"I have a great deal of sympathy with the Zionists," he replied. "The movement is an exceedingly deserving one. These so-called dreamers are entitled to the respect and appreciation of the entire Jewish people."
"Do you believe in a Jewish mission; that is, do you agree with those who say that the Jews are a chosen people whose mission it is to preserve and spread their religion?"
“Yes,” he replied. “I believe further that the Jews can be just as much of a priest people to-day as they ever were in the prophetice days. T'heir mission is one that will endure forever. The Jewish prophet may struggle for truth and righteousness to-day just as the ancient prophets did. Nobody takes greater pride than I do in the success of the individual Jews. I mean success in the higher sense, not success that spells dollars. And the opportunity for Jewish success was never greater here than it is to-day. The Jews in America will be what they themselves decidee America has done its share for the Jew, just as it has done its part for others. It is now for the Jew to say where he will stand in American life. America needs his help.”
Mr. Israel Abrahams on Jewish Divorce
Mr. Israel Abrahams, the English-Jewish scholar, gave evidence during the month before the Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes. He explained the divorce laws in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era, and said that the progress of law and customs in Jewry tended not to modify the theoretical ease of divorce, but to increase its practical difficulties. The Gospel view was that the Deuteronomic divorce was a concession to human weakness and a lowering of the earlier standard of Genesis which held that marriage should be indissoluble. The Rabbinic reading of history was different. The Pentateuch introduced the formalities of the written letter of divorce and Rabbinics regarded this as an advance in civilization, not a retrogression. In respect of holding property and possessing independent estate, the Jewish wife was in a position far superior to that of English wives before the enactments of recent legislation. Jewish sentiment was
strongly opposed to the divorce of the wife of a man's youth, and men almost invariably married young. But, though divorce was hateful, continuance of the marriage bond might be more hateful still.
Perfect human nature could not do without divorce, but it could also do withou, marriage. Adam and Eve, it had been well said, went through no marriage ceremony. The formalities of marriage wer not less the esult of human imperfections than was the need of divorce. Were it not less the result of human imperfections Rabbis, a man would not marry a wife. lt was not that the marriage state wa. evil, on the contrary üt was held to be the highest moral estate, and just as man’s evil side required a marriage contract su in another sense his good side demanded the dissolution of the contract if its continuance 'were degrading or unharmonious. Hence if the strongest moral objection was felt against divorce, and if the vast majority of Jewish marriages were terminated only by death, the Pharisaic law raised no bar to divorce by mutual consent of the parties, just as marriage, despite its sacred associations, was itself a matter of mutual consent.
Jewish teaching and training were directed towards producing moral sobriety, continence and purity. It did this by word and deed, by formulating moral habits. Society usually attacked the problem at the wrong end. It penalized moraı offences instead of making those offences rare. The ancient Synagogue dealt witn the youth and maid in the formative period of their life. The Jewish law of divorce was the law of a society in which youn, marnriages predominated and the contracting parties entered into a lifelong wed- lock straight from a pious and virtuous home—a homi in which harmony and happiness were the rule and the relations between husband, wife and children were distinguished by a rarely iequalled and never surpassed serenity and reverence, As a saying (certainiy no longer than the first century) ran :—
"Our masters have taught her who loves his wife as himself and honors her more than himself; who leads his sons and daughters in the straight path and marries them near their line of maturity; to his house the words of Job apply: 'Thou shalt know that thy tent is in peace.'"