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Page 5 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)