ly given their lives to protect Jewish homes.
I realize to the full that many will use and abuse these words; and will think them, as well as the sentiment that I was constrained to voice at the meeting on November the 7th, illiberal, ungenerous, narrow-minded, bigoted and intolerant. To such I present these adjectives for their more ready use. No ordinary occasion is forward now; it is not the moment for preaching the liberality of Jewish teaching, or of expending
the "dreary drip of dilatory declamation" over the love that we owe to our neighbors. Of course, we do; and we give that love quite freely when occasion demands. But what are we to do ourselves, for Israel? What are we to do, not simply to solace suffering and alleviate want, but to prevent suffering and want in the future?
Again the Hebrew prophet's cry comes to us: "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?"
The Torah and Religion
ISRAEL has been called the "People of the Book." More appropriately, perhaps, they might be called the "People of the Law;" for the Law and the Bible are not altogether identical. What the Bible is everyone knows; but the law of Torah is less or more according to what we understand by it. For centuries, the religion of the Jews has been regarded as the religion of precepts and ceremonials, and only too readily it has been accepted as a fact, that Judaism consists in little less than the mechanical observance of legally defined ordinances. The practice of the Jews in all countries prior to the age of Mendelssohn has tended to justify this charge; and even now there are thousands of Jews to whom the Law means nothing more than the codified enactments of the Mosaic and Mishnaic legislation.
So understood, the Law is less comprehensive than the Bible, and even
*Address delivered before the London Union of Literary Societies.
than the Pentateuch. For the Mosaic Books include far more than precepts relating to ceremonial observances or dietary laws. They proclaim to the world the essential principles of righteousness and religion, ideals of a moral life which, although closely connected with ceremonial religion, transcend the strictly legal observance of any definite code. But the "Law of the Lord" as understood by the "People of the Book" is more than this. It embraced the exhortations of the Prophets and Psalmists, and, later on, it was understood by Jews of post-Biblical times to include the Mishna and the Talmudic writings which interpret it.
It is not among the Jews that the meaning of the word "Law" has undergone various changes and has acquired a loose and somewhat undefined connotation. It may be assumed that law originated in custom, and that in many ancient civilizations, the customs, which had grown into laws, subsequently received a divine