Judaism as Creed and Life

Morris Joseph

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000037647
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Jüdische Theologie

Originally published in its sixth edition in 1929, this volume was one of the first to have appeared in England which was written from a liberal standpoint. It gives a comprehensive account of Jewish belief and practice as conceived by those of moderate views. A significant part of the book covers Jewish ethics, and specifically their practical aspects as well as advice for Jewish teenagers of Confirmation age.

Book III

Moral Duties

Introductory

* Thus far we have spoken of the special obligations that devolve upon us as Israelites. But we cannot, it is clear, regard them as comprising the entire realm of duty. Every human being, however low in the scale of intelligence or civilisation, has a sense of responsibility, if not to himself, at least to others. If he has a religion, then he has also a sense of responsibility to a Higher Power. He feels bound by more or less defined obligations as a subject of the Divine King, as a child of the Divine Father. These obligations he shares, then, in common with all other religionists. They are distinct from the specific duties which are imposed upon him by his particular religion. Thus, as Jews, we owe God a certain attitude of mind resulting from our belief in Him as the Being who has entrusted our race with its sacred mission. We owe Him, for example, gratitude, homage, implicit obedience to the law He has laid upon us. But even if we were not Jews, we should still owe Him certain duties akin to these, and yet not identical with them—duties devolving upon us in our quality of human beings cherishing the religious idea.

Thus human obligation must have one of three objects— God, Oneself, One’s fellow-creatures. To these obligations we refer when we speak of moral duties, or, more shortly, of morality or ethics.

It is possible, however, for morality to exist without Religion. There are schemes of human duty, which leave belief in God altogether out of account. The code of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, the system of Gautama Buddha, the great Indian teacher, and, to come down to modem times, the Positivism of Auguste Comte, are examples. Nor do they lack imitations in our day. There are living teachers who declare that Duty can be efficiently enforced without appeal to what is called the religious “sanction,” and there is a large number of persons who agree with them. Many unquestionably good people in this country are trying to live their lives without Religion. But it is a dangerous experiment. All our experience goes to show that Religion exercises a powerful influence upon conduct. It is at once a curb and a spur. It tells us of God, of whose will righteousness is the fulfilment, and against whom wrong-doing is a sin, a base and ungrateful rebellion. It thus suggests a motive for goodness which a mere godless morality cannot supply. The God-fearing man has all the incentives to virtue that actuate the unbeliever. He has, namely, the sense of what is due to himself—due to his own dignity as a rational being, endowed with the capacity for noble thought and action—and also of what is due to his fellow- men, members with himself of the great human family. But, in addition, he has the consciousness of being a child of God, of being summoned to the good life not merely because it is good, because it is something seemly and beautiful in itself, but because it is the life that delights his Heavenly Father.

Here, then, we have one important point of difference between the morality of the believer and that of the unbeliever, or Agnostic as he often calls himself. The latter sees a brother in his fellow-man, the other has, in addition, a Father in God. And love for the father is ever a mighty impulse to brotherly love. The thought of their parent—his very memory—is often the only force that keeps the children true to each other. It is an exhortation to mutual loyalty that avails when the mere fact of brotherhood appeals no longer. Thus does the thought of God tend to strengthen and preserve the obligations imposed by human fellowship. Sympathy with suffering, for example, is a natural instinct of the human heart. It can assuredly exist independently of religious belief. But no less certain is it that the feeling is most potent when it is joined to religious belief, and is nourished by it. To think that the compassionate man wins the Divine smile, that he is a man after God’s own heart, is to have a mighty incentive to merciful deeds which the Agnostic must always lack.

¹ See above, p. 139.

² Lev. xix. 2.

But there is something else to be said. The religionist believes that goodness is a link between him and God ; that it is a fulfilment of the destiny assigned to him with his spiritual nature ; that, created in the Divine image, he is brought by every just and tender and loving deed nearer in being to Him who is his example. The thought of the Supreme as his ideal, an ideal which is ever inviting him to come nearer by the way of righteousness, is a powerful moral inspiration for which no adequate substitute can be found. It is set forth, as we have already seen,¹ in the memorable words : “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.”² Because God is holy, and because we are children of God, partakers of His immortal nature, therefore we will strive to be holy in our turn. And so all virtue becomes endowed with a deeper sanctity, a heightened beauty, an added virtuousness. Justice is lovely in itself, but it is lovelier still when its pursuit brings us into closer fellowship with God. We all have compassion for human misery, but the compassion becomes quicker, deeper, is transformed into a nobler self-surrender, when it has the Divine compassion for its example and its inspiration. This is the religious theory of ethics. And certainly thus far it has justified itself. The world’s great work of philanthropy has hitherto been mainly carried on by God-fearing men and women. They have given themselves with heroic self-sacrifice to the cause of humanity because, with their love for humanity, there has mingled in their hearts love and devotion to the Highest.

¹ Beza, 9 a.

Morality, then, gains in depth from the Religious idea. But it gains also in fulness. Duty towards Self—what we may call subjective morality—is enriched to an incalculable degree by the sanctions of Religion. The man who realises that his very nature links him to God, is necessarily characterised by special virtues. The soul is a precious possession which he must jealously cherish. No speck must mar its beauty. It must be given back to God unspotted as it was received. And so self-reverence issues in self-control, in temperance in its widest sense, in chastity, in purity of word and thought as well as of deed. The God-fearing man will be pure, to use the Rabbinic phrase,¹ in his inmost chamber, because, though hidden there from the gaze of man, he is still in the company of God, his Judge and his Ideal. His morality will not be moulded after the world’s narrow and shifting standards ; it will conform to the highest that is in himself ; it will seek to realise the vision he has seen in his best moments. It will be fashioned after the pattern shown to him on the Mount.

Again, the morality that is based upon Religion must necessarily have one department exclusively its own. It is that which comprises certain duties that have to be performed towards God, duties of which He is the special object. One example is the duty of prayer, with all the hope and trust and humility of which it is the expression, all the hallowing influence upon the daily life which issues from it. These are precious things which the unbeliever must...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface to First Edition
• Preface to Second Edition
• Preface to Third Edition
• Contents
• Hebrew Authorities
• Introduction
• Book I Beliefs
• Book II Ceremonial
• Book III Moral Duties
• Index