About religious schools and Sunday schools. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

About religious schools and Sunday schools. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated

Author

Morais, Sabato

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

11 pages on 4 sheets

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 13, Folder 19

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3p26qn68/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3p26qn68

Provenance

Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx13FF19_9.xml

content

On cooperative work
in educational institutions

Brethren. If even all Jewish parents habitually engaged private teachers to instruct their children in the Hebrew language, in the reading and meaning of the accepted prayers, and the history of Holy Writ, I still would still advocate the establishment of religious schools. The emulation which those are apt to create, sufficiently warrants their existence. The Sages of our people showed evinced a right appreciation of such institutions, for, while admitting that from a Biblical point of view it behooves parents themselves to train their offspring into a knowledge of the Torah, as we read [Hebrew] "Ye shall teach them unto your children," nevertheless they entered into details about the system that should be followed at schools, the arranging of the classes and the promotion of pupils. The Talmudists recognized the fact that not every father has the capacity or leisure to perform his tuitionary obligation. To guard therefore against the possibility of raising a generation in ignorance of religion, the Rabbis ordered that no city where Jews live dwell should be destitute in want of school houses. I need not add that they And all have heard that our Sages claim a higher degree of sanctity

for the humble rooms where the hearts and minds of our successors are fashioned in a Jewish mould, than for the most gorgeously built synagogues. Very interesting it is to read the history and of the gradual spreading of scholastic educational institutions in Judea, and of the dif--ficulties and prejudices overcome before they grew into popular favor. For, like in our own days so in the days of antiquity, new ideas, however sound made a slow progress in the days of antiquity. A wise provision howeve of the Talmud was that which required of parents ordinarily to send their children to religious schools ordinarily not later than when their little ones had reached their seventh year; for at that age the teacher can enforce gently command discipline, and the pupils will receive such impression as are likely to be lasting. Now, Brethren, if in times when many a father considered it binding upon himself to teach his own children, and many a family hired a private instructor, religious schools were earnestly recommended and extensively established, how stronger the reason for their existence is in our days times, when most fathers voluntarily, or unavoidably perhaps, have shaken off a god-given responsibility, and exceptional are the instances in which a salaried teacher at home supplies their neglect? is supplied by a salaried teacher at home?

I may be told that the want is filled by Congregational schools; that these keep up a knowledge of what I have described as deem essential for the preservation of pu--blic worship and of for a correct understanding of Judaism. But personal observation has forced on my mind the unbiased conviction that the central object in the majority of those schools is a drilling of the young for the confirmation--a meaningless word, foreign to our belief. Few are the attendants who issue from them such these schools fully prepared to resist the materialism of our age by the spirit of our faith; exceedingly few these the attendants whose acquaintance with Hebrew, qualifies them to resist the become live participants in the Divine Services. So evident are the defects of which I speak, that a minister prominent in the school of "Reform" has been loud in his complaints, and has proposed to defer the confirmation to the sixteenth or seventeenth year of the confirmants in the hopes that previous teaching culture will give then the ceremony will have then some reality and spiritual efficacy. But inasmuch as to combine the culti--vation of the Bible language with the study learning of the Bible

history and doctrines is a task growing every day more difficult by reason of a multiplicity of secular studies, and a striving after accomplishments, a strong tendency, is exhibited to substitute English for Hebrew in the worship. Already one Congregation at Rochester has introduced the change & at Cincinnati, where the Union college was avowedly established in the interest of Hebrew lore, and where its president has compiled his "Minhag America" mainly in Hebrew, a pressure is being brought about to the same end effect. A late announcement informs the public that all Hebrew will be eliminated, leaving in their primitive language only the Shemang and a few more familiar passages in the liturgy. Thus at a fell swoop is the work of Ezra is carried away. at a fell swoop For that new Moses and his colaborers, with a singleness of thought directed to the unification of our people, formulated prayers in Hebrew, when the Aramaic or Chaldaic was the vernacular tongue, and ordered the reading of the Torah at Synagogues in the original text, allowing an interpreter verbally to explain its meaning in the absence of printing, which was then unknown. They Our wise hearted guides of old would that the Hebrew might continue to remain the national language, the [Hebrew], the sacred tongue of, the medium

of communion with Israel's God, and of intercom--munion among Israel's preceptors. In it wrote Jeshua Ben Sira his excellent admirable books of morals after the close of the Scriptural canon; in it were written other books volumes of the Apocrypha, written, according to the testimony of Origen and Jerome, early fathers of the Christian church. In it has the Mishna or oral law been handed down to posterity; in it the Jewish poets of Moorish Spain gave us their matchless supplicatory effusions, and in it parents, or their tuitionary substitutes trained the young, till even within the first quarter of the present century. But now it Hebrew has been relegated to into the possession of Christians. They cherish it, and diffuse its knowledge, they unearth a wealth of learning which we despise, but which is ours treasure, deposited lying hidden in ancient libraries. Not long ago, a very scholarly colleague of mine who was in Philadelphia on a visit, deprecated in my presence the ignorance of Hebrew among our youths, and declared it a loss danger to our solidarity and a shame, but I was reluctantly impelled to charge the Reform school, to which that minister belongs, with the prevailing evil, for that school has made the study of the Bible language unnecessary, since the worship it variously formulated has been virtually

reduced to various polyglot hymnal service sung by a mixed choir of paid Jews and gentiles, and to a sermon more or less Jewish in its aim and character.
But do we ourselves the pretentious miscalled conservatives contribute to the preservation of the language which possessed so merited a value in the eyes of our fathers, and invisibly an but po- -tently knit marvelously welded our scattered race together? I must have shocked a member of my congregation whom I accidentally net last week. I urged was urging him to see to the education of his children, and I begged that he would let them, while young, associated with their coevals of the Jewish faith, and be taught the language of our public prayers. He inter--rupted me by saying, that his oldest would before long become Bar Mitzvah, and therefore it might be advisable to have him prepared for the occasion. at that Whereupon I simply remarked: "that is the least" "Why," he answered, as if surprised "Do you mean to say that the ceremony is of no account?" "No," I rejoined: "No, whenever a preliminary education, which ought to begin as early as the child's power of observation mental development begins, to develop, has fitted the lad for an intelligent rendering of a chapter of the Torah, and an appreciation of the words addressed to him from the pulpit. But when nothing Jewish in its

letter form and in its spirit has been previously shown imparted, then the Bar Mitzvah ceremony is indeed a misapplication of the Rabbinical ordinance. It misleads -ing to the lad; and allusive it is a delusion to his parents." My Brethren. It is to An eager wish to help in the dissemination of Hebrew knowledge and Hebrew doctrines that gave origin to our free schools. owe their origin Yet, the number of pupils who avail themselves of thereof endeavours of public spirited Philadelphians does by no means represent the large Jewish population, unattached to any congregation, and for whose benefit these institutions were chiefly established. Our Sunday schools do draw an attendance to which we might point with a hearty satisfaction, if the instruction inclination of the young ones to enter the classes, was encouraged by the gratuitous teaching of their elders. I did not disguise upon on Sunday last the painful sensation I experienced on entering the Southern school. The new superin--tendent, who, kindly responding to a sense of duty, her her own laudable promptings, assumed an onerous office on trial, was trying doing her utmost to overcome insuferable difficulties--to supply instruction for classes without instructors, to maintain order among scores of boys, disorderly by the reason of the lack of teachers, to supervise

the infant school in an upper room, while her presence was needed in the lower rooms, and to make the usual weekly record of matters connected with the institution. It is not my purpose, nor would it be sensible to chide and to censure. But for the sake of this cause, and as I sincerely think that Sunday schools prevent a stagnation of the Jewish sentiment; as I believe that, though not of immediate advantage to Hebrew learning culture, Sunday Schools by bringing our little ones together, foster mutual attachment among all classes of Israelites, by the act of bringing our little ones to gather, and that by imparting Bible lessons in the vernacular, they furnish our rising gene--ration with arms of defense against apostasy or atheism, therefore I again appeal to my hearers in all earnestness. Brothers and sisters in faith. Do not suffer the Southern Sunday School to go fall into decay. Within a short distance from thence, the Bedford a mission school is in active operation full of vim and vigour. Those who lend it time, mind and means, do not stop to inquire into the character

of the locality. On the contrary, the lowlier the surroundings, the stronger is the incentive to labor zealously in order to lift them up to social purification. We may profit by the example of men and women who, mistakenly but honestly, seek to attract our child--ren into their folds, and who would rejoice at the closing of our Southern Sunday School. At one time we raised a double wall against our religious opponents--our Sunday Schools in the morning, and our Sewing schools in the afternoon. Must I lament the extinction of the latter? The fall season is nearly at end end, and no indication of an effort to resume has been yet shown. If the children whom I lately saw waiting in anxious expectation at the doors of the Hebrew Education society school for the reopening of a sewing school, are lured into away--If they enter christian institutions of the same nature, and learn to sing praises to a man-god in the hopes of receiving gifts at his supposed natal day, our culpable negligence will be accountable for the offense against the One uncreated God of Israel. I grieve, my Brethren, when I reflect that the love of ease is so much stronger in us than the love of religion.

In moments of noble enthusiasm we undertake what will further a sacred object, but soon is our ardor dampened. Obstacles which we meet, and which we magnify, personal likes and dislikes, the idea that others may be found more able, or who are abler than we, or can commanding more leisure, are the ill-advisers that hinder the inscribing of our names in the book of the righteous. Oh! that we would realize our capacities! Singly we may accomplish nothing, but if we join our forces, the weak fl feeblest in our midst may do Judaism blessed services. Let me tell it in the Bible language: [Hebrew] "the weak must say, "I am strong"! " I will let a sense of obligation to the Lord I worship infuse into me an irresistible will to take part in whatever promotes the welfare of Israel, educationally, charitably congregationally. What I was wont to call "inconvenience" I shall deem a pleasure, stumbling blocks in my way, shall will be removed by a united power, and I shall enjoy the delight of having labored contemplating the solid foundations of my people's progress." Brothers and sisters in faith. Let the coming winter & spring see us all engaged in that holy undertaking.

Identifier

p3p26qn68

identifier

SMBx13FF19_9