th time-honored thoughts, inspired by the hopes of by-gone
generations, striving for the goal of noble men in all ages, like the
psalm singers in the days of early culture, we celebrate a feast of the
well by reviewing the past and looking forward down the avenues of time.

Less than fifty years ago a band of energetic, loyal Jews, on the other
side of the Atlantic, founded our beloved Order. Now it has established
itself in every part of the world, from the extreme western coast of
America to the blessed meadows of the Jordan; yea, even the Holy Land,
unfurling everywhere the banner of charity, brotherly love, and unity,
and seeking to spread education and culture, the forerunners of
humanity. Judaism, mark you, is the religion of humanity. By far too
late for our good and that of mankind, we began to proclaim this truth
with becoming energy and emphasis, and to demonstrate it with the
joyousness of conviction. The question is, are we permeated with this
conviction? Our knowledge of Judaism is slight; we have barely a
suspicion of what in the course of centuries, nay, of thousands of
years, it has done for the progress of civilization. In my estimation,
our house-warming cannot more fittingly be celebrated than by taking a
bird's-eye view of Jewish culture.

The Bible is the text-book of general literature. Out of the Bible, more
particularly from the Ten Commandments, flashed from Sinai, mankind
learned its first ethical lesson in a system which still satisfies its
needs. To convey even a faint idea of what the Bible has done for
civilization, morality, and the literature of every people--of the
innumerable texts it has furnished to poets, and subjects to
painters--would in itself require a literature.

The conflicts with surrounding nations to which they were exposed made
the Jews concentrate their forces, and so enabled them to wage
successful war with nations mightier than themselves. Their heroism
under the Maccabees and under Bar-Kochba, in the middle ages and in
modern days, permits them to take rank among the most valiant in
history. A historian of literature, a non-Jew, enumerates three factors
constituting Jews important agents in the preservation and revival of
learning:[21] First, their ability as traders. The Phoenicians are
regarded as the oldest commercial nation, but the Jews contested the
palm with them. Zebulon and Asher in very early times were seafaring
tribes. Under Solomon, Israelitish vessels s