Penitential Sabbath (Shabat shubah). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Penitential Sabbath (Shabat shubah). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated

Author

Morais, Sabato

Date Created

1893

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 10, Folder 2

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3mk65v1g/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3mk65v1g

Provenance

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

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx10FF2_1.xml

content

S. MORAIS.
546 N. FIFTH STREET.
PHILADELPHIA, 189

67
Forth For the Penitential Sabbath 1893
[Hebrew]

A commercial house has collapsed; a savings fund has sunk; a mechanics' Bank has burst; a life insurance company has become insolvent. By such news tidings readers of daily papers were startled two some three months ago through the length and breadth of this land. Men noted for their self-possession, appeared bewildered. You asked for the reason of so painful a change, and the invariable answer was "the stringency in the money market, caused brought about by unforseen failures among us and abroad. That is enough to upset people's mind." But he who thinks aright, or rather he who thinks righteously reflects and is saddened. He reasons argues Persons who make for them--selves gods of silver and gold, will show signs of a disordered intellect, when those false deities manifest prove their inability to save [Hebrew] [Hebrew] For God is the sole sovereign Ruler, says the Rabinist. He has not delegated His power to objects which mortals are apt to consider all-mighty.

We may sympathise with human creatures in their trials and doubtless many and sore have been of late those endured in business circles, but ex--perience joins religion in teaching that nothing is a sport to dead chance; that a Supreme Ruler Power Being has ordained causes and He directs their effects more unerringly than the skilful pilot steers his ship; that the infallible Guide lets makes events that happen carry out the principles of absolute justice. To say tell it with in the language of the Rabbis. The Lord wishes us to know understand [Hebrew] that there is a Judge who apportions to us all our due.
Life both national and individual has a mission and when we are too slow, or too slothful in its performance, we need be spurred on by a thrust. What some call mis-fortune, believers will recognize as a heavenly ordination to subserve beneficent ends [Hebrew] For God does not afflict willingly to aggrieve the children of man. In that belief we, my fellow-Israelites have been were born and bred. We bless the invisible Hand when it strikes, as when it dis-penses gifts, because from the cradle we learned

to look upon it with the eyes of an enlightened faith, which see correctly. [Hebrew] Know that every thing is reckoned with pre- exact-cision -ness. Such is the decision of wisdom drawn from the Fountain Head of Truth. The house of Israel has accepted that decision, therefore do its members yearly hold a convocation of the deepest solemnity. The day of atonement, observed in all lands countries where the outcasts of Judea have their domicile, stands forth to illustrate that doctrinal point of the Jewish religion, namely, God's Omniscience and his retributive justice. Our festivals, my brethren, have all an historical basis. At one season, we celebrate the traditional anniversary of the birthday of creation; at another the Mosaic computing of the dawn of our nationality. Now we rejoice over our father's safety through howling wildernesses, anon we are made mentally to stand at the foot of Sinai. The thwarting of our enemies' plans and our signal victory over ungodliness in ancient

times, call for f our devotional gatherings. Kippur alone bears a dogmatic significance. It means this. A judicial sentence is pronounced on human actions at a faultless tribunal and it is carried out here as well as hereafter. The congregation of Jacob fast upon the day of atonement because self-denial is the parent of is the germ typifies a return to it the very the seminal principle of virtue. They pray for the forgiveness of sin, because they acknowledge sin to be the actual parent of suffering alike temporal and moral. They realize that to repent of misdeeds is to put on the armor of righteousness shielding from sufferings. Happy we, happy our homes, our communities and our country, if the anguish of mind which commercial reverses have occasioned served to awakened a sense of dependence on righ virtue and righteousness for salvation; if those vicissitudes impressed all deeply with the lesson of Holy Writ that not gold but God reigns for ever, that [Hebrew] He who rears his fortress upon riches, builds on quick sand. So convinced, we would endeavour to be lifted up on impregnable rocks, rather than heedlessly

lean for support on decaying matter. We would bestow more attention than we do on the means of ennobling our character, spiritualising our existence life. We would pay less homage to a despotic ruler-lucre-and more to the merciful Ruler Adonai. Not to despise the comforts which a well earned competence procures, but to employ it as a servant. Yes, as a servant obe--dient to our intelligent will and human instincts. But so long as we allow it lucre to tyrannize over us, demanding our every day's attendance, not infrequently levying a tax on the hours, which we should devote to rest, and those which we should entirely give to the sweets of domestic life; so long as we voluntarily sur--render our free agency to an imaginary deity that cannot save, we run counter to the object of our existence and therefore become unmanned when losses are sustained. I fancy that I can hear some who had sacrificed the purest delights, the endear--ments of wife and children, the association of the generous and liberal large hearted, the intercourse of the sincerely devout, all that to ceaselessly watch the turning of the wheel of Fortune, I fancy I can

hear them each cry out against himself [Hebrew] [Hebrew] "Behold a man who did not make God his strength, but trusted in abundant riches, and made himself strong in wrong".
Let none rejoice because when the ways of the Lord are thus vindicated. Heartless must be that being he be, who withholds his sympathies from his neighbor mentally distressed. The skepticism store philosophy which breeds indifference to the ills affecting mankind, has no harbor within the borders of Judaism. Nor dares a Hebrew set himself up as Judge against about the shortcomings and unwise acts of his fellow mortals [Hebrew] Do not condemn others, till thou art placed in the same situation, is the charitable maxims of a Sage, who would check a disposition to fault finding--so prone to it we all unhappily are! But re--ligion whose ways lead to pleasantness, and whose all paths are conducive to peace [Hebrew] religion utters truths, suggestive of an instruction that may reclaim the incautious. At this time of our year That beneficent mentor, that Divine

Messenger is sent among men to declare an overweening love for money, a sin bearing the seeds of chastisement [Hebrew]. There are riches, says the oldest preacher, kept by the owner thereof to his injury. Suasively religion appeals to our intellects, that we may not recklessly defeat the object of our having been created for immortality. Religion proclaims that [Hebrew] [Hebrew] the heavens, even the heavens are the Lord's, and the earth He gave to the children of man, not that the last e revered from the first, but that it may progr prove a progressive step to our higher ascent. Religion tells us that the earth is the school of human advancement. In it we must diligently work for our perfectibility and from it we shall rise spiritually, if our aspirations had been spiritual. Religion draws a moral from the heart--burnings occasioned by a misapplication of our faculties; by the centering of our powers on the attain--ment of fleeting goods. And in order to guide our spirits upward, it pictures a confiding trust in the Almighty as a central pillar in the upholding

of our character, contentment as the wealth of our soul. [Hebrew]. He is rich, who enjoys his allotted portion. How enamored we ought to be with a religion, whose maxims are radiant lights to lead us on safely, through the intricate paths of our earthly career. How gra--teful we ought to be to a religion, which gives us the assurance that should we even have strayed away, we can regain the way of salvation, if we lay hold of the rod of self correction--the staff of re--pentance. Israelites. that religion addresses each of us at this solemn period of our year. It speaks in inspiring acts accents of God's forgiveness and love. It reaches the joyous assurances which we have read in the prophetic lesson of this penitential Sabbath "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely, for My anger is turned away from them. I will be as the dew to Israel. He shall blossom as the lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon.

May it be so, O Lord of our salvation. Calm the agitation of human hearts; restore to them the Joys of confidence and contentment. Bid sickness flee apace, command a lasting cure for those who suffer. May the mourners look up to Thee with eyes whose tears faith in immortality has wiped away, and vouch--safe to destine for American success as a reward for her children's self denying patriotism, security at home, good will and honors abroad. Amen.

Identifier

p3mk65v1g

identifier

SMBx10FF2_1