The Maccabaean

(Conclusion.)

AND what is the status of the science of Judaism at the present time? In comparison with its condition during the "stress and storm" period, it is but an echo, a voice from beyond the tomb. It has resolved itself into incidental issues, which merely range alongside of, but do not merge into, one another. The great leading spirits have departed; indeed, Jewish learning, among some rabbis of Western Europe, has reached an alarmingly low level. A science concerning itself only with antiquities and not with real life subjects, smacks somewhat of archæology. The literature of fiction and drama, become one-sided and modeling itself upon homiletic patterns, has degenerated into absurd sentimentality. In order to gain originality and freshness, the science of Judaism must again be nationalized. In this very nationalization lies the kernel of the differences that exist between national Jews and "professors of Judaism;" and nationalization is the milestone at which the Jewish nation has arrived on the road to an assured physical and spiritual existence. "Judaism" and "the science of Judaism" have significance and a reason for existing only so long as their roots lie in the soil of nationality. This is the real issue at stake; all the flourishes of rhetoric, all the artifices of polemics cannot conceal the fact. Exactly because it is true that Judaism is the living subject of the "science of Judaism"—a truth acknowledged by the older representatives of the science, though in opposition to their avowed program—because of this very truth, I say, the science of Judaism must be welded with Jewish life. If, as some main-

tained for a time, it were a question of investigating, weighing, and sifting old principles, the science of Judaism would decline into dry and wearisome archæology. But what our predecessors called Judaism is really a Jewish nationality. To please them, to make true their theory, the Jewish nation did not cease to exist. Judaism does not and cannot exist without a Jewish nation. For this reason, the founders of the science of Judaism who were not far removed from the Beth ha-Midrash, and had not withdrawn themselves from the people, achieved excellent results. For this reason the first works in the literature of fiction and the drama had their origin in nationalistic ideas and customs.

The cultivation of the science of Judaism unconsciously implied the idea of self-preservation, of nationality. As emancipation preceded national liberation, so the sentimental enthusiasm for Judaism was a preparatory stage for national unity. It must not be thought that I have in mind a party science, a science of Zionism or assimilation; I simply maintain that a science of Judaism should not dissect Judaism like a monstrosity, but must embrace the Jewish nation in its entirety, in all that it has created and still creates. The countless catechisms and Hebrew primers in existence are purposeless. Unless Hebrew is learnt from Hebrew books nothing is learnt. Jewish history, too, must be studied at its natural sources from Hebrew documents. The lay figures of history are animated only by the breath of national idea. It is impossible to give in translation the essential spirit of a work; but if translations are made, at least they should