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

Taken as a whole, these sermons reveal a number of things about Rabbi Eisendrath and his thinking at the time:

1.  Although he had arrived in Toronto only in the summer of 1929, Rabbi Eisendrath was already well acquainted with the social and political life of the city. Elsewhere, we have discussed the rabbi’s early contretemps with Toronto’s Jewish (and Zionist) establishment. It seems from these sermons, and some perusal of the newspapers of the day, that Rabbi Eisendrath was no less engaged in the civic conflicts of the city, particularly as it involved the use of police force against left wing protestations of government policy.

2.  Rabbi Eisendrath read widely in the field of religion and philosophy. He was acquainted with the writings of many Christian clerics, and even those of India and China. As he remarks in the first of these three sermons, he does not find inspiration in the works of contemporary Jewish thinkers, although, as we have noted, many of the ones who were active at the time may not have been available in English or may not yet have hit their stride.

3.  Rabbi Eisendrath obviously has a conception of God, although he does not come to it through systematic philosophical thinking. Rather, he derives it from his thinking about the political and social issues of the day about which he is concerned.

4.  Rabbi Eisendrath’s strength lies in the force with which he critiques the society around him, in particular the capitalist economic order. This must have taken some courage on his part, given that his audience, both Jewish and Christian, were mostly merchants and small businessmen.

5.  Unfortunately, we have no recordings of Rabbi Eisendrath giving these or any other sermons at Holy Blossom. Those who remember him have told us that he was a dramatic orator who could hold his audience for the forty minutes or more that it took to deliver his sermons. Again, as we have previously observed, his writing involves lengthy sentences that utilize various oratorical devices, like inverted word order, alliteration, and poetic imagery.

6.  Much in our society, and in Reform Judaism, has changed in the ninety years since these sermons were preached. However, although their style is antiquated, they still speak to us today, even as our economic system is still unkind to the most vulnerable and our moral order is open to debate.

MC