The Maccabaean

DR. KOHLER ON JEWISH THEOLOGY

Towards the end of that nineteenth century, that now seems so utterly far away, there was nothing that was quite so dead as theology. In those innocent and _guileless days it was actually believed that the science of religion as constructed by those who really believed in its dogmas, as distinguished from those who investigated it cynically as a phase of anthropology or folklore, was as extinct as the dodo or the divine right of kings or alchemy. Science triumphantly crowed over the antagonist that it supposed it had slain. Today the matter is quite otherwise. The divine right of kings has been revived by a madman with a huge army that obeys dumbly his sanguine mandates. Science, the servant of mankind, has, like Frankenstein’s monster, suddenly turned on its master, and the world is red with conflict. Even the dodo may some day be discovered in the heart of Africa calmly raising a vigorous progeny as in the davs of vore.

Theology, meanwhile, has come to its own again. The sale of books of devotion and religion is surprisingly large all over the world, and probably in a little while religious volumes may equal those of fiction in popular favor. At such a moment Dr. Kaufman Kohler’s “Jewish Theology Systematically and Historically Considered” (The Macmillan Company, $2.50) is particularly timely. The President of Hebrew Union College has devoted his great powers and his extensive learning to an important task, and the result is one of importance to every Jew.

As Doctor Kohler points out, this is a pioneer work, not only in English but in any language. “It may seem rather strange,” he says, “that no such work has hitherto been written by any of the leading Jewish scholars of either the conservative or the progressive school. This can only be accounted for by the fact that up to modern times the Rabbinical and philosophical literature of the Middle Ages sufficed for the needs of the students, and a systematic exposition of the Jewish faith seemed to be unnecessary. Besides, a real demand for the specific study of Jewish theology was scarcely felt, inasmuch as Judaism never assigned to a creed the prominent position which it holds in 6 Christian Church. . . . When, 8 the suggestion of my dear departed friend, Dr. Gustav Karpeles, President of the Society for the Promotion of the Science of Judaism in Berlin, I undertook to write a compendium (Grundriss) of Systematic Jewish Theology, which appeard in 1910 as Volume IV in a series of works on Systematic Jewish Lore, I had no work before me that might have served me as pattern or guide. Solomon Schechter’s valuable studies were in the main confined to Rabbinical Theology.”

Doctor Kohler’s volume falls into three main sections, entitled respectively, “God,” “Man,” and “Israel and the Kingdom of God.”

He discusses the meaning of theology, the yewish articles of faith, God as He makes himself known to man, the idea of God in Judaism, miracles, free will and moral 16- sponsibility, the messianic hope, the synagogue and its institutions, the stranger and the proselyte, and a multitude of other questions. His. style is clear and logical, although a little lacking perhaps in warmth and color. His method in general is what may be described as professorial. That is, he has carefully divided and subdivided his topics, and the paragraphs of each chapter are numbered, presumably for readiness of reference by seminary classes in theology. The lay reader will not find such logic of arrangement in itself without use. For those who desire sources and authorities, or who wish to go further in ihe studies which Doctor Kohler has begun for them. ample footnotes are provided.

In the present renaissance of Jewish hopes as to Palestine, readers will be interested perhaps in Doctor Kohler’s views as to Zionism. He analyzes Zionism as a direct result of the wave of anti-Semitism which rose as a counter-movement to the emancipation of the Jew, this emancipation having alienated many of the household of Israel from their religion. Zionism consequently “has the merit,” he holds, “of awakening many Jews upon whom the ancestral faith had lost its hold to a sense of love and loyalty to the Jewish past. In many it has aroused a laudable zeal for the study of Jewish history and literature, which should bring them a deeper insight into, and closer identification with, the historic character of Israel, the suffering Messiah of the nations, and thus in time transform the national Jew into a religious Jew.”

He distinguishes between political or cultural Zionism and religious Zionism, but holds that the former “can have no place in Jewish theology.” He maintains, too, that “there never was, nor will be, an exclusively Jewish culture. It is the wondrous power of assimilation of the Jew which ever created and fashioned his culture anew. That which constitutes the peculiarity of the Jew and his life force is his religion, fostered through the ages, preserved amidst the most antagonistic influences and hostile environments, and ever rejuvenated by its unique universalistic spirit when revived by contact with kindred movements.”

A great deal of this, no doubt, will appear to many readers of THE MACCABAEAN quite contrary to the present intensified nationalism that is sweeping the world, and contrary likewise to the experience of history as to what factors create either a great culture or a great religion. M. J. H.

One of the by no means minor puzzles of the present world war is the presence of an Allied army of no small size at Salonica in the Balkans. To be sure, the war began

in the Balkans and probably will not end until just and conclusive settlement of the various national snarls to be found there has been arrived at. On the other hand, it has been increasingly more and more evident that the decisive battle will come in France and Flanders, and not in the East, far or near. So obscure have been the motives that led the Allies to detach several hundred_thousand men and send them by a long and dangerous journey to Salonica, that the London Times even ventured the suggestion that possibly it was Jewish influence—there are many Jews at Salonica—which secured the sending of a larze police force to protect their interests. Many contemporary publicists, when they are at loss for a solution to a problem, vary the old formula and urge that we “cherchez le Juif’—look for the Jew.

More or less by way of solution of the problem comes an able volume by G. Ward Price, official correspondent with the Allied Forces in the Balkans. Viscount Northcliffe, owner of the London Times, has, incidentally, furnished an introduction for his “The Story of the Salonica Army” (Edward J. Clode, $2.00), and he emphasizes above all the value of the volume in at least two respects. Ward Price “makes clear the chicanery which prevented the Greeks from following their natural bent. He sweeps aside, once and for all, the hollow pretense of Germany that her dastardly action in Belgium finds a parallel in the treatment of Greece by the Allies.”

Mr. Price’s story, which is vivaciously told, is not merely an account of the military movements which took place between October, 1915, when the Allies landed in Salonica at the invitation of M. Venizelos, the Greek premier, to the summer of 1917, when his narrative ends. He gives also vivid glimpses of the manners and customs of the people, of the layout of the country, of the political factors involved, and of campaigns and happenings in nearby regions, such as Albania. Numerous illustrations add tellingly to the points he makes. One photograph, for example, shows the polyglot army of the Allies in the Balkans, a single group comprising the following nationalities: Annamite, Frenchman, Senegalese, Englishman, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Cretan, and British Indian. The photograph recalls Will Irwin’s remark that, in the whirligig of events, he would not be at all surprised to see a regiment of Kansas troops storming towns in Palestine. Mr. Price has some amusing and instructive passages on the ways and wiles of German spies in Salonica, since “for the spy, Salonica is paradise. He thrives and multiplies there like a microbe in jelly, If a spy had the chance of creating an ideal environment to work in, he could not improve upon Salonica.”