Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/275

 256 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of Dr. Hirsch. Jesus heard the voice of God as did Moses and Abraham before him ; as did Samuel and the prophets ; as have the sages and teachers of Israel in ages past and in our own time. His divinity was the divinity of all lovers of their fellowmen. ''When you were sick, I visited you; when you were hungry, I fed you ; when you were naked, I clothed you ; and as you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, so have you done it unto me, ' ' is the simple truth of Judaism that Jesus as a Jew fulfilled in his own life. Dr. Hirsch was never among those who would restore Jesus to the synagog — Jesus never left the synagog. Paul more than any other theologian divested Jesus of his humanity and apotheosized him into an abstraction. Paul, the tent-maker, was a reactionary. His conception of a vicarious atonement is Semiticism. The sacrifices of the temple so wonderfully explained by Bobertson Smith, survived in Paul. By graft- ing neo-Platonism upon Semiticism, he created a theology. Jesus is truer than Paul to the spirit of the synagog. Two movements within Judaism of the present age have pro- foundly affected it. One of these movements is Zionism ; the other, the institutionalizing of the synagog. No one unme- diately involved in Jewish affairs can avoid participating in them as opponent or supporter. Dr. Hirsch was early drawn into the controversy that raged about him. Zionism is of European importation. Coming into prom- inence under the organizing genius of Dr. Theodore Hertzl it sought so to organize the scattered remnant of Israel that the ancient patrimony of Israel — Palestine — should again be restored, and the Jewish people established in a land of their own. The restoration of Palestine is an ancient dream, but at no time has the appeal been received with greater prospects of realization than in the present era. Some of the most illustrious names in Europe are enlisted in the cause — conferences and conventions have been held annually and far- reaching measures have been introduced. Influential and stirring as the Zionistic movement has been — the only movement within Judaism that has been so active — its intent no less than its philosophy is totally at variance