Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/85

 Cain and Abel

67.

The

us for help and support in distress.

consciousness

Jewish

guiding principle

And

in

the

in

and the Jewish character, and of our Jewish life today.

is

a

much

in the third place,

the course of

in

unfolding, Judaism has

religious

we

conviction that

are our brother's keeper has become deeply ingrained

come

to

its

and and pro-

historic

realize

claim an even broader and grander conception of brotherhood.

It

was born

in

the

thought

first

expressed by the

prophet Malachi,

Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us?

Judaism has expanded the prophet himself

this

II,

10.)

thought far beyond what even

conceived,

for

men have one Father, then, be men must truly be brothers. The all

(Malachi

it

has declared that

they wdio they may,

if

all

conception of universal

which is today beginning to enter somewdiat into the social, economic and political life of nations and of mankind, is one of Judaism's priceless gifts to the world. Persecuted by almost all peoples among whom he came to dwell, driven from place to place, from city to city, and from nation to nation, often denied wdiere to lay his head brotherhood,

even for a night, the Jew has nevertheless persisted in his

God and the uniBrotherhood of Man. And he has boldly declared through all the ages, that despite racial, social, or religious separation, despite warfare, bloodshed, and oppression, all men are created in the image of the one, universal God, and are therefore bound together by ties too strong to be broken conviction of the universal Fatherhood of versal

even by warfare, enmity, and hatred.

and

This message of uni-

by the Jew, and proclaimed by him to all the world, must become the saving principle, which will eventually cause the disarmament of nations, and bring all men to feel that they have more to bind them together than to se[)arate them, and that versal brotherhood, peace,

love, first realized