Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
- Title
- Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
- Author
- Morais, Sabato
- Date Created
- 1888
- Format
- 9 pages on 4 sheets
- Language(s)
- English
- Source
- Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
- Sabato Morais Collection, Box 10, Folder 8
- Has Format
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3mc8s149/manifest.json
- Link to Colenda
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3mc8s149
- Provenance
- Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.
- Is Format Of
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx10FF8_6.xml
- content
-
On the Sabbath & on the Seminary /88
Brethren. As, very probably, with the advan--cing of the summer, season, I shall suspend sermons, simply addressing lads when they become Bar Mitzvah, and generally confining my services to the recital of the accepted ritual, I will not close my English discoursing English preaching in English for the season, without referring again to a subject which has been uppermost in my mind, during the past six months. It is lamentably true that the Sabbath has lost the sweet fragrance which it formerly imparted to our homes. I recognize the tyranny of circumstances, which pitilessly delivers it to general desecration, and I cannot think of that and not feel a sense of personal grief and self abasement, conjointly with added to communal shame. But the idea of legalizing the profanation of the day, and investing with its God-given sanctity that which represents a belief, subversive of Monotheism, is a cause of terror to my heart. Are we not all alive to the fact that a custom, having once struck deep root, will supplant each a clearly defined law?
No one who reflects will need illustrations to be shown how actions which, at one stage of his life, he would have considered incompatible with the ordinances of Holy Writ, were made permissible to his mind in his ordinary ways only through the force of a prevalent custom. Suppose now that for ten consecutive years Sunday services remain the set--tled usage among American Israelites, depend upon it, our children will have grown, through a long habit, to look on consider regard the first day of the week as having set aside the holiness of the seventh, just as other te--nets, emanating from a Biblical source, were were overridden from being al--lowed to go into desuatude. The consequence is very clear to my understanding. I look on the obser--vance of Sunday, by a special worship, as the closest approximation to trinitarianism--what ever may be said to the contrary--for pure Unitarians are an insignificant minority in Christendom, and that rapprochement will bring in its train mixed services, the downfall of the synagogue; mixed marriages, the death blow knell of Mosaism. Let those who are prepared for such an issue, advocate the novel abominable scheme.
But I hear many say: "This man prophesies to us only evil. He ought to know that a remn- residue -ant of the faithful will always be found, for we have a Divine promise, declaring our eternity as a distinct people on earth" [Hebrew] Yes; but if our ancestors had folded their arms and adopted a "go as you please" policy--excuse the vulgar phrase--the heavenly assur--ance would have gone remained unfulfilled. History testifies to the truth, that by the spirit which is the almighty [?] into man, and which stirred up heroes in the defense of our belief, Judaism was saved. Imagine, for example, that a Johanan Ben Zacchaï had not arisen to breast the swelling tide which threatened to carry before it all our sacred learning, would not the Torah have perished? Or, to cite an instance of later times: imagine that Isaac Abarbanel had been unwilling to sacrifice wealth, & civic and politi--cal honors, and talk up the pilgrim's staff and roam abroad in search of a land home of refuge and share suffering with hundreds of thousand of his brother exiles; imagine, I say, that he had urged by his own example submissiveness
a voluntary yeilding to the demands of the inqui--sition, the accepting of trinitarianism, would not the sephardic branch of our race have become largely in a great measure lost! Folly it is to hold that without our personal efforts, Judaism will have permanence among American Israelites, in the face of a widespread defection, and the combined forces of the would be li--beral aiming at its overthrow. If we are in earnest, we must work for its preservation.
Pardon a sentiment which may savor of selfishness, but I am impelled by circumstances to give it ex--pression. In order to counteract the effects of teachings that have produced destroyers--men whose object clearly is to modernize our ancient code by having it tucked on the skirts of genitlism--I threw myself with all the ardor of my soul into the project of establishing a Rabbinical School in New York. Its founders accepted the pe--cuniary assistance of all Hebrews, who, knowing the ten--dency of the Jewish Theological Seminary, gave it support, notwithstanding their individual or congre--gational departure from strict conservatism.
I never promised a sure realization of all my aspirations. The future is open only to God, but as far as it lies in my power, I have provided for the raising of disciples sworn to keep holy what Moses and the prophets called holy, by the choice of confessedly reliable instructors, acting under my supervision. The pulpits which those disci--ples shall ascend, the desks from which they will read the Law, or at which they shall sit to communicate religious knowledge, will not be polluted by new fangled doctrines concocted to convict the Sabbath of bastardy. They will be able to con--trovert the absurd theory of that a moon worship having given birth to our Sabbath--which is in itself a theory based on an astronomical miscalculation, for the changes in the lunar phases do not occur each seventh day, since the moon returns every performs its revolution round the earth in twenty nine days and a half and about forty five minutes and not in twenty eight days. The disciples of the Jewish Theological Seminary will show prove the fallacy of arguments by which our Sabbath is fathered now on the Acadians, anon on the Egyptians, again on the Assyrians or the Chaldeans, nations whose documents, if found any of an [?] date when found may show a division of weeks, but not the celebration of a Sabbath. In a word, our disciples, will,
I fervently hope, redeem the name of the glorious immortal son of Amram from the aspersions foul accusation of deception cast upon it him by faithless preachers. Yet, who would credit it? On the plea that persons with whom I take counsel, regarding the scholastic government arrangement of the Seminary, are not precisely of my religious mode of thinking, a wofully mistaken orthodoxy, wages war against me. It strives to wound cut me to the quick, by drawing away from me all turning into foes Israelites that lent me help. It seeks to root out my good planting, regardless of the ruin that must follow, in poisonous seed that will be imbedded there, by leaving the whole field, clear of opposition, to unscrupulous "reform." It must certainly see how the strength of the faith is wa--ning away; how mangled are her limbs, how implo--ringly she asks of those who love her to hasten to the deliverance; but no, let all go to wreck and ruin rather than favor what is not ruled over governed absolutely by men of the most rigorous orthodoxy. does not rule over absolutely But the institution to which I have given existence will live, despite wicked hostility on one side, and a senseless, and not less sinful antagonism, on the other.
Nothing can cause its death, except the withdrawing of the sustenance afforded to it by my brethren brothers and sisters who have responded to my appeals. They inspirited me with their encouragement, because they felt convinced of my eagerness to prop what is declining. to lend They trusted me, when I said that to impart fresh vigor to the seminary, to enlarge its scope sphere, is, under God, to supply Judaism in Ameri--ca with Readers2, and Teachers3 and Preachers1 kindled with zeal for the Torah, and endowed with the capacity to uplift it to glory. And that alone is is my aim and scope; my sole am--btion. What other object can I have in view at my age, with little simple habits that have grown on me as a second nature, and with a decided preference for Phila--delphia, and her people than to devote my remaining ener--gies,--as far as I can by a frequent inspection--to the development of an organization in the ser--vice of the written and oral Law? I felt happy therefore in obtaining a gift for the promotion furtherance of my object from at the hands of a pious coreligionist congregant of mine; a bequest from another, who has departed me, and glad I am to have succeeded in founding a branch of the association in our city. The number of its members is yet small, but I look forward to the circulation of a forthcoming
report of our two years' working in New York, for its increase. That document may recall the Semi--nary and its needs to the memory of my fellow believers, better than my speech to day could do have done have recalled. For we all stand in want of tangible objects as reminders of the performance of duty. so we are forcibly told in the concluding sentences of our section from the Pentateuch. It is note--worthy that in bidding us to wear Hebrew men to array themselves with in a four-fringed gar--ment, the Divine legislator says: "You will look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord." and again: "In order that you may remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God." That is the secret of the Eternal aids of are then essential to religion. They must Whatever be their character, so long as they keep alive the memorial of the mission entrusted to us from on high they are sacred; They indeed and those Israelites appreciate it welld that mission best, who, in accordance with their means, promote undertakings that tend to eternize Judaism and glorify the God of Sinai. May I always count among such all my congregants brothers & sisters in faith to whom I have ministered and point to them with the satisfaction of having labored in their midst among them to a holy purpose. So may it be. May the Lord grant it. Amen. - Identifier
- p3mc8s149
- identifier
- SMBx10FF8_6
Part of Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
Morais, Sabato, “Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated”, Sabato Morais Digital Repository, accessed September 19, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/morais/item/83165