Читать книгу A Book of Jewish Thoughts - Various - Страница 27

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Think of the meaning of that simple ceremony in our service when the Minister takes his stand before the Ark, and clasping the sacred scroll in his arms, proclaims the שמע, belief in the unity of One Eternal, Almighty God. This rite symbolizes the mission of Israel to the world: With the Law of God folded in his arms and its words engraved upon his heart, he has gone up and down the earth proclaiming his belief in the One Supreme Being—a Being whose spirit fills all time and all space, a Being never embodied, but made manifest to man in the glory of the creation and in His all-wise behests, which teach mercy, love, and justice. …

HERMANN ADLER, 1895.

A CLEAR and concise definition of Judaism7 is very difficult to give, for the reason that it is not a religion pure and simple based upon accepted creeds, but is one inseparably connected with the Jewish nation as the depositary and guardian of the truths held by it for mankind.

Far from having become 1,900 years ago a stagnant religion, Judaism has ever remained ‘a river of God full of living waters’, which, while running within the river-bed of a single nation, has continued to feed anew the great streams of human civilization.

K. KOHLER, 1904.