Messianic expectations and modern Judaism

Front matter

3tliata, New lork

FROM THE

BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY

Preface

"What epoch would you choose to have lived in ? " a lady once asked the late Chauncey Wright. "The most modern," was his reply. Amen, say I, unless I could come to life again in a hundred or a thousand years. For the present most certainly is the most cheering and inspiring age of the world's history so far. The world is not old, worn out, and hastening to decay. Politically, industrially, and religiously, we are seeing the first rays of the dawn of humanity's long day. The real " Golden Age " is ahead of us, not in the past. The twilight has been very long ; and, while the mists and shadows have hung over the earth, people have easily imagined faces of hate and terror looking down on them out of the sky, and have found it hard to recognize friends in the uncertain movements of those about them. But now that the sun is up, the sky is seen to smile, and the supposed enemies of the darkness are found to be friends.

One of the most striking indications of this religious advance is the coming together at last viii Preface.

of the Christian and the Jew. According to the narrow " orthodox " interpretation of these words this coming together may seem to be brought about by the Christian's^ ceasing to be a Christian, and the Jew's ceasing to be a Jew. But if so, it is only because those terms have been so interpreted as to be too small for the growing religious life of man. If either " Christian" or "Jew" is so defined as to make it less than " man," then it is time for both of them to be outgrown.

And it is curious and instructive to note the genesis of the old hate as well as the genesis of the new friendship. The Jews, at the time of their captivity in Babylon, borrowed the story of Eden and the Fall of Man from an old Turanian epic. And this, together with their own traditions, which they came to regard as the infallible Word of God, became the instrument of their bondage, and the means of their isolation from

/ the common life of humanity. This same book also, supplemented by another Scripture, and interpreted in the light of that other, became also the mental prison-house of Christendom. And this isolation in both cases bred spiritual pride and hate.

But now, after long centuries of enmity, at least some Christians and some Jews have grown brave enough to question their tradi-

' tions. They dare to be hospitable to new

Preface. ix

ideas, to think that even the religious world may become wiser, and that maturity may know more than childhood. So, as they look into each other's faces, they are becoming conscious that religious hate was born of religious ignorance and conceit, and that a truer knowledge of God means a broader love for man.

Thus when Jew and Christian cease fighting over what neither of them knows, they find themselves on the common ground of human need, human labor, and human hope. And here God meets them as the common Father and Helper.

This volume of lectures by a Jew, delivered to an audience more than half of which was Christian, and treating frankly and freshly a theme of equal interest to both, is both prophecy and fulfilment of the broader religious life of the time. As such I hail it. My standing here to introduce my friend to a larger audience than that which first greeted him does not mean that I am ready to agree with everything he says. It means a much better thing than that — the grand and hopeful fact that the world at last is willing to hear an earnest man without waiting to find out whether it agrees with him or not. We are coming to have faith in truth at last ; and this is much better than believing that our faith is true. Having got rid of the conceit that we already have all the truth that God intended for

X Preface.

the world, there is some hope now of our really finding all the truth we need. I welcome this book because I believe that it is at least honest in its search. And since the truth-seeker is the only God-seeker, I feel sure that they who seek shall find the Father.

But now my simple task is done. An architect once said to me, many years ago, "Columns that support nothing, but are set up only to look at, are bad taste in architecture. Have only -what is of use ; then ornament that as much as you please." I have often thought of this as applying in general to all literary style. And particularly have I thought of it when called on to write a preface to a book. This book needs no columns of mine to support it. It will be able to stand on its own foundations. And I should regard it as specially bad taste in me to set up too long a row of pillars in front of it. My only ambition has been to set up a few very modest posts to mark the path that leads to the doorway, and thus to indicate my belief that it will be worth the reader's while to enter in.

M. J. Savage.

Contents

FAGB

Introductory i

Judaism the Mother, Christianity the Daughter . 50

I. Introductory

'DEAS are as mortal as men, who are their exponents : their origin and life are similar to that of any human being : they are limited, as is mankind, by time and space. Ideas are first conceived by the human mind, and pass a period of embryonic existence before they become strong enough to bear the light and the changing temperature of the world. Then they pass a term of childhood, during which they are subject to all kinds of diseases, and the weak among them die fast, like infants in a crowded city. Those only which are endowed with sufficient vitality survive ; they grow up to manhood, fight their battles, and not seldom conquer the world. After their mission is fulfilled and their vitality exhausted, they enter into a period of decrepit old age. Though they are now of little, if any, usefulness, they still command the respect and the reverence of the world on account of their age and their former renown. But every, day brings them nearer to the grave, until their last hour strikes ; and after a few last convulsions they pass away, sometimes as unnoticed as they appeared upon the stage of life.

Before, however, their contemporaries are ready to bury them, a dispute frequently arises as to the reality of their death. Some can hardly believe that an idea which has lived and worked among them for such a length of time, which has performed such great and marvellous deeds, and which has commanded their reverence during all their lifetime, has indeed passed away. They cling to it with filial love and devotion, and deceive themselves with the hope that the departed idea is only asleep for a while, or in a trance from which it will surely awaken after a few hours. Others, who have always been depending on the departed idea for their sustenance, are fearing the loss of their support, and are unwilling to give up their privileges. They too claim that death has not yet occurred ; that they still observe some tokens of life ; and they too are opposed to a speedy interment. On the other hand, the health officers, reason and common sense, insist upon the necessity of the burial; They claim that the process of dissolution will infect the neighborhood with the germs of disease. Thus the defunct idea is finally buried, in spite of all remonstrances ; and posterity either passes by its grave indiffer. ently or places a wreath of evergreen upon it, as the case may be.

As there occur cases of death among men every day which, though unnoticed by the mul-. titude, cast their gloom over the circles in which the departed had moved, thus ideas are dying away in and with almost every generation, the death of which affects only those who stood in near relationship to them. And thus have we, the Israelites of the present generation, been the witnesses of the death of an idea which was conceived more than two thousand years ago by our nation, which passed its childhood, manhood, and old age under its protection, and which has now expired after a long and marvellous career, never to be revived again.

The idea to which I refer is no other than the hope of our nation in the advent of a personal Messiah who would collect the scattered remnants of Israel under one banner, re-establish them in Palestine, rebuild Jerusalem in its former glory, and make Zion the capital not only of the Holy Land, but that of the whole world.

In the following lectures I shall give the eulogy of this idea, and traQ,e its history from its very conception to the hour of its death. May it suffice, however, at present, if I explain the reasons first why I selected such a topic, and then why I maintain that the idea of the advent of a Messiah has died of late ; is stone dead now, and ought to be buried by the side of similar defunct ideas, in spite of all opposition which may be raised against its final interment.

Although our nation is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, on earth ; although it has lived on every continent, in every zone, in every climate ; although we have a history, a literature of our own, excelled by no other ; it has been our misfortune that we have never been understood by our neighbors. At best, we have been looked at with distrust ; and though we have always thrown in our lot with our fellow-citizens in happiness and adversity, though we have been born and raised among them for generations, we have always been denounced by them as a foreign element, as a sect, the aspirations and hopes of which differed widely from those of the majority. This misunderstanding, this distrust, has not been removed even in our time and in this our country. You meet with it wherever you turn in political, social, mercantile, life. One of the reasons why we were and are distrusted is, as it appears to me, that we were and are still supposed to consider our country as only a temporary domicile, or, in other words, that we are suspected of indifference toward our country and its inhabitants. We are said to yearn for a return to the land of our forefathers, and to be impatiently awaiting the time when a Mqssiah shall appear among us, and not only restore our political independence, but make us the masters of the world. If this were the case, if these were indeed our hopes and aspirations, I must say that our neighbors would be perfectly justified in distrusting us ; for I agree with them that a man cannot have two countries at the same time, that he can be attached with sincerity to only one country. The man will never be a good American citizen who always dreams of a return to the country from which he came, and who delights only in the customs and usages of the fatherland.

But in this regard our neighbors were and are entirely mistaken. Not one of us cares to leave this country except on a visit ; not one of us harbors in his heart any love for Palestine, unless it is tha.t esteem in which classical ground is held by every man of culture : there is not one among us who expects the advent of a Messiah.

I always took it for granted that, with the exception of the ignorant, our fellow-citizens were aware of the fact that modern Judaism has long since discarded the hope in the advent of a Messiah, and that the modern Israelite is with all his heart and soul a citizen of the country in which he Hves, and where he is granted human rights ; but how great has been my surprise when in conversation with persons of high culture, of eminent scholarship, and of rare intelligence, I have found that they still believe us yearning for Palestine and praying for the advent of a Messiah, that they still think it a distinguishing feature between Jews and Christians that we believe the Messiah will come, and they that he has come. Open the geographical text-books which your children use at school, and you will find therein, in cold print, the statement that the Jews are a sect which is expecting a Messiah, who, as the Christians claim, has already come ; and thousands of children memorize this erroneous statement year after year, and hear it repeated Sunday after Sunday at church ; and we do absolutely nothing to contradict it and to rectify the error. ' It is therefore time, high time, that we make an attempt to enlighten our fellow-citizens in regard to our hopes ; that we show to them the tomb in which the Messianic expectations of our nation are buried. :

But although the misunderstanding may be partly laid before our door,' inasmuch as we may have neglected to notify the Christian world promptly of the demise of the Messianic idea, we shall find that our Christian friends are not entirely faultless ; for they have never shown any readiness to accept our information : they have reasons for not believing in the death of that idea, and they remonstrate against its interment. The same people who distrust our patriotism on the ground that we are expecting a Messiah and wishing to return to Palestine, — these same people are shocked and horrified when we tell them that we do not any longer expect a Messiah, and have not the faintest desire for a political restoration of our people. Now why } Because such intelligence strikes at the root of their own religious belief. The whole structure of their religion rests upon the belief of the Jewish nation in the advent of a Messiah. As long as this idea has been strong and vigorous among us, their building has stood firm ; but from the moment the idea expired, from the moment its fallacy was demonstrated, their structure could not be saved from its downfall. They are actually placed between the two horns of a dilemma, and do not know which to choose. They do not know at present whether they should prefer us to be indifferent citizens or to be indifferent to Messianic expectations. For this very reason, it becomes doubly our duty to spread that intelligence as far as our circles reach, and to show to the Gentile world that Messianic expectations are not essential to Judaism ; that Judaism can

8 Messimtic Expectations.

exist without them ; that the Jewish mission is not chained to Palestine, but embraces the whole world ; that, metaphorically speaking, Israel itself is the Messiah whom God has destined to enlighten the nations of the earth.

In the course of my subsequent lectures, I shall therefore show that the Messianic idea had originally a political, and by no means a religious or spiritual, tendency ; that it never appeared as a manifestation of a healthy condition of the body politic of the Jewish people, but rather as a mental disease, as a mania, as an epidemic, which would break out at times of great national calamity. I shall show that these epidemics repeatedly occurred with greater or less force up to the eighteenth century. I shall show how the Messiah, originally political, was transformed by degrees into a divine messenger, directly descending from heaven, who should re-assemble, in a miraculous manner, the Israelites from all the corners of the earth, bring them to Palestine, raise the dead, judge the whole world, past and present, punish the wicked and reward the faithful, and establish a universal government and a universal religion. I shall show how the Messianic fancy finally pined away when the new era shed its full light upon its absurdities, until it died out entirely.

The word Messiah itself deserves a close scrutiny. The Hebrew word mashach means to spread an oily or greasy substance over a_ person or an article ; but right from the start it implied a sacred ceremony. Jacob poured oil u,pon the stone upon which he had rested and enjoyed that wonderful dream. Moses is ordered to prepare oil for the special purpose of anointing his brother Aaron as high priest, and also to anoint the different articles of furniture which were to be used in the tabernacle, in order to give him and them a certain sanctity in the eyes of the people. The narrative and command are given in such a matter-of-fact way that there cannot be the least doubt that, among ancient nations, especially those with whom the Israelites had come in contact, there must have been in use a similar ceremony of installing the highest officials, kings or priests, into their exalted position. Why oil was poured over their heads, in what connection oil stood with the dignity of the office, what the meaning of the custom was originally, when and where it originated, is more than I can tell ; and, I think, more than anybody else can tell. The fact, however, remains that the ceremony of pouring oil upon the head of a person meant to consecrate him for a high political position. The Mosaic constitution had provided for a hierarchical government. The high priest alone was, therefore, to be anointed. After the decline of the primitive priesthood, we find that Samuel anointed Saul, and afterward David, as kings over Israel ; and that from that time it became necessary for a king to be anointed in order to be acknowledged by the people as their legitimate sovereign. Mashiach, or the anointed, is, therefore, synonymous with the word king. Whenever in political language that word has been made use of, it had no other meaning, and could have had no other, than that of legitimate king. None, however, of all the so-called Messiahs whd have appeared in the course of history, has undergone or has found it necessary to undergo the ceremony of having oil poured over his head ; which evidently shows that the original meaning having been forgotten or obliterated by that time, the word mashiach, or, in the Latin version, messias, denoted simply a king, but not a divine messenger.

The illustrious reign of David, and the independence which the united kingdom of Israel enjoyed during his government, appeared in the next centuries the more glorious the more the weakness and dependence of Israel were then felt. At a time when royalty was hereditary, and people not seldom waged war to install an infant upon a throne for no other cause than that it was the lineal descendant of a king, it was quite natural that when for the first time the hop? of a regeneration of the Israelitish kingdom was expressed, a Messiah, or king, was expected, who, descending from David, should also be heir to his courage, power, and success, and should bring back the glory of the past.

All Messianic expectations centred, therefore, in the requirement of a lineal descent of the Messiah from the house of Dayid. None of them, however, has ever proved his descent ; and to-day such a proof has become entirely impossible, as all traces have been lost.

The absurdity of upholding the hope in the advent of a Messiah in our time or any future time, will furthermore appear in a still more glaring light if we take away its theoretical fanciful garment, and translate it into practical reality.

Supposing a person should appear among us who should be equipped with all the necessary testimonials of his divine mission, even of his lineal descent from David, if this could improve his title ; supposing he should by some means gather the Israelites from all parts of the world and settle them again in Palestine, — would this enhance our happiness .' Supposing, even, he should find for us room and employment in the new country, supposing all impossibilities should be made possible 'by him, let me ask the one question. What kind of a government do you think the Messiah would establish .■• The republican form would be entirely out of question. Just imagine a Messiah elected for a term of one, four, or seven years ; just imagine a Messiah passing through the ordeal of a political campaign in which not only his own record, but that of his ancestors upward to David, should be exposed and laid bare to ridicule ! No, those who' expect a Messiah must give up forever the hope that he would establish a republican government. Would it be a constitutional monarchy ? Equally absurd. Imagine a Messiah quarrelling with his parliament, and the latter refusing to vote the necessary appropriations ! The only imaginable form of government under a Messiah would be despotism. Under his rule there would be no free thought, no free speech, and surely no free press. No opinion differing from that of the Messiah either in politics or religion would be tolerated, and should we call this happiness .' Would this condition of slavery be the ne plus ultra of our hopes and aspirations .' For this state of mental stagnation should we be supposed to pray > Absurd, thrice absurd.

At the time when the Jews were crowded into the Ghetto ; at the time when our ancestors , were denied the most fundamental of all human rights, namely, the right to 'live; at the time when they were chased from country to country, and had to purchase at heavy expense the privilege of breathing the foul air of their seeluded quarters ; at the time when ignorance ruled supreme among them, and still more among their oppressors ; at such a time all fanciful hopes and fantastic expectations were permissible, and no picture of Messianic happiness could be overdrawn. Did they care what kind of government a Messiah would institute ? Did they care for liberty of speech and freedom of the press ? They would have kissed the feet of the most selfish despot, provided he would have granted them recognition, and placed them on an equal footing with their fellow citizens.

But we, the children of the nineteenth century ; we, the free citizens of a free republican country ; we, the graduates of the best schools the world has seen ; we, whose hands have learned to fold and cast a ballot, we do care .under what kind of government we are placed ; we do love the privileges of a republic, and would not for the world change it for any other form ; we do value free thought, free speech, and free press, as the highest attainments of humanity ; and we shall never renounce them. How could we, therefore, be expected to yearn after Messianic despotism ; how could we be suspected of infidelity to a country which grants us these boons, and of favoring Palestine, where all these glorious privileges would have no room ?

The hope in the advent of a Messiah and in the restoration of Israel is surely dead. It has died out in the heart of every intelligent American Israelite. As with the increase of knowledge the horizon of the human mind has been widened, as the universe has grown larger for us than it ever was for bygone generations, as God even has grown infinitely larger, mightier, and holier than ever, thus our hopes have grown in proportion. They have lost their national character, and have become universal. We have given up all those fanciful notions of a political restoration of Israel through the instrumentality of a Messiah, and have adopted in their placethe hope that all humanity will sometime reach by steady evolution a degree of happiness far beyond the present, and far beyond description ; a state in which the evils still adhering to mankind will be removed, and its virtues increased and developed. United, and hand in hand with all our human brethren, we shall strive to advance toward this goal ; and if there must be a distinction between us, let it be that of a generous competition as to who shall reach the mark first.

"TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO."

y f PON what does the earth rest? This l®J question greatly agitated the minds of people before the time of Newton and Copernicus. The answer was that it rests upon the back of an enormous elephant. But the inquisitiveness of human nature could not be set at rest so easily. Another question was raised : Upon what does the elephant rest ? Answer : The elephant stands on top of an immense turtle. Yet this answer even did not give the desired satisfaction. The new question turned up : Upon what does the turtle rest ? Instead of answering this time, the scientist of that age grumblingly complained in rather strong language that one fool would be likely to ask more questions than ten wise men could answer; and thus the conundrum was never solved.

Whenever we turn to historical research, we

are in a similar quandary. We lack a basis

which could safely carry our argument. We

brag a great deal about historical knowledge and historical facts ; but whenever we are called upon to bring them to light we find that our knowledge is very limited ; that there are comparatively few real historical facts; and that our so-called history, with all oui' argumentation on top of it, floats, like that gigantic turtle, upon nothing.

Ancient history especially has mixed up a few grains of truth with such a bulk of fiction that it is now well nigh impossible to sift the wheat from the chaff. Some few scraps of statements made by some writer as the facts appeared to him individually, — for the most part not even corroborated by a contemporary, — have been handed down to us and palmed off on us as history. But even if we were ready and willing to accept the statements of a Herodotus, a Tacitus, a Livy, or a Josephus, as plain and absolute truth, with our best intentions we could not supply another deficiency; namely, that by the slow and laborious process of copying and recopying the manuscript by hand, in course of time so much of the original must have been changed, so many interpolations and additions must have been added to it, that if the original writer should be confronted to-day with his works, he would probably deny his authorship. And, after all, how did these writers know.' History was never written at the time when the facts occurred. The current

" Two Thousand Years Ago." \'j

of the present is so swift and rapid, the multitude of facts taking place at every moment is so overwhelming, that the quickest camera could not take a correct negative of them. It is furthermore impossible for men to be both actors and spectators ; we cannot be at the same time upon the stage and in front of it. History, therefore, has always been written by posterity. Now you will acknowledge that it would be a difficult task to-day to write a correct history of, let me say, the life of George Washington, although we are in possession of the archives containing all the official documents written or signed by him ; although we have the files of the newspapers published at his time at our disposal, and many other advantages which the historian of former ages never had at his command. Tacitus, for example, had never seen Germany or Judea ; still he wrote extensively about these countries. All his information was obtained from soldiers who had been there ; and he'took their yarns for facts : and we too have become accustomed to take them for facts. And this very Tacitus lived and wrote at a time when the Romans stood at the summit of civilization, and poets and writers were growing up among them like mushrooms.

In regard to Jewish history, and subsequently to that of the origin of Christianity, the entanglement is not less bewildering, although past generatiqns have attempted to solve the difficulty and to find a desirable historical basis by cutting the Gordian knot in a somewhat peculiar way. They picked out a certain number of literary works relating their own history and that of their nearest neighbors, and attributed them to a divine authorship. They claimed that God himself had dictated, word for word, both the Old and the New Testament. From such divine statements there was of course no appeal. God, who knows the past as well as the future, could not err; he stood- above all human criticism : and it was a long time before the Bible was submitted to a close historical scrutiny. For centuries, it has been a heresy, almost a crime, to doubt one iota of this sacred literature; to doubt that Moses wrote all the books attributed to him ; to doubt that the Psalms were all written by David, or the Ecclesiastes by Solomon ; to ask in what way and by what means the first correct copy of the orations of the prophets was obtained, or to consider these speeches as pertaining to their time only, or to the immediate future ; and so on ad infinitum. For the so-called believer there was and is no appeal from the letter of scripture.