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In everyone's life there are moments which are, more than others, charged
with emotion.
This is such
9
moment for me.
And not least because it recalls
anotner moment, four years ago, ‘when, standing in this place, I was admitted
into the Ministry of our Union by my revered teacherpgazi-éefie leader Isa-oi Df‘.
Mattuck.
It was a privilege which I shall always cherish»
Zichrong Livrachaho
His memory has indeed been, and will remain for us all, an inestimable blessing.
Tigers 15 a picture of him in the office which I have occupied for the last four
years» in the Scuth London Synagogue; and to see it was always an experience at
once of encouragement and of admonitiono
The stenmeas of his face - which was
the sternness of a single mind — seemed to say: I‘FoJlow the truth as you see it.
Follow it wherever it may lead.
Do not be deflected from it by the fear or favour
of hhe multitude, or by any extraneous or secondary consideration.
truth will prevailo"
or
at.
I did not know four years ago that I vou;d come so soon,
all, to the Syrmgogue which is in a finique sense his creation.
retrospect those years seem years of preparationol
years in a better
Ultimately
placen
But in
I could not have spent #255:
shall always be grateful for that privilege.
And It is
no secret that I left the South London Congregation with the regret of one who
takes leave from a cherished fi'iendt
But the regret does not prevent me from
rejoicing 1n the new opportunities which have been grantefi to me, nor from
Fppreciating the honour of Working with the leaders of this,
synagogue.
It is
e
humbling thought.
crux
headquarter
But I find comfort in the knowledge that
in this house the spirit of our founders is ever—present - their words and
thoughts re-echo silehtly within these walls, to guide and inspire all who
are reaponsive.
_2—
What does this Synagogue stand for?
on such an occasione
of God.
It stands, in the first place, for religion: for the worship
It is well to remember that the Hebrew word
But not in any narrow senseo
for worship -
That is an obvious question to ask
91m - means literally service,
'divine service'.
even as in English also we speak of
This usage should be to us a reminder that the service offered
in the house of worship is merely a preparation for the gervice to be rendered
outside it, in the form of righteous living~ Faith - the faith which worship
nurtures - is [the root of religion.
But its fruit is the moral actiono
root whi‘ch yields no fruit is deado
That, at any ratea is what religion mans,
XIV 6J1
or should fiean, to us.
//'eZ/
’
78/f MIA/7’ JWCI
new. —
Tu I)”
(37%?
"We will 19 and
obey?
JD/
And the
Jul—gm:
p/cG- “And thou shalt show them the
way wherein they must walk, and the work which they must
doc.“
The dead, the work,
the impact of religion upon life, that is what cofinta.
Today more than ever
it.
is this connection between religion and righteousness
which needs to be stressedo
For it has become increasingly apparent that man's
basic need is a moral one.
There are other needs: for freedom, for semity,‘ for
happiness.
But if the freedom becomes licence, the security lethargy, and the
happiness self-indulgence, the life of the individual remains worthless and that
of society one of constant discord.
still believe
that.
Who, in the middle of the 20th century, can
what the world chiefly lacks is more material Health, or greater
technological efficiency, or stranger military alliances, or cleverer diplomacy,
or even a wider diffusion of education,
of these things are?
omen!) and art,
valuable as many
Surely it is by now patently obvious that man's fimdamental
weakness is his moral weakness.
From the moat universal war to the most lancaI
industrial dispute or family quarrel, man's basic trotible arises, not from his
inability to control his environment, but from his inability to control himself.
A,
_ 3 Countieas schemes for social betterment founder upon the rock of human selfishneseo
Many more cannot even be considered because man's moral condition is known to be
what. it 160
clearly then, salvation cannot come
t(;
the world from any ideology
which appeals to, and so magnifies, man's lower motives - his lust for pleasure,
his greed for ualth, his appetite for power, or his herd-inatfict — but only one
which attacks his root trouble: his moral motivation.
Religion holds up before
man a higher moral ideal and gives him strength to actualise
1120‘
If there are those who claim to derive these benefits from other sources,
let us not quarrel with
actions.
them
If they
as
right,
let.
them prove it in their
But if we are right, then let us prove it in the same way,
We believe
that the noblest morality, and the most steadfast fortitude to observe it even at
the cost of sacrifice, come from man's confrontation with, and humble submission to,
a Supreme Being whom he recognises as infinitely greater tham himself, before whom
he stands in deepest reverence, and to whom he owes unconditional obedienceo
But
tlfis cannot be demonstrated to shy great extent by intellectual argument, but only
by the visible effect of our faith in the novel-quality of our conduct. This is
the way to verify religious truth;
And in the present age, when much of the former
scepticism towards religion has given way to a new sympathy, the verification may
well prove decisiveo
Therefore, in saying that this Synagogue is dedicated to the
cause of religion, we must remember that it imposes on us P double responsibility;
May those who come to worship in this house ever be inspired by it to translate
their faith into action, both for its own sake and as a demonstration toflothera
of the truth in which they believeo
the redemption of humanity.
So Would we make our humble contribution to
-4Secondly this Synagogue stands for judaiam.
this first, who would
not.
There are those who would put
speak of religion in general, who are interested only
in that which distinguishes Judaism from other faiths.
be
a
mistake.
period.
not.
That, on our View, would
The prophets had no word for Judaism, which originated in the Greek
They were concerned to bring the knowledge of God to a world which knew him
Judaism is not the sum-total of religious truth.
be discovered.
Some of it we mag/(gs able to learn
ham
Much of it remains yet to
other traditionso
The
achievement of mutual understandi:g between the religions is too recent and too
incomplete to rule out such a possibility.
Above all there is great danger in too
exclusive an emphasis on that which makes J‘1daism different from other religious
systems.
Certainly some of the differences are flmdamental, and we should not
dream of surrendering or minimising them.
But, for all that, there is a large
area of common ground which'unites us, for example, with our Christian neighbours,
which unites us with them not only on
religious outlook.
it is common.
L'e
tho; bfsis
of citizenship but on a basis of
must not pay less attention to the common ground because
The questions, What makes a Jew a Jew, and,
from a Christian, are not synonymous.
111181;
makes him different
It would be stupid, as well as tragic, if
we felt obliged to write off as no ionger Jewish any element of Jewish belief as
soon as it was accepted by others 9180, especially when we consider that 60 do that,
to disseminate the truths entrusted to us is recisely the purpose for which Israel
M Ma»! Hun: Thus Mi Candie-m: 0410\(“5’ 6'35“ “WM-nun loaf“!
entered the stage of human history. For us, then, religion is greater than Judaism.
-
A
we confess that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
Jewish philosophy, even as we rejoice to know that some of our fondeet dreams are
dreaxmtby others as well as oursalves.
The corner-atone of this Synagogue puts the
emphasis in the right way when it says that this house is dedicated to the worship
of God in the name of Juflaismo.
-5But_the recognition that religion transcends Judaism need not, and should not,
weaken our Jewiahconviction.
The effevtiveness of a religion, as William Temple once
said, is in proportion to its definitenesso
There is a great need in our time for
strong conviction, deeply held and clearly axpressed, yet combined with an underlying
humility born of the knowledge that we are finite and fallibleo
So far as we can judge,
we must say, the revelation vouchsafed to ancient Israel is humanity's greatest treasury
of religious truth,
So far as vm-can judge it has been most faithfully preserved, and
most fruitfully developed, by the Jewish traditiofi.
So far as we can judge the two
great departures from thnfi tradition have involve@ more 1055 than gain.
them, even as we expect them to respect us.
cause us to be less than frank»
We respect
But the fear of giving offence must not
We have confidence — confidence tempered with hfimilbty —
in the essential soundness of our particular tradition.
The conception of a God who
is not only one but inflivisible, who is too lofty to take on human form yet too near
to require a mediator, who has given to all men a divine soul which cénnot be destroyed,
who requires obdéience té a Moral Law which teaches a love that does not fieg;ect justice,
Ia
humility figggg does not lbwer self-respect,,and a self-control :3§£h does not égéiggg
happiness, who wants men to co-operate with him towards the establishment of a divine
kingdom which is not yet - thege teachings, at once sane and sublime, are dear and
pagci uanto uso
w
ILL
(0mg Huck- fifd
the time may come - I believe it is coming — when thig religion
T1!
kwill provide a Spirl ual home for fifififi an lucrea31ng number of those EEK in thle
.
.
_
country and elsewhere whose attachment to Christianity is only néminal because they
cannot with conviction subscribe to some of its basic doctrines.
Phen, therefore, we
say that this Synagogue stands for Jqdaism, we mean primarily that it seeks to strengthen
the religious loyelty of the Jewish People.
But we Eflfifi also meag secondarily, that
it must continue to act as an interpreter of Judaism to the spiritually homeless of
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__
_ 6 _
Finally this Synagogue stands for liberal Judpism.
Judaism is one thing and Liberal Judaism another.
This is not to say that
Liberal Judaism is Judaism
It is
the historic faith of the Jewish People, so developed that it may flourish in the
J1;d816m cannot flourish if it teaches doctrines which are known to
modern worldo
conflict with established knowledgeo Judaism cannot flourish if it commands
Observances which have
1551;
their meaning,
Judaism cannot flpgrish if it denies
to women an equality which they have rightly attained in every other sphere»
cannot flourish if it expresses itself exclusively in a language
not understando
1:16
3:23;:
would set Judaism free from these impedments that,
like the cedar and the palm-tree on Mount Lebanon,
its old 8590
ich most; Jews do
the universalistic
Judaism camiot flourish if it
inherent in a world religion.
w‘r
Judaism
11;
may flpurish and bear fruit in
All that we have done in the way of reform has been directed to this end,
that Judaism, liberated and enlarged, purified and rejuvenated, may again command the
intellectual respect, and satisfy the spiritual need, and so regain the
of the twentieth—century Jeuo
joym
allegiance
It is sometimes said by our critics that we should not
adapt Judaism to life, but life to Judaismm‘ One obvious answer that Judaism has
always adapted itself to life, as every religion musto
great achievement of the Pharisees?
Judaism
£15m we
What, if not that, was the
But the more important answer is that inigdapting
seek, not to lessen but. to incnease its impact upon life, to enable
Judaism to exert the most powerful possible influence on the life of the Jew, directing
and shaping all its aspects by the light of its eternal idealeo
This has always been the primary motive of our leaders.
much misunderstood even in our own rankeo
forms.
But it is unfortunately
And the misunderstanding takes two opposite
0n the one hand there are those who make little of the principles which
give Liberal Judaism its distinctiveness, who lay emphasis only on that which all
Jews have in common because it belongs to a common past, who imagine that too much
liberalism detracts from Jewishnessc, They, even if they are not motivated by
..
7 _
ordinary nostalgia or conformiam, betray a failure to understand that it is 331'
fig Elie 9£_the Judaism of the past, and £111:
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£019
£01-
tha Judaism which all Jews
share, that we attach importance to the reforms which we believe to be necessary for
its survival, that the zeal of our liberalism is a measure of our zeal for Judaism.
0n the other hand there are those who commit the opposite error of elevating
the principles of liberalism into the be-all and end—all of their Judaism, who are
interested only in the adjective, forgetting that which the adjective qualifies,
W
who imagine that too much Jewishness detracts from liberalism, with
a
consaqqnat
estrangement from the Jewish past and from Catholic Israel. Both these tendencies
understand
show a, failure to
that liberalism and Judaism are reloted as means to end.
The latter mistakes the means for the and; the former fails to realise the importance
of the means to achieve the ando
Both these tendencies are a great source of Weakness
in our movement, and must be held responsible for the fact that, though it has
progressed and is progressing, its progress has not been more substantiala
Vast nurbers of our fellow—Jews in this country - I think it is safe to say
the great majority - have long abandoned the foundations on which the whole of the
traditional structure of Judaisni restsn
Yet only a few of them — relatively a mere
handful - find their way into our movement, and then, alas, not always for the right
reasons»
QWW
Most are content to pay lip—service to a system which they no longer
practise and whose basis they cannot accept.
This
spineless traditionalism covers up a spiritual emptiness which L§beral Judaism ought
to fill as air bursts into a vacuum or as
9011.,
But it is not so.
thirst is one.
Sash water
is sucked up
of course there may be many reasons.
The fact that prejudice dies hard is another.
13
A lack of real spiritua
But one basic reason,
which is at least within our control, is the quality of our own exampleo