The Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 33, No. 2, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 14, 1938 Page: 2 of 24
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THE JEWISH HERALD-VOICE
ri T the first International Con-
(4 great of Liberal Jews at Lon-
don. in 1926, Rabbi Mattuck
tairi in part:
“Can Judaism live? And our
answer is. it must live. For us
the means to insure its life is to
express its teachings in a way
that shall answer the longing of
Jewish hearts, to give some light
t) Jewish minds seeking through
the universe its secret and satisfy
the eternal hunger of the Jewish
soul, so that it shall live” (Philip-
Son: “The Reform Movement in
Judaism—new ed. p. 428)
Worship in the Synagogue
\ By WILLIAM M. NATHAN
This article is an excerpt af a paper delivered by Wm. M. Nathan, Houston attorney, on
Worship In the Synagogue before the Southwest District Convention of the Union of Ameri-
can Hebiew Congregations. Because it struck at the very heart of the question of the indi-
vidual and his relationship to the synagogue, the Jewish Herald-Voice asked permission to
reprint part of Mr. Nathan's paper which, it is certain, will be of interest to all readers.
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How has the Synagogue ex-
pressed those teachings and how
should the Synagogue continue
to express them or alter its
method of approach, accordingly,
becomes the brunt of this paper.
But we must first define worship,
and ask the question. “Why do
we have it?” Further, if we admit
a need for it, how should we pro-
cure it? And in seeking the
answer to that question, it may
not be amiss to inquire further:
What did our fathers do about it,
and are there any lesons from
the past that we may learn?
Should we emulate them? If so,
to what extent? If not, then have
anything better to offer our chil-
dren than what our fathers have
offered us? In other words, where
do we stand and which way is
the traffic flowing?
“Worship” is generally defined
as the act of showing reverence,
homage or adoration to God. It
therefore becomes an outward
manifestation of an individual's
effort to approach the Infinite,
to attune himself to God and His
plan, an effort to find some
answer to the riddle of life and
some reason for our being in-
cluded in that plan. Worship by
its very definition carries no theo-
logical implication yet it carries
every theological explanation of
which man is possible. It makes
_ no distinction between the simple
Greetings at Passover!
To All Our Jewish Friends
CONGRATULATIONS TO
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Frank C. Smith, President
WILLIAM M. NATHAN
faith of the savage who worships
the sun, the rain or the fire and
the complex faith of the mystic
who sees God’s hand in every-
thing as an expression of God.
And we must keep in mind that
“God” is your individual idea of
God, not mine but yours, whether
it be an anthromorphic God, a
God of Natural Forces, a creative
Spirit, Nature or whatever des-
ignation you may wish to give it.
It therefore seems to me that
a proper approach to the subject
under discussion carries the obli-
gation to show the place of the
synagogue in Jewish life. What
it was, anw what it may become
are both inherent in the question:
Why worship in a synagogue?
For after all, what we do in a
place is an index of what we
want with the place. Just as a
home without children is a mere
place of abode, whose function
can as easily be taken by an
hotel, an apartment, or even by
the trailer hitched to the back of
the automobile, so is the syna-
gogue without worshipers a mere
pile of stones and marble, pews
and organs.
The historical development of
the Synagogue would be interest-
ing to trace, but for the purpose
of this paper or its functional
character is more important.
Josephus has pointed out that
the Temple in Judaea had already
assumed social and political in-
fluences. It became the scene of
festival gatherings which were
only in a secondary sense religi-
ous in character; political meet-
ings were held within its pre-
cincts, and its courts resounded
on occasion with cries for re-
dress of grievances. King and
Rabbi alike addressed the assem-
bled Israelites under the colon-
nade which was joined to the
Temple by a bridge. Israel Abra-
hams has shown that in the Mid-
dle Ages the synagogue was at
one and the same time the Beth
Ha-Tfillo, the Beth Ha-Midrash
and the Beth Ha-K’nesseth. As
a house of prayer, it was the
Jews place of worship—almost
his only place of worship because
in many instances, especially in
most ghettos, his squalid and
miserable house was hardly more
than a hovel, and except for the
dignity of the Shabbos was a
discomfort and disqualification
for spiritual living. As his Beth
Ha-Midrash it was the only house
of study he knew. It contained
not only his books, it contained
his only Book.
From his early “cheder” days
until old age crept upon him and
took away the sight of the printed
parchment, he pored over the
Torah, until he knew the verses
as well backwards as forwards,
could recite the Psalms, the
liturgy for the daily service as'
—The Editor.
well as for the Holy Days and
Holidays from memory, and as
life was ebbing away could
thank God for the blessing of
death as well as for the gift of
life. As his Beth Ha-K’nesseth.
it served as his meeting house:
Where his social and commercial
contracts were made, his travel-
lers from distant lands regaled
him with tale of wonderment
and excitement; tax rates were
posted on the walls of his syna-
gogue and warnings issued
against fraudulent sales of mort-
gaged property; bans against
heresy, injunctions and excom-
munications—all were hurled
within its sacred precinct and
even public flagellations took
place there.
Within its sacred precincts, did
he develop a manner of worship
which is now by us properly
called a service: it was his effort
to serve his Master. The majesty
of the prayers which he com-
posed has never been equalled
and will never be surpassed; the
soul searching effort to attune
himself to his Maker are repre-
sented by the beautiful passages
of the Siddur and Machzar, and
where they have been toned
down, shortened, or eliminated to
suit the ideology of us modern
Reformed Jews, or to suit the
time of day when our prayers
must cease, or the time of year
when we must place our religion
on ice for refrigeration during
the summer months, we have
in each instance been the loser.
We will continue to be the loser
until we bring back into our
ritual some of the things that I
will hereafter refer to, and into
our worship some of the things
our fathers invented and per-
fected for us.
And now we are met with
Prophet of Gloom and Despair.
Listen to Rabbi Max Routten-
berg in a recent magazine art-
icle.
“If we are to have vital worship
in our modem synagogues, we
must be courageous enough to
eliminate much or our traditional
liturgy and abandon the present
artificialities resulting from me-
chanical modernization. Our pray-
ers must give expression to the
innermost needs of Jews as indi-
viduals for self-realization and as
a people for redemption. A
prayer book with such an ap-
proach has yet to be composed.”
Just why must we abandon the
traditional liturgy and just what
are the present artificialities has
not been specified. What kind of
liturgy the learend rabbi would
propose and what kind of pres-
ent realities he would offer he
(Continued on page 22)
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White, D. H. The Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 33, No. 2, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 14, 1938, newspaper, April 14, 1938; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1102254/m1/2/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .