JUDAISM AT THE PRESENT TIME.
In taking a rapid survey of the Jews as they exist to-day, we see at one and the same time a great diversity coupled with a fundamental con formity. This diversity has arisen from the attempt which the Jew is bound to make to fit his ancient beliefs and ceremonies into modern ways of thinking and modern conditions. Out, wardly the Jews may be divided into two dis tinctive classes, the so-called Ashkenazim, or the descendants of the Jews of Middle and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardim, or descendants of the Jews who lived formerly in Spaili and Por tugal. Brought up under different conditions, the Sephardim had the benefit of a general cul ture earlier than had the Ashkenazim; and so imbued were they with the Spanish and Portu guese civilization that they carried it with them wherever they went after the expulsions of 1492 and 1496. To this day, whether in Europe, Asia, North Africa, or America, Sephardim are apt to congregate among themselves, havin& their own synagogues and their own ecclesiastical authorities. They are readily distinguished from the Ashkenazim by their names, and in the syna gogue by their more Oriental pronunciation of the Hebrew, and certain peculiarities in their ritual. They are, however, few in number, and by intermarriage with Ashkenazim are gradually losing their identity. Judaism was never a favorable ground for the growth of sects. The enmity of the outside world produced a soli darity which triumphed over all attempts at di vision. The only sect that may be said to exist to-day is that of the Karaites, who probably do MA number more than fifteen or twenty thousand, and are to be found in Southern Russia, in various parts of the Empire, and in Egypt. The Samaritans, of whom about two hun dred souls still live in Nablus, the ancient She chem, can hardly be counted as among the Jews, since they live a life entirely apart from the rest of the community and seek to preserve their ancient schismatic condition. Among the Ashkenazie Jews there are in reality only two divisions. the orthodox and the reform, and even here these divisions are by no means clearly cut. There being no Jewish Church as such, and each community. and even each congregation. being a law unto itself, the greatest variation is found, starting with the ultra-orthodox and reaching down to the most radical reform. For purposes of distinction we may speak of the three follow ing divisions: orthodox, conservative, and reform Jews. The orthodox :few believes in the absolute
authority, not only of the Bible as the Word of God, but also of the traditional body of laws, statutes. and observances which have grown up around the written law in course of time and which form the 'oral law.' After passing through various codifications. from the time of the two Talmuds (fourth to sixth century), this law was put into some sort of final shape by Joseph Caro (sixteenth century). His Shulhan Aruk is con sidered the norm by which the orthodox Jew regulates both his religious and his every-day life. He believes that a strict performance of all its minor regulations is obligatory upon him on all occasions and at all times. The conservative Jew holds in practice also to the validity of both the oral and the written law, but is a little less rigid in his observances, and believes that some concession ought to be made to the spirit of the times and the conditions of modern life. Reform Judaism takes quite a different attitude respect ing both the written and the oral law. It pro fesses to see a regular development in both, and believes that Jewish belief and Jewish practice are supple enough to adapt themselves to all changes of environment and to all phases of human thought. Commencing with Moses Men delssohn. toward the end of the eighteenth cen tury, this reform has made greatest progress in Germany and the United States. Starting as an attempt to modernize the public worship of the synagogue, it has gradually so developed as to become a sort of Unitarianism modified by pecu liar Jewish observances. It has more or less radical ideas in regard to the inspiration of the Bible; it has largely introduced the vernacular into the synagogue service, from which it seeks to remove all traces of its Oriental origin, and dis cards the separation of the sexes, the covering of the head, and the observance of the second-day festivals. In some places Sunday services have been introduced, in addition to those on the his torical Sabbath (in Berlin as early as 1840, in the United States during the last quarter of the nineteenth century). In only one place (Chicago) has the Saturday service been entirely discarded in favor of the Sunday. Between these divisions, however, there are many subdivisions, and the words 'orthodox' and 'reform,' as regards the Jews, are loosely and variously applied.