Page:Jews and Judaism (Morris Jastrow).djvu/12

 moment sharply distinguish between the two. What Judaism is, is one thing, what modern Jews believe or do not believe is another. The two factors may cover one another, but they also may not. If they do, well and good; if not, there is still the question, what is to be done? But it certainly increases the difficulty of the situation if we try to force Judaism to our views, just as it is wrong to do violence to our convictions, if they do not coincide with what has been heretofore known as Judaism. Our point of view then must not be subjective only, but objective as well. Subject and object, Jews and Judaism, to repeat, may equal one another, but they also may not. At any rate, we must understand both.

Interpreting Judaism in a wide rather than in a narrow sense, it still stands for something very definite. The idea of one God, or in other words, the unity of creation, a force from which all emanates, must be left out of the question, for it no longer forms a distinguishing mark of Judaism. To Judaism belongs the eternal glory of having been the first to grasp this great idea in its grandeur. But from Judaism, others have learned it, and while they did not maintain it in its pristine purity, mixing it with foreign elements, we see during the last centuries a gradual progress among the adherents of Christianity towards the purer conception of the Jewish prophets, until in our own days, in the official utterances of Unitarianism, and in the unofficial but equally forcible utterances of the representatives of other denominations, monotheism in its purest form and sense is adopted as an essential feature of other religions besides Judaism. But the acknowledgment of the authority of the Bible as being a Divine Revelation has formed hitherto a distinguishing mark of Judaism. You may interpret revelation as widely as you please, but you cannot leave it out of view when speaking of Judaism, I again add, as that term has hitherto been understood. You may explain the method of Revelation as you please, but you must be careful not to explain it away. It is a convenient method frequently resorted to by those who argue against Revelation to give the very crudest conception of it, and hold that up as the only one possible. I do not do this. It is by no means necessary in order