Читать книгу A Book of Jewish Thoughts - Various - Страница 29

Table of Contents

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.