'Lay it upon the pillow bright with dew,'
'Lay it upon the pillow bright with dew,'
'Lay it upon the pillow bright with dew,'
'Lay it upon the pillow bright with dew,'
and then the child sleeps and dreams of stars whose light
'Beams in his own bright eyes when he awakes.'
'Beams in his own bright eyes when he awakes.'
'Beams in his own bright eyes when he awakes.'
'Beams in his own bright eyes when he awakes.'
"Now in these lines one may find justification for all the idealizations of art, but they are also suggestive of the value of ignorance. So it is. We must learn to see the invisible. We must be oblivious to the obvious, to see anything. We ought not to try to clear up everything. If life were not a problem play it would not interest us so. Let the mystery remain. Intimations of immortality are good enough; proofs would kill our longing for it. Whence? Whither? I rather hope these questions will never be answered. The halo, the maze, the mystery, the shadowy strangeness of it all makes it worth while and gives the fancy freedom to fly. Statistics sterilize the imagination and figures dry up our souls. Do you remember Whitman's 'When I Heard the Learned Astronomers?' The lecturer with his charts and diagrams soon made him unaccountably sick, till rising and gliding out of the lecture room he wandered off by himself 'in the mystical, moist night-air, and from time to time looked up in perfect silence at the stars,' and thus became himself again.
"Let others seek what they call facts: for me the lights and the shades, the dimness and the flash,the chiaroscuro of life. Let others pierce through phenomena and impregnate realities; my favorite amusement is to walk upon the clouds and play ball with the stars. I cannot grasp such details as the size of the earth, the distance between sun and moon. Logic? Lockjaw. Go study your astronomy and let me lie on my back in some verdant field and gaze upon the stars, and I shall be content. Let others study botany, give me but the fragrance of the blooms and flowers and let me gaze upon their gorgeous riots of color. For others the study of anatomy, for me the beauty of the human form to behold. Let others study ornithology, and let me listen to the thrilling music of the winged songsters. Take all the sciences that explain everything away, and give me the things beautiful to behold, sweet to hear and pleasing to touch. And before you run away let me also tell you that there is a mood of contemplation which, for comprehension, passeth all science and analysis.
"But, after all," he added, as we were about to part, "I could only hint at these things, for it takes a very learned man to prove the value of ignorance."
All day the Ghetto was astir. There was a babel of excitement at the markets, an unusual rush and bustle on Allen street. The stores were well filled with bargaining, buying men and women, and the push-cart vendors were centres of attracted crowds. Everywhere housewives were busy washing, clearing, cleaning their homes. The spirit of awe, reverence, expectancy, was in the air. The great day of Rosh Hashona was approaching; New Year's day was drawing nigh.
We stood on the sidewalk in front of Berosowsky's book and periodical emporium, the strange place where you can procure anything from Bernard Feigenbaum's pamphlets against religion, to a pair of phylacteries, from Tolstoy's works in Yiddish to a holy scroll. We stood and gazed on the familiar yet fascinating scene. We had just left the store, wherein we glanced through the current newspapers and other publications. "It is so stupid to read. Let's go out and look at the people," Keidansky exclaimed abruptly as he threw down a eulogy of a Yiddish poet written by himself, in the paper of which he is now editor.
Not far off was heard the short, shrill sound of the ram's horn. It was the "bal tkio," the official synagogue trumpeter practising for the nearing ominousdays. Hard by, a cantor and his choir of sweet voices were rehearsing the quaint hymns and prayers of the great fast, singing the strange, tearful, traditional melodies that have never been written, and yet have come down from generation to generation for hundreds of years; the weird musical wailings, the tunes of the cheerless chants, charged with the sighs, groans and laments of centuries of sufferings, flooded the noisy street, mingled with the harsh cries of the hucksters, and were lost in the general buzz and roar of the crowded district.
"The days of awe and of atonement are upon us," said Keidansky, "and these evocative, awakening voices are drawing, drawing me back to the synagogue, back to the days of childhood, faith, hope, ignorance, innocence, peace, and plenty of sleep. A broken note of old music, then a flood of memories, a sway of feeling, and no matter what I have, or have not been, I am again as pious and penitent, and as passionately religious, as I was when a child in the most God-fearing Ghetto in the world.
"Did you say something about free thought, the higher criticism, universal religion, about the law of evolution applied to religion, about all creeds being equally true and equally false? Did you talk to me about these things?
"Well, a scrap of Yom Kippur melody and the faith of my fathers is my faith. Our instincts destroy our philosophies. 'Our feelings and affections are wiser than we are!' The old is preserved for ourself-preservation. The new is destructive, bewildering. The old is often worth deserting, yet it is bred in the bone; it is comforting and consoling and easy to live up to. The new is bewitching, but baneful; it breeds discontent, ennui, we can hardly ever live up to it. Blessed are those who live in the world they were born into. They are also damned, but that's not in their time.
"Tradition," Keidansky continued musing aloud, "is far more beautiful than history, and even nature with all her charms has to be improved upon by art, by illusion. In the course of time science may build up some interesting superstitions, but meanwhile it is our poor debtor. It has filled the world with cold facts. It has emptied the heart of its fond fancies. And what do we really know, after all? The greatest philosopher of the age pauses and stands nonplussed before the Unknowable. The densest ignoramus in the world knows it all; knows all about the worlds beneath and beyond—their climates, inhabitants, populations, moral status, tortures and pleasures. What do we know, anyway? Next to nothing, and we feel lonely and desolate and powerless after we have had everything explained to us. Orthodoxy, at least, gives us the consciousness of having some control in the universe; it gives us a sense of shelter and of safety. We know we have a kind of vote in the general management of things. We can accomplish something by our prayers, by fasting. And when the fearful days come, the days in which the destiny of everymortal for the coming year is determined on high, we ask for atonement, and fast and pour out our griefs in mournful prayers and burn candles for the dead. Our voices are heard on high, because we believe they are, and our names are entered in the Book of Life for another year. Do not smile now, nor look so wise. All that is, is well, and whatever we believe in is true. The greatest sacrifice we made to science was our ignorance.
"But whether it is this or that, there is something rooted so firmly and so unfathomably deep within us that calls and pulls us back to all that we have deserted and tried to forget; and when these hallowed days come, we can no longer drown our feelings. No matter how far I went in my radical conceptions—and I often went far enough to be excommunicated by my worthy brethren—no matter how iconoclastic we became, how absorbed we were in our abstractions, and how fearlessly we theorized, the season of awe, beautiful, terrible awe, the judgment days drew near and hearts became heavy and the melody of the song of 'Kol Nidro' invaded our minds and shut out all the other music we ever heard in our lives. It is all a strain of music that, once heard, keeps singing in our memories forever—this faith of our fathers. Go where we will, do what we may, the beauties of the old religion are with us yet and we cannot, we cannot forget.
"Among the radicals of the New York Ghetto there is no more advanced nor brilliant man than is myfriend Bahan. He has edited some of the best Jewish publications; he has written much of what was best in them, and he was always on the side of free-thought and new ideas. Like myself, he belonged to the circles that had reformed Judaism altogether. He had not entered a synagogue for purposes of prayer since he left Russia as a youth, and that was many years ago. He is now on one of the best New York papers, and when Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippur arrive, he writes about these holidays so fervidly, feelingly, enthusiastically, with such tears in his eyes that one would think that these unsigned articles are the work of the most pious and orthodox Hebrew in New York. And, perhaps, they are too," Keidansky added, aside, "only if Bahan were accused of orthodoxy he would protest his innocence."
"That was years ago," my friend continued after a pause. "I was young, seeking new worlds to conquer, and so I fell into bad company—among people who think. They are mostly free-thinkers and free-talkers, and in the course of time my religion dwindled and I became as erratic as any of them. The worst thing about one who begins to think is that he also begins to talk. I began to talk, to voice my doubts and heresies, and soon the world, or at least my relatives, were against me. I kept on saying the most unsayable things, and when New Year's came I refused to go to the synagogue, because I had discovered the existence of the Unknowable. We quarrelled, and things came to such a pass that I left mycousin's home, where I had been living, during the Days of Atonement. I knew what I knew and I was ready to make all sacrifices for the right of ranting and raving over the shameful superstitions in which humanity was steeped. The world was before me and so were all my troubles. But even when I refused to go to the synagogue, I was at heart of hearts exceedingly lonely without it, without the beautiful service of Rosh Hoshona. When the eve of Yom Kippur came I did not know what to do with myself. Our circle of friends was to meet at the home of one of its members and spend the evening gayly and happily, though it was the sad and solemn Fast of Atonement. I had promised to come, and so, when all the inhabitants of the Ghetto were wending their way to their respective houses of worship I started with a heavy heart to join my friends, glad that I had made the promise and sorry that I was keeping it. I arrived at my destination, a street in the West End Jewish quarter. When I neared the house I heard a loud, rather boisterous conversation going on. I rang the bell. Even as I did so I heard a number of shouts and loud peals of laughter. I did not wait for the door to open. I turned and walked away. I walked right on, not in the least knowing whither. Before I was barely aware of it, I was in Baldwin place, in front of the Beth Israel Synagogue. The cantor and his choir were just chanting the awe-inspiring, soul-stirring prayer of 'Kol Nidro,' that wonderful product of the Spanish inquisition, written by a Moranoduring the darkest days of Israel and freighted with the sighs and cries and moans of a suffering people. Those strains of music brought me to my own life again. I entered the synagogue. I had come into my own. I felt such peace and consolation as I had not known for ever so long.
"Do not ask me to explain it, I cannot. If the incurability of religion could be explained it could also be cured. This is what happened, and this is what still happens to me from time to time. It may be strange, but mine is a government of, for, and by moods, and as they come and go I become everything that I have been and that I may be.
"I've been greatly moved by many preachers and teachers and I have followed some of the most advanced advocates of our time, the most universal universalists; but let me hear one of the beautiful old chants, such as 'Kol Nidro,' or 'Unsana Taukeff' and I become a most zealous orthodox. Did I ever tell you about it?
"'Unsana Taukeff' is the most important prayer on the two days of Rosh Hoshona and the Day of Atonement. It is known as the 'Song of a Martyr in Israel!' The story of the prayer is one of the prettiest in Jewish folk tales. It is the song of Rabbi Amnon, who was the rabbi of Metz, in the days of Bishop Ercembud (1011-1017). Rabbi Amnon was of an illustrious family, of great personal merit, rich and respected by Jew and Gentile alike. The bishop frequently pressed him to abjure Judaism andembrace Christianity, but without avail. It happened, however, on a certain day, being more closely pressed than usual and somewhat anxious to be rid of the bishop's importunities, he said hastily: 'I will consider the matter and give thee an answer in three days.'
"As soon as he had left the bishop's presence, however, his heart smote him and an uneasy conscience blamed him for having, even in the remotest manner, doubted his faith. He reached home overwhelmed with grief. Meat was set before him, but he refused to eat, and when his friends visited him he declined their proffered consolation, saying: 'I shall go down mourning to the grave.'
"On the third day, while he was still lamenting his rash concession, the bishop sent for him, but he failed to answer the call. Finally the bishop's messengers seized him and brought him before the prelate by force. 'Let me pronounce my own doom for this neglect,' answered Amnon. 'Let my tongue, which uttered these doubting words, be cut out. It was a lie I uttered, for I never intended to consider that proposition.'
"'Nay,' said the bishop, 'I will not cut out thy tongue, but thy feet, which refused to come to me, shall be cut off, and other parts of thine obstinate body shall also be tormented and punished.'
"Under the bishop's eyes the toes and thumbs of Rabbi Amnon were then cut off, and after having been severely tortured he was sent home in acarriage, his mangled members beside him. Rabbi Amnon bore all this with greatest resignation, firmly hoping and trusting that his earthly torment would plead his pardon with God. The days of awe came round while he was on his death bed, and he desired to be carried to the synagogue. He was conveyed to the house of God, and during the services he asked that he be permitted to utter a prayer. His words, which proved to be the last, given in English, are somewhat as follows:
"'I will declare the mighty holiness of this day, for it is awful and tremendous. Thy kingdom is exalted thereon; Thy throne is established in mercy, and upon it Thou dost rest in truth. Thou art the judge who chastiseth, and from Thee naught may be concealed. Thou bearest witness, writest, sealest, recordest and rememberest all things, aye those which we imagine buried in the past. The Book of Records Thou openest; the great sophor is sounded; even the angels are terrified and they cry aloud: "The day of judgment dawns upon us," for in judgment they, the angels, are not faultless.
"'All who have entered the world pass before Thee. Even as the shepherd causes the flock he numbers to pass under his crook, so Thou, O Lord, causest every living soul to pass before Thee. Thou numberest, thou visitest, appointing the limitations of every creature according to Thy judgment and Thy sentence.
"'On the New Year it is written, on the Day ofAtonement it is sealed. Aye, all Thy decrees are recorded; who is to live and who is to die. The names of those who are to meet death by fire, by water, or by sword; through hunger, through thirst, and with the pestilence. All is recorded; those who are to have tranquillity; those who are to be disturbed; those who are to be troubled; those who are to be blessed with repose; those who are to be prosperous; those for whom affliction is in store; those who are to become rich, those who are to be poor; who exalted, who cast down. But penitence, prayer and charity, O Lord, may avert all evil decrees.'
"When he had finished this declaration, Rabbi Amnon expired, dying in God's house, among the assembled sons of Israel.
"I can never forget these prayers, nor these days, go where I will, do what I may," Keidansky continued. "Did you say something about free thought, the higher criticism, universal religion, the law of evolution, the study of comparative religion, the absurdity of superstition? Come, let us go over to yonder house; the cantor and his choir are now singing 'Unsana Taukeff.'"
And I followed him.
"The world is growing better than it ever was before," said Keidansky; "we no longer practise what we preach." And before I had time to recover from my surprise and utter any protest, he hastily continued in his exasperating manner: "We still believe in certain doctrines, hold certain theories, advocate certain ideas, preach certain gospels; but we feel different and act much better when it comes to real life. We are far wiser in adjusting our acts to our ends, or rather our deeds are more wisely adjusted to our aims than we know. We do not desecrate these principles we entertain by putting them into practice. We don't feel like doing so. We let the abstractions float above us as vapor in the air. We have human instincts, good motives, noble longings, and our conduct is fairly decent in spite of our conflicting codes.
"From a thousand pulpits we are told to do this, that, and the other; a thousand theories would divide our paths in life; a thousand methods of salvation are presented to us by the only and original authorized agents from on high; but our humanity makes us all akin, our instincts guide us and our yearnings lure us all the same way to perdition and to happiness; and we follow after and pave the way for the ideal world. How widely, vastly different ourreligious and moral beliefs and our abstractions are. And yet, how nearly alike, how similarly we all act and perform our parts in the world's work. We still differ, dispute and debate over the future, the trend and ultimate aim of things; but we no longer allow these differences to prevent us from acting in unison and harmony in all things that are conducive to our better development and chief good. A dozen men cannot agree upon a Church, so they form another trust; and, aiding the industrial growth of the country, they work out their own salvation, and in the course of time endow colleges and build mansions and pay fabulous sums for great paintings, and even feed the beggars that live on theology. These men agree on one thing, and that is most important of all.
"As I said, we still listen to and believe in many of the crude, incongruous and misty creeds that are preached to us, but we walk upon more solid ground when it comes to life, and all that we want to make of it—which is the most possible. We build wiser than we know, and we disobey the preachers because we can rise above them, do better, and put their advice to shame. Have we discarded the book? Well, we have followed life; and see, this world is quite inhabitable now. That we differ in theology, on legends, myths, is a trifle, but that we agree on the education of the young, hygiene, athletic exercise, morning walks, cold baths, pure diet, music, pictures: that we agree on the value of all these things makes the game worth the candle.
"For instance, we are perpetually urged to, and we half believe it best to, renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, forfeit all the joys of life, and join the Society for the Prevention of Anything; but in actuality, we are all strenuously engaged in capturing the world, in gratifying the flesh and in getting as much devil into us as is possible in the pitifully brief span of this short life. This is absolutely necessary. The more devil within us the better. A man with no devil in him will not go to heaven, or any other pleasurable resort. By doing and daring and deviling we become strong, and if the world is better to-day than it ever was before, which it certainly is, it is because we no longer practise what we preach—have nearly always practised better. If man did not do things, and do them so much better, sermons would never become obsolete; but as it is, loads of them have to be dumped in some swamp every little while.
"We have also been advised as to the beautiful virtues of humility, meekness, timidity, obedience, submission, self-effacement, self-suppression, wiping yourself off the face of the earth with benzine and a rag, and we have believed in the advice, but fortunately only believed; for a voice from within prompted us to feel and be different and do more wisely. So we cultivated haughtiness, pride, aggressiveness, have given free play to our physical and spiritual forces, have become conscious of our powers, and more powerful still, and the phantom of freedomis becoming a fact and the world is growing fair. We walk with our heads erect nowadays, no matter what conception we have in our minds. We have become so arrogant that we even question the divine right of bishops and policemen. We take off our hats for nothing, known or unknown. No matter what we believe, we feel that obsequiousness is the most disgraceful word in the dictionary. Then we are becoming so self-appreciative and selfish that we refuse to let others save us. The salvation of a soul is a rather delicate matter, and it cannot be done at short order while you wait, by all those whose advertisements we have read. It is not quite so easy a matter as it is to find a watchmaker to put your timepiece into good repair. In fact, we are growing so egoistic that we want to do it ourselves. We no longer want any mark-down bargains, such as salvation for a prayer, a fish dinner or ninety-eight cents in charity. We feel the fraud of bribing our way into heaven. Those are cheated most who get their things cheaply. It is the height of impudence and imbecility to think that putting on a long face, or some other act of piety or penance, will change your destiny, and incidentally, the course of the universe. At least, we feel that these things are wrong, no matter what we think. Life or death or immortality, a man must pay his rent. Everything has its price. What you get for nothing is worth the same. The theological bargains will not wear well at all. You must pay honestly and fairly for everything you receive, andfor all you become. What we procure for nothing is not worth while. We are only cheating ourselves miserably when we attempt to get what is best through bribes and pass through the gates on false pretences. Whatever we have been told, we feel that we cannot follow the newspaper advertisements in these things and buy redemption at closing-out bargain sales. No one can grow for another, no one can acquire, no one can become for another, no one can be saved by proxy or buy salvation. Each must work and suffer and struggle his way up.
"I see that you are a little incredulous about these things," he said, after a short silence. "Do you find it hard to follow me? I know exactly what I mean, only the difficulty lies in making you see it as I do. No; don't be in haste. Let's walk a little more. I am afraid your education is being sadly neglected; I haven't talked at you for some time. No; I never hasten. Whenever I am in a great hurry to get to a place of the most urgent necessity I walk into a second-hand book store, like those on Fourth avenue, and look at the titles and read the prefaces of old and odd volumes. Never mind the swarming, surging, scurrying crowds. They are attending to the world's business, and make it possible for me to be idle and look on.
"But what I was driving at is this: That there is one life and many theories of it, that most of these theories are a disgrace even to Sunday schools, that it's all hitting the nail on the finger. While thesetheories would have us go by various little walks and byways and lanes and alleys, life prompts us to take to the open road that leads to strength and happiness. While these theories would have us thwart and stifle and starve our desires, life forces us to give them full play in spite of all conventions and creeds, and the result is civilization and all its blessings. Way down into the recesses of our souls we are so deeply religious that we all do better than we believe.
"Take three children of different birth; send them to three different schools, instruct them in three different religions, and then, will they not, when they grow up, work and aim and struggle and trade and worry and aspire and get dyspepsia—in short, live and die in very much the same way, and more or less fairly and squarely? Inasmuch as their morals will be useful, will they not be of the same brand? Will they not do better than they respectively believe? There are other illustrations. The leading orthodox rabbi of this city naturally believes in the restoration of Palestine, the regeneration of Judaism, the resurrection of the Hebrew language, and the resuscitation of many things long dead and passed away. In his speeches he is a most ardent advocate of the revival of Hebrew lore, the essence of all wisdom according to him, and the greatest of all tongues, the Hebrew language, which revival, he avers, is the most radiant promise of Zionism. The neglect of the ancient lore in this country is his most woful regret. But his own son he sends to Harvard for amodern education, and the son will become a man of the world and a useful, valuable member of society because his father did better than he believed.
"'A year hence in Jerusalem,' cries the pious Hebrew at the close of his holiday prayer, and then, as soon as the festival is over he buys himself a little house, pays $800 down, raises two mortgages and, trusting in God, he hopes to pay up the entire sum in about ten years, and he and his family are happier and this country is richer and better for their being here. 'A year hence in Jerusalem,' and here we are doing what we can for our own good and for the good of whatever country we abide in, and all of us are well because we act better than we preach and believe. Most of us believed in the colonization of Palestine when we were way back in Russia, yet we came over here feeling that this is the new promised land. Palestine may be a good place for the old to die in, if the superstition is true that the worms will not touch your corpse there, but I don't think it is a promising country for the young to live in. The land that was once flowing with milk and honey now lacks water. No, I don't know in what part of New York they make the Passover wine that they bring from Palestine.
"I am somewhat of a Zionist myself, as you know, but as soon as I can afford it, as soon as my Yiddish play is produced and the New York critics condemn it to a financial success, I will send for my little brother to come from Russia to this country, and asthere is no genius in our family, I am sure he will do very well here. Yet I believe in the restoration of Palestine, and so long as the Zionists permit me to live in this country I am willing to support their movement.
"And, let's see, there 's something else. I want to fix you up so that you will never again come to me with that hackneyed plaint that the world is going to the dogs because we do not practise what we preach. We have laws and we all preach against intermarriage, do we not? We all condemn the intermarriage of Jew and Christian, of Protestant and Catholic, of chorus girl and rich college student, of an actress and a minister; we prohibit these things and perhaps rightly, and yet—"
"And yet?" I asked anxiously.
"Do not be alarmed," he answered quickly; "I am not going to advocate intermarriage or assimilation. By this time you will, perhaps, have gathered from what I said that I do not much believe in measures that have to be advocated; rather do I favor the things that heart and soul prompt us to do, whatever our beliefs and theories and in spite of them. The advocacy of a thing, or the supposed necessity of advocating a certain measure, proves the uselessness, untimeliness and futility of it. It is hardly wise to advocate anything. Things must be brought about by conditions to be of vital import. Least of all should any one ever advocate intermarriage, and yet, and yet—do you remember these lines?
"'Two shall be born the whole wide world apart,And speak in different tongues and have no thoughtEach of the other's being, and no heed.And these over unknown seas to unknown landsShall cross, escaping wreck, defying death,And all unconsciously shape every actAnd bend each wandering step to this one end,That one day, out of darkness they shall meetAnd read life's meaning in each other's eyes.'
"'Two shall be born the whole wide world apart,And speak in different tongues and have no thoughtEach of the other's being, and no heed.And these over unknown seas to unknown landsShall cross, escaping wreck, defying death,And all unconsciously shape every actAnd bend each wandering step to this one end,That one day, out of darkness they shall meetAnd read life's meaning in each other's eyes.'
"'Two shall be born the whole wide world apart,And speak in different tongues and have no thoughtEach of the other's being, and no heed.And these over unknown seas to unknown landsShall cross, escaping wreck, defying death,And all unconsciously shape every actAnd bend each wandering step to this one end,That one day, out of darkness they shall meetAnd read life's meaning in each other's eyes.'
"'Two shall be born the whole wide world apart,
And speak in different tongues and have no thought
Each of the other's being, and no heed.
And these over unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death,
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end,
That one day, out of darkness they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.'
"Yes," he concluded, as we were about to part, "the world is growing better than it ever was before—and it isn't because we have a more efficient police force either."
"There is no place like home," said Keidansky, "and there's nothing like running away from it."
"What is the matter with the home?" I asked.
"Nothing," he answered, "except that very often everything is. You are surprised?" he continued. "That's promising. Somehow when I see you shocked it makes me feel as if I am saying something, and I am encouraged to go on. What do I mean? Just this:
"There is no place that is so small, petty and narrow as the home is; there is no place so close, cramped and crowded; so limited, restricted and tape-measured. There's no place where there is such agreement, unity and uniformity; where there is so much subordination, subjection and coöppression—if you will pardon the coining of a word—as in the home; no place where there is such conformity of opinion, speech and action; where there is so much dependence, inter-dependence and inter-domination; where so much good advice is given you, so many high examples set up and so many paragons of perfection presented to you; no place where there's so much upholding of old standards and so little scope for building new ones; where respectability is regarded with such reverence and the neighbors' say held sosacred; no place so lacking initiative, so barren of originality, so devoid of daring—no place where you are so tenderly cared for, so kindly comforted, so closely watched, and so grossly misunderstood as the home. It is the most dangerous place in the world.
"No, do not interrupt me—I know just what you are going to say. Let me state it for you—while I am at it. What I said is blasphemy, of course, and what you want to say is that the home is the garden where all our virtues flower and bloom; that it is the foundation of our morals, the birthplace of our highest ideals, the great character-builder, the school of patriotism, the source of true religion, the protector of our national life, the benign soul-uplifter, the place where goodness and purity flourish, and the place where the best principles are manufactured. I know just what you are going to say because I, too, have heard some sermons and have read some after-dinner speeches in my life. And I do not say that these utterances are altogether misleading. There is some good, I doubt not, in a sermon and some shadow of truth even in an after-dinner speech. But because the home has ever been the subject of indiscriminate encomiums and puffy panegyrics, no one has ever dared to say anything against it. It has not been treated as a human institution, and so many crimes have been committed in its good name. It is because these beautiful things about it are, or are supposed to be, that so many of us have been sentenced to stay home without a proper trial.
"Granting even that the halo is not hollow and that home is the ideal place it is pictured to be, the admission is perhaps the strongest argument against it and for running away from it; for, in that case, the home is almost too good a place to stay in, too tame and agreeable, a nest of the neutral, a triumph of the negative, maybe, and hardly a place where you can grow, learn, enlarge and expand distinctly and in your own way. I fear me that in any case home is about the last resort where one can express his individuality and become fully equipped to grapple with the world and those who own it. Do not misunderstand me. No one intends to wage wanton war against that which is held in reverence.
"The radical is only ahead of time because all the others are behind it. No one wishes to abolish merely for the sake of abolition. There is no satisfaction in mere annihilation. No one wishes it. Wisdom and folly have the same intention. To say that the most destructive radical and the most orthodox conservative are in perfect agreement as far as their aim is concerned will be dangerously near uttering a commonplace. Both seek well-being and happiness. There was a time when there was a little difference between the two; when one of the two parties wanted to postpone that welfare unto another life; but now, in this hasty age, both demand all that it is possible to procure here and now. There may be difference of opinion, but there is no difference of intention. The object of all is to preserve the virility of ourbeing, the veracity of soul, the strength to do and to be. There may be a question as to my being a conservative, but there is no doubt that I am a conservator. I would conserve everything that is conducive to growth and happiness. What I believe, what I say, has this object in view. And having this in view, I realize that in the course of human events it ever and anon becomes necessary to demolish the divinities that be.
"If I seem to attack this sacred institution it is because it has a very seamy, sore and searing side to it. In the first place there are usually parents at home. What a pity that parents and children cannot be of the same age; that there cannot be some understanding between them. What a sorrow that those who brought us into the world should have no sympathy with us—that those whom we love most should understand us least; that there should be such conflicting contrasts in feeling, in thought, in temperaments and tendencies. But regrets do not alter circumstances. They exist and they are obdurate. The old look backward: the young look forward. The old have become hardened, inured to things and indifferent: to the young this is the greatest danger. The old are relics of the past; the young are the hopeful heirs of the future. To the former life is a lost game, to the latter it is a beautiful dream. The old stand with their backs to the rising sun, with their faces towards their graves; they belong to a dying world and—the pity of it!—they wouldshape the destinies of those who belong to the glorious future; they would make the children prematurely wise and deprive them of most of the fun in life and all the benefits that come from folly, error and indiscretion. Age would convince youth that life is real and earnest and a practical business—which is not true in the case of youth—and should not be. There is constant disagreement, or agreement—which is often worse, for it implies submission of the weaker party. The freedom of the young is ever curtailed. The home is often their prison. Youth and age is a bad match, and that's the disadvantage of home. See this moonlight: it is beautiful, is it not? But a flower must have sunshine in which to bloom. All respect for age: but youth must have freedom.
"I hope this is not true of many phases of life; but I am thinking now of a condition in the Ghetto that creates appalling misery, a condition that makes the home a most desirable place—to run away from. Between the Jewish children, who have acquired their uplifting education here in American schools and their parents, who have brought their ignorance and fanaticism over from Russia—where the despotism of the throne and the tyranny of the Torah have united in making the densest, darkest Ghettos—between these children and parents there is a difference in time and progress of several hundred years. I would like to pause here and tell you about the Jewish religion—how it has enlightened the world and darkened the life of the Jews, victims of fatalfanaticism; how the world has accepted the spirit of Judaism in various forms and to its benefit, and the Jews have remained bound by a thousand rigid rituals, iron precepts, meaningless stuff about 'pots and pans,' to their awful detriment—how they persecuted themselves when they could get no Christian nation to do it for them—but there's no time to talk about these things now; besides, I want to get back to the home. So many things occur to me and I do not know what to say first. Write about it? Perhaps, some day. It may be that I, too, have been cursed to live by the sweat of my pen, but oh—I hate to write. Besides, what's the use? It is too late to convert my people to Judaism, now.
"But what I mentioned before shows a pronounced phase of misunderstanding, estrangement and division between children and parents, also a good illustration of the bad, narrow, uncongenial home.
"Under any circumstances the old and the young are out of joint; but here the clashing of interests is so accentuated that the condition is heart-tearing. There are parents, crude, careless, callous, often essentially material, mercenary, miserly, whose only mental occupation is their blind, outlived fatalistic faith; they are Russian products, and they cannot follow, cannot comprehend their Americanized, intelligent, idealistic and aspiring boys and girls; they follow them, but blindly, praise or blame indiscriminately; they cannot appreciate the many and noble longings of these youths. No sympathy and thehome stiflingly small. Yes, they love each other, if there can be any love without respect and understanding. These bright boys and girls that you meet in the Ghetto, and who do so much towards the education of slum students and settlement workers—they are what they are, not because, but rather in spite of, their parents. They struggle and strive upward alone and unaided, and also act as missionaries of civilization in their homes. They beautify their little rooms with pictures and books and trifles of art, and they play sweet music—but what is the use, I ask you, of a thought, a work of art, a poem, a piece of music, if you cannot share it with those who are near and, somehow, are dear to you. What is the use of these things if you cannot share them with some one? And what is to be done when there is no response at home? These children are so lonely in their sorrows and in their joys, and the home is so compressed, so 'kleinlich,' so 'eng' (only these German words can give my meaning). How terrible to see the grandeur of the universe and have no one to tell it to! How awful this yawning gulf in the Ghetto! If I say harsh and bitter things it is because I have looked into it and seen an appalling spectacle of crushed hearts, broken spirits, blighted hopes, ruined lives, thwarted beings and stifled souls. I have looked into the gulf, and this is why I want to jest about the holiest things in the world.
"But speaking generally, home is a dangerous place, and he was a wise sea captain who bribed his son—clandestinely gave him $50—to run away from home. While away the youth will come in contact with realities, learn what the world is, what it demands, and finally become big enough to build his own home. Or, he will come back to be, at last, understood and respected. But let him go forth. He will find everywhere pie that will give him dyspepsia as badly as that which mother used to make.
"As it is, the home covers a multitude of sins. It is very faulty, and, above all, it lacks perspective. The persons within it are not seen in the proper light. They are either underestimated or overjudged. Home is either a mutual admiration, or a mutual mutilation, society. Close as the home is there is ever plenty of room for prejudice and illusion. The lights in which things are seen are artificial—and so are the subjects. If the child is a mediocrity, has graduated at the head of his class and is a veritable phonograph for remembering facts, he is at once regarded as a genius and not a little time and effort is wasted on him, and he is sent forth to bore and prey upon an innocent world; but if he have real talent and show it before any one has had time to decide that he has it, his wings are clipped immediately and he is forthwith cast down and discouraged. But there is always enough appreciation of talent to discover a mediocrity. Home is the nest of nefarious nepotism, and between that and disparaging prejudice, countless youths go to the devil. The home judgments as tocapacities, aptitudes and abilities are tremendous. If a boy is color-blind, he is born to be a painter; if he has no sense of proportion, why architecture is his sphere; if he stammers, he is placed upon a chair, made to recite pieces, and hailed as the coming orator; if he is a little bit hard of hearing, they dedicate his life to music; if he has absolutely no imagination, they say history is his field; they try to make a lawyer of him when he has a wonderful proclivity for telling the truth, a merchant when he has a fine sense of honesty—and, by heaven, they want to make a minister of a fellow who has a sense of humor! One must leave home to find what he can do; and then do it; and then come back and do what one can for the education and welfare of his parents. Leave your home that you may suffer hardships and learn, and then come back to cheer the old folks up. Forgive them for what they have done to you with their sincerity and devotion—and build your own home. But run away for awhile if you would grow. It is too narrow and the atmosphere is not healthy. There is ever disparagement, disagreement and fatal favoritism. No son ever walked in the ways of his father; no father ever wanted him to do otherwise. There is always someone at home who knows what is best for you, only you don't want to mind. But, oh, the tyranny of tears, the despotism of tender words, and the fearful sincerity of the intentions to do you good! All inquisitors have been sincere. There is no need of arguing that there is something radically wrongwith the average home. Conditions prove it. We are, most of us, running away from home to get acquainted with things as they are—running away to the tune of 'Home, Sweet Home.' Even as we hum the sweet melody, we go forth into life to get some education, make our fortunes, and build our own homes. Do you remember 'Die Heimath,' and how Magda is tortured by home and loving parents? It's the same argument that Sudermann presented in this play, and again, in 'Die Ehre,' he showed us phases of the home."
There was silence for a space, and then Keidansky continued: "Homes of a thousand tender memories clustering from the cradle up through all the paths of life; homes of kind deeds and unforgotten words; homes wherein love and freedom are wedded, wherein the most beautiful dreams are born; homes wherein folks look into each other's eyes and understand, wherein there are no clouds of suspicion and misunderstanding, and each one is taken at his worth; homes unblighted by cold wisdom, wherein the old are young and the young are old—I have heard—I have read—of such homes."
The pale moonlight streamed into the open window of the attic. The disorderly piles of books, heaps of old papers and magazines, the queer little pictures about the walls, the small table with a confusion of all things mentionable upon it—all these presented a strange picture in this dimness. Keidansky sat on his bed, his head leaning against the inclined ceiling.
It was this sense of home and comfort that prompted his remarks on the subject. In the dusk the faces in the little pictures seemed to listen attentively and change expression as he talked so fervidly. I sat in the only chair in the room—thinking, wondering. I felt pensive.
"An extreme view, eh?" my friend asked after awhile, and he answered: "Perhaps it is.
"And that reminds me," he added, "that you once said that my apparent mission in life is to throw stones. Well, granting that it is, who shall say that my task is not as important as any?"
And I, drowsily, absently, also asked, "Who shall say?"
They were telling stories of Motke Chabad, the jester, who many years ago lived, moved and had his joke on everybody in the city of Wilna, where he was well known (but not so well liked) as the troublesome town clown. After nearly everybody in one group at Zarling's had contributed a Chabad yarn to the general entertainment, the question arose as to whether there ever really existed such a personage as the redoubtable Motke. He had said and done so many impossible things that it became a matter of wonder whether he had said and done them at all. So daring were his utterances, so strange his adventures, his queer pranks so preposterous, that he was considered by some to be an imaginary character. He possessed those vices of individuality which art raises to the dignity of virtues. He had become a tradition, and so a matter of doubt and speculation. This last was clear at our discussion. The poet suggested that, whether Motke ever existed or not, he was certainly a great humorist. But even this did not satisfy us. We were bent upon investigation. The medical student made a motion that we ask Zarling, who is a native of Wilna and at least has known some one who knew Chabad; but here Keidansky protested. "Do not ask any one," he said, "who has known, orknown of, him closely; his description would be too familiar, intimate, personal, and it would mar and discolor the halo that tradition had cast about him. No, do not ask the Czar, for he knows too much about him and those who were near our hero never understood his significance. You must have perspective to see the picturesque, even as you must be a poet to see that which does not exist. It is only for the blind that an eye-witness can write history. Artistically speaking, the closer you get to life the less you know about it. Realism fails because it takes the existence of reality for granted. Because it becomes systematic and too sure of its subject. Those who have known, those who have touched elbows with Chabad or his brother's grandchildren, will be accurate, but not truthful. To describe a person truly, one must include all its infinite possibilities of failure or success—what he might have been, what he longed to be, what he could not be with his given conditions, what he was not, what he was believed to be, etc., and he who has decided all about the exact measure of a person cannot fathom his possibilities. We are all so sure of the conditions of contemporary life that it will take a succeeding generation to know all about it.
"And I am not trying to hinder the work of this investigation, because it may prove the non-existence of Chabad. That would not matter in the least, for the anecdotes and tales that are being circulated in his name, and his storied misadventures andgloried misdeeds create him in fancy and he exists in imagination—which is all that is necessary for one desiring to point out the benign and malignant work of the scoffer. But he did exist, so we are told by those who have known some one who knew him intimately. He did exist, because, while we have superfluous virtues to attribute to all sorts of saints who did live, we have not a superfluity of humor to ascribe to one who has never been. Some one must have given birth to these things which we can all admire but could not create. Some one must have been witty enough to think these things, and reckless enough to say them. We all have the convictions, but he had the courage, and that was long ago.
"He did exist, this beggar, braggart, buffoon, town-gossip, dealer in wind and old clothes, match-maker, man of all occupations and no means of existence, practical joker and general jester of the Ghetto of Wilna; for such he was and as such he did his good work. He was an outcast, and as such he ministered to the sanity of society that hath cast him out, and kept it from going to the extremes of stupidity. For so it is; the outcast reduces respectability to the ridiculous; the criminal points to the futility of the law; the rascal shows the relativity of right; the infidel reforms and enlarges our religion; the enemy of order advances our progress; the earthly materialist proves the baselessness of all our idealisms; the ascetic demonstrates the stupidity of excess; theprohibitionist drives us to drink; the strongest accusation convicts the accuser; the plaint of the pessimist makes life interesting; the tyrant gives the greatest lesson in freedom; men write books to prove what fools they are, and the jester suggests what a tragic farce it all is. So many efforts in life, life itself defeats its own purpose. It is the undesired that happens. Help comes not from heaven because we expect it from that source. They who break laws to suit their own convenience make larger laws for the welfare of society. I told you before that the outcasts of society are often its saviors.
"Now be in order, gentlemen. I have the floor this time. This is my chance to get killed. Not to the point? But there are many points to this, and if I have deviated from one I was only getting so much nearer the other. I was trying to show what good this scoffer and sycophant has done, and to point out the value of the jest. God created the world and he saw what he was 'up against,' so he smiled, and thus humor was born. After awhile the divine flashlights from on high began to play hide-and-seek in the unlit chambers of the human brain; men became possessed of the sense of humor, and this was the awakening and dawn of civilization. The lightnings of the mind which suddenly reveal the multitudinous contradictions of life, the mental illuminations which cause the immediate recognition of the incongruous, the flash which makes you see all in a moment, the wide view which makes the universe as small as thelantern in your hand, the whimsicality of thought forever creating unsuspected analogies and unexpected comparisons, the sense of proportion which reduces all things to what they are, or should be, truth seen through the falsehoods, the sureties discovered through the absurdities, the exactness of things measured through their exaggerations, miracles of instantaneous reasoning and feats of ingenious deductions, the intellectual rapid transit between the sublime and the ridiculous, which keeps you from going to either extreme, the magic charm which keeps you above the abysses of the stupid, small and great, the bright footlights to the tragedy of life—such, in brief, is humor. And what else is there that is so powerful to prevent extravagances, to check excesses, to arrest all sorts of frenzies, to curtail abnormal credulity, to sober all kinds of intoxications? In the Ghetto, as everywhere else, humor is the saving presence; it makes existence tolerable, and preserves the sanity of the little journey to the grave. It was dark and dismal and dreary and dingy in the Russian Ghettos, and life had the color of last year's snow, and it all seemed like a funeral procession in a sultry, rainy weather; from without we were harassed by our enemies; from within we were harried by our friends, our guardians of sacred law and traditional superstition; it was sad and sorrowful, and so we jested. God sent us some sunshine in the form of such scoffers and outcasts as Motke Chabad, and we laughed. We laughed and forgot to weep. Humoris essentially pathetic, but the absence of it is tragic. Did we not laugh a little we could not have lived. Humor, my friends, is the redeeming grace. If you have ever been very serious in life, why, you can laugh it down. What shall we do to be saved? Cultivate a sense of humor.
"How could we have lived it through without a Chabad? With a smug, smooth, sullen, soulless respectability that moves along the lines of least daring and most obedience, that cannot do any good because it must fulfil theTaryag Mitzves—the 313 precepts—that commit all sorts of prescribed follies on earth to be admitted into heaven, that divides its time between praying in the synagogue three times a day and preying upon its less fortunate neighbors the rest of the time, with a mob of skull-capped numskulls that did not think because its mind was made up—has been made up for it centuries ago—a crowd that would not move an inch because, as is insisted, 'the hell that was good enough for our fathers, is good enough for us'—with a class of good people like that, how should we have fared if we had not had a Motke to chastise it with his jests and jeers and sneers and arrows of scorn? He laughed with the lowly and for them; he was on the side of reason as against precept; he stood for natural needs as against supernatural suppositions; he was one of the under-dogs, but he barked loudly for their cause, and his service shall not be forgotten as long as we have a sense of humour left—as long as we arehuman! Crude were his jests, and clownish most of his jokes; did he have the talent of a Heine or Bürne, he could not be what they were without their possibilities; he was a rough-hewn, Ghetto-enclosed child of darkness, but he did his work in his own way, and the work told the story.
"God has spoiled his chosen people by choosing them. Many of them are stiff-necked, stubborn, reactionary; and they do countless things in the name that would not countenance it. As often as not the powers that be in Jewish communities are haughty, proud, unjustly aggressive, and they prey upon and oppress the humbler children of Israel. It is well that there should ever be some one constantly to criticise, castigate, scold, and Carlyle these powers that be and guard and interpret the law. So, in a sense, every good Jew should be an anti-Semite. He should beware of the abuses of organized bureaucracy by leaders of the community. He should be opposed to the inimical doings of the united many. United action is seldom good action. The individual should look out for the crowd. In organization, every one gives up part of his soul, and so even organized religions are soulless. So let the good Jew keep an eye on what the leaders in Judaism are doing, and to make sure that he is right, let him put his ear to the ground and listen to the voice of the rejected prophet and blasphemous jester.
"Many stories of Chabad have been told, but a few things may be mentioned to help me out of my poorplight, to illustrate my meaning. Thus, once upon a stormy day, when the rain and thunder and lightning became fearful and awesome, Motke was seen running through a street of Wilna, at his greatest possible speed, frantically waving his hands. A few Jews witnessing this, and overtaking him, stopped him, demanding what the trouble was. 'Such terrible thunder and lightning,' said he, all out of breath; 'I fear me that the Almighty is about to give us a new Law!' Here is a blessed bit of blasphemy which strikingly voices the protest of a law-entangled, ritual-ridden, tradition-tied people against the grinding yoke of the Torah. There is a story by another Ghetto jester, driving at the same evil. There came a time once—so the story runs—when the children of Israel became weary of this heavy yoke, when they could no longer live up to the laws forced upon them amid the dramatic effects of Sinai, when they could no longer bear all the sufferings and persecutions that living up to these laws entailed, and they prayed to God that they might be delivered from the Law, that they might be permitted to return to him the Tables of Stone; and the Uppermost consented to take it all back; and so, upon a day, the Jews from all corners of the earth started on a journey toward Mount Sinai, with heavy-laden trains and ships and caravans of scrolls and Biblical Commentaries. They came from all parts of the world—from East and West, North and South, from the Occident and the Orient; there were allmanner of Jews, and they came by all means of transportation, but they all labored painfully under their tremendous loads, which they brought to be returned. At Sinai, they were to give up their burdens. Arrived there, they piled up their great packs of 'precept upon precept' around the holy elevation, until their luggage formed a mountain larger than Sinai. When the Uppermost appeared in his invisible, yet blinding glory, he asked for the meaning of this huge mountain of books, and the Jews, with their faces to the ground, cried, 'It is the Law. Take it, O Lord.' The Lord—so runs the story—was astonished at this, and he told the chosen people that only ten simple rules of living had been given to them at Sinai. He knew nothing of all these volumes. These multitudes of laws and endless commentaries were of men's making, not of his giving. They were empty vaporings of idle brains. He refused to take the Law back in its present form. So the Jews journeyed to their respective homes in all parts of the world, wiser, if not relieved of their burdens. I was irresistibly reminded of this story, and could not help telling it. It is the product of a far more subtle brain than Chabad's was. I do not remember the name of the author now, but he and Chabad unwittingly worked for the same cause."
A boisterous group of "dancing-school fellows," as "the intellectuals" called them, entered the place, demanding, at the point of their pay, something toeat. Keidansky's audience became restless. But he persistently kept on, despite all kinds of interruptions.
"Religion, as you all know, is the absence of the sense of humor," he said. "It goes to all sorts of absurd extremes. Its tower commands but one view of life, and that view is marred by emotion. When faith is not blind, it is, at least, short-sighted. The loyal member of the sect is not a seer. Enthusiasts are painfully one-sided. They see, or rather they feel, but one side. All their glances are on one thing. So we need the man with humor, who can see all things in one glance. The jester is the wide-eyed, all-observing fellow. He is the many-sided, much-seeing man. The sense of humor is the true sense of proportion, and it has been rightly urged that only the humorists have perceived and painted life as it is. Only they have presented life in all its largeness. Of course, the humorists, who merely chose to jest and not write great tragedies, did not do such things, but they were ever great reformers. The man who laughs can be deeply religious without being a pietist: he can be deeply religious, yet behave decently; his existence is a sure cure for hysteria. He infuses a little reason into things which prevents the sublime from becoming ridiculous.
"A maggid, or preacher, once announced that he had written a new commentary upon the 'Hagadah.' 'What!' everybody asked, 'are there not enough commentaries already in existence?' 'Yes,' saidChabad, 'but he cannot make a living out of those.' At a wedding of the Jewish aristocracy of Wilna, where wealth was flaunted pompously, Motke was asked to say something funny. 'All the rich men of Wilna ought to be hanged,' he said. The wealthy guests were scandalized. 'Wherein is the joke?' they asked. 'It is no joke,' said Motke.
"In the synagogue students of the Talmud were disputing a point concerning the use or rejection of an egg 'with a blood-drop' in it—a point to which so many pages of the holy books are devoted. 'Why don't you throw the rotten egg out?' said Motke, who stood near. 'What's the use of wasting so much time?'
"Once, it is told, when all his resources were at an end, Chabad went to the burial committee of the town, told the members that his wife had died and asked for the means of performing the last rites and ceremonies. He accordingly secured a few roubles, and when the committee-men and their officials came to take charge of the body, they found Motke, his wife and children, at their table enjoying a bountiful feast of roasted goose and things.
"'Gentlemen,' exclaimed the master of the household, 'you will have her; I swear to you, you will have her. She is yours; it is only a question of time.'
"'Fare thee well,' said Motke one day to a rich merchant. 'I am going away, and all I want of you is a few roubles for expenses.' His request was refused. 'Then I am not going,' he announced, 'and youneed not fare well.' Chabad was also a match-maker, and his humor made him the best caricature of the institution. Thus once he came to a young man to speak of a match with a certain young woman. 'Oh, but she is lame,' protested the young man. 'Yes,' Chabad admitted, 'but that will keep her home, and prevent her from going out too much.' 'But she is blind,' the young man argued. 'So much the better,' said theshadchen; 'she will not see you flirting with other women.' 'She is also deaf,' insisted the youth. 'That is certainly fortunate,' was the reply; 'you will be able to say what you please in the house.' 'But she is also dumb,' pleaded the victim. 'Still better,' Motke assured him. 'There will always be quiet and peace in your home.' 'But she is also humpbacked!' the young man cried out in anger. 'Well, well,' said Chabad, 'do you expect her to be without a single fault?' Now I am almost ready for the maledictions," said Keidansky, as he was nearing the close of his argument, but I was suddenly called away.
One day when I made a perilous ascent to Keidansky's garret, barely escaping harm through boxes and barrels and darkness and things in the way, I found him hard at work on an article—this time in the English language—on "What Constitutes the Jew?" A kind and interested editor to whom I had the honor of introducing him, asked my discovery to write on the subject, and pleased with the suggestion he took it up. He motioned to an up-turned coal scuttle for a seat as I entered, and bade me take a Jewish paper and be quiet. While I waited he finished his essay. "I haven't any time to talk to you," he said, looking disconsolate and running his long fingers through his curly black hair: "I want to read you this thing I've just scribbled. There he goes again—" he broke off in despair, as the old man in the next attic began to chant the Psalms. "But I shall read louder than he does," said Keidansky, "I pay rent here—sometimes—and King David, the fruit vendor, in there, sha'n't put me down." I listened, and he read as follows:
"And after we have read about him in the comic weeklies, have seen him delineated in popular works of fiction, have observed him caricatured in various publications, have beheld him portrayed on thevaudeville stage and have heard from the slum student of the Ghetto; after we have visited a few money lenders—on important business—have heard our minister talk patronizingly of him, telling pityingly of how he hath a great past and possessed more than a few commendable qualities, and of how he was, alas! doomed to damnation because he would not accept the religion that he hath given to the world; after we have bought clothing in one of his stores, taken a personal peep at the Ghetto, met a reformed rabbi, conversed with a distant descendant of his people, read the polite charges of his friend, the anti-Semite, and gone down and made beautiful speeches before him prior to the election; I say even after we have done these things, or some of these things have happened to us, we must still ask the question: What constitutes the Jew?
"For, of a verity, he is so complex in his character, so heterogeneous in his general composition, so diverse in his activities, so many sided in his worldly and heavenly pursuits, so widely varying in his appearance, so wonderfully ubiquitous, and withal such a living contradiction, that even after we have made the above painful efforts to understand him, we are still at a loss to know—what we know about him.
"He represents one of the ancient races and yet is as up to date as any; he reaches deepest into the past and looks furthest into the future; he is the narrowest conservative and the most advanced radical; in religion he is the most dogmatic, sectarian,stationary, orthodox, and also the most liberal and universal reformer; he is a member of the feeblest and strongest people on earth; he has no land of his own and he owns many lands; his wealth is the talk and the envy of the world, and none is so poor as he; his riches have ever been magnified and exaggerated, his dire poverty ever overlooked. 'As poor as a Jew' would be a truer simile than the one now in use. He is the infamous Shylock, the money-lender, yet he borrows as much and more money than he lends to others, only he pays his debts and so there is no talk about it; Christians and others who borrow from him go to court, denounce him, call him Shylock, and give him several pounds of 'tongue,' though he asks not for flesh, because it is not 'kosher,' and because whatever he is he is never cruel. Come to think of it, what a fine thing the Shylock story has ever been for those who did not want to pay their debts!
"He loans money to kings, and the kings oppress the Jews; he is the great concentrator of wealth, and he is the Socialist and Anarchist working ardently for the abolition of the private ownership of wealth; he is eminently practical, and is ever among the world-forgetting dreamers, 'the great host of impracticables'; he has no fine arts of his own, and he carries off the highest prizes for his glorious contribution to the arts of the nations. Now he is exclusively confined to his own Hebrew, religious lore, believing that beyond it there are no heights to scale, no depthsto fathom, and then he becomes a Georg Brandes, a great interpreter of the literatures of the world; his own literature is so Puritanical, so religious and chaste that there is hardly a single love song to be found therein, and then comes a Heinrich Heine. He is the slave of traditions and the first to break them; persecute him and he will die for the religion of his fathers; give him freedom and he will pity them for their crude conceptions and applaud Ingersoll; he is intensely religious and the rankest infidel; he condemns the theatre as being immoral, and he is the first to hail Ibsen and applaud him, even on the Yiddish stage; there is no one so clannish and so cosmopolitan as he is, and these contrasts can be multiplied to the abuse of time and space.
"If, then, he is everything and to be found anywhere, to be seen in all sorts of circumstances, in all walks of life and walking in so many diverse ways, making his way in such strongly contrasting conditions, how shall we know him? How shall we know what constitutes the Jew? He does not always abide in the Ghetto, and, things are coming to such a pass, that he rarely has the old Ghetto appearance. I suppose if our dear Mr. Zangwill had his own way he would fill the world with Ghettos. He could use them in his business. But perhaps the time is drawing nigh when we must have the books of Mr. Zangwill and other works of such excellence to preserve the most picturesque life of a unique people and save it from oblivion. The Ghetto walls are falling, falling.
"Old-fashioned folk, like other things, go out of fashion. The old-style long garb, the 'capota,' will take itself away after the toga, and such is the awful power of civilization that even the time-honored skull-caps of the men and the wigs of the women are vanishing before it. Time, with its scythe, cuts down even the curling sidelocks and the long beards dear to tradition. Up-to-date fashion is a democratic tyrant, an expansionist invading and permeating all places and peoples. So we cannot count on these externals. Physiognomy is another thing by which to be misguided. Other outer details may help us as much as medicine can help the dead—or the living, for that matter. Then there are names. What's in a name? An opportunity for misunderstanding. One cannot even know himself by his name. All these artificial designations do not designate.
"What, then, are the telling traits, the conspicuous characteristics by which the typical, representative Jew may be known? Now I am blissfully ignorant of anthropology, and could not analyze scientifically, even at the risk of being destroyed critically. But through a certain accident—an accident of birth—I may be enabled to make a few suggestions, which I will offer with all due and undue apologies, of course.
"First and foremost I should mention his wonderful versatility; he is the most versatile actor in this play called life. He has acquired this versatility throughout his wanderings, sufferings, trials andtribulations, and, together with his prodigious adaptability, it constitutes the secret of his survival. Originally a being of the highest talent with the radiant glow of the Orient upon his brow, he had walked through the histories of many nations, and being persecuted by all peoples who recognized his talent, he received a most liberal education in the school of sorrow. Thus his abilities were cultivated and he learned to adapt himself easily to all circumstances and to create his own little world wherever he pitched his tent.
"Mentally alert, keen of comprehension, quick to grasp any situation, almost too shrewd to be wise, practical to the detriment of his high ideals, calm, careful, cautious, calculating, hopeful in the face of despair, optimistic to a discouraging degree, often too regular and respectable to become great; intensely individualistic, proud of his past, anxious about the future, ever devoted to his cause, self-appreciatory, at times too sure of his capabilities, confident in the ultimate decency of things, deeply in love with life—these are among the qualities that may be attributed to the Jew.
"His isolated, peculiar and purely religious life, 'the spiritual Palestine' which he has carried along with him in his wanderings through the darkness and cold of the Ghettos, has under all circumstances and in all hazards preserved those fine domestic and social qualities for which he is noted. What can now be said about his domesticity, his love of home andcare of family; his sobriety, thrift, peacefulness and good deportment, the readiness with which he cares for his poor, his public spirit in the interests of his community—wherever that may be—his unequalled kindness; what can now be said about these things would be mere repetition; but these are nevertheless some of the undisputed qualities which constitute the Jew. Believing himself chosen of God, he has strong faith in the part he plays, the work he does, and the mission he is to perform with his being. And like others who have much faith in themselves, he has abundance of conceit. But let us not call it that. 'Sublime egotism' sounds so much better, and besides, the line of demarcation between the two is so fine that it does not exist. The Jew is strongly individualistic in his social tendencies, and for that reason often so progressive. He dares to deviate from the trodden path. He is not always in harmony with the rest of his community in which there is from time to time much discord—discord that sometimes amounts to war. Thus the persecution of the Jews often begins at home. His receptive mental attitude often brings him into the ranks of the most radical, despite his traditions, which would hold him back.