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Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath

We, Michael Cole and Howard Roger, are two members of Holy Blossom Temple, a Reform Jewish synagogue in Toronto, Canada. This blog records our observations, experiences and questions as we study a cache of manuscripts of the sermons of Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, rabbi of our synagogue from 1929 to 1943. 

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You can read about us briefly here. Our email address is eisendrathsermons@gmail.com. 

Three sermons on religion and morality

November 17 and 24, and December 1, 1929

Our next three entries are on three related sermons given by Rabbi Eisendrath in late 1929, during his first year in Toronto. They were given on three consecutive Sunday mornings on the topic of religion and morality. They were:

Do We Need a New Religion? – November 17, 1929

Do We Need a New Morality? – November 24, 1929

How Moral Then Are We? – December 1, 1929

November 17, 1929

Do we need a new religion?

This was the first sermon given by Rabbi Eisendrath in Toronto in which he was unrestricted by tradition or the calendar in his choice of topic. His first several sermons in Toronto were delivered at services for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and other holidays occurring during the first weeks of the Jewish calendar. His first Sunday morning sermon in Toronto was delivered at a special Armistice Day service and was related to that day.

This then was his first opportunity to introduce to his Sunday audience his religious and philosophical outlook. It was the first of three related sermons,  It was followed by "Do we need a new morality?" (November 24, 1929) and "How moral then are we?" (December 1, 1929).  Rabbi Eisendrath showed himself to be erudite, modernist and unafraid of controversy.

November 24, 1929

Do We Need a New Morality?

Rabbi Eisendrath begins this sermon by commenting on the popularity of moral themes in sermons, plays and novels. Many, he argues, would attribute this popularity to a prurient interest in sex. [1]  The rabbi considers this view superficial and discerns a deeper motivation. We are today, he believes, seeking guidance through a profound moral chaos.  “Why all this doubting and challenging so characteristic of our day? …  Because, in the first place, the fear of the Lord is no longer upon us.” In the past, people feared God and knew what was right and what was wrong. No longer! In the past, we believed in Revelation at Mount Sinai.

Having received the Laws, Moses descends from on high, delivers his message to the people, who have but one alternative. “Nishmah ve na'aseh,” if I be permitted the paraphrase. “We have heard, we must obey,” the people answer …

The rabbi here is indeed paraphrasing, as he reverses the order of things as recorded in the Torah, where the people exclaim, “Na’aseh v’nishmah—we will do and we will hear.” (Exodus 24:7. The Hebrew nishmah denotes both hearing and obeying.) The two orders suggest very different things in terms of commitment to the Divine Command. The first (Rabbi Eisendrath’s) suggests that we will hear the commandments and then do them, supposedly because we think that they make sense; the second suggests that we are committed to doing the commandments even before hearing them, such is our trust in God. (Alternatively, it may suggest that not until we have performed the commandments, and experienced their effect, can we truly “hear,” i.e., understand, their value and meaning.)

December 1, 1929

How Moral Then are We?

Having concluded his sermon last week with an assertion that Divine Revelation is a continuing process and that our understanding of morality is ever-growing, Rabbi Eisendrath begins his next sermon, the last of a trilogy, with the question “How moral then are we?” Rabbi Eisendrath limits his discussion to an examination of two moral concerns facing contemporary society, war, and economic justice. (Sexual morality, the topic with which the rabbi began this trilogy of sermons, is not given further consideration.)

Concepts of morality evolve, but, Rabbi Eisendrath says, there has been revealed to us a certain standard, a “plumb line of moral measurement,” by which we might answer this question. He mentions “the Ten Commandments of Israel, … the Sermon on the Mount of Christendom, … the ethics of Confucius, the Koran of Mohammed and the lofty Vedantas of the East” as sources of this moral truth has been embodied. This acknowledgement of the wisdom of many religions is frequently found in Rabbi Eisendrath’s sermons.

To Rabbi Eisendrath the clearest test of our morality is whether we are willing or not to go to war.

And the first absolute requisite for human well being and joy I find to be sure in the stubborn insistence on the part of every moral teacher of the past, the adamant, unwavering, ever uncompromising insistence upon peace. From the ancient texts of the Taoist maintaining that "there is no calamity greater than engaging in war,” [1] through the lovely dream of Isaiah of "the day when swords would be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks," [2] down to one of the few austere commands of the Nazarene to "Resist not evil," [3] man has been warned by every prophet and seer, every dreamer and idealist, every champion and lover of humanity of the horrors and evils of war …

An early sermon -- Rosh Hashanah, 1927 (Charleston, West Virginia)

"The Call to Serve"

Among the sermon manuscripts found in Holy Blossom’s Tower is one that is undoubtedly one of the oldest in the collection. The manuscript is undated. It is clearly a Rosh Hashanah sermon. The very first sentence is, “We are at the gateway of another year.”

Temple Israel (B'nai Israel)
Charleston WV
Synagogue building
1894 - 1960

We know that this is not a sermon that the rabbi delivered in Toronto, because all those sermon titles are recorded in the Temple’s Bulletin, and this one is not among them. He refers to “the short year that I have been among you…” . Rabbi Eisendrath came to Charleston in the fall of 1926, so we know that this sermon was given on erev Rosh Hashanah of the year following. He had only that summer celebrated his 25th birthday.
   
Like many of Rabbi Eisendrath’s sermons, he begins with an extended recitation of metaphors:

We have just passed one more milestone upon the journey of life. The months just vanished have been swallowed by the ravenous maw of the grave; the year, now ended has passed into eternity, never to return. The chapter, already recorded in our Sepher Ha Hayyim, in our ledger of time, has been closed, never to be effaced.