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The Southern Israelite
Page 17
occasionally to share the greatest m-
. t . re st they had in common—the ex
tirpation of the parent that had
brought them into the world.
Such was the destiny of the suffer-
j ‘ herald whom God had selected to
chrry the light of His truth into the
heart of humanity. What a sad para-
,] uN ' He who had been entrusted with
the manual of the divine pedogogy
f ( ia t would teach all nations how to
live was himself reduced to the pre
carious position of struggling desper
ately for self-preservation. He who
had been designated as the “servant
,,f the Lord.” was branded by ec
clesiastical legislation as being un
worthy even as the servant of man.
Therefore, during the long night of
excruciating agony and woe, when the
light of the sun seemed a smiting rod
by day, and its setting rays seemed
to presage the coming of Israel’s last
twilight, he would take up the elegaic
words of the Psalmist and cry out to
his Master above:
“Thou hast given us like sheep to be
eaten,
Thou makest us a taunt to our neigh
bors,
\ scorn and a derision to them that
are round about us.
All this is come upon us, yet have we
not forgotten Thee,
Neither have we been false to Thine
covenant.
Nay. but for Thy sake are we killed
all the day,
We are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter.
\wake, why sleepest Thou, 0 Lord?
Arouse Thyself, cast not off forever.
Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face,
And forgetest our affliction and op
pression ?
Arise for our help,
And redeem us for Thy mercy's sake.
Hut never could the obsession of
sorrow dim the broader vison that
'•ame with the contemplation of his
mission. The words of the great Pro
phet of the Exile never failed to bring
comfort: “I will give thee for a light
the nations, that My salvation may
be unto the end of the earth. Thus
'ayeth the Lord, the Redeemer of Is
rael, his Holy One, to him who is de
spised of men, to him who is abhorred
•>f nations, to a servant of rulers:
kings shall see and arise, princes, and
they shall prostrate themselves be-
fauae °f the Lord that is faithful,
even the Holy One of Israel, who
hath ehosen thee.”
In this light, the epic of Israel’s
1 fig suffering becomes comprehensi
ve It was not the accident of blind
ate. hut the travail precedent to the
h,rth of the new order that is yet to
c " me - The ‘Malkut Shamayim’ can be
leached only through successive steps
privation and struggle and suffer-
ln g, and Israel, charged with the re
sponsibility of paving the way, had
>ear the brunt of it. He who would
stand guard over the citadel of re-
fgmn, he who would become the di-
;’ ,ne echo on earth of the Voice that
f Un< e< ) from above, must be willing
1 >a 5‘ r ^Tice all, even to bear unheard
misery. This is the law that gov-
rn.s the battle of the Lord, this is
e process which Providence inter-
ti °'? ln ^° great Design. Chris-
aintj and Islam were sent by Him
JuH? rt ° f the Desi S n > both to aid
•a.i^m, as Jehudah ha-Levi, Mai-
ni es > and Nahmanides have point
ed out, in the great spiritual task that
is yet to be achieved. It is true that
the sensuality of Mohammedonism is
still a deterrent to its complete
spiritualization; it is equally true that
the trinitarian dogma of Christianity
clashes violently with the Jewish doc
trine of pure monotheism. But in their
own sphere, both have made a valu
able contribution of the spirit; both
have added a rung to the ladder which
Judaism has constructed for the as
cent of man from earth to heaven,
from dust to Divinity.
But why was Israel required to pay
such a dire penalty? It does not seem
consonant with justice for the divine
Design to subject the “servant of the
Lord” to misery and grief, to shame
and woe and sorrow. . .
In the Talmud (Men. 53b) we find
the solution: as the olive must be
pressed before it will bear its precious
oil, so with Israel before it would dif
fuse its spiritual light. “He shall not
fail nor be crushed, till he have set
the right in the earth; and the isles
shall wait for his teaching.” In the
darkest hour of his woe, he knew that
his deathless mission elevated him to
a loftier realm transcending the
bounds of mortality.
With the recurrence of Passover,
let us reflect on our responsibility in
the modern world. The life-task that
Israel accepted on that first fateful
Passover is also the life-task of mod
ern Israel. We have become an inte
gral part of the material, intellectual
and social life of the world, but our
primary contribution must still be in
the realm of the spirit. We shall not
be discharged from our mission until
the whole of mankind will behold a
deeper vision of life’s spiritual re
quirements; until justice, liberty,
truth, love and morality—the scepter
of the ‘Malkut Shamayim—shall be
universally enthroned on earth. Our
responsibility will not be terminated
until a magnificent cathedral of hu
manity, with its foundation on earth
but its spires embracing the heaven
of heavens, will be erected as a testi
mony that all the ends of the earth
have come together to worship the
one true, living God.
Com pliments
of
E. E. Pomeroy
Fulton Superior
Court
Mv Sincere Good Wishes
ISAAC IN. RAGSDALE
MAYOR
Bes! Wishes to The Southern Israelite
and My Jewish Friends
Q *■ * * w ■*
JOHN A. BOYKIN
SOLICITOR GENERAL
Atlanta Judicial Circuit
Wishing all our many Friends
Passover Greetings
Atlanta's Greatest Entertainment!
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In Memoriam
of a Great Jew
Marcus Loew
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