In League with Israel Part 17

CHAPTER XI.

"YOM KIPPUR."

THE morning after the first meeting of the Hebrew cla.s.s at Rabbi Barthold's, Frank Marion came into the office.

"Herschel," he said, "when do you have your Day of Atonement services?

Is it this week or next? Rabbi Barthold invited us to attend, but I am not sure about the date. He is going to preach a series of sermons that are to set forth the views now held by the Reform school, and Cragmore and I are anxious to hear them."

"It is the week after this," said David, consulting the calendar.

"Then I can arrange to get in from my trip in time for the Friday night service."

"What do you think of Rabbi Barthold?" asked David. "Isn't he a magnificent old fellow?"

Marion stroked his mustache thoughtfully. "Well," he said after some deliberation, "I hardly know where to place him. He doesn't belong to this age. If I believed in the transmigration of souls, I should say that some old Levite, whose life-work had been to keep the Temple lamps perpetually burning, had strayed back to earth again.

"That seems to be his mission now. He is trying to rekindle the pride and zeal and hope of an ancient day. Excuse me for saying it, Herschel, but there are few in his congregation who understand him. Their vision is so obscured by this dense fog of modern indifference that they fail to appreciate his aims. They are still in the outer courts, among the tables of the money-changers, and those who sell doves. They have never entered the inner sanctuary of a spiritual life. Their religion stops with the altar and the censer--the material things. Understand me," he said hastily, as David interrupted him, "I know there are a number you have in mind, who are loyally true to the spirit of Judaism, but they are few and far between. I am not speaking of them, but of the great ma.s.s of the congregation. I believe the services of the synagogue, and their religion itself, is only a form observed from a cold sense of duty, merely to avert the evil decree."

David drew himself up rather stiffly.

"And you are the disciple of the man who said, 'Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone!' What do you suppose the Jew has to say about the dead-heads in your Churches? What proportion of your members.h.i.+p has pa.s.sed beyond the tables of the money-changers? How many in your pews, who mumble the creed and wear the label 'Christian,' will be able at the pa.s.sages of G.o.d's Jordan to meet the challenge of his s.h.i.+bboleth?"

Marion laid his hand on David's shoulder. "You misunderstand me, my boy," he said. "I have no harsher denunciation for the indifferent Jew than for the indifferent Christian. G.o.d pity them both! I was simply drawing a contrast between Rabbi Barthold and his people, as it appears to me--a shepherd who longs to lead his flock up to the source of all living water; but they prefer to dispense with climbing the spiritual heights, jostle each other for the richest herbage of the lowlands, and are satisfied. You know that is so, David."

"Yes," admitted David, with a sigh. "He can not even arouse them to the necessity of teaching their children Hebrew, if they would perpetuate loyalty to its traditions."

David was about to repeat what the Rabbi had said the night he consented to take the Hebrew cla.s.s, but his pride checked him: "What are we coming to, my son? Protestantism is having a wonderful awakening in regard to the study of the Bible. Never has there been such a widespread interest in it as now. But among our people, how many of the younger generation make it a text-book of daily study? Such negligence will surely write its 'Ichabod' upon the future of our beloved Israel."

"What a discussion we have drifted into!" exclaimed Mr. Marion. "I had only intended dropping in here to ask you a simple question. Come to think, I believe I have not answered yours. You asked me my opinion of Rabbi Barthold. Well, I think he is a sincere, n.o.ble soul, a true seeker of the truth, and a man whose friends.h.i.+p I would value very highly."

Herschel looked much pleased.

"I hope you may be able to hear him on 'Yom Kippur,'" he said.

"I shall certainly try to be there," Marion answered.

As his footsteps died away in the hall, David said to himself: "If every Gentile were like that man, and every Jew like Uncle Ezra, what an ideal state of society there would be! But then," he added as an after-thought, "what would become of the lawyers? We would starve."

In the waning light of the afternoon, that Day of the Atonement, there was no more devout wors.h.i.+per in all the temple than George Cragmore. He had just finished reading a book of M. Leroy Beaulieu's, "Israel Among the Nations," and as he turned the leaves of the prayer-book some one handed him, he was impressed with the truth of this sentence which recurred to him:

"The Hebrew genius was confined to a narrow bed between two rocky walls, whence only the sky could be seen; but it channeled there a well so deep that the ages have not dried it up, and the nations of the four corners of the earth have come to slake their thirst at its waters."

It seemed to him that all that was purest, most heart-searching and sublime in the Old Covenant; all that time has proven most precious and comforting of its promises; all therein that best satisfies the human yearnings toward the Infinite, and gives wings to the G.o.d-instinct in man, might be found somewhere in the exquisite mosaic of this day's ritual.

Marion, concentrating his attention chiefly on the sermons, admired their scholarly style, and indorsed most of their substance, but he came away with a feeling of sadness.

It seemed so pitiful to him to see these people with their backs turned on the sacrifice a divine love had already provided, trying to make their own empty-handed atonement, simply by their penitent pleadings and good deeds.

Herschel's devotions were interfered with by a spirit of criticism heretofore unknown to him. His thoughts were so full of doubts that had been having an almost imperceptible growth that he could not enter into the service with his usual abandon. He was continually contrasting those around him with that never-to-be-forgotten gathering on Lookout, and the congregation in the tent.

What made them to differ? He could not tell, but he felt that something was lacking here that had made the other such a force.

Cragmore had not been able to attend the Friday night service, nor the one on the following morning. He came in just after the noon recess, and was ushered to a pew near the center of the room, where he immediately became absorbed in the ritual. He followed devoutly through the meditations and the silent devotions, and when they came to the responsive readings, his voice joined in as earnestly as any son of Abraham there.

The synagogue, with its modern trappings and fas.h.i.+onably-dressed congregation, seemed to disappear. He saw the old Temple take its place, with its solemn ceremonials of scapegoat and burnt-offering. Through the chanting of the choir in the gallery back of him he heard the thousand-voiced song of the Levites. He seemed to see the clouds of incense, and the smoke arising from the high brazen altar. He bowed his head on the seat in front of him. His whole soul seemed to go out in reverent adoration to this great Jehovah, wors.h.i.+ped by both Hebrew and Christian.

The memorial service to the dead followed the sermon.

Cragmore's music-loving nature responded like a quivering harp-string as the choir began a minor chant:

"Oh what is man, the child of dust?

What is man, O Lord?"

The low, moaning tones of the great organ rose and fell like the beat of a far-off tide, as all heads bowed in silent devotion, recalling in that moment the lives that had pa.s.sed out into the great beyond.

Cragmore whispered a fervent prayer of thankfulness for the unbroken family circle across the wide Atlantic.

As he did so, a breath of blossoming hawthorn hedges, a faint chiming of the Shandon bells, and the blue mists of the Kerry hills seemed to mingle a moment with his prayer.

The sun had set, when in the concluding service his eyes fell on the words the Rabbi was reading--The Mission of Israel--"It's a pity," he thought, "that every mentally cross-eyed Christian, who, between ignorance and bigotry, can get only a distorted impression of the Jews, couldn't have heard this service to-day, especially that prayer for all mankind, and this one he is reading now:

"'This twilight hour reminds us also of the eventide, when, according to Thy gracious promise, Thy light will arise over all the children of men, and Israel's spiritual descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heaven. Endow us, our Guardian, with strength and patience for our holy mission. Grant that all the children of Thy people may recognize the goal of our changeful career, so that they may exemplify, by their zeal and love for mankind, the truth of Israel's watchword: One humanity on earth, even as there is but one G.o.d in heaven. Enlighten all that call themselves by Thy name with the knowledge that the sanctuary of wood and stone, that erst crowned Zion's hill, was but a gate, through which Israel should step out into the world, to reconcile all mankind unto Thee! Thou alone knowest when this work of atonement shall be completed; when the day shall dawn in which the light of Thy truth, brighter than that of the visible sun, shall encircle the whole earth.

But surely that great day of universal reconciliation, so fervently prayed for, shall come, as surely as none of Thy words return empty, unless they have done that for which Thou didst send them. Then joy shall thrill all hearts, and from one end of the earth to the other shall echo the gladsome cry: Hear, O Israel, hear all mankind, the Eternal our G.o.d, the Eternal is One. Then myriads will make pilgrimage to Thy house, which shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, and from their lips shall sound in spiritual joy: Lord, open for us the gates of thy truth. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, for the King of glory shall come in.'"

And the choir chanting, replied:

"Who is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts--He is the King of glory."

There was a short prayer, then a benediction that made Cragmore and Marion look across the congregation at each other and smile. It was the Epworth benediction, with which the League was always dismissed:

"May the Lord bless thee, and keep thee. May the Lord let his countenance s.h.i.+ne upon thee, and be gracious unto thee! The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

The two men met each other at the door, and walked homeward together through the twilight.

Cragmore had found a boarding place. It was not far from the temple.

"Come up to my room," he said to Marion. "I see you still have Herschel's prayer-book with you. I want to compare the mission of Israel as given there with the one I was reading to-day of Leroy-Beaulieu's. I have never known before to-day what special hope they clung to. Come in and I will find the paragraph."

He lighted the gas in his room, pushed a chair over towards his guest, and, seating himself, began rapidly turning the leaves of the book.

"Here it is," he said, and he read as follows:

"Then at last Jewish faith, freed from all tribal spirit and purified of all national dross, will become the law of humanity. The world that jeered at the long suffering of Israel, will witness the fulfillment of prophecies delayed for twenty centuries by the blindness of the scribes, and the stubbornness of the rabbis. According to the words of the prophets, the nations will come to learn of Israel, and the people will hang to the skirts of her garments, crying, 'Let us go up together to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the Lord of Israel, that he may teach us to walk in his ways.' The true spiritual religion, for which the world has been sighing since Luther and Voltaire, will be imparted to it through Israel. To accomplish this, Israel needs but to discard her old practices, as in spring the oak shakes off the dead leaves of winter. The divine trust, the legacy of her prophets, which has been preserved intact beneath her heavy ritual, will be transmitted to the Gentiles by an Israel emanc.i.p.ated from all enslavement to form. Then only, after having infused the spirit of the Thora into the souls of all men, will Israel, her mission accomplished, be able to merge herself in the nations."