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The Southern Israelite
WILLIAMS-FLYNT
LUMBER CO.
Retail Dealer* in
LUMBER AND BUILDERS’
SUPPLIES
250 Elliott, N. W.
IVv 1005
Extending Greetings
to our
Many Friends and Patrons
LANE DRUG STORES
(Jualit y—('ou rt esy—Service—K i trh 1 I Vices
112 Stores in Atlanta — 60 in the South
Compliment* of
Red Rock Co.
NirGrape Bottling Co.
Orange Crush Bottling Co.
ATLANTA
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Best \\ ishes To Our Friends anti Patrons
For tlit' Passover
HOTEL ARAGON
VTI.ANTA. GEORGIA
One of the Leading Down Town Hotels
One Minute from Everywhere
It. \. 1 I Si) El., Munngt-r
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Margaret Waite Hook
Shop
Hooks—Gifts—lectures
Party Goods
Rent Library—Greeting Cards
Picture Framing
119-123 Peachtree Arcade
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11
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Service With Quality at
Grand's Prices
F&W Grand
5-10-25 Cents Store,Inc.
Atlanta's Finest and Most
Complete 5-10-25c Store
Passover and Israel's World
Mission
lly RABBI ALEX. ALAN STE1NBACH
Beth El Temple, Norfolk, Va.
The Midrash (ExR. v. 18) relates
that when Moses stood before Pharaoh
and demanded the release of Israel in
the name of Jahveh, God of Israel, the
Egyptian king searched through his
book in which were enumerated the
deities of all the nations, then ex
claimed: “Behold, I have looked into
the hook that contains the names of
all the gods, hut the name of your
Cod 1 can not find therein.” Where
upon Moses retorted: "All the gods
known to thee are mortal, as art thou;
they died and their tomb is known.
The God of Israel has nothing in con-
mon with them. He is the living, true,
and eternal God who created heaven
and earth.”
The touching picture of Moses
pleading earnestly with Pharoah in
the name of the living God, has had
its counterpart in every century. From
the first Passover during the reign of
Pharoah until our own day, Israel has
been God’s ambassador to humanity—
the champion of religious truth and
the harbinger of light to the nations.
The call of Moses as the herald of
Providence to the Egyptians is paral
leled by Israel’s selection as the in
strument of God in the divine plan of
universal salvation. By word and by
deed, by precept and by example, in
every age and in every clime, Israel
has plead passionately, with an ardent
faith over-brimming from the flood
gates of his soul, for the universal ac
ceptance of the sublime spiritual im
peratives by which alone man can
triumph over the darkness of nes
cience and apprehend his ineffable
kinship with the infinite World-Soul.
The yearning and longing of his spirit
became a driving impulsion to teach
all men the art of hungering for God.
Encompassing every land, he pro
claimed the plan of a new moral or
der, the ultimate objective of which
was to unite all human and cosmic life
into a spiritual government holy
enough to enthrone Providence as its
supreme Potentate.
And his reward? A crown of thorns;
a plethora of sorrow. Nay, these were
merely the complements of his haz
ardous undertaking. His reward had
been vouchsafed in advance: to have
been chosen as the guardian of the
sum mum bonum, as “the pencil of the
Unearthly Writer, the bent bow of the
Heavenly Archer, the tuned lyre of
the Divine Musician."
The acceptance of this historic mis
sion was the higher purpose of
Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Therein
lies the deeper significance of that
first trying Passover. Important, in
deed. was his liberation from abject
servitude; but more important was his
consecration as priest-people to a
life-task of disseminating the verities
of religion in a narrow-visioned world
steeped in abysmal darkness. Such
a far-reaching life-mission could not
however, be embarked upon without a
ngul apprenticeship. The initial step
was, therefore, the establishment of
a theocratic state acknowledging only
God as its King. Here Israel dwelt in
priestly isolation, preparing himself
for the role of mediator between the
Creator and His Handiwork, between
God and mankind. His active priest
hood was inaugurated only when, up
rooted from his native land, he took
up his staff and went forth on his
pilgrimage as the world’s tragic Wan
derer. Homeless and hearth-less, yet
at home everywhere; the Pariah of all
nations, yet the beloved of God; icono
clast in the ranks of men, yet the spe
cially ordained minister from the cab
inet of Heaven. What a gigantic bur
den to bear! What a lofty responsi
bility to earry! When it seemed that
he must falter, out of his trembling
lips there sounded the pledge of al-
legience: “Tu solus sanctus—'Thou
alone art Holy.” This cry would drown
all notes of despair and remind him
that they who labor for Heaven can
not fail. With renewed courage and
accelerated pace, he would tighten hi<
grip on his wanderer’s staff and con
tinue his missionary pilgrimage.
The forward march of history, far
from alleviating Israel’s burden, ren
dered it more difficult to bear. The
advent of Christianity embittered the
sorrowful cup of Israel, and brought
unprecedented remorse to the broken
heart of history’s tragic hero.
Judaism’s daughter-religion professed
to extend the hand of love; in reality,
it gripped a double-edged sword. “The
voice was the voice of Jacob, but the
hand was the hand of Esau." With
fire and with hatred, with torture and
with death, Christianity strove to im
pose her doctrine of love upon her
parent, and to constrain Israel to re
linquish his divinely-appointed minis
try'. When her ruthless cruelty failed
to swerve the “servant of the Lord'
from his mission, she resorted to more
diabolical measures in an effort to
firing him to bay. At the fourth Latern
Council under the presidency of Pope
Innocent III in 1215, she made the
shameful humiliating badge the of
ficial weapon of the Church against
Israel. By branding him with "the
mark of Cain,” she believed she could
transform the Abel of world history
into a personage of revolting horror
From that time onward, no age passed
which did not witness inhumanities so
abhorrent that humane ecclesiasts,
who recognized in these excesses the
wilful violation of Christianity’s P r ' n ‘
cipal doctrine, could not restrain
themselves from offering solemn pro
test.
When, in the early part of the
seventh century, the rugged came-
driver of Mecca roused his people to
urge itself of idolatry, and posite
the doctrine of the unity of Alla
against the triune God of the Chris-
tian Church, unbounded hope leap
like a lambent flame into the heart
of Israel. Perhaps this second daug
ter of Judaism would not prove fait
less to the mother who gave n® r
birth. But the hope was short-live-
When the Jews refused to accept • 0
hammed as “the seal of the prophets,
the Bedouin savagery within ®
burst into a revengeful, fanatical
tred that opened another avenue o
martyrdom for Israel. Christian!,
and Islam, Esau and Ishmael, the c ^
dren of Israel, waged unrelenting w
against each other; but they P aU *
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