JESUS PROM THIS JEWISH POINT OF VIEW.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 10 September 1901, Page 4

JESUS PROM THIS JEWISH POINT OF VIEW.

Dr Kaufman Kohler, Rabbi of Temple Beth-el, New York.

The true history of Jesus is so wrapped up in myth, the story of his life told in the Gospels so replete with contradictions, that it is rather difficult for the unbiased reader to arrive at the true historical facts. Still the beautiful tales about the things that happened around the take of Galilee show that there was a spiritual daybreak in that dark corner of Judea of which official Judaism had failed to take sufficient cognisance. "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" of a new world. ....

His whole manner of teaching, the socalled Lord's Prayer, the Gokhn Eule, the code of ethics expounded for the elect ones in the Sermon on the Mount, no less than his miraculous cures, show him to have been one of the Feseues, a popular saint. But he was more than an ordinary teacher and healer of men. He went to the very core of religion and laid bare the depths of the human soul. As a veritable prophet, Jesus, in such striking manner, di-claimed allegiance to any of the PharUean schools and asked for no authority but that of the living voice within, while passing judgment on the law,in order to raise life to a higher standard. He was a bold religious and social reformer, eager to regenerate Judaism. True, a large number .of sayings were attributed to the dead master by his disciples which had been current in tho school. Still, tho charm of true originality is felt in Uiese utterances of his when the great realities of life, when tho idea of Sabbath, the principle of purity, the value of a human soul, of woman, even of the abject sinner, are touched upon. None can read these parables and verdicts of the Nazarene and not be thrilled with tho joy of a truth unspoiled before. There is wonderful music in the voice which stays an angry crowd, saying, " Let him that is without sin cast the first stone!" —that speaks the words, "Be like children, and you are not far from the kingdom of God."

"Did tho Jews reject Christ?" Jesus anticipated a reign of perfect love, but centuries of -hatred came. Could the Jews, victims of Christian intolerance, look with calmness and admiration upon Jesus, in whose name all the antrocities were perpetrated? Still, the leading thinkers of Judaism willingly recognised that the founder of tho Christian Church, as well as that of Islamism, was sent by divine Providence to prepare the pagan world for the Messianic kingdom of truth and righteousness. The Jew of to-day beholds in Jesus an inspiring ideal of matchless beauty. While he lacks the element of stern justice expressed so forcibly in the law and in the Old Testamont characters, the firmness of selfassertion so necessarj to tho full development of manhood, all those social qualities which build np the home and society, industry and worldly progress, he is the unique exponent of the principle of redeeming love. His name as helper of the as sympathising friend of the fallen, as brother of every fellow sufferer, as lover of man and redeemer of woman, has become the inspiration, the symbol, and the watchword for the world's greatest achievements in the field of benevolence. While continuing the work of the synagogue, the Christian Church with a larger means at her disposal created those institutions of charity and redeeming love that accomplished wondrous things. The very sign of the cross has lent a new meaning, a holier pathos to suff ring, sickness, and sia,Jso as to offer new practical solutions for the great problems of evil, which fill the human heart with new joys of self-sacrificing iove. All this modern Judaism gladly acknowledges, reclaiming Jesus as one of its greatest sons. But it denies that one single manj or one church, however broad, holds the key to many-sided truth. It waits for the time when all life's deepest mysteries will have been-spoiled, and to the ideals of sage and saint that of the seeker of all that is good, beautiful, and true will have been joined; when Jew and Gentile, synagogue and church, will merge into the church universal, into tho great city of humanity whose name is " God is there."