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Page 16 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 maawaaggxixnaxrrna:;:iin jtxz:::::::::::» 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 ffBP> iT-rr; it ::::::: i.i:::: Margaret Waite Hook Shop Hooks—Gifts—lectures Party Goods Rent Library—Greeting Cards Picture Framing 119-123 Peachtree Arcade >. : i 11 .. : n 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 * %