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THE PRINCIPLES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS.

TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS.

RABBI DAVID PHILIPSON.

The great changes wrought in the existence of the Jews by the gradual emancipation from civil and political disabilities in the lands of Western Europe in what is known as the modern era, dating from the close of the eighteenth century, were accompanied by similar marked changes in the inner cultural and religious life. Political emancipation, industrial freedom and educational opportunities with the resultant enlarged outlook upon life were accompanied necessarily by a spirit of impatience with inherited religious viewpoints and practices. The right of the individual conscience asserted itself strongly and the clashes between authority as embodied in the accumulated traditions of the past and individualism as defining the freedom of the present, became sharp and constant. The authority of the religious code which the medieval ghetto Jew accepted unquestioningly was superseded in many quarters by a radical individualism which set all religious authority at naught. The body of authority was broken up. It was, however, not only the authority of the code or Shulchan Aruch, which was the bond of union among the Jews of medieval Europe. Besides this bond of a common religious authority, there was also the bond of common suffering in the same cause and the bond of a common hope, namely, the realization of the dream of the return to Palestine and the reestablishment of the Jewish state as the consummation of Israel's mission. This triple bond, a common

religious authority, the code, a common lot of present suffering and disability and a common hope for the future, account sufficiently for the union of the Jewish communities, however widely separated. The emancipation of the modern era shattered this triple bond. The movement for religious reform which resulted from political and educational emancipation, and whose aim was to adjust the religious views and practices to the new outlook of the Jew freed from the ghetto and all that it implied, undermined the authority of the Shulchan Aruch. The newly acquired freedom which arrested medieval persecution and aroused the hope for the gradual disappearance of the Jewish misère weakened the second former bond of union, namely, the suffering in a common cause, and the surrender of the ancient hope of the return to Palestine and the substitution therefor of the universal belief in the coming of a Messianic Age for all humanity loosened the third bond which had united all Jews formerly. Where then, European Jewry, however widely scattered, had been practically one and united during the centuries when, in Zangwill's expressive phrase, the countries of the earth had been stepfatherlands to them, now that these countries were becoming their fatherlands and the Jews were gaining the rights of men and citizens, there seemed to be no authority which was respected, no bond which joined them to one another. Notably was this true as far as Jewish life as such was concerned. Ritual and practice, ceremonies and forms, customs and beliefs, concerning which there had been no question, were challenged and disobserved. There was almost a condition of religious anarchy in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The religious leaders were sadly at variance with one another. They ran the gamut from the extremest orthodoxy of a Solomon Eger and a Solomon Abraham Tiktin, championing the authority of the Shulchan Aruch in its each and every command to the uncompromising radicalism of a Samuel Holdheim and a Mendel Hess, who had no appreciation whatsoever of the compelling power of the historic spirit. The people were sadly puzzled. Was there no way out of the disorganization that was so painfully apparent? The exigencies of the new life for a reinterpretation and reweighing of Jewish values in the light of the new conditions cried aloud.

for some satisfaction. The reconciling of inherited tradition with present needs demanded consideration. This was, of course, the case only in those communities that had been touched by the modern spirit, notably, Germany, France and England, but particularly Germany. Here the anarchic disorganization filled with alarm observant men, both in the rabbinical office and in the congregations. It was felt by such that some steps must be taken to stem this disorganization and to bring harmony out of this chaos. For this reason Abraham Geiger, while Rabbi in Wiesbaden, issued a call in 1837 for a meeting of Rabbis that they might confer together on the present state of Judaism in Germany, discuss questions of the hour and come to conclusions which might be accepted by the people as the deliberate judgment of the religious leaders. This was the first attempt at a rabbinical conference in modern days. Little of note, beyond the mapping out of work to be done, was accomplished. But Geiger showed the way and the Wiesbaden Conference, though small and fruitless of practical results, was the lantern bearer that pointed the path to all the future attempts at bringing union and organization into the confused and distracted religious affairs of Jewry in the modern world.

When seven years later, in the beginning of the year 1844, Ludwig Philippson, who beyond all the celebrated Rabbis of that day had the gift of organization, issued a call in the columns of his newspaper, Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, for a rabbinical conference, the hearty response to the call showed that Geiger's first attempt had borne fruit. The Rabbis who met at Brunswick in response to Philippson's call were clearly conscious of the situation they had to meet. When they declared that

"The rabbinical conferences shall have as their purpose that the members shall take counsel together in order to determine by what means the preservation and development of Judaism and the enlivening of the religious consciousness can be accomplished",

they stated the purpose of such gatherings finely. The rabbinical conferences were to arrogate to themselves no authority over the

religious conscience of the individual; they claimed no synodical or ecclesiastical authority to loose or to bind; they were to be deliberative bodies where many men of many minds were to discuss the many disputed points of religious belief and practice from all possible angles and to attempt to arrive at some conclusion, if not unanimous, at least reflecting the view of the majority; it was felt that such conclusions, although not authoritative in the sense that the conference had any power to compel the acceptance thereof by individuals and congregations, would yet be considered authoritative because they were the decisions arrived at by men of learning, of light and of leading; it was hoped that the conferences would secure the confidence of the congregations and would gradually assume the position of religious guide because of the character of the membership; although they would have no means of enforcing their decisions and pronouncements, yet these decisions and pronouncements would in time gain authority from the very nature of the case; or as one of the leading Rabbis put it:

"The purpose of our gathering is to work for the preservation and development of our holy religion; all our deliberations are concerned herewith, and we pass resolutions as to how this is to be accomplished. Have we any synodical justification? No; we as little as the Rabbis of former times. What gave them their power was the confidence of the congregations, and this confidence was reposed in them because they were scholars and adepts in the law. The same holds with us."

On such a basis alone can the authority of a conference of Rabbis rest, whether now it was the conference at Brunswick in 1844, or this latest rabbinical convention in Detroit, meeting just seventy years thereafter. The special work, deliberations and resolutions of the famous German Conferences at Brunswick, Frankfort and Breslau of that fifth decade of the nineteenth century, I can not stop to discuss or even mention. I refer to them by way of historical introduction to my theme, and also because there is a direct bond of connection between our Conference, whose silver anniversary we are now celebrating, and

these early conferences on German soil. The very first resolution adopted by this Conference on the day of its organization in this city twenty-five years ago declared:

"That the proceedings of all the modern rabbinical conferences from that held in Braunschweig in 1844 and including all like assemblages held since, shall be taken as a basis for the work of this Conference in an endeavor to maintain in unbroken succession the formulated opinion of Jewish thought and life in each era." There is then the direct bond of connection between our meeting here and now and that first assembly of Reform Rabbis. This Conference is the institution par excellence that represents the historic spirit of modern Judaism. The Brunswick Conference was an experiment, its descendant and successor, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, is an accomplished fact, and is the representative institution of the religious life and aspiration of liberal Judaism in this country. What the German Rabbis of that era of storm and stress visioned but failed to bring to pass, namely, a stable rabbinical conference that was to meet from year to year, their American descendants in the spirit have achieved with God's help and through the initiative of the masterful founder and the never-to-be-forgotten father of this Conference, the mighty builder of flourishing Jewish institutions, America's foremost Jewish organizing genius, Isaac M. Wise.

Our great teacher once told the present speaker, with whom he was associated as colleague in the same city for over ten years, that he had attended as a visitor the second of the three famous German Rabbinical Conferences of the fifth decade of the nineteenth century, viz., that of Frankfort on the Main; he was not a member of the Conference, nor did he participate in the discussions; he, a young Bohemian Rabbi, was there simply as an onlooker and an interested listener. Who can tell but that the ideas engendered in Isaac M. Wise's fruitful mind by the sight of a number of German Rabbis in council were directly responsible for his untiring and unabated efforts in the same direction almost from the time that he arrived in this country? Setting