to all sorts of abuses, above all to a misconception of the worship of God, which requires the uplifting of the heart. In impassioned language, therefore, they hurled words of scathing denunciation against the practice and principle of ritualism: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Yea, though ye offer Me burnt-offerings and your meal-offerings, I will not accept them; Neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs; and let Me not hear the melody of thy psalteries.

But let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”834

Thus speaks Amos in the name of the Lord. And Hosea:

Isaiah spoke in a similar vein:

Most striking of all are the words of Jeremiah, spoken in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh. For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying; ‘Hearken unto My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people; and walk ye in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ ”837

6. However, the mere rejection of the sacrificial cult was quite negative, and did not satisfy the normal need for communion with God. Therefore the various codes established a sort of compromise between the prophetic ideal and the priestly practice, in which the ideal was by no means supreme. Sometimes the prophetic spirit stirred the soul of inspired psalmists, and their lips echoed forth again the divine revelation:

“Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: God, thy God, am I. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; and thy burnt-offerings are continually before Me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.... [pg 266] Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?”838 Another psalmist says: “Sacrifice and meal-offering thou hast no delight in; Mine ears hast Thou opened; burnt-offering and sin-offering hast Thou not required.”839

Still, the sacrificial cult was too deeply rooted in the life of the people to be disturbed by the voice of the prophets or the words of a few psalmists. It was connected with the Temple, and the Temple was the center of the social life of the nation. The few faint voices of protest went practically unheeded. The priestly pomp of sacrifice could only be displaced by the more elevating and more spiritual devotion of the entire congregation in prayer, and this process demanded a new environment, and a group of men with entirely new ideas.

7. The need of a deeper devotion through prayer was not felt until the Exile. There altar and priesthood were no more, but the words of the prophets and the songs of the Levites remained to kindle the people's longing for God with a new zeal. Until then prayer was rare and for special occasions. Hannah's prayer at Shiloh filled even the high priest with amazement.840 The prophets alone interceded in behalf of the people, because the ordinary man was not considered sufficiently clean from sin to approach the Deity in prayer. But on foreign soil, where sacrifices could not be offered to the God of Israel, the harp of David resounded with solemn songs expressing the national longing toward God. The most touching psalms of penitence and thanksgiving date from the exile. A select class of devout men, called the godly or pious ones, Hasidim or Anavim,841 assembled by the rivers of Babylon for regular prayer, turning their faces toward [pg 267] Jerusalem, that the God of Israel might answer them from His ancient seat.842 Thus the great seer of the exile voiced the hope for “a house of prayer for all peoples” to stand in the very place where the sacrifices were offered to God.843 The congregation of Hasidim elaborated a liturgy under the Persian influence, in which prayer was the chief element, and the secondary part, the instruction from the Torah and the monitions of the prophets. The Synagogue, the house of meeting for the people, spread all over the world, and by its light of truth and glow of fervor it soon eclipsed the Temple, with all its worldly pomp. In fact, the priesthood of the Temple were finally compelled to make concessions to the lay movement of the Hasidim. They added a prayer service, morning and evening, to the daily sacrifices, and opened the Hall of Hewn Stones, the meeting place of the High Court of Justice, as a Synagogue in charge of the priests.844

8. In this manner the ancient sacrificial cult, thus long monopolized by the priesthood, was gradually superseded by congregational prayer which was no longer confined to a certain time or class, and justly called by the rabbis “a service of the heart.”845 Moreover, the Temple itself lost much of its hold upon the hearts of the people, owing to the more spiritual character of the Synagogue. Thus the torch of the Roman soldiery which turned the Temple into a heap of ashes broke only the national bond, but left the religious bond of the Synagogue unbroken. True, the hope for the restoration of the Temple with the priestly sacrifices was not relinquished, and officially the daily prayers were considered only a “temporary substitute” for the divinely ordained sacrificial cult.846

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Nevertheless, the deeper religious consciousness of the people felt that the celestial gate of divine mercy opens only to prayer, which emanates from the innermost depths of the soul. Accordingly, some of the Haggadists try to prove from Scripture that prayer ranks above sacrifice,847 while others even identify worship with prayer.848 They represent God as appearing to Moses in the guise of one who leads the congregation in prayer, His face covered by the prayer-shawl (tallith), in order to teach man for all time the mode and power of prayer.849 Still these remain isolated expressions of an underlying sentiment; on the whole, the rabbis regarded the Mosaic legislation, with its emphasis on sacrifice, far too highly to accord prayer any but a secondary place, either accompanying sacrifice or as its substitute.850

9. Through many centuries, then, the belief in the divine origin of the sacrificial cult remained, even though it could no longer be carried out. The liturgy contained prayers for the speedy restoration of the Temple and the sacrifices, which were preserved by tradition, and nowhere was even an echo heard of the bold words of Jeremiah denying the divine character of the sacrifices,851 even though the idea of the restoration of the old cult must have been repugnant to thinkers. The sages of former ages could only resort to a compromise or an allegorical interpretation. It is noteworthy that the Haggadist Rabbi Levi considered the sacrifices a concession of God to the people, who were disposed to idolatry, in order to win them gradually for the pure monotheistic ideal.852 This view was adopted by the Church Fathers, and later by Maimonides and other medieval thinkers. On the other hand, an allegorical meaning was assigned to the sacrifices by Philo [pg 269] and Jehuda ha Levi, as well as by Samson Raphael Hirsch in modern times.853

Reform Judaism, recognizing the results of Biblical research and the law of religious progress, adopted the prophetic view of the sacrifices. Accordingly, the sacrificial cult of the Mosaic code has no validity for the liberal movement, and all reference to it has been eliminated from the reform liturgy. In this, however, the connection with the past was by no means severed. The main part of the service remains the same, although much of the character and many of the details have been changed.854 Only the allusions to the Temple worship and the sacrifices were eliminated, and the entire form of the service was made more solemn and inspiring “by combining ancient time-honored formulas with modern prayers and meditations in the vernacular and in the spirit of the age.” The morning and evening services retained their places, while the additional festal service (mussaf) was abrogated, because it stood for the additional festal sacrifice. As to the voluntary element in the old sacrificial system, the peace, sin, and thank-offerings, this is replaced in the reform ritual, as in the traditional practice, by private devotions for special occasions, to be selected by the individual.

The traditional Jewish prayer has certainly a wondrous force. It remains a source of inspiration from which the religious consciousness will ever draw new strength and vitality. It echoes the voice of Israel singing the song of redemption by the Red Sea: “This is My God, and I will [pg 270] glorify Him; My father's God, and I will exalt Him.”855 Consequently our liturgy must ever respond to a double demand; it must throb with the spirit of continuity with our great past, to make us feel one with our fathers of yore; and it must express clearly and fully our own views and needs, our convictions and our hopes.