Rosh Hashana Speaks To A Sick World
By
RABI LEON SPITZ
Over in Eretz Israel 'the voice of Jerusalem," the radio voice oi Palestine's Underground Youth, speaks in no imcertain words to Imperialistic Britain. That may be characterized as the true note of the Shofar, tlhte voice of Israel militant. The broken, sobbing note of the shovarian still reaches out to us from European post-war concentration camps. . American Jewry,, likev.'ise, makes its appeal to fellow Americans on behalf of the martyred segments of our people. This is the tekiah, the Call to the Conscience of Civilization, ana represents thie last of the three Shofar notes. Thus the Shofar soimds every one of its notes on Rosh Hashana 1947 perhaps more insistently and more stridently than on many, many other Hosh Hasha-na's in the past.
And yet this writer doubts whether this is enou^. The thought was expressed the other night by a colleague that Judaism Ehculd once again become a mis-sionizing movement and should march forth on a well planned Crusading campaign of conversion to our faith. Once before in our >jstory a handful of Jews did saly fortih into the pagan world, and gained himdreds of millions for Judaism's daughter r e 1 i g d o,n Christianity. Almost a thousand years later, Judaism and several individual Jews too) likewise ventured forth into the Arabic world and Islam, another daughter religion, was catapulted into t he world. This time my colleague feels we Jews ought to missionize amongst our fellow men, perhaps in the vast readhes of India, and China, and Japan and Africa — a-mong the tribes and the races ana the peoples which adhere to nc other formal, ethical religion—and receive them into the folds of an tmadulterated Judiasm. We Jews need numerical strength, my col-
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league opened with some show of logic, to help lis fight our enemies.
Fanciful as this thought vm-dcubtdly may be, Jewish history does record that in Bibical and likewise in ihe first thousand year^ after the Fall of Jerusalem, Jews stUl kept on proseljrting, and at limes on quite a large scale. Jewish history does in fact record that entire kingdoms such as Adiabnu in Arabia, Yemen, and Chazars accepted Judaism.
Nevertheless, when this writei lias entitled this article Rash Hadhana 1947 Speaks to Mr. anc Mrs. World, he entertained no expectation of springing upon a post War n world a programme of worldwide proselyting.
The fact is that Judaism has proclaimed, perhaps two thousand years -ago, that 'every Gtoy will have a share in the Gan Eden,'* on a par with us Jews without even making a formal application for admission into the Synagogue.
Still their is a compelling need for the Jews to take up once again his ancient mission to reach the programme of Judaism to the world, for Judaism has and always did claim to have two elements, the national and the universal. It is to propogate among our fellow-men everywhere the ethical and uni-versalistic lelements loifl Judaism that constitutes the Jewish Mission.
It is in the present day crisis when Jewish morale is so very low, that the religious leaders of Jewry must raise aloft with even a greater pride the Banner of Judaism. It was when Spanish Jewry lived under the hand of a fanatic Arab dynast, that Yehudah Halevi wrote his famous Book of the Kuzari and reclaimed the superiority of Judaism, yes to Christianity and to Mohammendanism, and to contemporary philosophy; and he wrote his book in the Arabic language so that his Arabic
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