The Synagogue and the Church

BEING A CONTRIBUTION TO THE APOLOGETICS OF JUDAISM

Paul Goodman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138604872
• eBook ISBN: 9780429868672
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Published in 1908, this book details the development and establishment of Judaism and Jewish culture in contrast to the spread and presence of the Christian church and community. Focusing on the spiritual importance of Jewish scripture and its prominence in other Abrahamic religions, Goodman presents a discussion on spiritual and ethical perspectives in Judaism in comparison to Christianity.

Chapter I
Judaism, the Mother of Religions

“And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be My people; and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee.”—Zechariah ii, 11.

WHEN the histories of great men come to be told, certain traits and characteristics of their childhood are often recollected, or are at least assigned to them, which are said to have already then indicated their future career, and the same process of thought likewise meets the historian of a great nation, as he traces its development from humble beginnings until it becomes a powerful factor in the life of the human race. The account which such a nation gives of its birth and early growth assumes a special significance when it is viewed from the vantage ground which its subsequent history affords.

The story of the founders of Rome and of its foundation is an interesting example of this kind. It was said that Mars ravished a vestal virgin, who was delivered of twins, Romulus and Remus. The mother and children were ordered to be drowned; but while the mother became a goddess, the children were saved by a she-wolf who gave them suck, and a woodpecker who brought them food. Thus the boys remained until they were discovered by a shepherd, who became their foster-father. They grew up to be strong shepherd youths, fighting against wild beasts and robbers, until “they turned might into right.¹ After various predatory adventures, the brothers founded the city of Rome, which eventually became the cause of a fratricide, in which Remus was killed by Romulus.

Now, if we think of the Rome of history, the city which, like a wolf, swallowed nation after nation in its ferocity and insatiable greed of power, and which afterwards, like its founders, turned might into right, the legend of its foundation becomes pregnant with a remarkable significance.

As a contrast to this, stands the record we possess of the creation of a small people, the Jews, whose political independence was destroyed by the Romans. Israel, unlike Rome, was founded on an ethico-religious basis. Isaac was born because of the faith in God’s righteousness that was in his father Abraham. The descendants of Abraham were to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, but it was only because “he will command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.’²

So a people developed, more or less conscious that the exceptional position in which it considered itself as standing in the eyes of God entailed an equally exceptional responsibility.³ While still young and obscure, it felt within itself a superhuman strength, “the spirit of the Lord,” which would inspire it to conquer the world. Thus, an oracle which was current about twenty-seven centuries ago,⁴ and which has been preserved to us, gives a delineation both of the religious evolution of the human race, and of the part Israel was to play in it; and, in the light of the future history of this people, there is perhaps no portion of the whole of the Jewish writings more deserving of our attention than the following discourse, which a competent authority has declared to be the most sublime passage in the whole range of universal literature¹:—

“But in the latter days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and reprove strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. For all the peoples will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.”²

If we reflect on the circumstances under which this prediction was delivered, we shall be able to appreciate the better the grandeur of its conception. The descendants of Abraham were then a people which could hardly keep its independence among the small neighbouring tribes, and stood comparatively insignificant among the polities of antiquity. Had these utterances of the nabi (prophet) reached the ears of a contemporary Egyptian or Assyrian, the Hebrew could not but have appeared arrogant and meriting only contempt, just as we might now treat a claim on the part of, say, a Buigarian patriot that the capital of his little principality was destined to become the intellectual or moral centre of the world. But to us, living in another age, it has been vouchsafed to see the realization of the prophet’s vision. What would have appeared incredible in his time, is so commonplace to us now that we require to be continually reminded of this wonderful and unexampled fact in the history of humanity.

This passage, however, not only defined the course religion was to take, that instruction should go forth out of Zion to all the nations of the earth, but it also gave a hope and an ideal, both to mankind and to Israel. It is this portion of the prophecy which is still too much overlooked, but which bears within itself the pith of the Hebrew prophet’s ideal. It is of “the last days,” “the far-off divine event,” that the prophet speaks, and we are told that, through the word of the Lord which will go forth to the peoples from Jerusalem, the hostility of man against man, and nation against nation, will cease. When the art of war will have been forgotten, every man will securely enjoy the fruits of his labour. To an age which is becoming more and more conscious of those great defects of all civilizations, the curse of war and the economic struggle, the utterances of the prophet come with a special significance. The student of history will find that, like the prediction of the course of religious evolution, the vision of human happiness is surely, though slowly, making its way towards realization.

The prophet then proceeds to give us the reason and proof for the salvation of the human race. “For,” says he to his Jewish audience, “all the peoples will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” It is here, amidst the universalistic outlook of the prophet, that the peculiar character of the Jewish people, and the part assigned to it in the world’s history, is proclaimed and emphasized. The continued existence of Israel and his faithfulness to God is the sign of the eventual ingathering of the nations unto Him. As Israel is the fruit of Abraham’s faith, so through the fidelity of his descendants to the Lord shall the world be blessed.

Conformably with the prophet’s outline of the spiritual and material salvation of the human race, Judaism, the concrete development of his philosophy, has two aspects—the Synagogue and the World—which combined form a harmonious whole. If Judaism rests securely on the recognition of its position in the world, it is because it has firmly established the inalienable duties of every man to his Creator, to himself and to his neighbour. These relations are laid down in a literature which is distinguished from the expression of the mind of all other peoples by a uniform, unswerving tendency concentrating itself on one point—ethical Monotheism. This idea has become the master-passion of Judaism, and, together with the consciousness of its possession and of its import, has remained through all times the undisputed cardinal doctrine of Judaism.

The Jewish conception of God is not the result of philosophical reasoning, nor is His essence defined and limited by the finite mind of man. The Jewish view of the Godhead is ethical, not metaphysical; He is not the object of speculative or dogmatic conflicts, but the Inspirer of the human conscience, the Being to whom every knee bends in worship. It is not so much His omnipotence, as the complementary attributes, justice and mercy, which are continually emphasized as His most prominent characteristics. The grandeur of God in His loving care for His creatures is well brought out in the observation of R. Jochanan that in every passage of the Scriptures where the majesty of God is mentioned, there is also proclaimed His condescension to man. When the Lord is declared as “the mighty and revered God who regardeth not persons nor taketh a bribe,” there follows the assurance that “He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment,” “A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows is God in His holy habitation,” “For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him that is also of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”¹

If the awe-inspiring holiness of this Divine Father is thus only a measure of His infinite grace to man, it is his grateful duty to fulfil God’s Will, which has been revealed by Him with the object of procuring the highest state of man’s happiness. The rule of life is to be found in a literature which bears divine traces in its pages. Taking this literature, as containing God’s revelation of Himself to man,¹ Jewish sages have tried to determine its essence. These opinions furnish us with the definitions of Judaism arrived at by them and, though varied in expression, they are evidence of the uniformity in their lofty religious conceptions, and of the spiritual and ethical richness of Tewish life and faith.

To Hillel, Judaism was comprised in the golden rule: “Do not unto others what thou wouldest not that others should do unto thee.” The rest, he said to a would-be proselyte, was only a commentary.²

Discussing as to what is the most comprehensive commandment of the whole Torah, or the Sacred Scriptures of Judaism, R. Akiba said that it was to be found in the verse “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”¹ Against this, Ben Azai contended that it was rather contained in the “Book of the generations of Adam,² meaning thereby that the fundamental idea of Judaism was to be sought in the account of the creation of man in the image of God and in the descent of all men from one common father.³

According to Rabbi Simlai,⁴ the 613 affirmative and negative commandments to be found in the Pentateuch are contained in the eleven characteristics of the pious Jew as delineated in the fifteenth Psalm: “Lord, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in Thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that slandereth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his friend, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a reprobate is despised; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent.’” Rabbi Simlai, however, added that Isaiah had reduced these eleven commandments to six;⁵ further, that Micah had brought them down to three:⁶ “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Isaiah again comprised them in two: “Keep ye judgment and do righteousness,” and that, lastly, the whole was summed up by Habakkuk in the one assurance that “the just shall live by his faith.”¹

To impress the teachings of Judaism on the minds and hearts of men, an institution has been ordained, which, as old as the establishment of synagogues for study and prayer, has remained to this day the central part of Jewish faith and worship. This is the reading of the Shema,² a collection of portions from the Pentateuch, to be repeated twice daily, beginning with the verse: “Hear, O Israel, IHWH is our God, IHWH is One,” and comprising Deut. vi. 4–9; Deut. xi. 13–21 and Num. xv. 37–41.

The Shema is the articulate expression of the Jewish soul, laden with its memories of thousands of years. It is hallowed by the first prayerful lisp of the infant, by the last breath of the dying, by the confession of innumerable Jewish martyrs. It has never been desecrated by the wrangling of factions, nor has it been used as a battle-cry for bloodshed. The Shema is not, as is often erroneously assumed, the counterpart of the Mohammedan chief article of belief: “Allah is one, and Mohammed is his Prophet.” The Jewish declaration of the unity of God has in itself something altogether different from the stern, almost fierce, spirit of the Mohammedan formula. Since Abraham’s appeal: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”¹ God is considered in Judaism as exercising an ideal justice, which, in its divine form, is tempered by mercy and love: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in beneficence and truth, keeping mercy even unto the thousandth generation/’² and the reciprocal feeling is expressed by the Jew 111 the following sentence, which, in the Shema as in the Pentateuch, immediately follows the declaration of the unity of God: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might.”³ The heart, the eyes, the hands, the whole man is to be devoted to this ideal; he is to remember it at every opportunity and in every circumstance of life; the home is to be pervaded by it; he is to carry it into the cloister and into the mart.

Intimately with this is here connected the exhortation to carefully impart this truth to one’s descendants. According to Jewish teachers, the words of God to Adam: “Be fruitful and multiply,”⁴ is the first commandment, in the form of a blessing, given by God to man, and the propagation of the species is therefore a religious duty. The childless man or barren woman is considered as having missed his or her purpose in life. It is man’s natural bent to look after the material welfare of his offspring, but the obligation of the moral and intellectual training of the young is an integral portion, and one of the most beautiful aspects, of Judaism. The moral continuity of the human race, the responsibility of one generation for the other, man’s duty to the past as to the future, his debt to the one as to the other—as it is inculcated in the Torah—fixes the true position of the individual in the world.

The command in the Shema to love the Lord will, if followed, lead to real happiness, while its rej...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Dedication
• INTRODUCTION
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• CHAPTER I JUDAISM, THE MOTHER OF RELIGIONS
• CHAPTER II THE SIGN OF THE COVENANT
• CHAPTER III “YE ARE MY WITNESSES”
• CHAPTER IV THE TREE OF LIFE
• CHAPTER V THE UNIVERSALITY OF JUDAISM
• CHAPTER VI THE MISSIONARY ASPECT OF CHRISTIANITY
• CHAPTER VII THE OLD COVENANT AND THE NEW
• CHAPTER VIII MESSIANIC PROPHECIES
• CHAPTER IX JESUS OF NAZARETH
• CHAPTER X THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST
• CHAPTER XI THE SCHEME OF SALVATION
• INDEX