A Book of Jewish Thoughts. Various

Judaism.

      CHASDAI CRESCAS, 1410.

II

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      YOUR question, why I do not try to make converts, has, I must say, somewhat surprised me. The duty to proselytize springs clearly from the idea that outside a certain belief there is no salvation. I, as a Jew, am not bound to accept that dogma, because, according to the teachings of the Rabbis, the righteous of all nations shall have part in the rewards of the future world. Your motive, therefore, is foreign to me; nay, as a Jew, I am not allowed publicly to attack any religion which is sound in its moral teachings.

      MOSES MENDELSSOHN, 1770. To a non-Jewish correspondent.

      I AM the creature of God, and so is my fellow-man; my calling is in the town, and his in the fields; I go early to my work, and he to his; he does not boast of his labour nor I of mine, and if thou wouldst say, ‘I accomplish great things and he little things’, we have learnt that whether a man accomplish great things or small, his reward is the same if only his heart be set upon Heaven.

      TALMUD.

OUR HERITAGE

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      OUR laws have been such as have always inspired admiration and imitation in all other men.

      Nay, farther, multitudes of mankind have had a great inclination of a long time to follow our religious observances; for there is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come, and by which our fasts and lighting up lamps, and many of our prohibitions as to our food, are not observed;8 they also endeavour to imitate our mutual concord with one another, and the charitable distribution of our goods, and our diligence in our trades, and our fortitude in undergoing distresses on account of our laws. And what is here matter of the greatest admiration, our Law hath no bait of pleasure to allure men to it, but it prevails by its own force; and as God himself pervades all the world, so hath our Law passed through all the world also.

      As to the laws themselves more words are unnecessary, for they are visible in their own nature, and appear to teach not impiety, but the truest piety in the world. They are enemies to injustice; they banish idleness and luxurious living; and they instruct men to be content with what they have, and to be laborious in their calling. They forbid men to make war from a desire of getting more, but make men courageous in defending the laws. On which account I am so bold as to say that we are become the teachers of other men in the greatest number of things, and those of the most excellent nature only; for what is more excellent than inviolable piety? What is more just than submission to laws, and more advantageous than mutual love and concord? And this so far that we are to be neither divided by calamities, nor to become injurious and seditious in prosperity; but to contemn death when we are in war, and in peace to apply ourselves to our handicrafts, or to our tillage of the ground; while we in all things and in all ways are satisfied that God is the Judge and Governor of our actions.

      FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, 1st cent.

OUR FATHERS

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      LET us now praise famous men,

      Our fathers in their generations.

      The Lord manifested in them great glory,

      Even His mighty power from the beginning.

      Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms,

      And were men renowned for their power,

      Giving counsel by their understanding,

      Such as have brought tidings in prophecies:

      Leaders of the people by their counsels,

      And by their understanding men of learning for the people;

      Wise were their words in their instruction:

      Such as sought out musical tunes,

      And set forth verses in writing:

      Rich men furnished with ability,

      Living peaceably in their habitations:

      All these were honoured in their generations,

      And were a glory in their days.

      There be of them, that have left a name behind them,

      To declare their praises.

      And some there be, which have no memorial;

      Who are perished as though they had not been,

      And are become as though they had not been born,

      And their children after them.

      But these were men of mercy,

      Whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.

      With their seed shall remain continually a good inheritance;

      Their children are within the covenants.

      Their seed standeth fast,

      And their children for their sakes.

      Their seed shall remain for ever,

      And their glory shall not be blotted out.

      Their bodies are buried in peace,

      And their name liveth for evermore.

      Peoples will declare their wisdom,

      And the congregation telleth out their praise.

      ECCLESIASTICUS 44. 1–15.

THE OBLIGATIONS OF HEREDITY

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      JEWISH history admonishes the Jews: ‘Noblesse oblige’. The privilege of belonging to a people to whom the honourable title of the ‘Veteran of History’ has been conceded puts serious responsibilities on your shoulders. You must demonstrate that you are worthy of your heroic past.

      S. M. DUBNOW, 1893.

      OUR virtues are Israel’s: all our success in life we owe to the fact that the blood of the ‘toughest of peoples’ is coursing in our veins. Our vices are our own. Now the world inverts the distribution. Our virtues it credits to us, to our individual brilliancy, diligence, courage. Whereas the crimes, vices, and failings of any single Jew, no matter how estranged from his people or his people’s faith he may be, it puts down to his Jewishness, and fathers them upon the entire Jewish race.

      Is it not a matter of sacred honour, as far as in us lies to counteract the world’s injustice to our people by rendering, when the opportunity is ours, some repayment for all we owe to Israel?

      J. H. HERTZ, 1915.

ZEDAKAH9​—CHARITY TUR, II, § 247

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      THE dispensing of charity according to one’s means is a positive precept, which demands greater care and diligence in its fulfilment than all the other positive precepts of the Law.