Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
- Title
- Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
- Author
- Morais, Sabato
- Format
- 10 pages on 4 sheets
- Language(s)
- English
- Source
- Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
- Sabato Morais Collection, Box 10, Folder 4
- Has Format
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3ww77k44/manifest.json
- Link to Colenda
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3ww77k44
- Provenance
- Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.
- Is Format Of
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx10FF4_5.xml
- content
-
23
On the 7th day of Pesach
[Hebrew]
Formulated largely from a Hebrew rendition
of a German sermon by Jellinek
[Hebrew]
[Hebrew] "The Lord will fight for you". The scriptural portion designated for this festive day, and in which the words that I quoted occur, unfold a vision scene unique in its character. Africa and Asia--the most conspicuous parts of the world in the days of antiquity--are drawing against each other a sharp line of demarcation. against each other South of the map, known to the an--cients, lies the famous land country of the pyramids, proud of her Nile, [Hebrew] of her soothsayers learned priests [Hebrew] of art and the skill of the to enduringly embalmers of her deified dead. Her countless gods, like her mausoleums, tell a tale of human brutalization. North-East lies the desert of Arabia with its moutnain pointing heavenward--that Sinai, hallowed to spiritual liberty, from whose peak a flood of light streamed forth to irra--diate the mind of a missionary a newly spiritually created nation. One one side are cities for men's dwelling--Succoth, Elthom, Pi--hahiroth; on the other, a sea is surging up, and on its horizon a wreath of smoke points the way onward; a streak column of red fire illumines the path. The panora--ma changes and an army and a cavalry are is seen, and further on a throngs of an affrighted peoples.
and in their midst a man venerably majestic man who towers high, & waves a staff before which nature bows obediently. Hushed is, of a sudden, the trampling of soldiers ready for the fray; the prancing of the horses is heard no more. Angry billows have dragged into the abyss the rider and his steed, and from afar the joyouful strains of a liberty song reverberate [Hebrew] Could the inventive genius of poetry have created from [?] pictured depicted a scene more striking vividly than the one which that historical episode presents? In Behold in it, my brethren, you are made typically to behold past and future struggling for supremacy. The Africa & Asia--Africa her past is despotism; the irresponsible exercise of power over the powerless; Asia: her the future is is law, the recognition of a Lord of compassion, who com--mands visible and invisible ministers of His will to stand by the oppressed. This struggle which our section of the Pentateuch symbolizes, con- is old, but it has not died, it con--tinues yet, because the highest aspirations of our human--ity remain yet unfulfilled. To our fathers, Moses said this day: "The Lord will fight for you, and you shall be silent" and God performed has the pro-mise made by inspiration has ever had its [?] has been performed performance. He God accomplished it
in times of old yore and in the middle ages; and yea, He fights for us on even now. A still. The war was and is waged, is not for the conquest of territory, but for that of ideas which in all reality govern guide a nations life like that of the indivi--dual. It is The war peaceful war is unobstensibly noiselessly noiselessly carried on through the faithful, whom the arch--prophet bade to proceed undauntedly. They waver not in their lawyalty to religious precepts to the standard. The Lord marshals then [Hebrew] under the lead of the Sovereign Lord. In like manner Even as the rising spring battles against winds and rain to rid the earth of storms noxious vapors, and prepare the sky for the balmy breeze and the ground for the smiling looks verdure which it gives, to Israel--the spring, as it were, of religious nation--alities the first produce of God's planting, as Jeremiah calls it, [Hebrew] helped by the Master above, strives to dissi--pate the clouds which darken human men's intellects, and to make the world ready for the acceptance of luminous and soul-quickening truths. [Hebrew] "The Lord will fight for you" cried out Moses to allay our fathers' fears, and infuse the courage of national a progressive resolve. For as Isaiah expresses it, they were sent forth as witnesses of a saving God. [Hebrew]. But Jewish the liberals in Judaism deny it, & the prejudiced among Am all classes of [?] progressives all shades of opinion, malign Judaism. In the name of truth: But Is the Lord in by whose presence breathing the archprophet offered reassur--ance to the [?] undying our still ministering at the altar of faith people, a tribal God, who cares for none except his votaries, a Bel, a Dagon or a Cheurosh?
Well: In the vision of the burning bush that never consumed, a fitting type of Israel's perpetuity, the "I am" He declared His eternity and immutability--sublime attributes but insufficient to draw all humanity to the footstool of His fatherhood. But when inspired mes--sengers proclaimed Him "the all aglow with inspiration the fire of inspiration the fire of inspiration ascended the height of ascended the heights the Lord prophecy & saw God enthroned as on high as God of the world. [Hebrew] [Hebrew], not of one single people; the as Ruler of the Universe, whose eyes watch nations; as He who judges peoples all with equity, He who loves justice and cares for the stranger, then it became demon--strably palpable manifest that Israel had been chosen as the repository of ideas tending predestined to harmonize mankind and constitute it a family. For in our law, our prophets and our hagiographa those enunciations are met, and ours is the par--donable pride of having preserved those books jealously kept such teachings for generations yet unborn. Nay: It was by the spirit of that all-embracing fatherhood that Moses avenged wrong and wrought deliverance [Hebrew]. "Thou shouldst know that the earth belongs to God" was the his charge to Pharaoh. In the same spirit the Sages wrote that every moral step in advance made by Israel is God's triu--mph. [Hebrew]. But ene--mies of light have arisen. at all times on our days
Not unlike the Syphon of Egyptian mythology whose perogative it was to conquer by striking in enemies forced into the dark, so have the Treitschkes and the Mars and the Ragozins and the Rohlings and the Drumonds and others of that ilk, joined impiously hand to terrify us into the darkness of inactivity and then heap shame upon us as obscurantists; as haters of mankind. You all may re--member how a short time since ago the infamous attempt was made by a would be Hebrew scholar of the gentile persuasion, to prove from our literature that the blood accusation, which has but too often turned our Passover bread into an actual too real bread of affliction to prove I say that the accusation of our murdering a Christian in honor of [Hebrew] the feast of freedom receives strong support. And when that atrocious imputation was irrefutably contradict--ed by Christians & Jews. Cabbalistic books were ransacked and misquoted to prove true what is an unmitigated rank malignant false--hood. Enemies of light! Why not cite the very prince of traditions? Even Rabbi Akiba, the mar--tyr, who of our faith. He wrote [Hebrew] Man -not alone Israel--"Man is beloved for he was created in the image of God", and mark it well: Akiba was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he who to keep alive the last spark of Jewish patriotism is reported to have enlisted, in at a far advanced age, in the ranks of Bar Cocheba, that he might strike deal a
struggling blow at tyrannical Rome. When Can you cite one that fought for country and religion who has uttered a sentiment more grandly liberal than that Semite? But then we are not Aryans--whatever that epithet may mean to avowed believers of in one Creator and hence to in the unity of races. Say our antagonists: "The same marked distinction broad line drawn in the days of Moses between Asia and Africa, exists now between Aryanism and Semitism, the former means signifies ad--vancement, the latter retrogression." So the adversa--ries of the ancient faith preach and publish, and they point to certain distinguishing peculiarities as characteris--tical of our people's isolation. What are those singular manifestations of exclusiveness? Enter their [?] the homes of the most conservatives. What meets your eyes at the very door, ye accusers? A Mezuzah. Is that an distinguishing mark evidence of exclusiveness tribalism, of ill-will against the outside world? "The Lord is one, you shall love the Lord with all your heart and soul and might". Is not that the identical lesson which the man of Nazareth you hold as the embodiment of divine perfection taught the taunting inquisitively tempting badgering lawyer who asked him about the greatest commandment? What have the
Rabbis added to it which impairs its beauty? Why, they declared that to cleave to God is to stir oneself and go about doing good, sanctify our energies to the service of goodness; not to pray long and undergo privations, but to sanctify existence by instilling copy the Most High in His acts of providential mercifulness, ad and forgiveness, to model our conduct after that of Abraham in cherishing kindness for all creatures and the friend of God, rearing altars--when the incense of beneficence ascends heavenward. Or later, if you so prefer, the most orthodox synagogues. What Will will you have but the sounds of invectives & imprecations offend your [?] ears? Alas! that in some churches even in America the Jew is called "perfidious & accursed" hence the case of a Jewish child used [?] to death by a Christian lad, before "good Friday". will echo forth from the [?] of supplication "the Lord is nigh unto all that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth," and through the voice of supplicants will respond to this benediction out of the Rabbinical ritual "Hear, O Lord! hearest the prayer of every month." This same liturgical sentence was instanced by a Portuguese Sage to a King to show the spirit of our creed at a period of history, when controversies between parish and Christian scholars often took place, to were encouraged & listened to by Kings. show the spirit of our creed. And the Talmudists in their figurative language, tell us that a house of Jewish prayer must have be surrounded by windows, that is, the hen must pe--netrate; the sun, representing God's benefaction, re-flected through all His creatures Thy dwelling place, & so according to all there the stranger calleth to you for" Do not smile at the legend of the same Talmudists, that when Egypt sunk into the bottomless sea and ministering angels broke forth into joyous songs, they were thus rebuked
"Creatures of my making are perishing away and you attune your voices to hymns?" I read in that pa--rable a sublime lesson of magnanimity. We shall leave to God the vindication of right, and deem it offensive to the Deity to be glad when our enemy falls. This idea is farther carried out by our olden preceptors in the regulation which shortens the recital of the Hallel upon this seventh day of the Pass--over, whereas on all other Biblical festivals it is read in its entirety. And what object could the wise men who selected the prophetic portions for each occasion, have had in view in choosing for the conclusion of our present holidays the splendid masterly oration of Isaiah, in which he depicts a reign of righteousness and peace, and of knowledge of God, filling the whole earth as the water which covers the sea? What, but to fasten on our minds the glorious doctrine of a final unity of all races, by the recognition of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man--the interest aspirating of Jewish prophets? Barter not, I pray you, brethren, those glorious sentiments underlying your religion, for
the vapid liberation of the age. The Lord will fight for you, but only when you will not exchange Him for the evanescent popularity, for the grati--fication of a prurient wish to be considered eman--cipated by the miscalled "free thinkers". "The Lord will reign for ever and ever," was the closing enun--ciation of the immortal song which echoed forth this day from shore to shore, and you daily pray for the establishment of that kingdom universally recognized. [Hebrew]. Through you will the Almighty have a throne in every heart, for Isaiah wrote it: "I, the Lord have called thee in right--eousness and held thee strongly by the hand, and preserved thee, and made thee a covenant-people, a light of nations". The Lord shall - Identifier
- p3ww77k44
- identifier
- SMBx10FF4_5
Part of Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
Morais, Sabato, “Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated”, Sabato Morais Digital Repository, accessed September 19, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/morais/item/91204