A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth | Page 2

them to infuse into religious
instruction a little more spirituality, and to impart a more
comprehensive view of religion, than the routine of former days
deemed necessary, and that, by so doing, they will be better able to
enlarge and satisfy the minds, improve the hearts, and generally
advance the moral education of youth.
Notwithstanding the well-intentioned and beneficial efforts of many
friends of education among the British Jews, and the praiseworthy

exertions of some excellent teachers, the education of the mass is, we
must confess, still in a condition, in which the attainment of those
objects has not ceased to be a desideratum. We may or may not be on a
level with our neighbours, but we have very urgent and special calls of
our own for self-improvement, we have a particular mission to fulfil,
with its concomitant duties. Such self-improvement and such duties are
demanded by the spirit--not of the age, as is too commonly said and
believed--but of an age which began thirty-two centuries ago, at the
revelation on Mount Sinai--the spirit of Judaism, of well-understood
Judaism. Our age, with all its boasted and undeniable progress, is still,
morally, far below the type designed by Providence for humanity in the
Sinaitic dispensation, far behind the spirit which dictated and pervades
the pages of the sacred volume, and which, when thoroughly
understood and generally acted upon, must bring about the supreme
reign of justice, charity, and universal love, and--as far as
attainable--the ultimate perfection of mankind.
It has appeared to me that these truths find a plain and logical
exposition in this little work, and that its contents may not prove
uninteresting even to the general reader. I also believe that a more
correct apprehension of the true spirit and principles of Judaism by our
Christian brethren, than is commonly arrived at, will have the twofold
effect, of gradually leading to a larger measure of justice being dealt to
the Jew, and inducing the latter to a higher degree of self-respect. For
these several reasons, I have volunteered to translate it for the use of
the English public, while other versions are being prepared in Germany
and France. I trust that those to whose lot has fallen the honourable but
arduous task of educating and informing young minds, and to whom it
is more particularly addressed, will give it their earnest consideration,
for the sake of whatever good they may cull from it, as a material in aid,
while they are laying the foundations of virtue in the hearts of the rising
generation.
That the results may correspond to the intentions is the sincere wish of
THE TRANSLATOR.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
TO INSTRUCTORS.
IN the exercise of the sacred mission entrusted to you by
Providence--that of educating our youth to piety and religion--it must
have frequently occurred to you, to wish that such an instruction could
be imparted, not in the shape of dogmas demanding to be admitted
without investigation, but as doctrines addressed to the intellect by
proper demonstrations, and finding their way to the heart by
stimulating its noblest feelings. The little book that I present to you is
intended to satisfy, at least in part, that wish. You will not find in it a
complete treatise on Jewish Theology, or a systematic catechism, but
only the essential elements, which may serve to the future elaboration
of both. You will find deposited in it the rough materials, which some
abler hands will perhaps one day employ in constructing an edifice, in
which our youth may find a safe refuge from the storms of doubt,
unbelief, and irreligion. I have purposed to avoid all exuberant
ornaments of style, all pompous parade of erudition, and contented
myself with a plain diction, and a strict laconism. I have not quoted
authors who preceded me in the same field; I have not called up for
investigation what of valuable or defective could be found in them; in
short, I have not instituted comparisons, scientific disquisitions, or
critical examinations of the opinions of others. A series of aphorisms,
simple, plain, unadorned, of easy understanding, drawn from no other
source than the Divine Word, presented with the greatest possible
perspicuity and precision, progressing in a regular chain of
consequential propositions, and containing in few words the most
important points of the Israelitish creed--that is the form in which I
have thought more proper to present to those, who are already versed in
the Bible and in Hebrew literature, a skeleton of the vast religious
science, in which they may perceive at a glance the principal
characteristic of Judaism, its various ramifications, subsidiary parts,
and special tendencies; they may then easily discover and account for
the multifarious phases, in which it manifested itself in the various
epochs of the universal history of mankind. To supply the