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Southern Israelite
“Hatikwah” and Reform
By MORRIS M. FEUERLICHT
Rabbi of Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, Indianapolis, Ind.
ry^HE following article by Rabbi Feuerlicht is the second in the series
W ") of an educational campaign with which American Rabbis are attempt-
^ W to inform the public of the basic principles of Reform Judaism.
In trenchant phrase and with fine scholarly understanding of the philosophy
of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Feuerlicht deals with our religious problem and
it s’ implications in the field of Jewish nationalism. The logic of Rabbi
f euerlicht s article hews through to what seems to be inescapable conclusions.
The third article of the series dealing in very frank and pungent fashion
with the religious -and nationalistic phases of modern Jewish thought by
Rabbi P. Jacobson, of Asheville, N. C., will be released to the public next
wcck - Louis Wolsey, Philadelphia.
m
Mist
tainlv
There is a well-known rabbinic tradition that Jeru
salem was destroyed nineteen hundred years ago because
if a trivial incident for which a certain Kamtzo* bar
Kamtzo’ was responsible. The result here, as so often
n Jewish and general history, was certainly out of all
proportion to its alleged occasion. A somewhat kindred
consequence seems to threaten just now in the pending
discussion about the inclusion of “Hatikwah” in the re
vised Union Hymnal about to be published by the Central
Conference of American Rabbis. Doubtless prompted by
•me Freudian impulse in which the thought is fathered
hy the wish, certain of our Zionist friends have already
triumphantly acclaimed the mere suggestion of such a
thing as the final surrender of Reform Judaism to the
nationalistic platform of Zionism. Rather gleefully and
prematurely, they clap their hands in celebration of what
they believe to be the complete capitulation of Reform
because of the latter’s tolerant entertainment of the sheer
idea that Zionism’s theme song could possibly find its
way into the Reform liturgy. The situation certainly
■'alls for some clarification and restatement.
A hat is the nature and content of “Hatikwah”? Its
s noted by the late Israel Abrahams (“Bypaths
(Trine Bookland”, p. 359 ff.), is reminiscent of a
h folktune and an old Sephardic hymn. It is cer-
nviting and alluring enough to the ear, and is
(wen sung at table in Jewish homes on Sabbath and holi-
' s to the words of Psalm 126. A Reform hymnal could
melody without slightest offense to non-
Zi«>nist ears. But what of its words? “Hatik-
wah , “the hope”, is the burden of its series
as. So long as Israel continues to
pilgrim to the tombs of the fathers, so long
a> a single eye is left to shed its tear over
1 le Temple ruins, so long as the waters of
t" e J°r<lan roll on to the Sea of Kinnereth,
long as a drop of blood still courses
! " u ,g [ewish veins, so long as Israel con-
hold its national aspirations—so
. ' all we hope for the fulfillment of
'a nations, so long will Israel hope for
T ret ' n to and the rebuilding of the land
: . 0ur tthers. . . . But, as Abrahams has
, ' asked, what is to be the purpose
r en f this return and rebuilding; what
ideal at which it aims? No
n of Messianism, or universalism,
r ely a physical rebuilding and na-
restoration; Palestine as the end,
ng more. This is “Hatikwah”, the
the end of Israel,
tility, not to say ineptness, of such
“hope” in the liturgical aspirations
n Judaism must be immediately ob-
’ r here is expressed a decisive dif-
oetween Zionism and Reform in
pective interpretations of Jewish
nd Jewish destiny. In the philoso
phy of Reform, Palestine can
no longer be the end of Israel
either as a religion or a people.
“On the day when the Temple
was destroyed,” reads thewell-
Rabbi Louis Wolsey
here
tionali -
a nd n<
hope a
The
a limit
of Ref
yious.
ferencc
their .
histor \
Rabbi Morris M. Feuerlicht
known Talmudic dictum, the
Messiah was born (Yer. Ber.
11)”. At best, Palestine can
be only a means—one of the
many in the so-called Diaspora
~to what orthodoxy and Reform alike call
Messianism. But whatever the interpreta
tion of Orthodox Judaism, the Messiah, for
Reform, is not an individual person, a royal
dynasty, or a political movement. It is an
era of universal justice, righteousness and
peace, in the realization of which Israel will
continue to enact the leading and exemplary
role. That role, we maintain, is not nation
alistic as that term is defined by Zionism—
although the Jew today may be, and is, a
thoroughgoing national of every land includ
ing Palestine. It is primarily spiritual, ethi
cal, social; it is religious.
We may well concede that Israel today is
something more than a merely religious
community. It is a religion plus. A religious
system which for numberless centuries has
consistently indoctrinated the heart and life
of its devotees with certain spiritual, ethical,
and social ideals will inevitably inbrecd in
those devotees what modern psychology calls
a psyche, a specific psychologic conscious
ness, along the lines of those ideals. It is
this psyche which constitutes the plus in the
Jew’s distinctiveness among the peoples.
But this plus, though distinctive, is still
religious and not political in its aim, just as
it is universalistic and not nationalistic in
its scope. And in so far as Zionism can assist
in the conservation and extension of this
psychologic religious consciousness, Reform
certainly does not oppose or resist it. On
the contrary, it welcomes it. How genuine
and effective that welcome is, has been am
ply demonstrated in the generous financial
and moral support which the Reform syna
gogue has consistently given to the program
of Palestinian agricultural, industrial, eco
nomic, and cultural rehabilitation through
out the post-war period.
Certainly it should be ungrudgingly admit
ted that, except for such support, the plight
of Palestinian Jewry were far less tolerable
than current reports would indicate. But,
when Zionism insists on interpreting Judaism and Jewish
history in terms of political nationalism, and would lay
claim to Palestine as “the” national homeland instead of
“a” national homeland, akin to many others of modern
Israel, it proclaims a philosophy that not only runs coun
ter to the philosophy of Reform, but also jeopardizes the
various hard-won nationalisms of world-Israel, even as
it unfortunately has already done in Palestine itself. His
torically, it should not he forgotten, our modern Reform
came into being concurrently with the growth of a newer
conception of nationalism among civilized peoples. In
spite of popular medieval conceptions still realistically
current in lands where the Jew has become politically
emancipated, this newer legal conception makes it not
only possible but obligatory for the Jew to be a national
of the land which is his home in fullest consistency with
the prophetic universalism of his ancestral faith.
Despite the sophistries and protestations of political
Zionists to the contrary, therefore, a particularistic Jew
ish nationalism is inevitably in conflict not only with the
universalism of his religion, but also with the nation
alism of the land in which he claims citizenship. It is no
doubt true that there are Reform Jews, in America and
elsewhere, who can outscream the eagle in the raucous
ness of their new-found nationalism. W e have also known
some political Zionists whose eagle-screamings are no
less vociferous; who, in fact, have been able successfully
to capitalize this new-found nationalism to the extent of
climbing into lofty American (Continued on t age 14)