THE JEWISH NEW YEAR
NEw YEARS Day! How strange it sounds to our ears thus early in the season! New Year’s Day observed by the most civilized nation of antiquity at a time and in a manner totally different from the entire world. For Israel is a strange nation, a problem to the most cultured. That a nation which gave the world its moral law, whose intellectual supremacy is not disputed, whose culture; is the culture of to-day and whose knowledge has been obtained in the halls of modern learning, should still revert to an ancient mode oı worship, should be willing to exchange without hesitation all the fruits of the Ocecident for the spirit of the Orient, is, indeed, a curious psychological problem to the modern mind. For the synagogue is the most Oriental of institutions. Its very atmosphere breathes the spirit of antiquity, of Israel’s remote past. It is no longer the modern Jew, the child of the twentieth century who sits there and prays, but the Hebrew of Moses, of the prophets, of the martyrs. The synagogue is more than a place of worship: it is the national repository of a culture of the past, the rallying centre of Israel’s woes and sufferings, joys and happiness; it is a vital link connecting the remote past with the present. It seems as if the burning bush of religious fervor first perceived by Moses still burns in the heart and mind of the Jewish race, .
It is characteristic of the genius of the. Jews that the ideal evolved by them mı the observance of their New Year’s Day should be one of strict accountability to God for the deeds of the past year. Hence the importance of the day. The orthodox Hebrew believes that on this day his deeds are judged, his actions weighed, his whole life is being reviewed by his Maker—and justice, stern justice is to be his measure. It is a day, therefore, of repentance, of a spiritual re-
generation. On this day, as his life passes before him, he is given the opportunity to renew his compact with his Creator, to lead a better and a purer life. Nor can the moral consequences of such an attitude be overestimated. It is this fear in the hearts of the less progressive, this ideal in the minds of the cultured Hebrews which gave the past and which is to mold the spiritual fibres of his being in the future. For to the Jew steeped in suffering life is a stern reality. His belief is his misdeeds; if he is punished it is because he has committed some crime in the eyes of his Creator. Israel's misdeeds! the errors, the crimes committed by him—these are the cornerstones of his religion and it is in overcoming them that his moral and spiritual life can be prolonged. And it is this constant effort towards perfection which constitutes at once the strength and the glory of the Hebrew race. Thus the world beholds a remarkable spectacle of a nation over three thousand years old, scattered in every corner of the globe, speaking diverse tongues, representing various cultures—yet united by one ideal—national past, reverencing one God, celebrating one holiday—the emblem of a new and a better life.
But if the Jewish religion crystallized in the observance of the New Year’s Day inculcates the principle of moral effort it also instils in the mind of the believer the ultimate reward of a just and an upright life. Optimism, boundless optimism, is the keynote of Judaism. Israel while abasing himself before his Maker, conscious of his shortcomings, reciting on his New Year’s Day his many errors, dwelling with invariable, almost melancholy, persistence on his disobedience to the commands of his God, is yet filled with the hope