Interesting Lecture by Rabbi Hirsch to Hebrew Young Men's Association There was a good gathering of members of the Hebrew Young Men's Association and many ladies present at the lecture given in the Association's rooms on Wednesday by Rabbi Hirsch on the subject of the survival of Judaism. Mr. J. E. Salmon presided, and in introducing the speaker referred to previous lectures given before the Association, making particular mention of the recent address by Dr. Einstein on a very different subject, the course of his address, Rabbi Hirsch said they could not deny that many viewed the present position of Judaism with too much calm and imperturbability. They believed that they were still firmly planted on the rail on which their forefathers had, because they professed to uphold their beliefs and stood connected with them by many ties which the practical side of their religion might suggest. But they were under the same illusion as the inexperienced traveller who sees everything around him in rapid motion except himself. In reality they were not more stationary than their surroundings. The spirit of the age caught them in its wings and placed them on entirely new ground. Many of the old hopes that vitalized the Jew and conserved the solidarity of his race had vanished. How much moral vigour, how much inspiration and energy had gone with them! In view of the regaler dissolution going on among them, it was pertinent to ask, Will Judaism survive? Will it be able to withstand the disintegrating influences that assail it with so much force from without?
The lecturer then dealt with the conception of the social organism and its bearing on the question under discussion. Very wonderful, he said, are the unfolding mysteries of evolution, when viewed in its wider application to human life as manifested in the grouping of men into communities and nations. The conception of the social organism revealed certain fixed laws by which men became associated and were formed into nations, to work out their existence and go through a definite progress of social events for some set purpose, and then vanish and disappear. As in the universe every star and planet has functions assigned to it, and the work of each is necessary for the harmony of the whole, so in tne growth of human life every form has a place and a function in the development of the whole. The Jews contributed to the wealth of humanity, with Greek and Roman, but they worked in a separate and distinct field, To them God granted the genius of discovering religious truth and moral value, the eternal worth of human life.
Rabbi Hirsch then drew a com-
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