the Spirit of the Law, and that he served uncompromisingly. This love for Judaism, this desire for having authority recognized in Jewish life, expressed itself in what may be called an "Episcopalian" attitude toward religious affiliation. He believed in the practice of the law, and was willing to waive intellectual endorsement. Go to the synagogue, observe the Sabbath, do the many little things of religious observance, and you will come to believe in the principles underlying these observances; if you do not, it does not matter. This in essence was his point of view.
But while he loved the Spirit of the Law, and recognized its benign influence on character, he was not a lover of the mechanical observance of the Law, and certainly did not have any affection for the strictly theological view of Judaism. At times one suspected that he hated the rabbinical profession, a trained, professional devotion to religion. But while he hated the rabbinical profession, he had a great and unbounded love for the pious, unlearned man, who went about the business of being a Jew with devotion and with a certain amount of ignorance. Ignorance did not frighten him as much as lack of piety. He had sympathy with the Jew who had faith in God, in Providence, and who was not interested in what God’s servants had brought into the world. When in doubt, pray to God: do not run to the rabbi to save you.
Dr. Schechter was a Zionist, but his Zionism was the expression of his religious aspirations. He was not a Zionist because he felt that Zionism was needed for the salvation of the Jewish people; he was a Zionist because he felt that without a common ideal uniting the Jewish people, enabling them to re-establish themselves on a normal basis, the Jewish religion could never become normal. He was not wholly of the school of Achad Ha-Am. What was called Hebrew culture, Dr. Schechter frequently made the butt of many of his witticisms. He wanted Jews to become religious; only as they were influenced to become religious would Zionism be justified. He believed in a Jewish nation bringing anew a lofty religious ideal into the world. He did not care for Hebrew literature that lacked religious influence. He did not care for Hebrew as a spoken language if what
was spoken awas sacreligious. In recent years, he strongly resented the development of a Hebrew literature which, to his mind, treated Jewish life from the decadent point of view. This resentment led to a general dislike for the Hebraism that came into Jewish. life by way of foreign literatures. Essentially, however, his objections were based upon his feeling that these Hebrew writers represented a non-religious point of view, and tended to the complete secularization of the Hebrew language, which he regarded as: primarily and literally a “sacred” tongue. He did not see that Hebrew was becoming national, and that it had to undergo radical alterations, and become the vehicle of all sorts of ideas, before it could take its. nlace as the national lanpuaee.
He was a man of temperament. That is to say, his: thoughts were colored by the mysterious influences- of his sub-conscious self. He was capable of extreme views, extreme utterances, but these extreme views: and utterances were not habits of his trained mind. They were the products of a personality which derived its inspiration from spiritual elements in the soul, regardless of the interferences of the intellect.. It was what he produced from this unfathomed well of character that made contact with him so interesting and provocative of thought. The man of temperament is a man of colorful thought. Flashes of humor, unpremeditated, give tang to his observations. One- is shocked as well as pleased by the revelation of unregulated and rough observation that emanates from the man of temperament. The scholar who never speaks except when he has text and reference behind him is a dry-as-dust pedant. What he says has the smoothness of the usual. But what the man of temperament who is also a scholar says provokes inquisitiveness and interest in matters that never come within the boundaries of the ordinary scholar’s. thouehts.
u NT It is too early to estimate the permanent influence of Dr. Schechter upon the progress of Jewish life in this country. This much may be said now, that of all the speakers and writers, preachers and theologians- in American Jewry, Dr. Schechter had in him the human elements that ensure for his memory a lasting place in the annals of American Tewrv.
Nationalism and Socialism
By PROF. HERBERT MILLER, of Oberlin College, in the "Intercollegiate Socialist."
The rational principles of Socialism are not going to be overthrown by the European war, but internationalism will have to wait on the fulfillment of the demands of nationalism. Sentiment is just as much a fact and a force in society as reason. Patriotism or national feeling is an emotion which cannot be eliminated until it can find another emotion to take its place. Whether that time will ever come is a question to which the signs of the times offer no answer.
Group consciousness seems to express itself more easily in harmony with tradition than with economic advantage. In fact, the more the group is oppressed, the more vigorously ıt fights for freedom. Cultural oppression arouses the strongest opposition. This takes the form of religious and linguistic antagonisms. These are the symbols around which the group rallies, and it is beginning to be obvious that these two forms of social expression must have won the privilege of being entirely free before internationalism can make such progress. The Home Rule struggle in Ireland is the best known illustration of this principle, but it is as common as the existence of a subject people. Poland, in its subjection to Germany and Russia, made a religion of its nationalism, symbolized by devotion to language and religion. Austria is composed of half a dozen groups whose life purpose is to establish their own language in opposition to the German of the official government. This struggle is the greatest thing in the. world to them, and if Socialism tends to break down the barriers which nationalism sets up, it must take a back seat until national freedom is secured.
The Jews, who have contributed more and more to Socialism than any other single group from Marx to Hill- quit, are likely to be diverted for the same reason. Zionism is a movement to hang together until genuine national self-respect is created, and the Jew is free. In other words, group consciousness will dominate until discrimination disanvears.
Nationalism is not necessarily antagonistic to Socialism, but it is more primary, and will work out its freedom first. Then Socialism can work its internationalist program. Socialism is patient, but it must be more patient. Its problems are not solely economic but quite as much psychological. The coming society must have the adjustment of the complex forces of human nature, and one of the most elemental is the group consciousness which we call nationalism.