American Rabbi and American Judaism
REV. DR. S. N. DEINARD.
FROM a report submitted by the new President of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati, Dr. K. Kohler, to the Board of Governors of the college, I cull the following statement:
"In place of Neo-Hebraic, a language used by those Jews who have not fully imbibed or identified themselves with our modern occidental civilization, I have introduced instruction in the Midrashic literature—a branch of study of far greater benefit to the future American rabbi and preacher than any other part of rabbinical literature."
And so the future American rabbis and preachers are to have no knowledge whatsoever of Neo-Hebraic, and consequently of the literature of the last hundred years written in this tabooed language. We are told that this language is "used by those Jews who have not fully imbibed or identified themselves with our modern Occidental civilization." Shades of Krochmal, Rappaport, Luzzatto, T. H. Weiss, T. B. Levinsohn, Reifman, Erter, M. A. Ginzburg, Mappu, Smolensky, Gordon! What a lot of oriental barbarians these men must have been, to have written their noble thoughts in Neo-Hebraic! Be that as it may, the Neo-Hebraic literature is the national literature of the Jews, par excellence, reflecting Jewish life, Jewish hopes, aspirations and ideals of a certain period of Jewish history, just as the rabbinic and Midrashic literature is the embodiment of the Jewish soul of another period. But since the future American rabbis and preachers are to have the leaders of Jewish communities that have, or shall have, no national Jewish consciousness any more, of
what use is a knowledge of Jewish literature written in the national language to them? A knowledge of Midrash will furnish the young rabbi with some appropriate quotations, illustrations, and legends, a few historical data, references, and allusions, here and there; and this certainly is of some value. So far, so good; and the new President is certainly right and logical in his new move.
But now let us go one step further. The young rabbi in his discourse to his Jewish-American congregation will introduce an apt quotation or illustration from Midrash Rabbah. To his auditors the Midrash Rabbah is just as much a terra incognita as Krochmal’s Moreh Nevukhe Hazzeman. They will naturally ask themselves: “Why in the world does our preacher quote to us from this obscure authority, the old Rabbi Midrash? Car- Iyle, Emerson, and Ruskin, Browning and Tennyson, are better authorities and safer guides for modern liberal religionists.” The young rabbi, of course, will not believe that the Midrash contains revelations, profound truths not found anywhere else, even if, in truth, a few pearls are scattered in it,here and there. In the Jewish national literature the Midrashic branch of it occupies its proper place. It belongs to Jewish homiletics, and may be placed on the shelf alongside of the Dubner Maggid’s works. But why should the Jewish-American rabbi be interested in the Tanhuma more than in the Ohel Yaakov? There is some excuse for his study of the Bible. It is a part of the world’s literature. But the Midrash? What has American Judaism to do with the Jewish Orientalism of the Midrash ?
Well, but the Midrash is a part of the