The Jews and Modern Capitalism (part II)

Yago · #1 (**permalink**) Sunday, September 11th, 2005, 19:08

The Jews and Modern Capitalism
Die Juden un das Wirtschaftsleben

by Werner Sombart
translated by M. Epstein

Part II - The Aptitude of the Jews of Modern Capitalism

Yago · #2 (**permalink**) Sunday, September 11th, 2005, 19:10

Chapter 8
The Problem

Before us lies a great problem. We are to explain why the Jews played just the part they did in the economic life of the last two or three centuries. That this is a problem will be admitted with but few exceptions by all. There are a few faddists who deny that the Jews occupied any special position in modern economic life, asserting as they do that there are no Jews. These will object. Then, too, there is that other small category of people who hold that the Jews were economically of such slight import that they were without any influence whatever on modern economic life. But we shall pay little heed to either class in our considerations, which are for all those who think with me that the Jews had a decisive influence on the structure of modern economic life.

I have spoken of the aptitude of the Jews for modern capitalism. If our researches are to be fruitful of results we shall have to make two things absolutely clear: (1) their aptitude -- for what? and (2) their aptitude -- how developed?

Their aptitude for what? For everything which in the first part of the book we have seen them striving to achieve -- founding and promoting international trade, modern finance, the Stock Exchange and the commercialization generally of all economic activities; supporting unrestricted intercourse and free competition, and infusing the modern spirit into all economic life. Now in my superscription of this part of our subject all these activities are summed up in the word "capitalism." In a special chapter (the ninth) we shall show that all the single facts that have been mentioned hang together, and that they are kept together by means of capitalistic organization. The essentials of the latter, at least in their outline, will therefore also have to be dealt with, in order to demonstrate the special functions of the individual in the capitalistic system. This method will give the death-blow to such vague conceptions, usually met with in connexion with the Jewish problem, as "economic capacity," "aptitude for commerce and haggling" or other equally dilettante phrases, which have already done too much mischief.

As for the second point, how, by what means, is it possible to achieve any result? If any one rescues a drowning man, it may be that it was because he happened to be standing at the water’s edge, just where a boat was tied, or on a bridge, where a life-belt was ready to hand. In a word, his accidental presence in a particular spot made it possible for him to do the deed, by rowing out in the boat to the man in danger, or by throwing the life-belt to him. Or he may have done it because he was the only one among the crowd on the shore who had the courage to jump into the water, swim out to the sinking man and bring him safely to land. In the first case we might term the circumstances "objective," in the second "subjective." The same distinction can be applied to the Jews in considering their aptitude for capitalism: it may be due to objective or to subjective circumstances.

My immediate business will be to deal with the first set of causes, and for many reasons. To begin with, every explanation that is put forward must be closely scrutinized, in order to make sure that no unproved hypothesis is its basis, and that what has to be proved is not a dogma. Dangerous in most cases, it is particularly so in the problem before us, in which racial and religious prejudices may work havoc, as, indeed, they have done in the writings of the great majority of my precursors on this question. I shall do my utmost to avoid their error in this respect, and shall be at great pains to see to it that my considerations are above criticism. My aim is to discover the play of cause and effect as it really was, without any preconceived idea influencing my reasoning, and I shall adduce my proofs in such a way, that they may be easily followed by all -- by the assimilationist Jew no less than by the Nationalist; by him who pins his faith to the influence of race as by the warmest supporter of the doctrine of environment; by the anti-Semite as by his opponent. Hence my starting-point will always have to be from facts admitted on all hands. That will preclude any appeal to "special race characteristics" or arguments of that ilk.

Any one who does not admit that the Jews have special gifts may demand that the part played by this people in modern economic life should be explained without any reference to national peculiarities, but rather from the external circumstances in which Jews were placed by the accident of history. I shall endeavour to satisfy this demand in the tenth chapter.

Finally, if it becomes apparent that the contribution of the Jews to modern economic life cannot be entirely explained by the conditions of their historic situation, then will be the time for looking to subjective causes, and for considering the Jews’ special characteristics. This shall be the purpose of the twelfth chapter.

Yago · #3 (**permalink**) Sunday, September 11th, 2005, 19:13

Chapter 9
What is a Capitalist Undertaker?

Capitalism¹ is the name given to that economic organization wherein regularly two distinct social groups co-operate -- the owners of the means of production, who at the same time do the work of managing and directing, and the great body of workers who possess nothing but their labour. The co-operation is such, that the representatives of capital are the subjective agents, that is, they decide as to the "how" and the "how much" in the process of production, and they undertake all risks.

Now what are the mainsprings of the whole system? The first, and perhaps the chiefest, is the pursuit of gain or profit. This being the case, there is a tendency for undertakings to grow bigger and bigger. Arising from that, all economic activities are strictly logical. Whereas in the pre-capitalistic period quieta non movere was the watchword and Tradition the guiding star, now it is constant movement. I characterize the whole as "economic rationalism," and this I would term the second mainspring of the capitalistic system.

Economic rationalism expresses itself in three ways. (1) There is a plan, in accordance with which all things are ordered aright. And the plan covers activities in the distant future. (2) Efficiency is the test applied in the choice of all the means of production. (3) Seeing that the "cash nexus" regulates all economic activity, and that everywhere and always a surplus is sought for, exact calculations become necessary in every undertaking.

Everybody knows that a modern business is not merely, say, the production of rails or cotton or electric motors, or the transport of stones or of people. Everybody knows that these are but parts in the organization of the whole. And the characteristics of the undertaker are not that he arranges for the carrying out of the processes named. They are to be found elsewhere, and for the present we may put it roughly that they are a constant buying and selling of the means of production, of labour or of commodities. To vary the phrase somewhat, the undertaker makes contracts concerning exchanges, wherein money is the measure of value.

When do we speak of having accomplished a successful piece of business? Surely when the contract-making has ended well. But what is meant precisely by "well"? It certainly has no reference to the quality or to the quantity of the goods or services given or received; it refers solely and only to the return of the sum of money expended, and to a surplus over and above it (profit). It is the aim of the undertaker so to manipulate the factors over which he has control as to bring about this surplus.

Our next step must be to consider what functions the capitalistic undertaker (the subjective economic factor) has in the sphere of capitalism, seeing that our purpose is to show the capacity of the Jews in this direction. We shall try to discover what special skill is necessary in order to be successful in the competitive struggle. In a word, we shall seek for the type.

To my mind, the best picture of the modern capitalistic undertaker is that which paints him as the combination of two radically different natures in one person. Like Faust, he may say that two souls dwell within his breast; unlike Faust’s, however, the two souls do not wish to be separated, but rather, on the contrary, desire to work harmoniously together. What are these two natures? The one is the undertaker (not in the more limited sense of capitalistic undertaker, but quite generally), and the other is the trader.

By the undertaker I mean a man who has an object in view to which he devotes his life, an object which requires the cooperation of others for its achievement, seeing that its realization is in the world of men. The undertaker must thus be differentiated from the artist or the prophet. Like them he has a mission; unlike them he feels that he must bring it to realization. He is a man, therefore, who peers into the distant future, whose every action is planned and done only in so far as it will help the great whole. As an instance of an undertaker in this (non-capitalistic) sense we may mention an African or a North Pole explorer. The undertaker becomes a capitalistic undertaker when he combines his original activities with those of the trader.

And what is a trader? A man whose whole being is set upon doing profitable business; who appraises all activities and all conditions with a view to their money value, who turns everything into its gold equivalent. The world to such a man is one great market-place, with its supply and demand, its conjunctures -- good and bad -- and its profits and losses. The constant question on his lips is, "What does it cost? What can I make out of it?" His last question would in all probability be, "What is the price of the universe?" The circle of his thoughts is circumscribed by one piece of business, to the successful issue of which he devotes all his energies.

In the combination I have endeavoured to sketch, the undertaker is the constant factor, the trader the variant one. Constant the undertaker must be, for, having set his heart upon some far-distant goal, he is of necessity bound to follow some plan in order to reach it. Change in his policy is contrary to his nature. Constancy is the basis of his character. But the trader is changeable, for his conduct wavers with the conditions of the market. He must be able to vary his policy and his aim from one moment to another if the prevailing conjuncture so demands it. "Busy-ness" marks him out above all else.

This theory of the two souls in one body is intended to clarify our conception of the capitalistic undertaker. But we must analyse the conception still further, this time into its actual component parts.

In the undertaker I perceive the following four types:

(1) The Inventor -- not merely in the technical sense, but in that of the organizer introducing new forms which bring greater economies into production, or transport, or marketing.

(2) The Discoverer -- of new means of selling his commodities, either intensively or extensively. If he finds a new sphere for his activities -- let us say he sells bathing-drawers to Eskimos, or gramophones to Negroes -- we have a case of extensive discovery; if he creates new demands in markets where he already has a footing, we may speak of intensive discovery.

(3) The Conqueror. An undertaker of the right kind is always a conqueror, with the determination and will-power to overcome all the difficulties that beset his path. He must also be able to risk much, to stake his all (that is to say, his fortune, his good name, even his life), if need be, to achieve great results for his undertaking. It may be the adoption of new methods in manufacture, the extension of his business though his credit is unstable, and so on.

(4) The Organizer. Above all else the undertaker must be an organizer; i.e., he must be able so to dispose of large numbers of individuals as to bring about the most successful result; must be able to fit the round man into the round hole and the square man into the square; must be able to give a man just the job for which he is best equipped, so as to obtain the maximum of efficiency. To do this satisfactorily demands many gifts and much skill. For example, the organizer must be able to tell at a glance what a man can do best, and which man among many will best suit his purpose. He must be able to let others do his work -- i.e., to place in positions of trust such persons as will be able to relieve him of responsibility. Finally, he must be able to see to it that the human factors in the work of production are sufficient for the purpose, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and that their relationship to each other is harmonious. In short, the management of his business must be the most efficient possible.

Now business organization means a good deal more than the skilful choice of men and methods; it means taking into consideration also geographical, ethnological and accidentalcircumstances of all sorts. Let me illustrate my point. The Westinghouse Electric Company is one of the best organized concerns in the United States. When the Company decided to capture the English market it set up a branch in this country, the organization of which was modelled exactly on that of the parent concern. After a few years, what was the result? The financial break-up of the English branch, chiefly because sufficient allowance had not been made for the difference in English conditions.

This leads us to the activities of the trader. A trader has no definite calling; he has only certain well-defined functions in the body economic. But they are of a very varied kind. For example: to provision ships and supply them with men and ammunition, to conquer wild lands in distant parts, to drive the natives from hearth and home and seize their goods and chattels, to load the ships with these latter and bring them home in order to sell them at public auctions to the highest bidder -- all this is a form of trading.

Or, it may be a different form -- as when a dealer obtains a pair of old trousers from a needy man of fashion, to whose house he comes in vain five times in succession, and then palms those same trousers off on a stupid yokel.

Or, again, it may take the form of arbitrage dealing on the Stock Exchange.

Clearly there are differences in these instances, as there were beThe tween trading in modern and in mediaeval times. In the pre-capitalistic period, to trade meant to trade on a big scale, as the "royal merchants" did in the Italian and German cities, and the trader had to be an undertaker (in the general, and not merely in the capitalistic sense). "Each (of the citizens of Genoa) has a tower in his house; if civil war breaks out, the battlements of these towers are the scenes of conflict. They are masters of the sea; they build them ships, called galleys, and roam for plunder in the most distant parts, bringing the spoil back to Genoa. With Pisa they live in continual enmity." "Royal merchants" these, if you like; but not traders in my sense.

I regard those as traders who set out with the intention of doing good business; who combine within themselves two activities " calculation and negotiation. In a word, the trader must be (1) a speculating calculator, and (2) a business man, a negotiator.

As a speculating calculator, he must buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest. Which means that he must obtain his labour and his raw material at as low a rate as possible, and not waste anything in the process of manufacture. And when the commodity is ready for sale, he must part with it to the man whose credit is sound, and so forth. For all this he must calculate, and he must speculate. By speculation in this sense I mean the drawing of several conclusions from particular instances -- let us call it the power of economic diagnosis, the complete survey of the market, the evaluation of all its symptoms, the recognition of future possibilities and the choice of that course which will have the greatest utility in the long run.

To this end the dealer must have a hundred eyes, a hundred ears and a hundred feelers in all directions. Here he may have to search out a needy nobleman, or a State bent on war, in order to offer them a loan at the psychological moment; there, to put his hand on a labour group that is willing to work a few pence below the prevailing rate of wages; here he may have to form a right estimate of the chances that a new article is likely to have with the public; there, to appraise the true effect of a political crisis on the Stock Exchange. In every case the trader expresses the result in terms of money. That is where the calculation comes in. "A wonderfullyshrewd calculator" is a term common in the United States for an adept in this direction.

But a discerning eye for a profitable piece of business is not sufficient: the trader must also possess the capacity for doing business. In this, his negotiating powers will come into play, and he will be doing something very much more akin to the work of an arbitrator between two litigants. He will talk to his opponent, urge reasons and counterreasons in order to induce him to embark on a certain course. To negotiate is to fence with intellectual weapons.

Trading, then, means to negotiate concerning the buying and selling of some commodity, be it a share, a loan, or a concern. Trading must be the term applied to the activity of the hawker at the back-door, trying to sell the cook a "fur" collar, or to that of the Jewish old do’ man, who talks for an hour to the bucolic driver to persuade him to purchase a pair of trousers. But it must be equally applied to the activities of a Nathan Rothschild, who negotiated with the representative of the Prussian Government for a loan of a million. The difference is not one of kind, but of extent, for the essence of all trading is negotiation, which need not necessarily be by word of mouth. The shopkeeper who recommends his goods to the public, be his method what you will, is in reality negotiating. What is all advertisement but "dumb show" negotiation? The end in view is always the same -- to convince the possible buyer of the superiority of a particular set of goods. The ideal of the seller is realized when everybody purchases the article he has recommended.

To create interest, to win confidence, to stir up a desire to buy -- such is the end and aim of the successful trader. How he achieves it is of little moment. Sufficient that he uses not outward force but inner forces, his customers coming to him of their own free will. He wins by suggestion, and one of the most effective is to arouse in the heart of the buyer the feeling that to buy at once will be most advantageous. "We shall have snow, boys, said the Finns, for they had Aander (a kind of snowshoe) to sell," we read in the Magnus Barford Saga (1006 A.D.). This is the prototype of all traders and the suggestion of the Finns the prototype of all advertising -- the weapon with which the trader fights. No longer does he dwell in fortified towers, as did his precursor in Genoa in the days of Benjamin of Tudela, nor does he wreck the houses of the natives with his guns if they refuse to "trade" with him, as did the early East India settlers in the 17th century.

---
Notes to Chapter 9

1. For a fuller account of the subject of this chapter, see an article of mine, "Der Kapitalistische Untemehmer," in Archiv für soziale Wissenschaft und Soziale Politik, vol. 29.

Yago · #4 (**permalink**) Sunday, September 11th, 2005, 19:22

Chapter 10
The Objective Circumstances in the Jewish Aptitude for Modern Capitalism

Now that we know what a capitalist undertaker is our next question must be. What were the outward circumstances that made it possible for the Jews to do so much in shaping the capitalistic system? To formulate an answer we shall have to review the position of the Jews of Western Europe and America from the end of the 15th century until the present time -- the period, that is, in which capitalism took form.

How can that position be best characterized?

The Governor of Jamaica in a letter he wrote (December 17, 1671) to the Secretary of State was happy in his phraseology.¹ "He was of opinion," he said, "that His Majesty could not have more profitable subjects than the Jews: they had great stocks and correspondence." These two reasons, indeed, will account in large measure for the headway made by Jews. But we must also bear in mind their peculiar status among the peoples with whom they dwelt. They were looked upon as strangers and were treated not as full, but as "semi-citizens."

I would therefore assign four causes for the success of the Jews: (1) their dispersion over a wide area, (2) their treatment as strangers, (3) their semi-citizenship, and (4) theirwealth.

Jewish Dispersion over a Wide Area
The fact of primary significance is that the Jews were scattered all over the world. Scattered they had been from the time of the first Exile; they were scattered anew after their expulsion from Spain and Portugal, and again when great masses of them left Poland. We have already accompanied them on their wanderings during the last two or three centuries, and have noted how they settled in Germany and France, in Italy and in England, in the Near East and in the Far West, in Holland, in Austria, in South Africa and in Eastern Asia.

One result of these wanderings was that off-shoots of one and the same family took root in different centres of economic life and established great world-famed firms with numerous branches in all parts. Let us instance a few cases.²

The Lopez family had its seat in Bordeaux, and branches in Spain, England, Antwerp and Toulouse. The Mendes family, well-known bankers, also hailed from Bordeaux, and were to be found in Portugal, France and Flanders. The Gradis, relatives of the Mendes, were also settled in all directions. So, too, the Carceres in Hamburg, in England, in Austria, in the West Indies, in Barbados and in Surinam. Other famous families with world-wide branches were the Costas (Acostas, D’Acostas), the Coneglianos, the Alhadibs, the Sassoons, the Pereires, the Rothschilds. We might continue the list ad infinitum; suffice it to say that Jewish business concerns that had a footing in at least two places on the face of the globe may be counted in hundreds and in thousands.

What all this means is obvious enough. What Christian business houses obtained only after much effort, and even then only to a much less degree, the Jews had at the very beginning -- scattered centres from which to carry on international commerce and to utilize international credit; "great correspondence" in short, the first necessity for all international organization.

Let us recall what I observed about the participation of the Jews in Spanish and Portuguese trade, in the trade of the Levant, and in the economic growth of America. It was of great consequence that the great majority of Jews settling in different parts hailed from Spain; they were thus agents in directing colonial trade, and to an even greater extent the flow of .silver, into the new channels represented by Holland, England, France and Germany.

Was it not significant that the Jews directed their footsteps just to these countries, all on the eve of a great economic revival, and were thus the means of allowing them to benefit by Jewish international connexions? It is well known that Jews turned away the flow of trade from the lands that expelled them to those that gave them a hospitable reception.

Was it not significant that they were predominant in Leghorn, which in the 18th century was spoken of as "one of the great depots in Europe for the trade of the Mediterranean,"³ significant that they forged a commercial chain binding North and South America together, which assured the North American Colonies of their economic existence, significant above all, that by their control of the Stock Exchanges in the great European centres they were the means of internationalizing public credit? It was their distribution over a wide area which enabled them to do all this.

An admirable picture of the importance of the Jews from this point of view was drawn by a clever observer who made a study of that people two hundred years ago. The picture has lost none of its freshness; it may be found in the Spectator of September 27, 1712:⁴

They are so disseminated through all the trading Parts of the World, that they are become the Instruments by which the most distant Nations converse with one another and by which mankind are knit together in a general correspondence. They are like the pegs and nails in a great building, which though they are but little valued in themselves, are absolutely necessary to keep the whole frame together.

How the Jews utilized for their own advantage the special knowledge that their scattered position gave them, how they regulated their activities on the Stock Exchange, is related in all detail in a Report of the French Ambassador in The Hague, written in the year 1698.⁵ Our informant is of opinion that the dominance of the Jews on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange was due in a large degree to their being so well-informed. This piece of evidence is of such great value that I shall translate the whole of the passage:

They carry on a correspondence on both these subjects (news and commerce) with those they call their brotherhoods (congregues). Of these, Venice is considered to be the most important (although neither the richest nor the most populous) because it is the link, by way of the brotherhood of Salonica, between the East and the West as well as the South. Salonica is the governing centre for their nation in these two parts of the world and is responsible for them to Venice, which together with Amsterdam, rules the northern countries (including the merely tolerated community of London, and the secret brotherhoods of France). The result of this association is that on the two topics of news and commerce they receive, one might almost say, the best information of all that goes on in the world, and on this they build up their system every week in their assemblies, wisely choosing for this purpose the day after Saturday, i.e., the Sunday, when the Christians of all denominations are engaged in their religious exercises. These systems, which contain the minutest details of news received during the week, are, after having been carefully sifted by their rabbis and the heads of their congregations, handed over on the Sunday afternoon to their Jewish stockbrokers and agents. These are men of great cleverness, who after having arranged a preconcerted plan among themselves, go out separately to spread news which should prove the most useful for their own ends; ready to start manipulations on the morrow, the Monday morning, according to each individual’s disposition: either selling, buying, or exchanging shares. As they always hold a large reserve of these commodities, they can always judge of the most propitious moment, taking advantage of the rise or fall of the securities, or even sometimes of both, in order to carry out their plans.

Equally beneficial was their dispersion for winning the confidence of the great. Indeed, the progress of the Jews to la haute finance was almost invariably as follows. In the first instance their linguistic ability enabled them to be of service to crowned heads as interpreters, then they were sent as intermediaries or special negotiators to foreign courts. Soon they were put in charge of their employer’s fortunes, at the same time being honoured through his graciousness in allowing them to become his creditors. From this point it was no long step to the control of the State finances, and in later years of the Stock Exchanges.

It is no far-fetched assumption that already in ancient times their knowledge of languages and their acquaintance with foreign civilizations must have made them welcome visitors at the courts of kings and won for them royal confidence. Think of Joseph in Egypt; of the Alabarch Alexander (of whom Josephus tells), the intimate of King Agrippa and of the mother of the Emperor Claudius; think of the Jewish Treasurer of Queen Candace of Ethiopia, of whom we may read in the Acts of the Apostles (viii. 27).

As for the Court Jews in the Middle Ages, we have definite information that they won their spurs in the capacity of interpreters or negotiators. We know it of the Jew Isaac, whom Charlemagne sent to the court of the Caliph Haroun al Rashid; of Kalonymus, the Jewish friend and favourite of the Emperor Otto II; of the famous Chasdai Ibn Shaprut (915-70), who achieved honour and renown as the diplomatic representative of the Caliph Abdul-Rahman III in his negotiations with the Christian courts of Northern Spain.⁶ Similarly when the Christian princes of the Iberian Peninsula required skilful negotiators they sought out Jews. Alphonso VI is a good example. Intent on playing off the petty Mohammedan rulers against each other, he chose Jewish agents, with their linguistic abilities and their insight into foreign ways, to send to the courts of Toledo, Seville and Granada. In the period which followed, Jewish emissaries are met with at all the Spanish courts, including those Jews, learned in ethnography, whom James II commissioned to travel into Asia in order to supply his spies with information and who tried to discover the mythical country of Prester John;⁷ including also the many interpreters and confidential agents associated with the discovery of the New World.⁸

Considering the importance of the Spanish period in Jewish history not only from the general, but also from the special economic point of view, these cases are worthy of note in that they clearly show the reason for the rise of Jews to influential positions. But they are not limited to the Spanish period; they abound in subsequent epochs also. Thus, Jewish diplomatists were employed by the States-General in their intercourse with the Powers; and names like Delmonte, Mesquita⁹ and others are well-known. Equally famous is the Seigneur Hebraeo, as Richelieu called the wealthy Ildefonso Lopez, whom the French statesman sent on a secret mission to Holland, and on his return bestowed upon him the tide of "Conseiller d’Etat ordinaire."¹⁰

Finally, the dispersion of the Jews is noteworthy in another way. Their dispersion internationally was, as we have seen, fruitful enough of results; but their being scattered in every part of some particular country had consequences no less potent. To take one instance -- the Jews were army-purveyors (and their activities as such date from the days of antiquity, for do we not read that when Belisarius besieged Naples, the Jewish inhabitants offered to supply the town with provisions?).¹¹ One reason was surely that they were able to accumulate large quantities of commodities much more easily than the Christians, thanks to their connexions in the different centres. "The Jewish undertaker," says one 18th-century writer, "is free from these difficulties. All he need do is to stir up his brethren in the right place, and at a moment’s notice he has all the assistance he requires at his disposal."¹² In truth, the Jew at that time never carried on business "as an isolated individual, but always as a member of the most extended trading company in the world."¹³ In the words of a petition of the merchants of Paris in the second half of the 18th century,¹⁴ "they are atoms of molten money which flow and are scattered, but which at the least incline reunite into one principal stream."

The Jews as Aliens
During the last century or two Jews were almost everywhere strangers in the sense of being new-comers. They were never old-established in the places where their most successful activities were manifest; nor did they arrive in such centres from the vicinity, but rather from distant lands, differing in manners and customs, and often in climate too, from the countries of their settlements. To Holland, France and England they came from Spain and Portugal and then from Germany; they journeyed to Hamburg and Frankfort from other German cities; later on they dispersed all over Germany from Russian Poland.

The Jews, then, were everywhere colonists, and as such learned the lesson of speedy adaptation to their new surroundings. In this they were ahead of the European nations, who did not become masters of this art until the settlements in America were founded.

New-comers must have an observant eye in order to find a niche for themselves amid the new conditions; they must be very careful of their behaviour, so that they may earn their livelihood without let or hindrance. While the natives are still in their warm beds the new-comers stand without in the sharp morning air of dawn, and their energy is all the keener in consequence. They must concentrate their thoughts to obtain a foothold, and all their economic activities will be dictated by this desire. They must of necessity determine how best to regulate their undertakings, and what is the shortest cut to their goal -- what branches of manufacture or commerce are likely to prove most profitable, with what persons business connexions should be established, and on what principles business itself should be conducted. What is all this but the substitution of economic rationalism for time-honoured Tradition? That the Jews did this we have already observed; why they were forced to do it becomes apparent when we recall that everywhere they were strangers in the land, new-comers, immigrants.

But the Jews were strangers among the nations throughout many centuries in yet another sense, which might be termed psychological and social. They were strangers because of the inward contrast between them and their hosts, because of their almost caste-like separation from the peoples in whose midst they dwelt. They, the Jews, looked upon themselves as a peculiar people: and as a peculiar people the nations regarded them. Hence, there was developed in the Jews that conduct and that mental attitude which is bound to show itself in dealings with "strangers," especially in an age in which the conception of world-citizenship was as yet nonexistent. For in all periods of history innocent of humanitarian considerations the mere fact that a "stranger" was being dealt with was sufficient to ease the conscience and loosen the bonds of moral duty. In intercourse with strangers people were never quite so particular. Now the Jews were always brought into contact with strangers, with "others," especially in their economic activities, seeing that everywhere they were a small minority. And whereas the "others" dealt with a stranger, say, once in ten times or even in a hundred, it was just the reverse with the Jews, whose intercourse with strangers was nine out of the ten or ninety-nine out of the hundred times. What was the consequence? The Jew had recourse to the "ethics for strangers" (if I may use this term without being misunderstood) far more frequently than the non-Jew; for the one it was the rule, whilst for the other it was only the exception. Jewish business methods thus came to be based on it.

Closely interwoven with their status as strangers was the special legal position which they occupied everywhere. But this has an importance of its own, and we shall therefore assign an independent section to it.

Jews as Semi-Citizens
At first glance the legal position of the Jews would appear to have had an immense influence on their economic activities in that it limited the callings to which they might devote themselves, and generally closed the avenues to a livelihood. But I believe that the effect of these restrictions has been over-estimated. I would even go so far as to say that they were of no moment whatever for the economic growth of Jewry. At least, I am not aware that any of the traces left by Jews on the development of the modern economic system were due to the restraining regulations. That these could not have left a very deep impress is obvious, seeing that during the period which is of most interest to us the laws affecting Jews differed greatly according to locality. For all that we note a remarkable similarity in Jewish influence throughout the whole range of the capitalistic social order.

How varied the laws in restraint of Jews were is not always sufficiently realized. To begin with, there were broad differences between those of one country and of another. Thus, while the Jews in Holland and England were in a position of almost complete equality with their Christian neighbours so far as their economic life was concerned, they laboured under great disabilities in other lands. But even in these last their treatment was not uniform, for in certain towns and districts they enjoyed entire economic freedom, as, for example, in the papal possessions in France.¹⁵ Moreover, even the disabilities varied in number and in kind in each country, and sometimes in different parts of the same country. In most instances they appeared to be quite arbitrary; nowhere was there any underlying principle visible. In one place Jews might not be hawkers, and in another they were not allowed to be shopkeepers. Here they received permission to be craftsmen; there this right was denied them. Here they might deal in wool, there they might not. Here they might sell leather, there it was forbidden them. Here the sale of alcoholic liquors was farmed out to them, there such an idea seemed preposterous. Here they were encouraged to start factories, there they were strictly enjoined to desist from all participation in capitalistic undertakings. Such examples might be continued indefinitely.

Perhaps the best is furnished by Prussia’s treatment of her Jews in the 18th century. Here in one and the same country the restrictive legislation for one locality was totally opposed to that of another. The revised General Privileges of 1750 (Article 2) forbade Jews the exercise of handicrafts in many places; yet a royal order of May 21, 1790, permitted the Jews in Breslau "to exercise all manner of mechanical arts," and went on to say that "it would be a source of much pleasure to Us if Christian craftsmen of their own free will took Jewish boys as apprentices and eventually received them into their gilds." A similar enactment was made in the General Reglement for the Jews of South-East Prussia, dated April 17, 1797 (Article 10).

Again, while the Jews of Berlin were forbidden (by Articles 13 and 15 of the General Privileges of 1750) to sell meat, beer and brandy to non-Jews, all the native-born Jews of Silesia had complete freedom of trade in this respect (in accordance with an Order of February 13, 1769).

The list of commodities in which they were allowed or forbidden to trade seems to have been drawn up with an arbitrariness that passes comprehension. Thus, the General Privileges of 1750 allowed the Jews to deal in foreign or home leather prepared though undyed, but not in raw or dyed leather; in raw calf and sheep skins, but not in raw cow or horse hides; in all manner of manufactured woollen and cotton wares, but not in raw wool or woollen threads.

The picture becomes still more bewildering when we take into consideration the varying legal status of the different classes of Jews. The Jewish community of Breslau, for instance, was (until the Order of May 21, 1790, changed things) composed of four groups: (1) those with "general privileges," (2) those with "privileges," (3) those who were only tolerated, and (4) temporary residents.

The first class included those Jews who were on an equal footing with Christians so far as trade and commerce were concerned, and whose rights in this respect were hereditary. In the second were comprised such Jews as had "special (limited) privileges" given them, wherein they were allowed to trade in certain kinds of goods specifically mentioned. But their rights did not pass to their children, though the children received preference when privileges of this kind were being granted. The third class was composed of Jews who had the right of living in Breslau, but whose economic activities were even more limited than those in the second class. As for the fourth, it contained the Jews who received permission to dwell in the town for a temporary period only.

But even of such rights as they had they were never sure. In 1769, for example, the Silesian Jews who lived in country districts were allowed to receive in farm the sale of beer, brandy and meat; in 1780 the permission was withdrawn; in 1787 it was renewed.

Yet in all this it must not be forgotten that regulations in restraint of industry and commerce during the last two or three centuries were for the most part a dead letter; as a matter of fact, capitalistic interests found ways and means of getting round them. The simplest method was to overstep the law, a course to which as time went on the bureaucratic State shut its eyes. But there were lawful means too of circumventing inconvenient paragraphs: concessions, privileges, patents, and the whole collection of documents granting exceptional treatment which princes were always willing to issue if only an additional source of income accrued therefrom. The Jews were not slow in obtaining such privileges. The proviso mentioned in the Prussian Edicts of 1737 and 1750 -- that all restraints referring to Jews might be removed by a special royal order -- was tacitly held to apply in all cases. Some way out must have been possible, else how could the Jews have engaged in those trades (e.g., leather, tobacco) which the law forbade them?

At one point, however, industrial regulations made themselves felt as very real checks to the progress of the Jew, and that was wherever economic activities were organized on a corporate basis. The gilds were closed to them; they were kept back by the crucifix which hung in each gild-hall, and round which members assembled. Accordingly, if they wished to engage in any industry or trade monopolized by a gild, they were forced to do so as "outsiders," interlopers and free traders.

But a still greater obstacle in their path were the laws regulating their position in public life. In all countries there was a remarkable uniformity in these; everywhere the Jew was shut out from public offices, central or local, from the Bar, from Parliament, from the Army, from the Universities. This applied to the States of Western Europe -- France, Holland, England -- and also to America. But there is no need to consider with any degree of fullness the legal status of the Jews in the preemancipation era, seeing that it is fairly generally known. Only this we would mention here -- that their condition of semi-citizenship continued in most countries right into the 19th century. The United States was the first land in which they obtained civil equality; the principle was there promulgated in 1783. In France the famous Emancipation Law dates from 27th September 1791; in Holland the Batavian National Assembly made the Jews full citizens in 1796. But in England it was not until 1859 that they were granted complete emancipation, while in the German States it took ten years longer. On 3rd July 1869 the North German Confederation finally set the seal on their civil equality; Austria had already done so in 1867, and Italy followed suit in 1870.

Equally well-known is it that in many cases the emancipation laws have become dead letters. Open any Liberal paper in Germany (to take a good instance) and day by day you will find complaints that Jews are never given commissions in the Army, that they are excluded from appointments to the Bench, and so on.

This set-back which the Jews received in public life was of great use to industry and commerce in that the Jew concentrated all his ability and energy on them. The most gifted minds from other social groups devoted themselves to the service of the State; among the Jews, in so far as they did not spend themselves in the Beth Hamidrash [the Communal House of Study], such spirits were forced into business. Now the more economic life aimed at profit-making and the more the moneyed interests acquired influence, the more were the Jews driven to win for themselves by means of commerce and industry what was denied them by the law -- respect and power in the State. It becomes apparent why gold (as we have seen) was appraised so highly among Jews.

But if exclusion from public life was of benefit to the economic position of the Jews in one direction, giving them a pull over their Christian neighbours, it was equally beneficial in another. It freed the Jews from political partisanship. Their attitude towards the State, and the particular Government of the day, was wholly unprejudiced. Thanks to this, their capacity to become the standard-bearers of the international capitalistic system was superior to that of other people. For they supplied the different States with money, and national conflicts were among the chief sources from which Jews derived their profit. Moreover, the political colourlessness of their position made it possible for them to serve successive dynasties or governments in countries which, like France, were subjected to many political changes. The history of the Rothschilds illustrates the point. Thus the Jews, through their inferior civil position, were enabled to facilitate the growth of the indifference of capitalism to all interests but those of gain. Again, therefore, they promoted and strengthened the capitalistic spirit.

The Wealth of the Jews
Among the objective conditions which made possible the economic mission of the Jews during the last three or four centuries must be reckoned that at all times and in all places where their role in economic life was no mean one, they disposed of large sums of money. But this assertion says nothing about the wealth of the whole body of Jews, so that it is idle to urge the objection that at all periods there were poor Jews, and very many of them. Any one who has ever set foot in a Jewish congregation on the Eastern borders of Germany, or is acquainted with the Jewish quarter of New York, knows that well enough. But what I maintain -- a more limited proposition -- is that much wealth and great fortunes were to be found, and still are to be found, among Jews ever since the 17th century. Put in a slightly different way, there were always many wealthy Jews, and certainly the Jews on an average were richer than the Christians round them. It is beside the mark to say that the richest man in Germany or the three richest in America are not Jews.

A good many of the exiles from the Pyrenean Peninsula must have been very wealthy indeed. We are informed that their flight brought with it an "exodo de capitaes," a flow of capital from the country. However, in many instances they sold their property, receiving foreign bills in exchange.¹⁶ The richest among the fugitives probably made for Holland. At any rate it is recorded that the first settlers in that country -- Manuel Lopez Homen, Maria Nunez, Miguel Lopez and others -- had great possessions.¹⁷ Whether other wealthy Spaniards followed in the 17th century, or whether those already resident added to their fortunes, it is not easy to discover. But certain it is that the Jews of Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries were famed for their riches. True, there are no statistics to illustrate this, but an abundance of other weighty evidence exists. Travellers could not sufficiently admire the splendour and the luxury of the houses of these refugees who dwelt in what were really palaces. And if you turn to a collection of engravings of that period, do you not very soon discover that the most magnificent mansions in, say, Amsterdam or The Hague were built by Jews or inhabited by them -- those of Baron Delmonte, of the noble Lord de Pinto, of the Lord d’Acoste and others? (At the close of the 17th century de Pinto’s fortune was estimated at 8,000,000 florins.) Of the princely luxury at a Jewish wedding in Amsterdam, where one of her daughters married, Gliickel von Hamein draws a vivid picture in her Memoirs.¹⁸

It was the same in other lands. For 17th and 18th century France we have the generalization of Savary, who knew most things. "We say," these are his very words, "we say that a tradesman is ‘as rich as a Jew’ when he has the reputation of having amassed a large fortune."¹⁹

As for England, actual figures are extant concerning the wealth of the rich Sephardim soon after their arrival. A crowd of rich Jews followed in the train of Catharine of Braganza, Charles II’s bride, so that while in 1661 there were only 35 Jewish families in London, two years later no less than 57 new-comers were added to the list. In 1663, as appears from the books of Alderman Blackwell, the following was the half-yearly turnover of the wealthy Jewish merchants:²⁰ Jacob Aboab, £13,085; Samuel de Vega, £18,309; Duarte de Sylva, £41,441; Francisco da Sylva, £14,646; Fernando Mendes da Costa, £30,490; Isaac Dazevedo, £13,605; George and Domingo Francia, £35,759; and Gomez Rodrigues, £13,124.

The centres of Jewish life in Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries were, as we have already observed, Hamburg and Frankfort-on-the- Main. For both cities it is possible to compute the wealth of the resident Jews by the aid of figures.

In Hamburg, too, it was Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were the first settlers. In 1649, 40 of their families participated in the foundation of the Hamburg Bank, which shows that they must have been fairly comfortably off. Very soon complaints were made of the increasing wealth and influence of the Jews. In 1649 they were blamed for their ostentatious funerals and for riding in carriages to take the air; in 1650 for building houses like palaces. In the same year sumptuary laws forbade them too great a show of magnificence.²¹ Up to the end of the 17th century the Sephardic Jews appear to have possessed all the wealth; about that time, however, their Ashkenazi brethren also came quickly to the fore. Glückel von Hamein states that many German-Jewish families which in her youth were in comparative poverty later rose to a state of affluence. And Glückel’s observations are borne out by figures dating from the first quarter of the 18th century.²² In 1729 the Jewish community in Altona was composed of 279 subscribing members, of whom 145 were wealthy, possessing between them 5,434,300 mark [£271,715], that is, an average of more than 37,000 mark [£1850] per head. The Hamburg community had 160 subscribing members, 16 of whom together were worth 501,500 mark [£25,075]. These figures appear to be below the actual state of things, if we compare them with the particulars concerning each individual. In 1725 the following wealthy Jews were resident in Hamburg, Altona and Wandsbeck: Joel Solomon, 210,000 mark; his son-in-law, 50,000; Elias Oppenheimer, 300,000; Moses Goldschmidt, 60,000; Alex Papenheim, 60,000; Elias Salomon, 200,000; Philip Elias, 50,000; Samuel Schiesser, 60,000; Berend Heyman, 75,000; Samson Nathan, 100,000; Moses Hamm, 75,000; Sam Abraham’s widow, 60,000; Alexander Isaac, 60,000; Meyer Berend, 400,000; Salomon Berens, 1,600,000; Isaac Hertz, 150,000; Mangelus Heymann, 200,000; Nathan Bendix, 100,000; Philip Mangelus, 100,000; Jacob Philip, 50,000; Abraham Oppenheimer’s widow, 60,000; Zacharias Daniel’s widow and widowed daughter, 150,000; Simon del Banco, 150,000; Marx Casten, 200,000; Abraham Lazarus, 150,000; Carsten Marx, 60,000; Berend Salomon, 600,000 rthlr.; Meyer Berens, 400,000; Abraham von Halle, 150,000; Abraham Nathan, 150,000.

In view of this list it can scarcely be doubted that there were many rich Jews in Hamburg.

Frankfort presents the same picture; if anything the colours are even brighter. The wealth of the Jews begins to accumulate at the end of the 16th century, and from then onwards it increases steadily. In 1593 there were 4 Jews and 54 Christians (making 7.4 per cent.) in Frankfort who paid taxes on a fortune of over 15,000 florins; in 1607 thennumber had reached 16 (compared with 90 Christians, i.e., 17.7 per cent.).²³ In 1618 the poorest Jew paid taxes on 100 florins, the poorest Christian on 50. Again, 300 Jewish families paid as garrison and fortification taxes no less than 100,900 florins in the years 1634 to 1650.²⁴

The number of taxpayers in the Frankfort Jewish community rose to 753 by the end of the 18th century, and together they possessed at least 6,000,000 florins. More than half of this was in the hands of the twelve wealthiest families:²⁵ Speyer, 604,000 florins; Reiss-Ellissen, 299,916; Haas,Kann, Stem, 256,500; Schuster, Getz, Amschel, 253,075; Goldschmidt, 235,000; May, 211,000; Oppenheimer, 171,500; Wertheimer, 138,600; Florsheim, 166,666; Rindskopf, 115,600; Rothschild, 109,375; Sichel, 107,000.

And in Berlin the Jews in the early 18th century were not by any means poor beggars. Of the 120 Jewish families resident in the Prussian capital in 1737 only 10 owned less than 1000 thalers, the rest all had 2000 to 20,000 thaler, and over.²⁶

That the Jews were among the richest people in the land is thus attested, and this state of affairs has continued through the last two or three hundred years right down to our own day, except that to-day it is perhaps more general and more widespread. And its consequence? It can scarcely be overestimated for those countries which offered a refuge to the wanderers. The nations that profited by the Jews’ sojourn with them were well equipped to help forward the development of capitalism. Hence it should be specially noticed that the wanderings of the Jews had the effect of shifting the centre where the precious metals had accumulated. Obviously it could not but influence the trend of economic life that Spain and Portugal were emptied of then: gold and England and Holland enriched.

Nor is it difficult to prove that Jewish money called into existence all the large undertakings of the 17th century and financed them. Just as the expedition of Columbus wouldhave been impossible had the rich Jews left Spain a generation earlier, so the great India Companies might never have been founded and the great banks which were established in the 17th century might not so quickly have attained their stability had it not been that the wealth of the Spanish exiles came to the aid of England, Holland and Hamburg; in other words, had the Jews been expelled from Spain a century later than was actually the case.

This in fact was why Jewish wealth was so influential. It enabled capitalistic undertakings to be started, or at least facilitated the process. To establish banks, warehouses, stock and share-broking -- all this was easier for the Jew than for the others because his pockets were better lined. That, too, was why he became banker to crowned heads. And finally, because he had money he was able to lend it. This activity paved the way for capitalism to a greater degree than anything else did. For modern capitalism is the child of money-lending.

Money-lending contains the root idea of capitalism; from moneylending it received many of its distinguishing features. In money-lending all conception of quality vanishes and only the quantitative aspect matters. In money-lending the contract becomes the principal element of business; the agreement about the quid pro quo, the promise for the future, the notion of delivery are its component parts. In money-lending there is no thought of producing only for one’s needs.In money-lending there is nothing corporeal (i.e., technical), the whole is a purely intellectual act. In money-lending economic activity as such has no meaning; it is no longer a question of exercising body or mind; it is all a question of success. Success, therefore, is the only thing that has a meaning. In money-lending the possibility is for the first time illustrated that you can earn without sweating; that you may get others to work for you without recourse to force.

In fine, the characteristics of money-lending are the characteristics of all modern capitalistic economic organizations.

But historically, too, modern capitalism owes its being to moneylending. This was the case wherever it was necessary to lay out money for initial expenses, or where a business was started as a limited company. For essentially a limited company is in principle nothing but a matter of money-lending with the prospect of immediate profit.

The money-lending activities of the Jews were thus an objective factor in enabling the Jews to create, to expand and to assist the capitalistic spirit. But our last remarks have already touched upon a further problem, going beyond objective considerations. Is there not already a specific psychological element in the work of the money-lender? But more than this. It may be asked, Can the objective circumstances alone entirely explain the economic role of the Jews? Are there not perhaps special Jewish characteristics which must be taken into account in our chain of reasoning? Before proceeding to this chapter, however, we must turn to an influence of extreme importance in this connexion -- to the Jewish religion.

---
Notes to Chapter 10

1. M. Kayserling, op. cit., p. 708.

2. An account of the Jewish world-famed firms of his time is given by Manasseh ben Israel in his Humble Address to Cromwell. The story of the single families may be found in the Jewish Encyclopedia, which is especially good for biographies.

3. "Lettres écrites de la Suisse, d’Italie," etc., in Encycl. mèth. Manuf., vol. 1, p. 407. Cf. the opinion of Jovet, quoted by Schudt, Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten, vol. 1, p. 228.

4. The Spectator, No. 495.

5. Revue Historique, vol. 44 (1890).

6. Graetz, vol. 5, p. 323.

7. These instances of Jewish diplomatists are generally known. The number could easily be added to. Any one specially interested in this question should refer to Graetz, where abundant material will be found (e.g., vol. 6, pp. 85, 224; vol. 8. ch. 9, etc.).

8. M. Kayserling, Christopher Columbus (1894), p. 106.

9. H. J. Koenen, op. cit; p. 206.

10. Edmund Bonaffé, Dictionnaire des amateurs français cm XVII siècle (1881), p. 191.

11. Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms, vol. 3, p. 577.

12. (v. Kortum) Über Judentum und Juden (1795), p. 165.

13. Ibid.. p. 90.

14. R.E.J., vol. 23 (1891), p. 90.

15. M. de Maulde, Les juifs dans les Etats français du Saint-Siège (1886). The legal position of the Jews generally is treated fully in the current Jewish histories, most of which are in reality nothing more than the history of the legal position of the Jews. Indeed, a goodly number of their authors imagine they are writing economic history when all the time it is just legal history they aredealing with. For records, consult the article "Juden" in Krünitz (vol. 31) and Sehudt, Jüdische Merkwurdigkeiten (specially for Frankfort). For France, see Halphen, Recueil des lois, etc., concernant les Israëlites (1851); for Prussia, L. von Rönne and Heinrich Simon, Die früheren und gegenwärtigen Verhaltnisse der Juden in den sämtlichen Landesteilen des preussischen Staates (1843). All the laws quoted in the text I have taken from this collection. A. Michaelis, Die Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden in Preussen seit dem Beginn des 19 Jahrhunderts: Gesetze, Eriasse, Verordnungen, Entscheidungen (1910).

16. Cf. B. Bento Carqueja, op. cit., pp. 73, 82, 91.

17. Wagenaar, Beschrijving van Amsterdam, quoted by Koenen, op. cit., p. 142. Further, for the wealth of the Dutch Jews (greatly exaggerated) see Schudt, vol. 1 (1714), p. 277; vol. 4 (1717), p. 208. Cf. M. Mission, Reise nach Italien (1713), p. 43. Of newer books, M. Henriquez Pimentel, op. cit., op. 34.

18. Memoiren, p. 134.

19. Savary, Dict., vol. 2 (1726), p. 448.

20. Lucien Wolf, The Jewry of the Restoration, 1660-1664, p. 11.

21. See H. Reils, "Beiträge zur ältesten Geschichte der Juden in Hamburg," in Zeitschrift des Vereins für hamburgische Geschichte, vol. 2 (1847), pp. 357, 380, 405; and M. Grunwald, op. cit., pp. 16, 26, 35.

22. In M. Grunwald’s Hamburgs deutsche Juden, pp. 20, 191.

23. F. Bothe, Die Enfwickelung der direkten Besteuerung der Reichsstadt Frankfurt (1906), p. 166, Tables 10 and 15.

24. Kraeauer, op. cit., p. 341.

25. Alexander Dietz, Stammbuch der Frankfurter Juden (1907), p. 408.

26. L. Geiger, Geschichte der Juden in Berlin (1871), vol. 1, p. 43.

Yago · #5 (**permalink**) Sunday, September 11th, 2005, 20:12

Chapter 11
The Significance of the Jewish Religion in Economic Life

Introductory Note
Three reasons have actuated me in devoting a special chapter to the consideration of the religion of the Jewish people and the demonstration of its enormous influence on Jewish economic activities. First, the Jewish religion ca be fully appreciated in all its bearings from the economic standpoint only when it is studied in detail and by itself; secondly, it calls for a special method of treatment; and thirdly, it occupies a position midway between the objective and the subjective factors of Jewish development. For, in so far as any religion is the expression of some particular spiritual outlook, it has a "subjective" aspect; in so far as the individual is born into it, it has an objective aspect.

The Importance of Religion for the Jewish People
That the religion of a people, or of a group within a people, can have far-reaching influences on its economic life will not be disputed. Only recently Max Weber demonstrated the connexion between Puritanism and Capitalism. In fact. Max Weber’s researches are responsible for this book. For any one who followed them could not but ask himself whether all that Weber ascribes to Puritanism might not with equal justice be referred to Judaism, and probably in a greater degree; nay, it might well be suggested that that which is called Puritanism is in reality Judaism. This relationship will be discussed in due course.

Now, if Puritanism has had an economic influence, how much more so has Judaism, seeing that among no other civilized people has religion so impregnated all national life. For the Jews religion was not an affair of Sundays and Holy Days; it touched everyday life even in its minutest action, it regulated all human activities. At every step the Jew asked himself. Will this tend to the glory of God or will it profane His name? Jewish law defines not merely the relation between man and God, formulates not merely a metaphysical conception; it lays down rules of conduct for all possible relationships, whether between man and man or between man and nature. Jewish law, in fact, is as much part of the religious system as are Jewish ethics. The Law is from God, and moral law and divine ordinances are inseparable in Judaism.¹ Hence in reality there are no special ethics of Judaism. Jewish ethics are the underlying principles of the Jewish religion.²

No other people has been so careful as the Jews in providing for the teaching of religion to even the humblest. As Josephus so well put it: Ask the first Jew you meet concerning his "laws" and he will be able to tell you them better than his own name. The reason for this may be found in the systematic religious instruction given to every Jewish child, as well as in the fact that divine service partly consists of the reading and explanation of passages from Holy Writ. In the course of the year the Torah is read through from beginning to end. Moreover, it is one of the primary duties of the Jew to study the Torah. "Thou shalt speak of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up" (Deut. vi. 5).³

No other people, too, has walked in God’s ways so conscientiously as the Jews; none has striven to carry out its religious behests so thoroughly. It has indeed been asserted that the Jews are the least religious of peoples. I shall not stay to weigh the justice of this remark. But certain it is that they are the most "God-fearing" people that ever were on the face of the earth. They lived always in trembling awe, in awe of God’s wrath. "My flesh trembleth for fear of Thee, and I am afraid of Thy judgments," said the Psalmist (Ps. cxix. 120), and the words may be taken as applicable to the Jews in every age. "Happy is the man that feareth alway" (Prov. xxviii. 14). "The pious never put away their fear" (Tanchuma Chukkath, 24 ).⁴ One can understand it when one thinks of the Jewish God -- fearful, awful, curse-uttering Jehovah. Never in all the world’s literature, either before or since, has humanity been threatened with so much evil as Jehovah promises (in the famous 28th chapter of Deuteronomy) to those who will not keep His commandments.

But this mighty influence (the fear of God) did not stand alone. Others combined with it, and together they had the tendency of almost forcing the Jews to obey the behests of their religion most scrupulously. The first of these influences was their national fate. When the Jewish State was destroyed the Pharisees and Scribes -- i.e., those who cherished the traditions of Ezra and strove to make obedience to the Law the end and aim of life -- the Pharisees and Scribes came to the head of affairs and naturally directed the course of events into channels which they favoured. Without a State, without their sanctuary, the Jews, under the leadership of the Pharisees, flocked around the Law (that "portable Fatherland," as Heine calls it), and became a religious brotherhood, guided by a band of pious Scribes, pretty much as the disciples of Loyola might gather around them the scattered remnants of a modern State. The Pharisees now led the way. Their most distinguished Rabbis looked upon themselves as the successors of the ancient Synhedrium, and were indeed so regarded, becoming the supreme authority in spiritual and temporal affairs for all the Jews in the world.⁵ The power of the Rabbis originated in this fashion, and the vicissitudes of the Jews in the Middle Ages only helped to strengthen it. So oppressive did it eventually become that the Jews themselves at times complained of the burden. For the more the Jews were shut off, or shut themselves off, from the people among whom they dwelt, the more the authority of the Rabbis increased, and the more easily could the Jews be forced to be faithful to the Law. But the fulfilment of the Law, which was urged upon them by the Rabbis, must have been a necessity for the Jews for inner reasons: it satisfied their heart’s desire, it appeared the most precious gift that life had to offer. And why? Because amid all the persecution and suffering which was meted out to the Jews on all sides, that alone enabled them to retain their dignity, without which life would have been valueless. For a very long period religious teaching was enshrined in the Talmud, and hence Jews through many centuries lived in it, for it and through it. The Talmud was the most precious possession of the Jew; it was the breath of his nostrils, it was his very soul. The Talmud became a family history for generation after generation, with which each was familiar. "The thinker lived in its thought, the poet in its pure idealism. The outer world, the world of nature and of man, the powerful ones of the earth and the events of the times, were for the Jew during a thousand years accidents, phantoms; his only reality was the Talmud."⁶ The Talmud has been well compared (and the comparison to my mind applies equally to all religious literature) to an outer shell with which the Jews of the Diaspora covered themselves; it protected them against all influences from without and kept alive their strength within.⁷

We see, then, what forces were at work to make the Jews right down to modern times a more God-fearing people than any other, to make them religious to their inmost core, or, if the word "religious" be objected to, to keep alive among high and low a general and strict observation of the precepts of their religion. And for our purpose, we must regard this characteristic as applicable to all sorts and conditions of Jews, the Marannos of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries included. We must look upon these too as orthodox Jews. Says the foremost authority on that period of Jewish history,⁸ "The great majority of the Marannos were Jews to a much larger extent than is commonly supposed. They submitted to force of circumstance and were Christians only outwardly. As a matter of fact they lived the Jewish life and observed the tenets of the Jewish religion. . . . This admirable constancy will be appreciated to the full only when the wealth of material in the Archives of Alcala de Henares, Simancas and other places has been sorted and utilized."

But among professing Jews the wealthiest were often enough excellent Talmudic scholars. Was not a knowledge of the Talmud a highway to honour, riches and favour among Jews? The most learned Talmudists were also the cleverest financiers, medical men, jewellers, merchants. We are told, for example, of some of the Spanish Ministers of Finance, bankers and court physicians that they devoted to the study of the Holy Writ not only the Sabbath day but also two nights of each week. In modern times old Amschel Rothschild, who died in 1855, did the same. He lived strictly according to Jewish law and ate no morsel at a stranger’s table, even though it were the Emperor’s. One who knew the Baron well says of him that "he was looked upon as the most pious Jew in all Frankfort. Never have I seen a man so afflict himself -- beating his breast, and crying to Heaven -- as Baron Rothschild did in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement. The continual praying weakens him so that he falls into a faint. Odorous plants from his garden are held to his nose to revive him."⁹ [Sombart in the German text quotes this as an occurrence on the Sabbath. It is obvious that the description refers to the Day of Atonement. -- Trans.] His nephew William Charles, who died in 1901 and who was the last of the Frankfort Rothschilds, observed all the religious prescriptions in their minutest detail. The pious Jew is forbidden to touch any object which under certain circumstances has become unclean by having been already touched by some one else. And so a servant always walked in front of this Rothschild and wiped the door-handles. Moreover, he never touched paper money that had been in use before; the notes had to be fresh from the press.

If this was how a Rothschild lived, it is not surprising to come across Jewish commercial travellers who do not touch meat six months in the year because they are not absolutely certain that the method of slaughtering has been in accordance with Jewish law.

However, if you want to study orthodox Judaism you must go to Eastern Europe, where it is still without disintegrating elements -- you must go there personally or read the books about it. In Western Europe the orthodox Jews are a small minority. But when we speak of the influence of the Jewish religion it is the religion that held sway until a generation ago that we mean, the religion that led the Jews to so many victories.

The Sources of the Jewish Religion
Mohammed called the Jews "the people of the Book." He was right. There is no other people that lived so thoroughly according to a book. Their religion in all its stages was generally incorporated in a book, and these books may be looked upon as the sources of the Jewish religion. The following is a list of such books, each originating at a particular time and supplementing some other.

The Bible, i.e., the Old Testament, until the destruction of the Second Temple. It was read in Hebrew in Palestine and in Greek (Septuagint) in the Diaspora.
The Talmud (more especially the Babylonian Talmud), from the 2nd to the 6th century of the Common Era, the principal depository of Jewish religious teaching.
The Code of Maimonides, compiled in the 12th century.
The Code (called the Turim) of Jacob ben Asher (1248-1340).
The Code of Joseph Caro -- the Shulchan Aruch (16th century).

These "sources" from which the Jewish religion drew its life appear in a different light according as they are regarded by scientific research or with the eyes of the believing Jew. In the first case they are seen as they really are; in the second, they are idealized.

What are they in reality? The Bible, i.e., the Old Testament, is the foundation upon which the entire structure of Judaism was built up. It was written by many hands at different periods, thus forming, as it were, a piece of literary mosaic.¹⁰ The most important portion of the whole is the Torah, i.e., the Pentateuch. It received its present shape by the commingling of two complete works some time in the period after Ezra. The one was the old and the new (the Deuteronomic) Law Book (650 B.C.) and the other, Ezra’s Law Book (440 B.C.).[I.e. Deut. v. 45-xxvi, 69 (about 650 B.C.) and Exod. xii. 25-31, xxxv to Lev. xv; Numb. i-x; xv-xix; xxvii-xxxvi. (about 445 B.C.).] And its special character the Torah owes to Ezra and Nehemiah, who introduced a strict legal system. With Ezra and the school of Soferim (scribes) that he founded, Judaism in the form which it has to-day originated; from that period to the present it has remained unchanged.

Besides the Torah we must mention the so-called Wisdom Literature -- the Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus and the Proverbs. This section of Jewish literature is wholly postexilic; only in that period could it have arisen, assuming as it did the existence of the Law, and the prevailing belief that for obeying the Law God gave Life, for transgressing it Death. The Wisdom Literature, unlike the Prophetic Books, was concerned with practical life. Some of the books contain the crystallized wisdom of many generations and are of a comparatively early date. The Book of Proverbs, for example, the most useful for our purpose, dates from the year 180 B.C.¹¹

Two streams flow from the Bible. The one, chiefly by way of the Septuagint, ran partly into Hellenistic philosophy and partly into Pauline Christianity. That does not concern us further.

The other, chiefly by way of the Hebrew Bible current in Palestine, ran into Jewish "Law," and the course of this we shall have to follow.

The specifically Jewish development of the Holy Writ already began as early as Ezra’s day; it was due to the first schools of Soferim (scribes), and the later schools of Hillel and Shammai only extended and continued the work. The actual "development" consisted of explanations and amplifications of the Holy Writ, arrived at as the result of disputation, the method in vogue in the Hellenistic World. The development was really a tightening of the legal formalism, with the view of protecting Judaism against the inroads of Hellenistic Philosophy. Here, as always, the Jewish religion was the expression of a reaction against disintegrating forces. The Deuteronomic Law was the reaction against Baal worship; the Priestly Code against Babylonian influences; the later Codes of Maimonides and Rabbenu Asher and Caro against Spanish culture; and the teaching of the Tannaim [Tannai -- teacher] in the century preceding and that commencing the Common Era against the enervating doctrines of Hellenism.¹²

The old oral tradition of the "Wise" was codified about the year 200 A.D. by R. Judah Hanassi (the Prince), usually called Rabbi. His work is the Mishna. Following on the Mishna are further explanations and additions which were collected and given a fixed form in the 6th century (500-550 A.D.) by the Sdboraim [Saborai -- those who give opinions]. Those portions which had reference to the Mishna alone were termed the Gemara, the authors of which were the Amoraim [Amorai -- speaker], Mishna and Gemara together form the Talmud, of which there are two versions, the Palestinian and the Babylonian. The latter is the more important.¹³

The Talmud, as edited by the Saboraim, has become the chief depository of Jewish religious teaching, and its universal authority resulted from the Mohammedan conquests. To begin with, it became the legal and constitutional foundation for Jewish communal life in Babylon, at the head of which stood the "Prince of the Captivity" and the Presidents of the two Talmudic colleges, the Gaonim [Gaon -- Excellency]. As Islam spread further and further afield the Jewish communities in the lands that it conquered came into closer relation with the Gaonate in Babylon; they asked advice on religious, ethical and common law questions and loyally accepted the decisions, all of which were based on the Talmud. Indeed, Babylonian Jewry came to be regarded as the new centre of Jewish life.

As soon as the Gemara was written down, and so received perma nent form, the development of Judaism ceased. Nevertheless we must mention the three codes which in the post-Talmudic period embodied all the substance of the religion, first, because they presented it in a somewhat different garb, and secondly, because in their regulation of the religious life they could not but pay some heed to changed conditions. All the three codes are recognized by Jews as authoritative side by side with the Talmud, and the last, the Shulchan Aruch, is looked upon today by the orthodox Jew as containing the official version of religious duties. What is of interest to us in the case of all the codes is that they petrified Jewish religious life still more. Of Maimonides even Graetz asserts as much. "A great deal of what in the Talmud is still mutable, he changed into unmodifiable law. ... By his codification he robbed Judaism of the power of developing. . . . Without considering the age in which the Talmudic regulations arose, he makes them binding for all ages and circumstances." R. Jacob ben Asher went beyond Maimonides, and Joseph Caro beyond Jacob ben Asher, reaching the utmost limit. His work tends to ultra-particularism and is full of hair-splitting casuistry. The religious life of the Jews "was rounded off and unified by the Shulchan Aruch, but at the cost of inwardness and unfettered thought. Caro gave Judaism the fixed form which it has retained down to the present day."¹⁴

This, then, is the main stream of Jewish religious life; these the sources from which Judaism drew its ideas and ideals. There were, of course, tributary streams, as, for instance, that of the Apocalyptic literature of the pre-Christian era, which stood for a heavenly, a universal, an individualistic Judaism;¹⁵ or that of the Kabbala, which busied itself with symbols and arithmetical figures. But these had small share in the general development of Jewish life, and may be neglected so far as their effect on historic Judaism is concerned. Nor were they ever recognized by "official" Judaism as sources of the Jewish religion.

So much for the realistic conception of these sources. But what of that current in orthodox Jewish circles? In many respects the belief of the pious Jew touching the origin of the Jewish system is of much more consequence than its real origin. We must therefore try and acquaint ourselveswith that belief.

The traditional view, which every orthodox Jew still holds, is that the Jewish system has a twofold birth: partly through Revelation and partly in the inspiration of the "Wise." Revelation refers to the written and the oral tradition. The former is contained in the holy books of the Bible -- the Canon as it was fixed by the members of the Great Synagogue. It has three parts¹⁶: the Torah or Pentateuch, the Prophetical Books and the "Writings" (the remaining books). The Torah was given to Moses on Sinai and he "gradually instructed the people in it during their forty years’ wandering in the wilderness. ... It was not until the end of his life that he finished the written Torah, the five books of Moses, and delivered them unto Israel, and we are in duty bound to consider every letter, every word of the written Torah as the Revelation of God."¹⁷ The remaining books were also the outcome of divine revelation, or, at any rate, were inspired by God. The attitude towards the Prophetical literature and the Hagiographa, however, is somewhat freer than that towards the Torah.

The Oral Tradition, or the Oral Torah, is the explanation of the written one. This, too, was revealed to Moses on Sinai, but for urgent reasons was not allowed to be written down at once. That took place at a much later date -- only after the destruction of the second Temple -- and was embodied in Mishna and Gemara, which thus contain the only correct explanation of the Torah, seeing that they were divinely revealed. In the Talmud are included also rabbinic ordinances and the Haggada, i.e., the interpretation of those portions of Holy Writ other than the legal enactments. The interpretation of the latter was called the Halacha, and Halacha and Haggada supplemented each other. Beside these were placed the collection of decisions, i.e., the three codes already referred to.

What was the significance of all this literature for the religious life of the Jews? What was it that the Jew believed, what were the commands he obeyed?

In the first place it must be premised that so far as I am aware there is no system of dogmas in Judaism.¹⁸ Wherever compilation of such a system has been attempted it was invariably the work of non-Jews.¹⁹ The nature of the Jewish religion and more especially the construction of the Talmud, which is characterized by its lack of order, is inconsistent with the formulation of any dogmatic system. Nevertheless certain principles may be discovered in Judaism, and its spirit will be found expressed in Jewish practices. Indeed, it will not be difficult to enumerate these principles, since they have remained the same from the very beginning. What has been termed the "spirit of Ezekiel" has been paramount in Judaism from Ezra’s day to ours. It was only developed more and more, only taken to its logical conclusions. And so to discover what this "spirit" is we need only refer to the sources of the religion -- the Bible, the Talmud and the later Rabbinic literature.

It is a harder task to determine to what extent this or that doctrine still finds acceptance. Does, for example, the Talmudic adage, "Kill even the best of the Gentiles," still hold good? Do the other terrible aphorisms ferreted out in Jewish religious literature by Pfefferkom, Eisenmenger, Rohling, Dr. Justus and the rest of that fraternity, still find credence, or are they, as the Rabbis of to-day indignantly protest, entirely obsolete? It is obvious, of course, that the single doctrines were differently expressed in different ages, and if the whole literature, but more especially the Talmud, is referred to on particular points, opposite views, the "pros" and the "cons," will be found. In other words, it is possible to "prove" absolutely anything from the Talmud, and hence the thrust and counter-thrust between the anti-Semites and their Jewish and non-Jewish opponents from time immemorial; hence the fact that what the one proved to be black by reference to the Talmud the others proved to be white on the same authority. There is nothing surprising in this when it is remembered that to a great extent the Talmud is nothing else than a collection of controversies of the different Rabbinical scholars.

To discover the religious ordinances which regulated actual life we must make a distinction which, to my mind, is very real -- the distinction between the man who by personal study strives to find out the law for himself, and the one who accepts it on the authority of another. In the case of the first, the thing that matters is that some opinion or other is found expressed. It is of no consequence that its very opposite may also be there. For the pious Jew who obtains edification by the study of his literature the one view was enough. It may have been the spur to a particular course of action; or it may have provided him with an additional reason for persisting in a course upon which he had already entered. The sanction of the book was sufficient in either event, most of all if it was the Bible or, better still, the Torah. Since all was of divine origin, one passage was as binding as another. This held good whether applied to the Bible, to the Talmud or to the later Rabbinic writings.

The matter assumes a different aspect if the individual does not, or cannot, study the sources himself but relies on the direction of his spiritual adviser or on books recommended by him. Such a one is confronted with only one opinion, arrived at by the proper interpretation of contradictory texts. Obviously these views must have varied from time to time, in accordance with the Rabbinic traditions in each epoch. Hence, to find the laws that in any period were binding we much search for its Rabbinic traditions -- no great task since the publication of the Rabbinic law-books. From the llth to the 14th century we have the Yad Hachawka ["Strong Hand"] of Maimonides, from the 14th to the 16th the Tur of R. Jacob ben Asher, and after the 16th the Shulchan Aruch of Caro. Each of these gives the accepted teachings of the age, each is the decisive authority. For the last three hundred years the Shulchan Aruch has thus laid down the law wherever there were differences of opinion. As the text-book I have already quoted says, "First and foremost the Shulchan Aruch of R. Joseph Caro, together with the notes of R. Moses Isserlein and the other glosses, is recognized by all Israel as the Code on which we model our ritual observances." The Law is also summed up in the 613 precepts which Maimonides derived from the Torah and when even to-day are still in force. "According to the tradition of our Teachers (of blessed memory) God gave Israel by the hand of Moses 613 precepts, 248 positive and 365 negative. All these are binding to all eternity; only those which have reference to the Jewish State and agricultural life in Palestine and to the Temple service in Jerusalem are excepted, as they cannot be carried out by the Jews of the Diaspora. We can obey 369 precepts, 126 positive and 243 negative; and in addition the seven Rabbinic commands."²⁰

The lives of Orthodox Jews were governed by these manuals during the last century and still are so to-day, in so far as the guidance of the Rabbinic law was followed and opinions based on a personal study of the sources were not formed. From the manuals we have mentioned, therefore, we must gather the ordinances which were decisive for each individual instance in religious life. Hence Reformed Judaism is of no concern to us, and books trimmed to suit modern ideas, such as the great majority of the latest expositions of the "Ethics of Judaism," are absolutely useless for our purpose -- which is to show the connexion between capitalism and genuine Jewish teaching, and its significance in modern economic life.

The Fundamental Ideas of the Jewish Religion
Let me avow it right away: I think that the Jewish religion has the same leading ideas as Capitalism. I see the same spirit in the one as in the other.

In trying to understand the Jewish religion -- which, by the way, must not be confused with the religion of Israel (the two are in a sense opposites) -- we must never forget that a Safer was its author, a rigidly minded scribe, whose work was completed by a band of scribes after him. Not a prophet, mark you; not a seer, nor a visionary nor a mighty king; a Safer it was. Nor must we forget how it came into being: not as an irresistible force, not as the expression of the deepest needs of contrite souls, not as the embodiment of the feelings of divinely inspired votaries. No; it came into being on a deliberate plan, by clever deductions, and diplomatic policy which was based on the cry "Its religion must be preserved for the people." The same calm consideration, the same attention to the ultimate goal were responsible in the centuries that followed for the addition of line to line and precept to precept. That which did not fit in with the scheme of the Soferim from before the days of Ezra and that which grew up afterwards, fell away.

The traces of the peculiar circumstances which gave it birth are still visible in the Jewish religion. In all its reasoning it appeals to us as a creation of the intellect, a thing of thought and purpose projected into the world of organisms, mechanically and artfully wrought, destined to destroy and to conquer Nature’s realm and to reign itself in her stead. Just so does Capitalism appear on the scene; like the Jewish religion, an alien element in the midst of the natural, created world; like it, too, something schemed and planned in the midst of teeming life. This sheaf of salient features is bound together in one word: Rationalism. Rationalism is the characteristic trait of Judaism as of Capitalism; Rationalism or Intellectualism -- both deadly foes alike to irresponsible mysticism and to that creative power which draws its artistic inspiration from the passion world of the senses.

The Jewish religion knows no mysteries, and is perhaps the only religion on the face of the globe that does not know them. It knows not the ecstatic condition wherein the worshipper feels himself at one with the Godhead, the condition which all other religions extol as the highest and holiest. Think of the Soma libation among the Hindoos, think of entranced Indra himself, of the Homa sacrifice of the Persians, of Dionysus, the Oracle of Greece and of the Sibylline books, to which even the staid Romans went for advice, only because they were written by women who in a state of frenzy prophesied the future.

Down to the latest days of the Roman Empire the characteristic of religious life which remained the same in all aspects of heathenism continued to manifest itself -- the characteristic which spread far and wide and infected large masses of people, of working yourself up by sheer force to a pitch of bodily or mental excitement, often becoming bacchanalian madness, and then regarding this as the deity’s doing and as part of his service. It was a generally accepted belief that certain sudden impulses or bursts of passion or resolutions were roused in the soul of a man by some god or other; and conduct of which a man was ashamed or which he regretted, was usually ascribed to the influence of a god.²¹ "It was the god who drove me to it" -- so, in Plautus’s comedy, the young man who had seduced a maiden excused himself to his father.

The same thing must have been experienced by Mohammed in his morbid condition when his fits of ecstasy were upon him, and there is a good deal of mysticism in Islam. At least Mohammedanism has its howling dervishes.

And in Christianity, too, so far as it was not Judaism, room was found for emotional feeling -- witness the doctrine of the Trinity, the sweet cult of Mariolatry, the use of incense, the communion. But Judaism looks with proud disdain on these fantastic, mystical elements, condemning them all. When the faithful of other religions hold converse with God in blissful convulsions, in the Jewish synagogue, called a Shool [i.e., School] not without significance, the Torah is publicly read. So Ezra ordained, and so it is done most punctiliously. "Ever since the destruction of the State, study became the soul of Judaism, and religious observances without knowledge of the ordinances which enjoined them was considered as being of little worth. The central feature of public service on Sabbaths and Holy Days was the lesson read from the Law and the Prophets, the translation of the passages by the Targumists [Interpreters] and the homiletic explanation of them by the Haggadists [Preachers]."

Radix stultitiae, cui frigida sabbata cordi
Sed cor frigidus relligione sua
Septima quaeque dies turpi damnato vetemo
Tanquam lassati mollis imago dei.
[The Sabbath " monstrous folly! " fills the need
Of hearts still icier than their icy creed,
Each seventh day in shameful sloth they nod,
And ape the languor of their weary God.]

Such was the Roman view.²²

Judaism then looked askance at mysteries. With no different eye did it regard the holy enthusiasm for the divine in the world of feeling. Astarte, Daphne, Isis and Osiris, Aphrodite, Fricka and the Holy Virgin -- it would have none of them. It banished all pictorial art from its cult. "And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the sound of words but ye saw no form" (Deut. iv. 12). "Cursed be the man that maketh a graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman. . . ." (Deut. xxvii. 15). The command, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" finds acceptance to-day, and the pious Jew has no statues made, nor does he set them up in his house.²³

The kinship between Judaism and Capitalism is further illustrated by the legally regulated relationship -- I had almost said the businesslike connexion, except that the term has a disagreeable connotation -- between God and Israel. The whole religious system is in reality nothing but a contract between Jehovah and His chosen people, a contract with all its consequences and all its duties. God promises something and gives something, and the righteous must give Him something in return. Indeed, there was no community of interest between God and man which could not be expressed in these terms -- that man performs some duty enjoined by the Torah and receives from God a quid pro quo. Accordingly, no man should approach God in prayer without bringing with him something of his own or of his ancestors’ by way of return i for what he is about to ask.²⁴

The contract usually sets forth that man is rewarded for duties performed and punished for duties neglected; the rewards and punishments being received partly in this and partly in the next world. Two consequences must of necessity follow: first, a constant weighing up of the loss and gain which any action needs must bring, and secondly, a complicated system of bookkeeping, as it were, for each individual person.

The whole of this conception is excellently well illustrated by the words of Rabbi [164-200 A.D.]: "Which is the right course for a man to choose? That which he feels to be honourable to himself and which also brings him honour from mankind. Be heedful of a light precept as of a grave one, for you do not know what reward a precept brings. Reckon the loss incurred by the fulfilment of a precept against the reward secured by its observance, and the gain gotten by a transgression against the loss it involves. Reflect on three things and you will not come within the power of sin. Know what is above thee -- a seeing eye, and a hearing ear, and all your deeds written in a book."²⁵ So that whether one is accounted "righteous" or "wicked" depends on the balance of commands performed against commands neglected. Obviously this necessitates the keeping of accounts, and each man therefore has his own, in which his words and his deeds, even the words spoken in jest, are all carefully registered. According to one authority (Ruth Rabba, 33a) the prophet Elijah keeps these accounts; according to another (Esther Rabba, 86a) the duty is assigned to angels.

Every man has thus an account in heaven: Israel a particularly large one (Sifra, 446). And one of the ways of preparing for death is to have your "account" ready (Kohelet Rabba, Tic). Sometimes "extracts" from the accounts are forthcoming (by request). When the angels brought an accusation against Ishmael, God asked, "What is his position at present? Is he a righteous man or a wicked?" (i.e., do the commands performed outweigh those neglected?). And the angels replied, "He is a righteous man." When Mar Ukba died, he asked for a statement of his account (of the money he had given to charity). It totalled 7000 zuzim. As he was afraid that this would not suffice for his salvation he gave away half of his fortune in order to be on the safe side (Kethuboth, 25; Baba Bathra, 7). The final decision as to the righteousness or wickedness of any man is made after his death. The account is then closed, and the grand total drawn up. The result is inserted in a document (Shetar) which is handed to each individual after it has been read out.²⁶

It is not difficult to perceive that the keeping of these accounts was no easy matter. In Biblical times, so long as rewards and punishments were meted out in the life on earth, the task was no great one. But in the period that followed, when rewards and punishments were granted partly in this life and partly in life everlasting, the question grew to be troublesome, and in the Rabbinic theology an intricate and artistic system of bookkeeping was evolved. This distinguished between the capital sum or the principal, and the fruits or the interest, the former being reserved for the future world, the latter for this. And in order that the reward which is laid up in heaven for the righteous may not be diminished, God does not lessen the stock when He grants him ordinary earthly benefits. Only when he receives extraordinary, i.e., miraculous, benefits on earth does the righteous man suffer a diminution of his heavenly reward. Moreover, the righteous is punished for his sins at once on earth, as the wicked is rewarded for his good deeds, so that the one may have only rewards in heaven and the other only chastisements.²⁷

Another conception is bound up with this of divine bookkeeping and is closely akin to a second fundamental trait of capitalism — the conception of profit. Sin or goodness is regarded as something apart from the sinner. Every sin, according to Rabbinic theology, is considered singly and by itself. "Punishment is according to the object and not the subject of the sin."²⁸ The quantity of the broken commandments alone counts. No consideration whatever is had for the personality of the sinner or his ethical state, just as a sum of money is separated from persons, just as it is capable of being added to another abstract sum of money. The ceaseless striving of the righteous after well-being in this and the next world must needs therefore take the form of a constant endeavour to increase his rewards. Now, as he is never able to tell whether at a particular state of his conscience he is worthy of God’s goodness or whether in his "account" the rewards or the punishments are more numerous, it must be his aim to add reward after reward to his account by constantly doing good deeds to the end of his days. The limited conception of all personal values thus finds no admission into the world of his religious ideas and its place is taken by the endlessness of a pure quantitative ideal.

Parallel with this tendency there runs through Jewish moral theology another which regards the getting of money as a means to an end. The conception is frequently found in books of religious edification, the authors of which realizing but seldom that in their warnings against the acquisition of too much wealth they are glorifying this very practice. Usually the treatment of the subject is under the heading "covetousness," forbidden by the tenth commandment. "A true Israelite," remarks one of the most popular of modern "helps to faith,"²⁹ "avoids covetousness. He looks upon all his possessions only as a means of doing what is pleasing in the sight of God. For is not the entire purpose of his life to use all his possessions, all enjoyment as the means to this end? Indeed it is a duty ... to obtain possessions and to increase one’s enjoyments, not as an end in themselves but as a means to do God’s will on earth."

But if it is urged that this is no conclusive proof of the connexion between the religious idea and the principle of getting gain, a glance at the peculiar ordering of divine service will soon be convincing. At one stage in the service there is a veritable public auction. The honorary offices connected with the reading of the law are given to the highest bidder. Before the scrolls are taken from the Ark, the beadle walks round the central platform (the Almemor) and cries out:

"Who will buy Hazoa vehachnosa? (i.e., the act of taking the scrolls from the Ark and of replacing them). Who will buy Hagboha? (the act of raising the scroll in the sight of the people). Who will buy Gelilah?" (the act of rolling up the scroll when the reading is finished). These honours are knocked down to the highest bidder, and the money given to the synagogue poor-box. It need hardly be said that to-day this practice has long been eliminated from synagogue worship. In days of long ago it was quite general.³⁰ Again, the words of some of the Talmudic doctors, who at times dispute over the most difficult economic questions with all the skill of experienced merchants, cannot but have a curious connotation, and must needs lead to the conclusion that they preached the getting of gain. It would be fascinating to collect those passages of the Talmud wherein the modern practice of making profit is recommended by this or that Rabbi, in many cases themselves great traders. I will quote an instance or two. "R. Isaac also taught that a man should always have his money in circulation." It was R. Isaac, too, who gave this piece of good advice. A man should divide his fortune into three parts, investing one in landed property, one in moveable goods, and holding the third as ready cash (Baba Mezia, 42a). "Rav once said to his son. Come let me instruct thee in worldly matters. Sell your goods even while the dust is yet upon your feet." (What is this but a recommendation to have a quick turnover?) "First open your purse and then unloose the sack of wheat. . . . Have you got dates in the box? Hasten at once to the brewer" (Pesachim, 113a).

What is the meaning of this parallelism between the Jewish religion and capitalism? Is it a mere chance? A stupid joke perpetrated by Fate? Is the one the effect of the other, or are both traceable to the same causes? Questions such as these naturally suggest themselves to us, and I hope to answer them as we proceed. Here it will suffice to have called attention to them. Our next step will be the comparatively simpler one of showing how individual customs, conceptions, opinions and regulations of the Jewish religion influenced the economic conduct of Jews, of showing whether they facilitated the extension of capitalism by the Jews, and, if so, to what degree. We shall limit ourselves in this to primary psychological motives, avoiding all speculative difficulties. Our first problem will be to discover the goal set up by the Jewish religion and its influence on economic life, and the next section is devoted to it

The Idea of Rewards and Punishments
The idea of contract, which is part and parcel of the underlying principles of Judaism, must perforce have the corollary that whoever carries out the contract receives reward, whoever breaks it receives punishment. In other words, the legal and ethical assumption that the good prosper and the evil suffer punishment was in all ages a concept of the Jewish religion. All that changed was the interpretation of prosperity and punishment.

The oldest form of Judaism knows nothing of another world. So, weal and woe can come only in this world. If God desires to punish or to reward, He must do so during man’s lifetime. The righteous therefore is prosperous here, and the wicked here suffer punishment. Obey my precepts, says the Lord, "so that thou mayest live long and prosper in the land which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee." Hence the bitter cry of Job, "Wherefore do the wicked live, becomeold, yea, wax mighty in power? . . . But my way He hath fenced up, that I cannot pass ... He hath broken me down on every side ... He hath also kindled His wrath against me" [Job xxi. 7; xix. 8, 10, 11]. "Why hath all this evil come upon me, seeing that I walked in His path continually?"

A little after Ezra’s time the idea of another world (Olam Habo) finds currency in Judaism, the idea, too, of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection of the body. These beliefs were of foreign origin, coming probably from Persia. But like all other alien elements in Judaism they, too, were given an ethical meaning, in accordance with the genius of the religion. The doctrine grew up that only the righteous and the pious would rise up after death. The belief in eternity was thus made by the Soferim to fit in with the old teaching of rewards and punishments, in order to heighten the feeling of moral responsibility, i.e., of the fear of the judgment of God.

The idea of prosperity on earth is now extended. It is no longer the only reward of a good life, for a reward in the world to come is added to it. Still, God’s blessing in this world is no small part of the total reward. Moreover, the very fact that a man is prosperous here was proof positive that his life was pleasing to God, and that therefore he might expect reward in the next world also. Then, too, the idea of a blind fate is no longer troublesome. What appeared as such is now regarded as God’s punishment on earth to the righteous for his transgressions, so that his heavenly recompense may suffer no diminution.

The "doctrine of possession" (if the term may be allowed in connexion with the Jewish religion) received some such shape as this, more especially through the Wisdom Literature. The great aim of life is to obey God’s commandments. Earthly happiness apart from God has no existence. Hence it is folly to seek to obtain earthly possessions for their own sake. But to obtain them in order to use them for divine ends, so that they become at one and the same time the outward symbols and guarantees of God’s pleasure, as signs of His blessing -- such a course is wise. Now earthly possessions in this view of them include a well-appointed house and material well-being -- in a word, wealth.

Look through Jewish literature, more especially through the Holy Writ and the Talmud, and you will find, it is true, a few passages wherein poverty is lauded as something higher and nobler than riches. But on the other hand you will come across hundreds of passages in which riches are called the blessing of the Lord, and only their misuse or their dangers warned against. Here and there, too, we may read that riches alone do not necessarily bring happiness, other things are essential in addition (such as health, for example), that there are "goods" (in the broadest use of the word) more valuable or as valuable as riches. But in all this nothing is said against riches; and never is it stated that they are an abomination to the Lord.

I once gave expression to this view in a public lecture, and it was severely criticized on all sides. Just this point more than any other was controverted -- the statement that riches are in the Jewish religion accounted as a valuable good. Many of my critics, among them several distinguished Jewish rabbis, went to the trouble of compiling lists of passages from the Bible and Talmud which confuted my opinion. I admit that there are many places in the Bible and the Talmud which regard wealth as a danger to the righteous, and in which poverty is extolled. There are some half-dozen of them in the Bible; the Talmud has rather more. But the important thing is that each of these passages may be capped by ten others, which breathe a totally different spirit. In such cases numbers surely count.

I put the question to myself in this way. Let us imagine old Amschel Rothschild on a Friday evening, after having "earned" a million on the Stock Exchange, turning to his Bible for edification. What will he find there touching his earnings and their effect on the refinement of his soul, an effect which the pious old Jew most certainly desired on the eve of the Sabbath? Will the million bum his conscience? Or will he not be able to say, and rightly say, "God’s blessing rested upon me this week. I thank Thee, Lord, for having graciously granted the light of Thy countenance to Thy servant. In order to find favour in Thy sight I shall give much to charity, and keep Thy commandments even more strictly than hitherto"? Such would be his words if he knew his Bible, and he did know it.

For his eye would rest complacently on many a passage in the Holy Writ. In his beloved Torah he would be able to read again and again of the blessing of God. "And He will love thee and bless thee and multiply thee. He will also bless the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground, thy corn and thy wine and thine oil ... thou shalt be blessed above all peoples" (Deut. vii. 13-15). And how moved he would be when he reached the words, "For the Lord, thy God, will bless thee, as He promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow" (Deut. xv. 6). Then suppose he turns to the Psalms, what would he find there?

O fear the Lord, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that
fear Him (Psa. xxxiv. 10).
Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord.... Wealth and riches are
in his house (Psa. xc. 1-3).
Our garners are full, affording all manner of store, our sheep bring
forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields (Psa. cxliv. 13).

He would rejoice with Job when on concluding the story of his trials he found that his latter end was more blessed than his beginning, and that "he had 14,000 sheep, 6000 camels, 1000 yoke of oxen and 1000 she-asses" and the rest. (Happily our friend Amschel knew nothing of modern Biblical criticism, and was not aware therefore that this particular portion of Job is a later interpolation in the story.)

The prophets also promised Israel earthly rewards if it kept to God’s way and walked therein. If Amschel turned to the 60th chapter of Isaiah he would find the prophecy that one day the Gentiles should bring their gold and silver to Israel.

But perhaps Amschel’s favourite book would be Proverbs,³² "which expresses in a most pregnant form the ideas of life current in Israel" (as a rabbi wrote to me who quoted this book in proof of my error, Prov. xxii. 1, 2; xxiii. 4; xxviii. 20, 21; xxx. 8). Here he would be warned that riches alone do not bring happiness (xxii. 1, 2), that God must not be denied amid great wealth (xxx. 8), that "he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be unpunished" (xxviii. 20). (Perhaps he will say to himself that he does not "hasten" to be rich.) The only verse that may disquieten him is when he reads "Weary not thyself to be rich; cease from thine own wisdom" (xxiii. 4). But only for a moment, for his mind will be eased when he observes the connexion with the preceding passage. Possibly these six little words may not after all trouble him much when he remembers the numerous passages in this very book which commend riches. So numerous indeed that it may be said they give the tone to the whole of Proverbs.³³ A few only shall be quoted:

Length of days are in her right hand; in her left are riches and honour (iii. 16).
Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness (viii. 18).
The rich man’s wealth is his strong city (x. 15).
Their riches are a crown unto the wise (xiv. 24).
The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is riches and
honour and life (xxii. 4).

The Wisdom Literature included Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon. The first³⁴ certainly does not breathe a uniform spirit; the many accretions of later times make it full of contradictions. Yet even here the pious Jew found never a passage which taught him to despise wealth. On the contrary, wealth is highly valued.

Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and
hath given him power to eat thereof . . . this is the gift of God (v. 19).
A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh glad the life: and
money answereth all things (x. 19).

The Wisdom of Solomon likewise praises riches. No less does the Book of Jesus, the son of Sirach, that fund of wise saws, which old Amschel must have conned with delight. If any Rabbi had told him that Ben Sirach’s books regard the wealthy man almost as a sinner and wealth as the source of evil, instancing chapters x-xiii in proof, Amschel would have replied, "My dear Rabbi, you are mistaken. Those passages are a warning against the dangers of wealth. But a rich man who avoids the dangers is thereby the more righteous. ‘Blessed is the rich that is found without blemish ... his goods shall be established and the congregation shall declare his alms’ (xxxi. 8, 11). And why, my dear Rabbi" (so Amschel might continue), "do you not mention the passages which speak of the man who has amassed millions, passages like the following?"

Better is he that laboureth and aboundeth in all things, than he
that boasteth himself and wanteth bread (x. 27).
The poor man is honoured for his skill, and the rich man is
honoured for his riches (x. 30).
Prosperity and adversity, life and death, poverty and riches come
of the Lord’ (xi. 14).
Gold and silver make the foot stand sure (xl. 25). Riches and
strength lift up the heart (xl. 26). Better it is to die than to beg (xl. 28).

"Should I be ashamed of my millions, my dear Rabbi" (Amschel would conclude the imaginary conversation), "should I not rather look upon them as God’s blessing? Recall what the wise Jesus ben Sirach said of great King Solomon" (xlvii. 18): "By the name of the Lord God, which is called the Lord God of Israel, thou didst gather gold as tin, and didst multiply silver as lead.’ I also will go, Rabbi, and in the name of the Lord God will gather gold as tin and silver as lead."

In the Talmud the passages that express the same point of view are frequent enough. Riches are a blessing if only their owner walk in God’s ways, and poverty is a curse. Hardly ever are riches despised. Let us quote a few Talmudic sayings on the subject.

Seven characteristics are there which are "comely to the righteous
and comely to the world." One of them is riches (Aboth. vi. 8).
In prayer a man should turn to Him who owns wealth and possessions.
... In reality both come not from business, but according to
merit (Kidushin, lxxxiiia).
R. Eleazer said, "The righteous love their money more than their
bodies" (Sota, xiia).
Rabba honoured the wealthy, so did R. Akiba (Erubin, lxxxvia).
In time of scarcity a man learns to value wealth best (Aboth de
Rabbi Nathan).

Doctrines concerning wealth such as these could not but encourage a worldly view of life. This the Jewish view was, despite the belief in another world. There were indeed attempts at ascetic movements in Judaism (e.g., in the 9th century the Karaites combined to live the life of monks; [Sombart is mistaken in this. The characteristic of the Karaites was that they accepted and lived by the letter of the Torah. -- Trans.] in the 11th century Bachja ibn Pakuda preached asceticism in Spain), but none of them ever took root. Judaism even in times of great affliction was always optimistic. In this the Jews differ from the Christians, whose religion has tried to rob them all it could of earthly joys. As often as riches are lauded in the Old Testament they are damned in the New, wherein poverty is praised. The whole outlook of the Essenes, turning its back upon the world and the flesh, was incorporated in the Gospels. One can easily recall passage after passage to this effect. (Cf. Matt. vi. 24; x. 9, 10; xix. 23, 24.) "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God." This is the keynote of Christianity on the point, and the difference between it and Judaism is clear enough. There is no single parallel to the saying of Jesus in the whole of the Old Testament, and probably also none in the entire body of Rabbinic literature.

There is no need to expatiate on the different attitude of the good Jew and the good Christian towards economic activities. The Christian is forced by all manner of mental gymnastics to interpret away the Essene conception of riches from his Scriptures. And what anxious moments must the rich Christian live through as he thinks of heaven locked against him! Compare with him the position of the rich Jew, who, as we have seen, "in the name of the Lord God" gathers gold as tin and silver as lead.

It is well known that the religion of the Christians stood in the way of their economic activities. It is equally well known that the Jews were never faced with this hindrance. The more pious a Jew was and the more acquainted with his religious literature, the more he was spurred by the teachings of that literature to extend his economic activities. A beautiful illustration of the way religion and business were fused in the mind of pious Jews may be found in the delightful Memoirs of Glückel von Hamein, to which we have already referred. "Praise be to God, who gives and takes, the faithful God, who always made good our losses," she says. And again, "My husband sent me a long, comforting letter, urging me to calm my soul, for God, whose name be blessed, would restore to us what we had lost. And so it was."

The Rationalization of Life
Since Judaism rests upon a contract between God and His people, i.e., upon a two-sided legal agreement, each party must have definite responsibilities. What were those of the Jews?

Again and again was the answer to this question given by God through His servant Moses. Again and again the Israelite was informed that two great duties were his. He was to be holy and to obey God’s law. (Cf. Exod. xix. 6; Deut. iv. 56.) God did not require sacrifices of him; He demanded obedience (Jer. vii. 22, 23).

Now it is generally known that in the course of events the Jews came to regard righteousness as a minute fulfilment of the Law. The inward holiness that may have existed in early days soon vanished before formalism and legalism. Holiness and observation of the Law became interchangeable terms. It is generally known, too, that this legalism was a device of the Rabbis to protect the Jews against the influences first, of Hellenism, then of Christianity, and finally, when the Second Temple was destroyed, to maintain by its means the national consciousness. The struggle with Hellenism resulted in Pharisaism; the struggle with Pauline Christianity whichaimed at replacing the Law by faith, transformed the religion of the Pharisees into that of the Talmud, and the old policy of the Scribes "to encompass the whole of life with regulation" made greater progress than ever. In their political isolation the Jewish communities submitted entirely to the new hierarchy. They desired to see the end attained and so accepted the means. The school and the Law outlasted the Temple and the State, and Pharisaic Rabbinism had unlimited sway. Righteousness henceforth meant living in strict accordance with the Law. Piety, under the influence of the legally minded Scribes, was given a legal connotation. Religion became the common law. In the Mishna all this finds admirable expression. The commands of the Pentateuch and the commands deduced from these are all divine ordinances which must be obeyed without questioning. More and more stress is laid on externals, and between important and insignificant commands there is less and less differentiation.³⁵

So it remained for two thousand years; so it is to-day. Strict orthodoxy still holds fast to this formalism and the principles of Judaism know no change. The Torah is as binding to-day in its every word as when it was given to Moses on Sinai.³⁶ Its laws and ordinances must be observed by the faithful, whether they be light or grave, whether they appear to have rhyme or reason or no. And they must be strictly observed, and only because God gave them. This implicit obedience makes the righteous, makes the saint. "Saintly or holy in the Torah sense is he who is able to fulfil the revealed will of God without any struggle and with the same joy as carrying out his own will. This holiness, this comThe plete fusion of the will of man with the divine will, is a lofty goal attainable in its entirety by a few only. Hence the law of holiness refers in the first instance to the striving towards this goal. The striving all can do; it demands a constant self-watchfulness and self-education, an endless struggle against what is low and vulgar, what is sensual and bestial. And obedience to the behests of the Torah is the surest ladder on which to climb to higher and higher degrees of holiness."³⁷

These words show clearly enough how holiness and legalism are connected; they show that the highest aim of Israel still is to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation; and that the path to that end is a strict obedience to God’s commandments. Once this becomes apparent, we can imagine the importance the Jewish religion has for the whole of life. In the long run, external legalism does not remain external; it exercises a constant influence on the inner life, which obtains its peculiar character from the observance of the law.

The psychological process which led to the shaping of Judaism appears to me to be this. At first God’s behests were those that mattered, regardless of their contents. But slowly the contents must needs make themselves manifest to the observer, and a clearly defined ideal of Life evolved itself from the word of God. To follow this ideal, to be righteous, to be holy was the heart’s desire of each believer.

Before continuing, let us strive to obtain some notion of what the pious Jew meant, and means, by holiness in the material sense.

Let us recall what was said in the last section about the "worldliness" of the Jewish religion. In accordance with this it can scarcely be holy to deny the natural instincts or to crush them, as other religions teach -- e.g.. Buddhism or Primitive Christianity. Other-worldly asceticism was always antagonistic to Judaism. "The soul which has been given thee -- preserve it, never kill it" -- that is the Talmudic maxim on which to build up the conduct of life and which found currency at all times.³⁸

The negation of life cannot therefore be holiness. Nor can the exercise of man’s passions and appetites be holiness. For if it were, it could not be put as an ideal before the righteous; it would then be accessible to everybody. There remains therefore only one other possibility -- to live your life of set purpose in accordance with some ideal plan based on supernatural rules, and either utilizing the desires within you or crushing them. In fine, holiness is the rationalization of life. You decide to replace the natural existence with its desires and inclinations by the moral life. To be holy is to become refined, and to realize this is to overcome all your natural tendencies by means of moral obedience.³⁹

A rugged Dualism -- the terrible Dualism which is part and parcel of our constitution -- characterizes the Jewish conception of ethical worth. Nature is not unholy, neither is she holy. She is not yet holy. She may become holy through us. All the seeds of sin are in her; the serpent still lurks in the grass as he did long ago in the Garden of Eden. "God certainly created the evil inclination, but he also created the Torah, the moral law, an an antidote to it."⁴⁰ The whole of human life is one great warfare against the inimical forces of Nature: that is the guiding principle of Jewish moral theology, and it is in accordance with it that the system of rules and regulations was instituted by which life might be rationalized, de-naturalized, refined and hallowed without the necessity of renouncing or stifling it. In this we see the marked difference between the Christian (Essene) and the Jewish (Pharisaic) ideas of morality. The former leads quite logically away from the world into the silent hermitage and the monastery (if not to death); the latter binds its faithful adherent with a thousand chains to the individual and social life. Christianity makes its devotee into a monk, Judaism into a rationalist; the first ends in asceticism outside the world; the second in asceticism within it (taking asceticism to mean the subjugation of what is natural in man).

We shall gain a clearer insight of what Jewish Ethics (and therefore also the Jewish religion) stands for if we examine its regulations one by one.

The effect of Law is twofold. Its very existence has an influence; so have its contents.

That there is a law at all, that it is a duty to obey it, impels one to think about one’s actions and to accomplish them in harmony with the dictates of reason. In front of every desire a warning finger-post is set; every natural impulse is nullified by the thousand and one milestones and danger-signals in the shape of directions to the pious. Now, since obedience to a multifariousness of rules (the well-known commands compiled by Maimonides numbered 365 -- of which 243 are still current -- and his prohibitions 248) is well-nigh impossible without a pretty good knowledge of what they are, the system includes the command to study the Holy Writ, and especially the Torah. This very study itself is made a means of rendering life holy. "If the evil inclination seizes hold of you, march him off to the House of Study," counsels the Talmud.

The view that all the enactments were for the purpose of ennobling the life of the faithful was accepted at all times, and is still held to-day by many orthodox Jews.

God wished to refine Israel, therefore He increased the number of
the commandments (Makkoth, 23b).
The commandments were given by God to ennoble man kind
(Vajikra Rabba, 13).⁴¹
It would have been better for a man never to have been born, but
once he is in the world let him continually examine his actions
(Erubin, 13b).
Every night a man should critically examine his deeds of the day
(Magen Abraham on Orach Chajim, 239, § 7).⁴²
"Observe" and "remember" were ordained in a single utterance.⁴³

Deum respice et cura⁴⁴ is still the motto of the Jew. If he meets a king or sees a dwarf or a Negro, passes a ruined building or takes his medicine or his bath, notes the coming storm or hears its roaring thunder, rises in the morning and puts on his clothes or eats his food, enters his house or leaves it, greets a friend or meets a foe -- for every emergency there is an ordinance which must be obeyed.

Now what of the contents of the ordinances? All of them aim at the subjugation of the merely animal instincts in man, at the bridling of his desires and inclinations and at the replacing of impulses by thoughtful action; in short, at the "ethical tempering of man."

You must think nothing, speak nothing, do nothing without first considering what the law about it is, and then apply it to the great purpose of sanctification. You must therefore do nothing merely for its own sake, spontaneously, or from natural instinct. You must not enjoy Nature for the sheer pleasure of it.

You may do so only if you think thereby of the wisdom and the goodness of God. In the spring when the trees put on their blossom the pious Jew says, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, . . . who hast made Thy world lacking in nought, but hast provided therein goodly creatures and trees wherewith to give delight to the children of men." At the sight of the rainbow he brings to mind the Covenant with God. On high mountains, in vast deserts, beside mighty rivers -- in a word, wherever his heart is deeply moved by Nature’s wonders -- he expresses his feelings in the benediction, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, .. . who hast made the Creation."

You must not enjoy art for its own sake. Works of plastic art should be avoided, for they may easily lead to a breach of the second commandment. But even the poet’s art is not looked upon with favour, except it refer to God. All reading is good, provided it has some practical end in view. "It is best to read the books of the Torah or such as refer to them. If we desire to read for recreation, let us choose books that are able to teach us something useful. Among the books written for amusement and to while away the time there are some that may awake sinful wishes within us. The reading of these books is forbidden."⁴⁵

You must not indulge in harmless pleasures. "The seat of the scornful [Psa. i. I], -- the theatres and circuses of the heathen are meant." Song, dance and wine, save when they are connected with religious ceremonial, are taboo. "Rabbi Dosa ben Hyrkanus used to say. Morning sleep and midday wine and childish talk and attending the houses where the ignorant foregather put a man out of the world."⁴⁶ "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich" (Prov. xxi. 17).

If this be so, those qualities which may lead a man to "unseemly" conduct are useless or even harmful. Such are enthusiasm (for while a man is in this state he may do something useless),⁴⁷ kindness of heart (you must exercise kindness only because the idea of benevolence actuates you; you must never let pity carry you away, so that the nobility and dignity of the ideal law may always be before you);⁴⁸ a sensual temperament ("the source of passion -- and of sin -- is in sensuality"), ⁴⁹ ingenuousness, in short anything that marks the natural (and therefore unholy) man.

The cardinal virtues of the pious are, on the other hand, self-control and circumspection, a love of order and of work, moderation and abstemiousness, chastity and sobriety.

Self-control and circumspection especially and in regard to your words is a constant theme of the moralists. "In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression: but he that refraineth his lips doth wisely" (Prov. x. 19).⁵⁰

No less insistent was the later tradition. "Raba held that whoso carries on an unnecessary conversation transgresses a command" (Joma, 19b). "Our sanctification," says a modern book for popular edification, "depends to a large extent on the control of our tongues, on the power of holding our peace. The gift of speech . . . was given to man for holy purposes. Hence all unnecessary talk is forbidden by our wise men."⁵¹

But self-control and circumspection generally are urged on the pious Jew.

Who is the strongest of the strong? He who controls his passions
(Aboth de R. Nathan, xxiii. 1).
The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness: but every
one that is hasty hasteth only to want (Prov. xxi. 5).
He that hasteth with his feet sinneth (Prov. xix. 2).

And as for industry and thrift, innumerable are the exhortations to that end.

The Jew must wake the day, not the day the Jew -- so taught the Rabbis, as a homily on Psalm lvii. 9.⁵²

It is just the strongest instincts of man that must be curbed, directed into right channels, deprived of their natural force and made to serve useful ends. In short, they must be rationalized.

Take the instinct which desires to satisfy hunger. It is forbidden to appease the appetite merely because it happens to be there; it should be appeased only for the body’s sake. And when the good man sits down to eat, let him do so according to the precepts of his Maker. Hence the large number of rules concerning food; hence the command to be serious at meals -- to begin and to close with prayer; hence the advice to be moderate and the appeal to banish the pleasure of feeding. "It is only through God’s goodness that you are enabled to use His creatures as food, and therefore if your entire eating and drinking is not to be beastly, it must be hallowed; it must be looked upon as the getting of strength for His service."⁵³ "The Jew should make the satisfaction of his appetite for food a sacrament; should regard his table as an altar and the food thereon as sacrifice, which he enjoys only in order to obtain more strength for the fulfilment of his duties."⁵⁴ (Jewish cooking, by the way, is excellent.)

Finally -- and this of course matters most -- just like hunger, Love also must be rationalized, that is to say, its natural expression must be held in check. Nowhere more than in the erotic sphere does the hard dualism show itself so well. The world, and certainly the civilized nations, owes this conception of the sexual to the Jews (through the agency of Christianity, which was infected with the idea). All earlier religions saw something divine in the expression of sex, and regarded sexual intercourse as of the nature of a heavenly revelation. All of them were acquainted with Phallus-worship in a grosser or finer form. None of them condemned what is sensuous, or looked upon women as a source of sin. But the Jews from Ezra’s day to this held, and hold, the opposite view.

To sanctify himself, to make himself worthy of his converse with God, Moses "drew not nigh unto his wife." And Job mentions as being in his favour that he made a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a maid. The whole Wisdom Literature abounds in warnings against women, [Sombart instances Prov. v. 3-4. But does not the passage clearly refer to bad women? -- Trans.] and the same spirit dominates the Talmud. "Better to die than to be guilty of unchastity" (Sanhedrim, 75a). Indeed, the three capital crimes for which even death does not atone are murder, idol-worship and adultery. "Hast thou business with women? See to it that thou art not with them alone" (Kiddushin, 82a). This dread runs through all the codes. The Eben Ha-ezer condemns to death by stoning any one who has had guilty intercourse with a woman related to him within the prohibited degrees. The very clothes or the little finger of a woman of such close consanguinity must not be looked at "to get pleasure from it." It is forbidden a man to allow himself to be waited on by a woman, or to embrace his aunt or his grown-up sister.

Teachers of to-day are no less explicit. "Guard yourself against any contact with impurity," says one of the most popular of them. "Look at nothing, hear nothing, read nothing, think of nothing which may in any wise occupy your thoughts unchastely or make you familiar with what is not clean. Do not walk in the street behind a woman; if you cannot help yourself, look not at her with desire. [Cf. Robert Louis Stevenson: ‘To remember the faces of women without desire, ... is not this to know both wisdom and virtue?" -- Trans.] Do not let your eye rest longingly on a woman’s hair, nor your ears on her voice; do not take pleasure in her form; yea, a woman’s very clothes should not be looked at if you know who has worn them. In all things go out of the way of Opportunity. . . . The two sexes should not jest together. Even in make-believe little pressures of the hand, winking of the eyes, embracing and kissing are sinful."⁵⁵

Warnings such as these were not neglected, as may be seen from the autobiographies of pious Jews, some of which may now be read in modern languages.⁵⁶

But the point of it all must not be overlooked. Other religions also show signs of being terrified at women. Ever since the notion became prevalent that woman brought sin into the world there have always been morbid souls who spent their lives exciting themselves with all manner of lascivious imaginings but avoiding woman as though she were the devil incarnate. In other religions the man fled to the hermit’s cave in the wilderness or to a monastery. In either case, his religion forced "chastity" upon him, with all the horrid resultants well known to students of monastic life. Not so Judaism. Judaism does not forbid sexual intercourse; it rationalizes it. Not that it does not regard sexual intercourse as sinful. Sinful it must always be, but its sinfulness may to some extent be removed by sanctification. Hence Judaismadvocates early marriages and regulates the relationship between husband and wife as something "ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye."

"A man should not be without a wife, nor a woman without a husband; but both shall see to it that God’s spirit is in their union." That is the motto, and in accordance with it the Talmud and the later codes have multiplied rules and regulations for the guidance of married couples. In the 11th century (to mention but a few) R. Eleazar ben Nathan compiled a special code on the subject, the Eben Ha-ezer, and in the 13th century R. Nachman wrote a famous work on the sanctification of marriage.⁵⁷ The laws of the Eben Ha-ezer were incorporated in the Shulchan Aruch and together with the glosses upon them receive recognition to-day. The main ideas throughout are those we have already considered: hallow thy body’s strength in accordance with God’s will; be careful of thy manhood; be God’s servant at all times.⁵⁸

Such was the Jewish view of marriage, which has continued for more than two thousand years. It is well illustrated by that touching story in the Book of Tobit, which may form a fitting conclusion to our considerations under this head.

And after that they were both shut in together, Tobias rose out of
the bed, and said, Sister, arise, and let us pray that God would
have pity on us.
Then began Tobias to say. Blessed art Thou, O God of our fathers,
and blessed is Thy holy and glorious name for ever; let the heavens
bless Thee, and all Thy creatures.
Thou madest Adam, and gavest him Eve his wife for an helper
and stay: of them came mankind: Thou hast said, It is not good
that man should be alone; let us make unto him an aid like unto
himself.
And now, O Lord, I take not this my sister for lust, but uprightly
therefore mercifully ordain that we may become aged together.
And she said with him. Amen.
So they slept both that night. -- Tobit vii. 4-9.

It may be asked. Why have I treated this aspect of Jewish life at such great length? My answer is simple. I really believe that the rationalization of life, and especially of the sexual life, which the Jewish religion effects cannot be too highly estimated for its influence on economic activities. If religion is at all to be accounted a factor in Jewish economic life, then certainly the rationalization of conduct is its best expression.

To begin with, a number of good qualities or virtues which are indispensable to any economic order owe their existence to rationalization -- e.g., industry, neatness, thrift. But the whole of life, if lived in accordance with the ordinances of the "Wise," ministers to the needs of wealthgetting. Sobriety, moderation and piety are surely qualities which stand the business man in good stead. In short, the whole ideal of conduct preached in Holy Writ and in Rabbinic literature has something of the morality of the small shopkeeper about it -- to be content with one wife, to pay your debts punctually, to go to church or synagogue on Sunday or Saturday (as the case may be) and to look down with immeasurable scorn on the sinful world around.

But Jewish moral teaching did not spend itself in the mere production of this type of the small respectable shopkeeper. It may even be questioned whether the type is altogether its work. At any rate, it is not of much consequence for economic development. Middle-class respectability as a matter of fact owes its origin to the narrow outlook of the petty trading class. Hence it can have but little to do with capitalism, except in so far as the qualities which that class possessed were the foundation on which capitalism could be built up. But capitalism did not grow out of the qualities, and therefore we must search in other directions for the causes which made the Jews pioneers of capitalism.

The fast that suggests itself is the cultivation of family life among Jews, calling forth as it did energies so necessary to economic growth. The cultivation and refinement of family life was undoubtedly the work of the Jewish Rabbis, assisted, it must be added, by the vicissitudes of the Jewish people. In Judaism woman was fast held in that high esteem which is the prime postulate for the existence of a sound family life and all that it means for man’s conduct. The Rabbis by thenlaws and regulations affecting marriages, the marital relationship and the education of children and the rest, did all that was humanly possible in the way of outward limitation and influence to establish family life in all its purity.

That marriage is considered more sacred among pious Jews than among people of other denominations is demonstrated by the statistics of illegitimate births. These are considerably fewer among Jews than among Christians.⁵⁹

ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS PER THOUSAND
Year	Country	General	Jews
1904	Prussia	2.51	0.66
1905	Würtemberg	2.83	0.16
1907	Hesse	2.18	0.13
1908	Bavaria	4.25	0.56
1901	Russia	1.29	0.14

If the figures for Russia be looked into a little more carefully it will
be seen that illegitimate births among Jews vary very much from those
among non-Jews. At the same time it must not be forgotten that there is
a slight lowering of the standard in sexual morality among Jews. Thus,
the following table shows the percentage of illegitimate births in Russia.

ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS PER HUNDRED IN RUSSIA
Year	Greek Orthodox	Catholics	Protestants	Jews
1868	2.96	3.45	3.49	0.19
1878	3.13	3.29	3.85	0.25
1898	2.66	3.53	3.86	0.37
1901	2.49	3.57	3.76	0.46

Such then was one result of the family life current among Jews and introduced by them. The man contributed to it the best that was in him, and in return he drew from it invigorating strength, courage, and an inducement to maintain and to expand his position in life. Family life of this kind generated centres for masculine energy large enough to set in motion such a mighty economic system as capitalism. For this system calls for great energy, and we can scarcely imagine it being produced except through the agency of psychological influences which appeal not only to the social instincts but also to the family ideal.

It may perhaps be necessary to look below the psychological influences to the physical ones. How curiously moulded must the constitution of the Jew have become through the rationalization of his married life! We see this phenomenon -- that a people with strong sexual inclinations (Tacitus speaks of it as proiectissima ad libidinem gens) is forced by its religion to hold them in complete restraint. Extra-marital connexions are absolutely forbidden; every one must content himself with one wife, but even with her intercourse is restricted.

The result of all this is obvious. Enormous funds of energy were prevented from finding an outlet in one direction and they turned to others. Knowing as we do the condition of the Jews throughout the Common Era, we shall not be wrong in assuming that economic activities were their chief channel. But we may go further. It is possible to prove that, quite generally, restrained sexual desires and the chase of profits go hand in hand. For the present we have had but little scientific investigation of this fact, so important for all modern sociological problems.⁶⁰ That a lordly way of life is usually accompanied by lavishness of money and of love, whereas such qualities as niggardliness, avarice and a setting of much store by money are the ubiquitous partners of a stunted sexual life -- these are everyday experiences, and though it would be presumptuous to attempt to solve this most interesting problem with the aid of observations which must perforce be limited, yet for the purpose of my argument they ought not to be omitted, at least as an hypothesis.

We see then that a good deal of capitalistic capacity which the Jews possessed was due in large measure to the sexual restraint put upon them by their religious teachers. The effect of the rationalization of the whole of life on the physical and intellectual powers of the Jew must still be gone into by scientists;⁶¹ at present we have only beginnings of such studies. I refer to the influence of the very wise regulations of sexual intercourse, of eating and drinking and so on. (Incidentally it is worthy of note that Jewish law has long restricted the marriage of the unfit.)

One other point in conclusion. The rationalization of life accustomed the Jew to a mode of living contrary to (or side by side with) Nature and therefore also to an economic system like the capitalistic, which is likewise contrary to (or side by side with) Nature. What in reality is the idea of making profit, what is economic rationalism, but the application to economic activities of the rules by which the Jewish religion shaped Jewish life? Before capitalism could develop the natural man had to be changed out of all recognition, and a rationalistically minded mechanism introduced in his stead. There had to be a transvaluation of all economic values. And what was the result? The homo capitalisticus, who is closely related to the homo Judeus, both belonging to the same species, homines rationalistic! artificiales.

And so the rationalization of Jewish life by the Jewish religion, if it did not actually produce the Jewish capacity for capitalism, certainly increased and heightened it.

Israel and the Nations
One of the causes to which the Jew owed his economic progress was, as the reader will remember, the fact that Israel was for generations a stranger and an alien. If we seek to account for this aloofness we shall find its roots in the ordinances of the Jewish religion, shall find that this religion always maintained and broadened the line of separation. As Leroy-Beaulieu, who has studied this aspect of Jewish history with great success, has so well said, "La loi leur donnait l’ésprit de clan." The very fact that they had their Law forced the Jews to live apart from the Gentiles. For if they desired to observe the Law they needs must keep to themselves. The Jews created the Ghetto, which from the non-Jewish point of view was a concession and a privilege and not the result of enmity.

But the Jews wished to live separated from the rest because they felt themselves superior to the common people round them. They were the Chosen Race, a People of Priests. The Rabbis did all that was required to fan the flame of pride -- from Ezra, who forbade intermarriage as a profanation of Jewish purity, down to this very day, when the pious Jew says every morning, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, King of the Universe, who has not made me a Gentile (stranger)."

And so they lived separate and apart all through the centuries of the Diaspora, despite the Diaspora and (thanks to the bands which the Law laid upon them) because of the Diaspora -- separate and apart, and therefore a group by themselves, or, if you will, a group by themselves and therefore separate and apart.

A group by themselves -- they were that already at the time of the Babylonian Exile, which in reality established the internationalism of the Jew. Many of them, especially the wealthier ones, remained behind in Babylon of their own free will, but they retained their Judaism and professed it zealously. They kept up a lively intercourse with their brethren who had returned home, took a sympathetic interest in their fortunes, rendered them assistance and sent them new settlers from time to time.⁶²

The bonds of union were in no wise relaxed in the Hellenistic Diaspora. "They kept closely together in the cities and throughout the world. No matter where they pitched their tents, their connexion with Zion was upheld. In the heart of the wilderness they had a native land where they were at home ... By means of the Diaspora they entered into the world. In the Hellenistic cities they adopted the Greek tongue and Greek manners even if only as the outer garb of their Jewishness" (Wellhausen).

So it continued throughout the centuries of their exile. If anything the bond became strengthened. "Scis quanta concordia" -- "You know how they hang together!" cries Cicero.⁶³ So it was; so it still is. "All the Jewries in the Empire and beyond," we read of the rebellion of the year 130 A.D., "were stirred and more or less openly supported the insurgents on the banks of the Jordan."⁶⁴ Is it any different to-day when a Jew is expelled from some Russian town or other?

A group by themselves and therefore separate and apart -- this is true from earliest antiquity. All nations were struck by their hatred of others, of which they were for the fast time accused by Hekateus of Abdera (300 B.C.) . Many other ancient writers repeat the indictment,⁶⁵ almost always in the same words. Perhaps the best known passage is in Tacitus:

"Apud eos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu. Sed adversus
omnes alias hostile odium. Separati epulis discreti cubilibus,
proiectissima ad libidinem gens, alienarum concubitu abstinent"
(Historia, V, i. 5). [Amongst themselves they are doggedly faithful and
quick to pity, but all strangers they hate as enemies. They neither eat nor
intermarry with strangers; they are a people of strong passions, yet they
withhold themselves from other men’s wives.

Jewish apologetics never attempted to combat these views:⁶⁶ there must therefore have been some foundation for them.

It is true that the Jews kept together so closely and shut themselves off very often on account of the unfriendly treatment they received at the hands of their hosts. But it was not so originally. The Jews wanted to live secluded from their neighbours because of their religion. That this was so appears from their attitude in those lands where they were well treated. Witness one or two instances in the ancient world, of which I have just given illustrations [Tacitus, etc.]. Witness the same tendency in the Middle Ages. Take Arabia in the first century. The Jews there at the period named lived according to the religion which the Tanaim and Amor aim had formulated -- keeping the dietary laws and festivals, the great White Fast and the Sabbath. "Although they could not complain of anything in this hospitable country they yet longed for the return to the Holy Land and awaited the advent of the Messiah every day. . . . They were in direct communication with the Jews of Palestine."⁶⁷ Or take Moorish Spain. While the Christians who lived among the Mohammedans forgot their mother tongue (Gothic Latin), no longer understood their sacred books, and were rather ashamed of their Christianity, the Spanish Jews were more and more devoted to their national language, their Holy Writ and their ancient religion.⁶⁸ This attitude was clearly reflected in the Jewish poetry and philosophy of the period, the greatest perhaps that mediaeval Jewry can boast. In the midst of an Arabic-Spanish world in which they lived and enjoyed the respect of their fellow-citizens, they were strictly "national," that is religious; they drew poetic inspiration from the Messianic hopes and were filled with an unconquerable longing for Zion.⁶⁹ One need only mention the great Jehuda Halevy, whose Odes to Zion are the highest expression of the genius of neo-Hebrew poetry.

Like a cloud sailing in the blue of the sky above, Judaism winds its way through history, refreshed by the memories of its hoary and holy past as by a soft breeze. To this very day the pious Jew blesses his children with the words, "The Lord make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh."

What was the effect on economic life of this seclusion and separation
of the Jewish social organism? Directly the Jews stepped outside the Ghetto gates their intercourse was with strangers. We have already dealt with the point elsewhere; my reason for calling attention to it again is to show that this attitude was a direct consequence of the teaching of Judaism, that in treating the people among whom they lived as "others," the Jews were but obeying a divine behest. Here, too, their conduct was hallowed, and it received a sanction from the peculiar system of laws relating to "strangers."

The most important and most frequently discussed legal ordinance in this system was that affecting the taking of interest. In the old Jewish theocracy,⁷⁰ as in every society in early civilization, loans without interest were the regular means of rendering assistance by a man to his neighbour. But it may be observed that even in the earliest collection of laws interest was allowed to be taken from "strangers."

The Jewish code was no exception. The best example of this may be found in Deuteronomy xxiii. 20. Other passages in the Torah that have reference to interest are Exodus xxii. 25 and Leviticus xxv. 37. They all form the theme of a lively discussion which has been carried on from the days of the Tanaim down to the present. The chief instance and at the same time the crux of the matter is in the Talmud, in Baha Mew, 70b, and my own feeling is that for the most part it is an attempt to discount the very clear statement of the Torah by all manner of sophistries. For what does the verse in Deuteronomy say? "Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shall not lend upon usury." The only doubt is in the wording of the original, which may mean with equal grammatical exactitude, "thou mayest lendupon usury" or "thou shalt lend upon usury." (It need hardly be added that "usury" with the translators was nothing more or less than our "interest.")

In either case, the pious Jew was allowed to take interest from non- Jews -- that is the significant thing as far as we are concerned. Right through the Middle Ages he was not oppressed by the burden of the anti-usury prohibition which weighed upon the Christian. The Jewish law on the subject was never to my knowledge questioned by the Rabbis. ⁷¹ On the other hand, there were periods when the "mayest" in the Deuteronomic passage was read as "shalt," periods when the Jew was urged to become a money-lender.

The authors who have dealt with this subject in modern times appear to have overlooked the fact that the Deuteronomic command has been received as one of the laws that regulate the life of the Jew, and that Tradition sanctions money-lending to a stranger on payment of interest Of the 613 commandments, this is the 198th and may be found likewise in the Shulchan Aruch. Modem Rabbis⁷² to whom the perfectly clear ordinance in Deuteronomy is somewhat inconvenient (one cannot quite understand why), attempt to explain it away by asserting that "strangers" in the passage is intended not for all non-Jews but only for heathens or idol-worshippers. If this be so, let it not be forgotten that there never was any very distinct conception as to who was, and who was not, an idol-worshipper. Besides, the pious Jew who has committed the 198th command to memory is not likely to draw the fine distinction urged by the learned Rabbis. Sufficient for him that the man to whom he lent money was no Jew, no "brother," no neighbour, but a Gentile.

Now think of the position in which the pious Jew and the pious Christian respectively found themselves in the period in which moneylending first became a need in Europe, and which eventually gave birth to capitalism. The good Christian who had been addicted to usury was full of remorse as he lay a-dying, ready at the eleventh hour to cast from him the ill-gotten gains which scorched his soul. And the good Jew? la the evening of his days he gazed upon his well-filled caskets and coffers, overflowing with sequins of which he had relieved the miserable Christians or Mohammedans. It was a sight which warmed his heart, for every penny was almost like a sacrifice which he had brought to his Heavenly Father.

Apart from this particular question, the stranger was accorded special consideration in the Jewish legal code. Duties towards him were never as binding as towards your "neighbour," your fellow-Jew. Only ignorance or a desire to distort facts will assert the contrary. True, the conception of law and morality as it affected the "stranger" varied from age to age. But there was no change in the fundamental idea that you owed less consideration to the stranger than to one of your own people. That has remained the same from the day when the Torah first became current to our own. That is the impression that is conveyed by an unprejudiced study of the law concerning strangers in the Holy Writ, the Talmud, the Codes and the Responsa literature. There certainly are passages in the Torah which breathe equality between the home-born and the stranger (Exod. xii. 49, xxiii. 9; Lev. xix. 33, 34, xxv. 44-6; Deufc x. 18, 19). But in a question of fudacha (legal enactment) such as this is, the oral tradition cannot be neglected. Secondly, the passages instanced above all refer to the Ger, the non-Jew who had settled in Palestine, seeing that the Jews knew the heart of a Ger, "for ye were Gerim in the land of Egypt." [In the sentence about interest the word used is Nacharl, some one from another nation.] As time went on it was but natural that there should be an increase of the cases in Jewish law in which the non-Jew was at a disadvantage as compared with the Jew. So much so that in the latest code they occupy a good deal of space.⁷³

What was the importance in economic life of the laws concerning strangers? It was twofold. First, intercourse with strangers was bereft of all considerations, and commercial morality (if I may put it so) became elastic. I admit that there was no absolute necessity for this to come about, but all the conditions were given for it to do so, and it must have been an everyday occurrence in certain circles. "If a non-Jew makes an error in a statement of account, the Jew may use it to his own advantage; it is not incumbent upon him to point it out" So we may read in the Tur, and though Joseph Caro did not include this in his law-book, it crept in later as a gloss from the pen of Isserlein. Is it not obvious that the good Jew must needs draw the conclusion that he was not bound to be so particular in his intercourse with non-Jews? With Jews he will scrupulously see to it that he has just weights and a just measure;⁷⁴ but as for his dealings with non-Jews, his conscience will be at ease even though he may obtain an unfair advantage. It is not to be denied that in some cases honesty towards non-Jews was inculcated.⁷⁵ But to think that this should have been necessary! Besides, this is the actual wording of the law: "It is permissible to take advantage of a non-Jew, for it is written. Thou shalt not take advantage of thy brother." (The context refers not to overreaching, but only to the asking of higher prices from a non-Jew.)

This conception must have been firmly rooted in those districts (e.g., in Eastern Europe) where the study of the Talmud and the casuistry it engendered were universal. The effect it had on the commerce of the Jew has been described by Graetz, surely no prejudiced witness. "To twist a phrase out of its meaning, to use all the tricks of the clever advocate, to play upon words, and to condemn what they did not know . . . such were the characteristics of the Polish Jew. . . Honesty and rightthinking he lost as completely as simplicity and truthfulness. He made himself master of all the gymnastics of the Schools and applied them to obtain advantage over any one less cunning than himself. He took a delight in cheating and overreaching, which gave him a sort of joy of victory. But his own people he could not treat in this way: they were as knowing as he. It was the non-Jew who, to his loss, felt the consequences of the Talmudically trained mind of the Polish Jew."⁷⁶

In the second place, the differential treatment of non-Jews in Jewish commercial law resulted in the complete transformation of the idea of commerce and industry generally in the direction of more freedom. If we have called the Jews the Fathers of Free Trade, and therefore the pioneers of capitalism, let us note here that they were prepared for this role by the free-trading spirit of the commercial and industrial law, which received an enormous impetus towards a policy of laissez-faire by its attitude towards strangers. Clearly, intercourse with strangers could not but loosen the bonds of personal duties and replace them by economic freedom. Let us glance at this in greater detail.

The theory of price in the Talmud and the Codes, in so far as it affected trade between Jew and Jew, is exactly parallel to the scholastic doctrine of justum pretium which was prevalent in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. But as between Jew and non-Jew, there was no just price. Price was formed as it is to-day, by "the higgling of the market."⁷⁷

Be that as it may, the important thing to observe is that already in the Talmud, and still more distinctly in the Shulchan Aruch, conceptions of the freedom of industry and enterprise, so entirely alien to the Christian law of Mediaeval Europe, are met with. It is a subject deserving of close study and should be taken up by a specialist. For my part, I can do no more here than refer to a few instances. But few though they be, they seem to me to be conclusive evidence on the point in question. My first reference is to a passage in the Talmud which fully recognizes free competition among sellers.

Mishna. -- R. Judah was of opinion that a shopkeeper should not
distribute nuts among children, because by so doing he gets them
into the habit of coming to him. But the Rabbis allow it. Moreover,
it is not lawful to spoil prices. But the Rabbis say, "Blessed
be his memory."
Gemara. -- The question at once arises, what was the reason for
the attitude of the Rabbis in the first case? The answer is that the
shopkeeper may say to his competitor, "I give the children nuts,
you can give them plums." And what is the reason of the Rabbis
in the second case? The Mishna forbids price alteration, and yet
they say, "Blessed be his memory." The answer is, they bless his
memory because he reduces prices (Baba Mew, 60a and b).

In the Codes the reasons have been omitted, and the dry statement of law only is found. "A shopkeeper is allowed to make presents of nuts and other things to the children who come to purchase in his shop, in order to win their custom. Moreover, he may sell at a price below the current one, and the competing tradesmen can do nothing" (Choshen Mishpat, 225, §18).

Similarly, in the laws regulating the conduct of traders who bring their goods to the market town, the following may be read: "Should the strangers sell more cheaply than the native dealers, or should their goods be of a better quality, the natives may not prevent them, for the Jewish public derives benefit therefrom" (Choshen Mishpat, 156, §7).

Once more. "If a Jew is prepared to lend money to a non-Jew at a lower rate of interest than some one else, the latter can do nothing against it" (Choshen Mishpat, 156, §5).

Finally, Jewish law favours industrial laissez-faire. So we find in the Shulchan Aruch: "If any one commenced a handicraft in his street and none of his neighbours protested, and then one of the other residents in the street wishes to carry on the same calling, the first may not complain that the new-comer is taking the bread out of his mouth, and try to prevent him" (Choshen Mishpat, 156, §5).

Clearly, then, free trade and industrial freedom were in accordance with Jewish law, and therefore in accordance with God’s will. What a mighty motive power in economic life!

Judaism and Puritanism
I have already mentioned that Max Weber’s study of the importance of Puritanism for the capitalistic system was the impetus that sent me to consider the importance of the Jew, especially as I felt that the dominating ideas of Puritanism which were so powerful in capitalism were more perfectly developed in Judaism, and were also of course of much earlier date.

A complete comparison of the two "isms" is not within my province here. But I believe that if it were made, it would be seen that there is an almost unique identity of view between Judaism and Puritanism, at least, on those points which we have investigated. In both will be found the preponderance of religious interests, the idea of divine rewards and punishments, asceticism within the world, the close relationship between religion and business, the arithmetical conception of sin, and, above all, the rationalization of life.

Let me refer to an instance or two. Take the attitude of Judaism and Puritanism to the problem of sex. In one of the best hotels of Philadelphia I found a notice in my room to this effect: "Visitors who may have to transact business with ladies are respectfully requested to leave the door of their room open while the lady is with them." What is this but the old dictum of the Talmud (Kiddushin, 82a), "Hast thou business with women? See to it that thou art not with them alone"?

Again, is not the English Sunday the Jewish Sabbath?

I would also recall the words of Heine,⁷⁸ who had a clear insight into most things. "Are not," he asks in his Confessions, "Are not the Protestant Scots Hebrews, with their Biblical names, their Jerusalem, pharisaistic cant? And is not their religion a Judaism which allows you to eat pork?"

Puritanism is Judaism.
Whether the first was influenced by the second, and if so, how, are most difficult questions to answer. It is well known, of course, that in the Reformation period there was close intercourse between Jews and certain Christian sects, that the study of Hebrew and the Hebrew Scrip tures became fashionable, and that the Jews in England in the 17th century were held in very high esteem by the Puritans. Leading men in England like Oliver Cromwell built up their religious views on the Old Testament, and Cromwell himself dreamed of a reconciliation between the Old and the New Testaments, and of a confederation between the Chosen People of God and the Puritan English. A Puritan preacher of the day, Nathaniel Holmes by name, wished for nothing better than, in accordance with the letter of the prophetic message, to become a servant of God’s people and to serve them on bended knee. Public life became Hebraic in tone no less than the sermons in churches. And if only speeches in Parliament had been in Hebrew, you might have believed yourself in Palestine. The "Levellers," who called themselves "Jews" (in oppositionto their opponents whom they termed "Amalekites"), advocated the adoption of the Torah as the norm of English legislation. Cromwell’s officers suggested to him to appoint seventy members of his Privy Council according to the number of the members of the Synhedrin. To the Parliament of 1653 General Thomas Harrison, the Anabaptist, was returned, and he and his party clamoured for the introduction of the Mosaic legislation into England. In 1649 it was moved in the House of Commons that the Lord’s Day should be observed on Saturday instead of on Sunday. On the banners of the victorious Puritans was inscribed "The Lion of Judah."⁷⁹ It is significant that not only the Bible, but the Rabbinical literature as well, was extensively read in large circles of the clergy and laity.

Altogether, then, there appears to be sufficient evidence for the deduction of Puritan doctrines from Jewish sources. The specialists must decide. Here I have been able to do no more than give a hint or two. And in conclusion I would draw attention to a little humorous publication, which appeared in the year 1608 and the contents of which would seem to demonstrate the close connexion between Judaism and Calvinism (which is only Puritanism). It is called, Der Calvinische Judenspiegel (the Calvinistic Jewish Mirror), and on page 33 a comparison is drawn between the two religions in the following droll fashion. [The old German is delightful.] "If I am to say on my honour why I am become a Calvinist, I shall have to confess that the one and only reason which persuaded me was that among all the religions I could find none which agreed so much with Judaism, and its view of life and faith. (Here follow a number of parallel statements, partly serious and partly satirical). 8. The Jews hate the name of Mary and tolerate her only when she is made of gold and silver, or when her image is impressed on coins. So do we. We too like Mary farthings and crowns, to which we pay all due respect, for they are useful in business. 9. The Jews everywhere are at pains to cheat the people. So are we. For that very reason we left our country to wander in other lands where we are not known in our true colours, so that by our deceit and cunning ... we might lead astray the ignorant yokels, cheat them and bring them to us...."

---
Notes to Chapter 11

1. M. Lazarus, Ethik des Judentums (1904), pp. 67, 85, etc.[There is an English edition of this book issued by the Jewish Publication Society of America.]

2. Hermann Cohen, "Das Problem der jüdischen Sittenlehre. Eine Kritik (adverse) von Lazarus’ Ethik des Judentums," in Monatsschrift, vol. 43, p. 385.

3. Orach Chajim, § 8.

4. Quoted by F. Weber, Altsynagogale Theologie (1880), p. 273.

5. J. Wellhausen, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte, p. 340.

6. Graetz, vol. 4, p. 411. Graetz also has an excellent appreciation of the Talmud (one-sided of course, and optimistic), and its influence in Judaism.

7. J. Fromer, Vom Ghetto zur modernen Kultur (1906), p. 247.

8. M. Kayserling, Columbus (1894), ch. vi.

9. Das Haus Rothschild, vol. 1 (1857), p. 186.

10. This is not the place to enter into an account of the results of Biblical criticism. All I can do here is to mention a few books that may serve as an introduction to the subject: Zittel, Die Entstehung der Bibel (5th ed., 1891); for the history of the Pentateuch, Adalbert Merx, Die Bücher Moses und Josua (1907), and Ed. Meyer, Die Entstehung des Judentums (1896).

11. W. Frankenberg, "Die Sprüche, übersetzt und erläutert," in Handkommentar wm Alten Testament, herausgegeben von D. W. Nowack. On p. 16 there is a list of books for the Wisdom Literature. See also Henri Traband, La loi mosaïque, ses origines et son développement (1903), p. 77.

12. Cf. M. Friedlander, Geschichte der jüdischen Apologetik (1903).

13. Books about the Talmud form a small library in themselves. I can only mention one or two to serve as an introduction to the subject. The best is H. L. Strack’s Einleitung in den Talmud (4th ed., 1908), which also contains a pretty full bibliography. For Talmudic Ethics, see Salo Stein’s Materialien zur Ethik des Talmud (1904). Talmudic scholars, however, do not apprize this book very highly. A more recent book is by J. Fromer, who has occupied himself with Talmudic and later Jewish literature. See his Die Organization des Judentums (1908), which is intended to serve as an Introduction to a big Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Talmud, which Fromer has planned. Another book which deals with the sources is E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, in 3 vols. The first (2nd ed., 1890) in § 3 contains an extensive bibliography. In addition, the standard Jewish histories, especially Graetz, deal with this aspect of Jewish literature.
To comprehend the spirit of the Talmud it is necessary to read the text itself. There is a German translation (almost complete) by Lazarus Goldschmidt. The Talmud has this characteristic: that although the sections follow each other in some fixed order, yet not one of them is strictly limited as regards its subject matter. They all deal with practically the whole field of Talmudic subjects. Hence by studying one or more of the (63) Tractates, it is comparatively easy to obtain a fair notion of the contents of the whole, and certainly, to find one’s way about in the great sea. Specially to be recommended is the Tractate Baba Mezia and its two sister tractates [Baba Kama and Baba Bafhra]. There is a good edition of Baba Mezia, with an introduction and a translation by Dr. Sammter (1876).
A special branch of Tahnudic literature is composed of the so-called "Minor Tractates," usually found in an appendix to the Talmud, though often published separately. These are Derech Erez Rabba (3rd century), Aboth, Aboth de R. Nathan, Derech Erez Zutta (9th century, according to Zunz). Zunz calls them Ethical Hagadoth because of their obvious intention of teaching practical wisdom. They have had no small influence on the development of the Jewish people and are therefore of great interest to us here. Next to the Bible, these tractates enjoyed a widespread popularity. They formed the principal reading of the layman, unacquainted with the Talmud. They were (are) found in Prayer Books and devotional literature. Some of them have been issued in German translations. R. Nathan’s System der Ethik und Moral, translated by Kaim Pollock (1905). Derech Erez Zutta, translated by A. Tawrogi (1885). Derech Erez Rabba, translated by M. Goldberg (1888). We must also mention the Tosephta, which contains the teaching not included in the Mishna. This also dates from the period of the Tanaim and is arranged like the Mishna. Finally, a word as to the Rabbinical commentaries or Midrashim, which are partly halachic [i.e., legal] and partly hagadic [i.e., moral and edifying]. The oldest of them, mostly halachic, are Mechilta (on Exodus), Siphra (on Leviticus), and Siphre (on Numbers and Deuteronomy).
The Targumim are the Aramaic translations of the O.T.

14. There is no good translation of the Shulchan Aruch. The only available one is by Lowe (1837), which is incomplete and one-sided. On the other hand, the Orach Chajim and the Jore Deah have been published in a German dress by Rabbi P. Lederer (1906 and 1900), but not in a complete form.
As for works on the Shulchan Aruch, they are mostly of the nature of apologetic pamphlets. Anti-Semites have turned to the S. A. for material to attack Jews and Judaism; and Jewish scholars have naturally replied. We may mention, for instance, A. Lewin, Der Judenspiegel des Dr. Justus (1884), and D. Hoffmann, Der Schulchan Aruch und die Rabbiner über das Verhältniss der Juden zu Andersgldäuigen (1885). Thus there is no subjective treatment of the Shulchan Aruch, though it deserves as thorough a consideration as the Talmud. The only strictly scientific book with which I am acquainted and which should be mentioned in this connexion is S. Back’s Die religionsgeschichtliche Literatur der Juden in dem Zeitraume vom 15-18 Jahrhundert (1893), reprinted from Winter and Wiinsche, Die jüldische Literatur seit Abschluss des Kanons, vol. 2. But Back’s book is not big and his treatment therefore can only be of the nature of a sketch.

15. Paul Volz, Jüdische Eschatologie von Daniel bis Akiba (1903).

16. Furst, Untersuchungen über den Kanon des Alien Testaments nach den Uberlieferungen in Talmud und Midrasch (1868).

17. L. Stem, Die Vorschriften der Thora, welche Israel in der Zerstreuung w beobachten hat. Ein Lehrbuch der Religion für Schule und Famine (4th ed., 1904), p. 28. This book, which may be looked upon as a type, gives the view current in strictly orthodox circles.

18. Cf. Rabbi S. Mandl, Das Wesen des Judentums (1904), p. 14. Mandl relies on J. Gutmann, Uber Dogmenbildung und Judentum (1894). Cf. also S. Schechter, "The Dogmas of Judaism," in J.Q.R., vol. 1 (1889), pp. 48, 115. As is well known, Moses Mendelssohn was the first to express (in his Jerusalem) the idea that Judaism has no dogmas, with some degree of insistence.

19. The best that I am acquainted with is Ferdinand Weber’s System der altsynagogalen palastinensischen Theologie aus Targum, Midrash und Talmud (1880).

20. Stem, op. cit., p. 5.

21. Döllinger, Heidentum und Judentum (1857), p. 634.

22. Rutilius Namatianus, "De reditu suo," in Reinach’s Textes d’auteurs grecs et remains relatifs au judaisme, vol. 1 (1895), p. 358.

23. Stem, op. cit., p. 49; S. R. Hirsch, Versuche über Jissroëls Pflichlen in der Zerstreuung (4th ed., 1909), §711.

24. Cf. Weber, op. cit., p. 49. Weber has worked out this idea of contract in Judaism better than any other writer. The treatment in the text owes much to him, as will be apparent. I have also utilized his references. In this particular instance, cf. Sifre, 12b, Wajjikra Rabba. c. 31.

25. Aboth, II, near the beginning.

26. Cf. Weber, op. cit., pp. 270, 272.

27. Ibid., p. 292.

28. R. Joseph Albo, Ikkarim, a book on the principles of Judaism, dating from the 15th century. W. and L. Schlesinger have issued a German translation [of the Hebrew] (1844). This particular problem is dealt with in ch. 46.

29. S. R. Hirsch, op. cit., ch. 13, especially §§ 100 and 105.

30. J. F. Schroder, Talmudisch-rabbinisches Judentum (1851), p. 47.

31. Graetz, vol. 2, p. 203 and note 14; J. Bergmann, Jüdische Apologetik im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (1908), p. 120. For the spirit of ancient Judaism, see Wellhausen, op. cit., ch. 15.

32. H. Deutsch, Die Sprüche Salomons nach der Auffassung in Talmud und Midrasch (1885).

33. J. F. Bruch, Weisheitslehre der Hebräer (1851), p. 135.
34. Rabbi S. Schiffer, Das Buch Kohelet. Nach der Auffassung der Weisen des Talmud und Midrasch (1884).

35. Cf. Graetz, vol. 4, p. 233; Wellhausen, op. cit., pp. 250, 339; and also the well-known works of Müller, Schürer, and Marti.

36. Mandl, op. cit., p. 14.

37. S. R. Hirsch, op. cit., § 448.

38. A number of similar extracts from Talmudic literature will be found in S. Schaffer, Das Recht und seine Stellung zur Moral nach talmudischer Sitten- und Rechtslehre (1889), p. 28.

39. M. Lazarus, op. cit., p. 22. Lazarus has worked out the idea that to be holy means to overcome your passions, exceedingly well, though he approaches very closely to Kant’s system of Ethics.

40. Kiddushin, 30b, Baba Bathra, 16a.

41. Cf. Schaffer, op. cit., p. 54.

42. Cf. Fassel, Tugend- und Rechtslehre des Talmud (1848), p. 38.

43. Albo’s Ikkarim [note 28], ch. 24, deals fully with this.

44. Cf. S. Back, op. cit.. Preface; also M. Lazarus, op. cit., p. 20.

45. Stern, op. cit., p. 126.

46. Aboth de R. Nathan, xxi. 5 [also Aboth, III, 14].

47. G. F. Oehler, Theologie des A.T. (3rd ed., 1891), p. 878.

48. Lazarus, op. cit., p. 40.

49. Aboth de R. Nathan, xvi. 6.

50. Cf. Eceles. 1, 8; Prov. x. 8; x. 10; x. 31; xiv. 23; xvii. 27, 28; xviii. 7, 21; xxi. 23; Ecclus. iv. 34 (29); v. 15 (13); ix. 25 (18); xix. 20, 22.

51. Stern, op. cit.. No. 127a.

52. Cf. also Prov. xii. 27; xiii. 11; xviii. 19; xxi. 20. For further passages in praise of labour, cf. L. K. Amitai, La sociologie selon la lègislation juive (1905), p. 90.

53. Hirsch, op. cit., § 448.

54. Ibid., § 463; and Stern, op. cit., p. 239.

55. Hirsch, op. cit., § 443, almost identically expressed by Stem, op. cit., Nos. 125, 126.

56. J. Fromer, op. cit., p. 25.

57. Iggeret ha-Kodesh, first published in 1556; translated into Latin by Gaffareli; cf. Graetz, vol. 7, p. 46.

58. Hirsch, op. cit., § 263. Cf. also § 264, § 267.

59. The figures are taken from Hugo Nathansohn, "Die unehelichen Geburten bei den Juden," in Z.D.S.J., vol. 6, (1910), p. 102.

60. We may mention as one of the foremost authorities S. Freud. See his Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosehlehre (2nd series, 1909).

61. See Dr. Hoppe, "Die Kriminalitat der Juden und der Alkohol," in Z.D.S.J., vol. 3 (1907), p. 38; H. L. Eisenstadt, "Die Renaissance der jüdischen Sozialhygiene," in Archiv fur Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie, vol. 5 (1908), p. 714; L. Cheinisse, "Die Rassenpathologie und der Alkoholismus bei den Juden," in Z.D.S.J., vol. 6 (1910), p. 1. It can be proved with great certainty that the Jew’s freedom from the evil effects of alcohol (as also from syphilis) is due to his religion.

62. Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 119.

63. Cicero, Pro Flacco, ch. 28.

64. Mommsen, Römische Geschichfe, vol. 5, p. 545.

65. The passages may be found in Felix Stahelin, Der Antisemitismus des Altertums (1905). Cf. Reinach, op. cit.

66. J. Bergmann, op. cit., p. 157.

67. Graetz, vol. 5, p. 73.

68. Graetz, vol. 5, p. 321.

69. Graetz, vol. 6, pp. 140, 161.

70. A comprehensive account of laws on interest in the old Jewish legal system will be found in J. Heici, Das alttestamentliche Zinsverbot (Biblische Studien, herausgegeben von O. Bardenhewer, vol. 12, No. 4, 1907).

71. Cf. a collection of "Responsa" by Hoffmann, in Schmollers Forschungen, vol. 152.

72. Cf. Fassel, op. cit., p. 193; E. Grunebaum, Die Sittenlehre der Juden andern Bekenntnissen gegenuber (2nd ed., 1878), p. 414; the same writer’s "Der Fremde nach rabbinischen Begriffen," in Geigers jüdische Zeitschrift, vols. 9 and 10; D. Hoffmann, op. cit., p. 129; Lazarus, op. cit., § 144. Lazarus is curiously incomplete. What he says in his third chapter about the duty of Israel towards non-Jews does his heart all credit, but it is hardly in accord with historic truth.

73. Cf. Choshen Mishpat. §§ 188, 194, 227, 231, 259, 266, 272, 283, 348, 389, etc.

74. "When he appears before the divine Judge, the first question that man is asked is. Have you been straightforward and honest in business?" Sabbath, 31a. This Talmudic quotation is the motto of a little book (privately printed) dealing with passages concerning honesty, Das Biblisch-rabbinische Handelsgesetz, by Rabbi Stark.

75. Choshen Mishpat, § 231. The passage given in the text is from § 227.

76. Graetz, vol. 10, pp. 62, 81.

77. Choshen Mishpat, § 227; Baba Mezia, 49b.

78. In addition, see John G. Dow, "Hebrew and Puritan," in J.Q.R., vol. 3 (1891), p. 52.

79. Graetz, vol. 9, pp. 86, 213; vol. 10, p. 87; Hyamson, p. 164; J.Q.R., vol. 3, p. 61.

Yago · #6 (**permalink**) Sunday, September 11th, 2005, 20:23

Chapter 12
Jewish Characteristics

(in progress ...)

Yago · #7 (**permalink**) Monday, September 12th, 2005, 15:35

Chapter 12
Jewish Characteristics

The Problem
The decision to deal in a work of a scientific character with the problem suggested by the title of the present chapter has not been arrived at without a great effort. For it has of late become the fashion to seize upon anything even but faintly savouring of the psychology of nations as the plaything for the lighter moods of dilettanti, whilst descriptions of the Jewish genius have been hailed as the newest form of political sport by coarser spirits, whose rude instincts cannot but give offence to all those who, in our gross age, have managed to preserve a modicum of good taste and impartiality. Unjustifiable juggling with categories in race psychology has already led to the conclusion that it is impossible to arrive at any scientific results in this field of study. Read the books of P. Hertz, Jean Finot and others¹ and you will lay them down with the feeling that it is useless to attempt to find common psychological characteristics among any conglomeration of humans; that French esprit is a myth -- in fact that there are no Frenchmen, just as there are no Jews. But cross the street, and lo and behold, you are face to face with a specific type; read a book or stand before a picture and almost unconsciously you say. How very German, how thoroughly French!

Is this only the imagining of our fancy?²

Nay more. If we think for a moment of human history we must needs construct for ourselves the hypothesis of a sort of "collective soul." When, for example, we talk of the Jewish religion we are bound to connect it with the Jewish people whose genius gave it birth. Or, when we say the Jews had an influence on modern economic development, it follows surely that there must have been something essentially Jewish that brought it about. Otherwise we might as well assert that it would have made no difference to the economic history of Western Europe if EskiThe mos had taken the place of Jews, or perhaps even gorillas would have done equally well!

This reductio ad absurdum shows plainly enough that there must be some specifically Jewish characteristic. But let us consider the matter from a slightly different point of view. Let us glance at the objective circumstances in the Jewish aptitude for modern capitalism. There was first, as we have seen, the dispersion of the Jews over a wide area. Now without recourse to subjective forces the Diaspora can be as little explained as the effects of the Diaspora. And one thing is evident. The dispersion of a people in itself does not necessarily have either economic or cultural results; nay, very often dispersion may lead to fusion and ultimate disappearance.

It has been claimed -- and with truth -- that it was the dispersion of the Jews which fitted them to become intermediaries. Granted, but did it also tend to make of them negotiators and private advisers of princes, callings which have from time immemorial been the stcppingstones of the interpreter to higher posts? Were the capacities essential to these new offices not inherent in the Jews themselves?

We have admitted that the dispersion of the Jews was responsible for no little of their success in international commerce and credit. But is not the postulate to this success the fact that the Jews everywhere kept together? What would have happened if, like so many other scattered races, they had not maintained their bonds of union?

Lastly, let us not forget that the Jews came among just those peoples who happened to be mature enough to receive capitalism. But even so, if Jewish influence was strong (and it is so still) in Holland, in England, in Germany, in Austria-Hungary -- stronger far than their influence on the Spaniards, Italians, Greeks or Arabs -- it was in a large measure due to the contrasts between them and their hosts. For it would seem that the more slow-witted, the more thick-skulled, the more ignorant of business a people is, the more effective is Jewish influence on their economic life. And can this be satisfactorily accounted for except through special Jewish peculiarities?

No matter what was the origin of their innate dissimilarity from their hosts, the salient point is that this strangeness should have obtained lasting influence in economic life. Once more it is impossible to fathom this without the assumption of inherent Jewish characteristics. That a people or a tribe is hated and persecuted does not furnish sufficient reason for spurring them on to redoubled efforts in their activities. On the contrary, in most cases this contempt and ill-treatment but serve to destroy morals and initiative. Only where man is possessed of exceptional qualities do these become, under the stress of circumstances, the source of regenerated energy.

Again, look at their semi-citizenship. Does not the identical argument hold good here also? It is so obvious as to become almost a truism. Nowhere did the Jews enjoy the same advantages as their fellow-citizens, and yet everywhere they achieved economically much more than the rest of the population. There can be but one explanation for this -- the specifically Jewish characteristics.

On the other hand, the legal position of the Jews varied in different countries and at different times. In some States they were allowed to engage in certain occupations; in others these same occupations were forbidden them; in others again, such as England, they were on a perfectly equal footing with the rest of the people in this respect. And yet they devoted themselves almost everywhere to particular callings. In England and America they began their commercial mission by becoming bullion-merchants or storekeepers. And can this be accounted for in any other way than by once more pointing to their peculiar characteristics?

As for the wealth of the Jews, that alone will hardly suffice to explain their great achievements in the sphere of economic activities. A man who possesses vast sums must have a number of intellectual qualities in addition, if his money is to be usefully employed in the capitalistic sense. That surely requires no proof.

Jewish characteristics must therefore exist. It remains only to discover what they are.

Our first thought of the Jews as a unit will naturally be associated with their religion. But before we proceed another step I should like to premise that on the one hand I shall limit the group lumped together under the Jewish religion, and on the other hand, I shall enlarge it. I shall limit it by only considering the Jews since their expulsion from Spain and Portugal, that is, from the end of the Middle Ages. I shall enlarge it by including within the circle of my observations the descendants of Jews, even if they themselves have left the faith.

Moreover, I should like to touch upon the arguments urged against the existence of Jewish peculiarities.

(1) It has been remarked that the Jews of Western Europe and America have to a large extent assimilated with the peoples among whom they dwell. This need not be denied, even if specifically Jewish characteristics were as clear as daylight. Is it not possible for social groups to intermingle? A man may be a German, have all the characteristics of a German, and yet be an individual in the group "international proletariat!" Or take another instance. Are not the German Swiss at one and the same time Swiss and German?

(2) The Jews in the Diaspora, it is maintained, are not a "nation" or a "people" in the commonly accepted meaning of the term,³ since they are not a political, cultural or linguistic community. The reply to this objection is that there are many other qualifications besides those mentioned (e.g., a common origin) which must be considered. But speaking generally, it is as well not to press a definition too closely.

(3) The differences between the Jews themselves have been made much of. It has been said that there is no homogeneity among Jews, that one section is bitterly opposed to the other. The Western Jews are different from the Eastern Jews, the Sephardim from the Ashkenazim, the Orthodox from the Liberals, the everyday Jew from the Sabbath Jew (to use a phrase of Marx). This also there is no need to deny. But it does not by any means preclude the possibility of common Jewish characteristics. Is it so difficult to conceive of wheels within wheels? Cannot a large group contain lesser groups side by side? Think of the many groups to which an Englishman may belong. He may be a Catholic or a Protestant, a farmer or a professor, a northerner or a southerner and Heaven only knows what else besides. But he remains an Englishman all the same. So with the Jew. He may belong to one circle within the whole, may possess certain characteristics that mark all individuals in that circle, but he retains the specifically Jewish characteristics nevertheless.

Finally, I must make it plain that I have no intention of outlining all Jewish characteristics. I propose to deal with those only that have reference to economic life. I shall not content myself with the old-fashioned expressions, such as the Jewish "commercialism," the "bartering spirit" and the like. I say nothing of the practice of some to include the desire for profit as a characteristic of a social group. The desire for profit is human -- all too human. In fact, I must reject all previous analyses of the Jewish soul (in so far as they touch economic life), and for the following reasons. First, what the Jew was well-fitted for was never clearly enough designated. "For trade" is much too vague a term to be of the slightest use. I have therefore tried to show, in a special chapter, the circle of economic activities for which Jews are specifically fitted. Secondly, mere description is not explanation. If I want to prove that a man has all the capabilities necessary to make him an admirable speculator on the Stock Exchange, it will not be enough if I say that he will make a fine jobber. It is like saying indigence is due to poverty. Yet that is how Jewish economic talents have been treated. Our method will be different. We shall try to discover certain properties of the soul which are congenial to the exercise of economic functions in a capitalistic organism.

And now, having cleared the way, I shall proceed to demonstrate what the real Jewish peculiarities are.

An Attempt at a Solution
It is surprising to find that despite the enormity of the problem there is yet a great degree of unanimity in the different views about the Jews. In literature no less than in actual life, unprejudiced observers agree on one or other point of importance. Read Jellinek or Fromer, Chamberlain or Marx, Heine or Goethe, Leroy-Beaulieu or Picciotto -- read the pious or the non-conforming Jew, the anti-Semitic or the philo-Semitic non-Jew -- and you get the impression that all of them are conscious of the same peculiarities. This is comforting to one who is about to describe the Jewish genius once more. At any rate, he will say nothing that other people might not have said, even though his standpoint be slightly different. In my own case I shall attempt to show the connexion between the characteristics and the natural gifts of the Jews and the capitalistic economic system. I shall first try to sketch a detailed picture of Jewish qualities and then proceed to bring them into relation with capitalism.

Unlike most other writers on the subject I will begin by noting a Jewish quality which, though mentioned often enough, never received the recognition which its importance merited. I refer to the extreme intellectuality of the Jew. Intellectual interests and intellectual skill are more strongly developed in him than physical (manual) powers. Of the Jew it may certainly be said, "l’intelligence prime le corps." Everyday experience proves it again and again, and many a fact might be cited in its support. No other people has valued the learned man, the scholar, so highly as the Jews. "The wise man takes precedence of the king, and a bastard who is a scholar of a high-priest who is an ignoramus." So the Talmud has it. Any one who is acquainted with Jewish students knows well enough that this over-rating of mere knowledge is not yet a thing of the past. And if you could not become "wise," at least it was your duty to be educated. At all times instruction was compulsory in Israel. In truth, to learn was a religious duty; and in Eastern Europe the synagogue is still called the Shool (Schule, School). Study and worship went hand in hand; nay, study was worship and ignorance was a deadly sin. A man who could not read was a boor in this world and damned in the next. In the popular sayings of the Ghetto, nothing had so much scorn poured upon it as foolishness. "Better injustice than folly," and "Ein Narr ist ein Gezar" (A fool is a misfortune) are both well known.⁴

The most valuable individual is the intellectual individual; humanity at its best is intellectuality at its highest. Listen to what a sensible Jew has to say when he pictures the ideal man, the superman if you like, of the future. He takes it all as a matter of course; those who are differently constituted must surely tremble at the prospect. --In the place of the blind instincts . . . civilized man will possess intellect conscious of purpose. It should be every one’s unswerving ideal to crush the instincts and replace them by will-power, and to substitute reflection for mere impulse. The individual only becomes a man in the fullest sense of the word when his natural predisposition is under the control of his reasoning powers. And when the process of emancipation from the instincts is complete we have the perfect genius with his absolute inner freedom from the domination of natural laws. Civilization should have but one aim -- to liberate man from all that is mystic, from the vague impulsiveness of all instinctive action, and to cultivate the purely rational side of his being."⁵ Only think. Genius, the very essence of instinctive expression, conceived as the highest form of the rational and the intellectual!

One consequence of this high evaluation of the intellect was the esteem in which callings were held according as they demanded more "headwork" or more "handwork." The former were almost in all ages placed higher than the latter. It is true that there may have been, and still may be, Jewish communities in which hard bodily labour is done every day, but this hardly applies to the Jews of Western Europe. Even in Talmud times Jews preferred those callings which necessitated a lesser expenditure of physical energy. As Rabbi said, "The world needs both the seller of spices and the tanner, but happy be who is a seller of spices." Or again, "R. Men: used to say, A man should have his son taught a clean and easy handicraft" (Kiddushin, 82b).

The Jews were quite alive to their predominant quality and always recognized that there was a great gulf between their intellectuality and the brute force of their neighbours. One or two sayings popular among Polish Jews express the contrast with no little humour. "God help a man against Gentile hands and Jewish heads." "Heaven protect us against Jewish mooch (brains) and Gentile koach (physical force)." Mooch v. Koach -- that is the Jewish problem in a nutshell. It ought to be the motto of this book.

The predominance of intellectual interests could not but lead in a people so gifted as the Jews to intellectual skill. "Say what you like about a Jew, you cannot say he is a fool." "A gallant Greek, a stupid Jew, an honest Gipsy -- all are unthinkable" is a popular saying among Roumanians. And a Spanish proverb has it, "A hare that is slow and a Jew who is a fool: both are equally probable."⁶ Who that has had dealings with Jews but will not confirm that on an average they possess a greater degree of understanding, that they are more intelligent than other people? I might even call it astuteness or sagacity, as was remarked by one of the keenest observers of Jews⁷ a century or more ago, who characterized them as "intellectual and endowed with great genius for things of the present age," though, he added, "to a less degree than in the past."

"The Jewish mind is an instrument of precision; it has the exactness of a pair of scales": most people will agree with this judgment of Leroy- Beaulieu. And when H. S. Chamberlain speaks of the under-development of Jewish "understanding" he must surely be using the term in a special sense. He cannot possibly mean by it quick thought, precise analysis, exact dissection, speedy combination, the power of seeing the point at once, of suggesting analogies, distinguishing between synonymous things, of drawing final conclusions. The Jew is able to do all this, and Jellinek, who rightly lays stress⁸ on this side of the Jewish character, points out that Hebrew is particularly rich in expressions for activities demanding qualities of the mind. It has no fewer than eleven words for seeking or researching, thirty-four for distinguishing or separating, and fifteen for combining.

There is no doubt that these mental gifts make the Jews prominent as chess-players, as mathematicians⁹ and in all calculating work. These activities postulate a strong capacity for abstract thought and also a special kind of imagination, which Wundt has so happily christened the combinatory. Their skill as physicians (ability at diagnosis)¹⁰ may also be traced to their calculating, dissecting and combining minds, which "like lightning, illuminate dark places in a flash."

It is not unknown that often enough Jewish mental ability degenerThe ates into hair-splitting. (When the mill has no corn to grind it grinds itself.) But this does not matter so much as another fact. The intellectuality of the Jew is so strong that it tends to develop at the expense of other mental qualities, and the mind is apt to become one-sided. Let us take a few instances. The Jew lacks the quality of instinctive understanding; he responds less to feeling than to intellect. We can scarcely think of a Jewish mystic like Jacob Bohme, and the contrast becomes still more striking when we remember the sort of mysticism found in the Kabbala. In the same way all romance is alien to this particular view of life; the Jew cannot well sympathize with losing oneself in the world, in mankind or in nature. It is the difference between frenzied enthusiasm and sober, matter-of-fact thought.

Akin to this characteristic is that of a certain lack of impressionability, a certain lack of receptive and creative genius. When I was in Breslau a Jewish student from the far East of Siberia came to me one day "to study Karl Marx." It took him nearly three weeks to reach Breslau, and on the very day after his arrival he called on me and borrowed one of Marx’s works. A few days later he came again, discussed with me what he had read, brought back the book and borrowed another. This continued for a few months. Then he returned to his native village. The young man had received absolutely no impressions from his new surroundings; he had made no acquaintances, never taken a walk, hardly knew in fact where it was that he was staying. The life of Breslau passed him by completely. No doubt it was the same before he came to Breslau, and will be the same throughout the future. He will walk through the world without seeing it. But he had made himself acquainted with Marx. Is this a typical case? I think so. You may meet with it every day. Are we not continually struck by the Jew’s love for the inconcrete, his tendency away from the sensuous, his constant abiding in a world of abstractions? And is it only accidental that there are far fewer Jewish painters than literary men or professors? Even in the case of Jewish artists is there not something intellectual about their work? Never was word more truly spoken than when Friedrich Naumann compared Max Liebermann [the famous Jewish painter] with Spinoza, saying, "He paints with his brain."

The Jew certainly sees remarkably clearly, but he does not see much. He does not think of his environment as something alive, and that is why he has lost the true conception of life, of its oneness, of its being an organism, a natural growth. In short, he has lost the true conception of the personal side of life. General experience must surely support this view; but if other proofs are demanded they will be found in the peculiarities of Jewish law, which, as we have already seen, abolished personal relationships and replaced them by impersonal, abstract connexions or activities or aims.

As a matter of fact, one may find among Jews an extraordinary knowledge of men. They are able with their keen intellects to probe, as it were, into every pore, and to see the inside of a man as only Rontgen rays would show him. They muster all his qualities and abilities, they note his excellences and his weaknesses; they detect at once for what he is best fitted. But seldom do they see the whole man, and thus they often make the mistake of ascribing actions to him which are an abomination to his inmost soul. Moreover, they seldom appraise a man according to his personality, but rather according to some perceptible characteristic and achievement.

Hence their lack of sympathy for every status where the nexus is a personal one. The Jews’ whole being is opposed to all that is usually understood by chivalry, to all sentimentality, knight-errantry, feudalism, patriarchalism. Nor does he comprehend a social order based on relationships such as these. "Estates of the realm" and craft organizations are a loathing to him. Politically he is an individualist. A constitutional State in which all human intercourse is regulated by clearly defined legal principles suits him well.[Is not this the general modern tendency? Cf. Sir H. Maine’s dictum: The progress of Society is from status to contract. -- Trans. He is the born representative of a "liberal" view of life in which there are no living men and women of flesh and blood with distinct personalities, but only citizens with rights and duties. And these do not differ in different nations, but form part of mankind, which is but the sum-total of an immense number of amorphous units. Just as so many Jews do not see themselves -- do they not deny their obvious characteristics and assert that there is no difference between them and Englishmen or Germans or Frenchmen? -- so they do not see other people as living beings but only as subjects, citizens, or some other such abstract conception. It comes to this, that they behold the world not with their "soul" but with their intellect. The result is that they are easily led to believe that whatever can be neatly set down on paper and ordered aright by the aid of the intellect must of necessity be capable of proper settlement in actual life. How many Jews still hold that the Jewish Question is only a political one, and are convinced that a liberal regime is all that is required to remove the differences between the Jew and his neighbour. It is nothing short of astounding to read the opinion of so soundly learned a man as the author of one of the newest books on the Jewish Question that the whole of the anti-Semitic movement during the last thirty years was the result of the works of Marr and Duhring. "The thousand victims of the pogroms and the million sturdy workers who emigrated from their homes are but a striking illustration of the power of -- Eugen Duhring" (!).¹¹ Is not this opposing ink and blood, understanding and instinct, an abstraction and a reality?

The conception of the universe in the mind of such an intellectual people must perforce have been that of a structure well-ordered in accordance with reason. By the aid of reason, therefore, they sought to understand the world; they were rationalists, both in theory and in practice.

Now as soon as a strong consciousness of the ego attaches itself to the predominating intellectuality in the thinking being, he will tend to group the world round that ego. In other words, he will look at the world from the point of view of end, or goal, or purpose. His outlook will be Ideological, or that of practical rationalism. No peculiarity is so fully developed in the Jew as this, and there is complete unanimity of opinion on the subject. Most other observers start out with the teleology of the Jew; I for my part regard it as the result of his extreme intellectuality, in which I believe all the other Jewish peculiarities are rooted. In saying this, however, I do not in the least wish to minimize the very great ‘importance of this Jewish characteristic.

Take any expression of the Jewish genius and you will be certain to find in it this teleological tendency, which has sometimes been called extreme subjectivity. Whether or no the Indo-Germanic races are objective and the Semitic subjective,¹² certain it is that the Jews are the most subjective of peoples. The Jew never loses himself in the outer world, never sinks in the depth of the cosmos, never soars in the endless realms of thought, but, as Jellinek well puts it, dives below the surface to seek for pearls. He brings everything into relation with his ego. He is for ever asking why, what for, what will it bring? Cui bono? His greatest interest is always in the result of a thing, not in the thing itself. It is un- Jewish to regard any activity, be it what you will, as an end in itself; un- Jewish to live your life without having any purpose, to leave all to chance; un-Jewish to get harmless pleasure out of Nature. The Jew has taken all that is in Nature and made of it "the loose pages of a text-book of ethics which shall advance the higher moral life." The Jewish religion, as we have already seen, is teleological in its aim; in each of its regulations it has the ethical norm in view. The entire universe, in the Jew’s eyes, is something that was made in accordance with a plan. This is one of the differences between Judaism and heathenism, as Heine saw long ago. "They (the heathens) all have an endless, eternal ‘past,’ which is in the world and develops with it by the laws of necessity; but the God of the Jews was outside the world, which He created as an act of free-will."

No term is more familiar to the ear of the Jew than Tachlis, which means purpose, aim, end or goal. If you are to do anything it must have a tachlis; life itself, whether as a whole or in its single activities, must have some tachlis, and so must the universe. Those who assert that the meaning of Life, of the World, is not tachlis but tragedy, the Jew will reckon as foolish visionaries.

How deeply the teleological view of things is embedded in the nature of the Jew may be seen in the case of those of them who, like the Chassidim, pay no attention to the needs of practical life because "there is no purpose in them." There is no purpose in making a living, and so they let their wives and children starve, and devote themselves to the study of their sacred books. But we may see it also in all those Jews who, with a soul-weariness within them and a faint smile on their countenances, understanding and forgiving everything, stand and gaze at life from their own heights, far above this world. I have in my mind such choice spirits among the literary men of our day as George Hirschfeld, Arthur Schnitzler and George Hermann. The great charm of their work lies in this world-aloofness with which they look down on our hustle and bustle, in the quiet melancholy pervading all their poetry, in their sentiment. Their very lack of will-power is only strength of will in a kind of negative form. Through all their ballads sounds the same soft plaint of grief: how purposeless and therefore how sad is the world! Nature herself is tinged with this sorrow; autumn always lurks in ambush though wood and meadow be bright with gay spring blossoms; the wind plays among the fallen leaves and the sun’s golden glory, be it never so beautiful, must go down at last. Subjectivity and the conception that all things must have an aim (and the two are the same) rob the poetry of Jewish writers of naiveté, freshness and directness, because Jewish poets are unable simply to enjoy the phenomena of this world, whether it be human fate or Nature’s vagaries; they must needs cogitate upon it and turn it about and about. Nowhere is the air scented with the primrose and the violet, nowhere gleams the spray of the rivulet in the wood. But to make up for lack of these they possess the wonderful aroma of old wine and the magic charm of a pair of beautiful eyes gazing sadly into the distance.

When this attitude of mind that seeks for a purpose in all things is united with a strong will, with a large fund of energy (as is generally the case with the Jew), it ceases to be merely a point of view; it becomes a policy. The man sets himself a goal and makes for it, allowing nothing whatever to turn him aside from his course; he is determined, if you like, stiff-necked. Heine in characterizing his people called it stubbornness, and Goethe said that the essence of the Jewish character was energy and the pursuit of direct ends.

My next point is mobility, but I am not quite sure whether this can be ascribed to all Jews or only to the Ashkenazi (German) Jews. Writers who have sung the praises of the Sephardim (Spanish Jews) always lay stress on a certain dignified air which they have, a certain superciliousness of bearing.¹³ Their German brethren, on the other hand, have always been described as lively, active and somewhat excitable.¹⁴ Even to-day you may meet with many Spanish Jews, especially in the Orient, who strike you as being dignified, thoughtful and self-restrained, who do not in the least appear to have that mobility, moral or physical, which is so often noticeable in European Jews. But mobility of mind -- quick perception and mental versatility -- all Jews possess.

These four elements, intellectuality, teleology, energy and mobility, are the corner-stones of Jewish character, so complicated in its nature. I believe that all the qualities of the Jew may be easily traced to one or more of these elements. Take two which are of special import in economic life -- extreme activity and adaptability.

The Jew is active, or if you will, industrious. In the words of Goethe, "No Jew, not even the most insignificant, but is busy towards the achievement of some worldly, temporary or momentary aim." This activity often enough degenerates into restlessness. He must for ever be up and doing, for ever managing something and carrying it to fruition. He is always on the move, and does not care much if he makes himself a nuisance to those who would rest if they could. All musical and social "affairs" in our large towns are run by Jews. The Jew is the born trumpeter of progress and of its manifold blessings. And why? Because of his practical-mindedness andhis mobility combined with his intellectuality. The last more especially, because it never strikes deep root. All intellectuality is in the long run shallowness; never does it allow of probing to the very roots of a matter, never of reaching down to the depths of the soul, or of the universe. Hence intellectuality makes it easy to go from one extreme to the other. That is why you find among Jews fanatical orthodoxy and unenlightened doubt side by side; they both spring from one source.

But to this shallow intellectuality the Jew owes perhaps the most valuable of his characteristics -- his adaptability -- which is unique in history. The Jews were always a stiff-necked people, and their adaptability no less than their capacity to maintain their national traits are both due to the one cause. Their adaptability enabled them to submit for the time being, if circumstances so demanded, to the laws of necessity, only to hark back to their wonted ways when better days came. From of old the Jewish character was at one and the same time resistant and submissive, and though these traits may appear contradictory they only seem so. As Leroy-Beaulieu well said, "The Jew is at once the most stubborn and the most pliant of men, the most self-willed and the most malleable."

The leaders and the "wise" men of the Jewish people were in all ages fully alive to the importance, nay the necessity, of this flexibility and elasticity, if Israel was to continue, and they were therefore never tired of insisting upon it. Jewish literature abounds in instances. "Be as pliant as the reed which the wind blows in this direction and in that, for the Torah can be observed only by him that is of a contrite spirit. Why is the Torah likened unto water? To tell you that just as water never flows up to the heights but rather runs down to the depths, so too the Torah does not abide with the haughty but only with the lowly."¹⁵ Or again, "When the fox is in authority bow down before him."¹⁶ Once more, "Bend before the wave and it passes over you; oppose it, and it will sweep you away."¹⁷ Finally, a supplication from the Prayer Book runs as follows: "May my soul be as the dust to every one."

It was in this spirit that the Rabbis counselled their flocks to pretend to accept the dominant faiths in those countries where their existence depended on the renunciation of their own. The advice was followed to a large extent, and in the words of Fromer, "The Jewish race, by simulating death from time to time, was able to live on and on."

There are very few, if any, make-believe Christians or Moslems today. Nevertheless, the remarkable power of the Jew to adapt himself to his environment has more scope than ever. The Jew of Western Europe and America to-day no longer wishes to maintain his religion and his national character intact; on the contrary, he wishes, in so far as the nationalist spirit has not yet awakened in him, to lose his characteristics and to assimilate with the people in whose midst his lot happens to be cast. And lo, this too he can successfully achieve.

Perhaps the clearest illustration of the way in which Jewish traits manifest themselves is the fact that the Jew in England becomes like an Englishman, in France like a Frenchman, and so forth. And if he does not really become like an Englishman or a Frenchman, he appears to be like one. That a Felix Mendelssohn should write German music, that a Jacques Offenbach French and a Sousa Yankee-doodle; that Lord Beaconsfield should set up as an Englishman, Gambetta as a Frenchman, Lassalle as a German; in short, that Jewish talent should so often have nothing Jewish about it, but be in accord with its environment, has curiously enough again and again been urged as evidence that there are no specifically Jewish characteristics, whereas in truth it proves the very opposite in a striking fashion. It proves that the Jews have the gift of adaptability in an eminently high degree. The Jew might go from one planet to another, but his strangeness amid the new surroundings would not continue for long. He quickly feels his way and adapts himself with ease. He is German where he wants to be German, and Italian if that suits him better. He does everything and dabbles in everything, and with success. He can be a pure Magyar in Hungary, he can belong to the Irredenta in Italy, and be an anti-Semite in France (Drumont!). He is an adept in seizing upon anything which is still germinating, and bringing it with all speed to its full bloom.¹⁸ All this his adaptability enables him to do.

I have already said that this peculiar capacity for adaptation is rooted in the four elements of the Jewish character. But perhaps the rationalism of the Jew is responsible for it to a greater degree than the other three. Because of his rationalism he is able to look at everything from without. If the Jew is anything, it is not because he must but because he determines to be so. Any convictions he may have do not spring from his inmost soul; they are formulated by his intellect. His standpoint is not on solid earth but an imaginary castle in the air. He is not organically original but mechanically rational. He lacks depth of feeling and strength of instinct. That is why he is what he is, but he can also be different. That Lord Beaconsfield was a Conservative was due to some accident or other, or some political conjuncture; but Stein and Bismarck and Carlyle were Conservatives because they could not help it; it was in their blood. Had Marx or Lassalle been born in another age, or in another environment, they might quite easily have become Conservatives instead of Radicals. As a matter of fact, Lassalle was already coquetting with the idea of becoming a reactionary, and no doubt he would have played the part of a Prussian Junker as brilliantly as that of socialist agitator.

The driving power in Jewish adaptability is of course the idea of a purpose, or a goal, as the end of all things. Once the Jew has made up his mind what line he will follow, the rest is comparatively easy, and his mobility only makes his success more sure.

How mobile the Jew can be is positively astounding. He is able to give himself the personal appearance he most desires. As in days of old through simulating death he was able to defend himself, so now by colour adaptation or other forms of mimicry. The best illustrations may be drawn from the United States, where the Jew of the second or third generation is with difficulty distinguished from the non-Jew. You can tell the German after no matter how many generations; so with the Irish, the Swede, the Slav. But the Jew, in so far as his racial physical features allow of it, has been successful in imitating the Yankee type, especially in regard to outward marks such as clothing, bearing and the peculiar method of hairdressing.

Easier still, on account of his mental and moral mobility, is it for the Jew to make the intellectual atmosphere of his environment his own. His mental mobility enables him quickly to seize upon the "tone" of any circle, quickly to notice what it is that matters, quickly to feel his way into things. And his moral mobility? That helps him to remove troublesome hindrances, either ethical or aesthetical, from his path. And he can do this with all the more facility because he has only to a small degree what may be termed personal dignity. It means little to him to be untrue to himself, if it is a question of attaining the wished-for goal.

Is this picture faithful of life? The obvious adaptability of the Jew to the changing conditions of the struggle for existence is surely proof enough. But there is further proof in some of the special gifts which Jews possess. I refer to their undoubted talent for journalism, for the Bar, for the stage, and all of it is traceable to their adaptability.

Adolf Jellinek, in the book we have referred to more than once, has drawn a clever little sketch showing the connexion between the two. "The journalist," he says, "must be quick, mobile, lively, enthusiastic, able to analyze quickly and as quickly to put two and two together; must be able to enter in medias res, to have the gist of any question of the day or the central fact of a debate in his mind’s eye; must be able to deal with his subject in clear and well-marked outlines, to describe it epigrammatically, antithetically, sententiously, in short arresting sentences, to breathe life into it by means of a certain amount of pathos, to give it colour by means of esprit, to make it spicy by means of seasoning." Are not all these Jewish traits?

The actor’s calling, no less than the barrister’s, depends for success on his ability to place himself quickly in a strange world of ideas, to take a right view of men and conditions without much difficulty, to form a correct estimate of them and to use them for his own end. The Jew’s gift of subjectivity stands him here in good stead, for by its aid he can easily put himself in the position of another, take thought for him and defend him. To be sure, jurisprudence is the bulk of the contents of Jewish literature!

Jewish Characteristics as Applied to Capitalism
Now comes the question, how and in what way did the Jewish characteristics enable Jews to become financiers and speculators, indeed, to engage as successfully in economic activities within the framework of the capitalistic system as to be mathematicians, statisticians, physicians, journalists, actors and advocates? To what extent, that is, does a special talent for capitalistic enterprise spring from the elements in the Jewish character?

Speaking generally, we may say in this connexion what we have already remarked about capitalism and the Jewish religion, that the fundamental ideas of capitalism and those of the Jewish character show a singular similarity. Hence we have the triple parallelism between Jewish character, the Jewish religion and capitalism. What was it we found as the all-controlling trait of the Jewish people? Was it not extreme intellectuality? And is not intellectuality the quality which differentiates the capitalistic system from all others? Organizing ability springs from intellectuality, and in the capitalistic system we find the separation between head and hands, between the work of directing and that of manufacturing. "For the greatest work to be completely done, you need of hands a thousand, of mind but only one." That sums up the capitalistic state of things.

The purest form of capitalism is that wherein abstract ideas are most clearly expressed. That they are part and parcel of the Jewish character we have already seen; there is no occasion to labour the close kinship in this respect between capitalism and the Jew. Again, the quality of abstraction in capitalism manifests itself in the substitution of all qualitative differences by merely quantitative ones (value in exchange). Before capitalism came, exchange was a many-sided, multicoloured and technical process; now it is just one specialized act -- that of the dealer: before there were many relationships between buyer and seller; there is only one now -- the commercial. The tendency of capitalism has been to do away with different manners, customs, pretty local and national contrasts, and to set up in their stead the dead level of the cosmopolitan town. In short, there has been a tendency towards uniformity, and in this capitalism and Liberalism have much in common. Liberalism we have already shown to be a near relative of Judaism, and so we have the kindred trio of Capitalism, Liberalism, and Judaism.

How is the inner resemblance between the first and the last best manifested? Is it not through the agency of money, by means of which capitalism succeeds so well in its policy of bringing about a drab uniformity? Money is the common denominator, in terms of which all values are expressed; at the same time it is the be-all and end-all of economic activity in a capitalistic system. Hence one of the conspicuous things in such a system is success. Is it otherwise with the Jew? Does he not also make the increase of capital his chief aim? And not only because the abstractness of capital is congenial to the soul of the Jew, but also because the ‘great regard in which (in the capitalistic system) money is held strikes another sympathetic note in the Jewish character -- its teleology. Gold becomes the great means, and its value arises fromthe fact that you can utilize it for many ends. It needs but little skill to show that a nature intent on working towards some goal should feel itself drawn to something which has value only because it is a means to an end. Moreover, the teleology of the Jew brings it about that he prizes success. (Another point of similarity, therefore, with capitalism.) Because he rates success so highly he sacrifices to-day for to-morrow, and his mobility only helps him to do it all the better. Here again we may observe a likeness to capitalism. Capitalism is constantly on the look-out for something new, for some way of expanding, for abstaining to-day for the sake of to-morrow. Think of our whole system of credit. Does not this characteristic show itself there clearly enough? Now remember also that the Jews were very much at home in the organization of credit -- in which values or services which may, or can, become effective some time in the future are made available to-day. Human thought can plainly picture future experiences and future needs, and credit offers the opportunity through present economic activities of producing future values. That credit is extensively found in modern life scarcely requires pointing out. The reason too is obvious: it offers golden chances. True, we must give up the joys that spring from "completely throwing ourselves into the present."¹⁹ But what of that? The Jewish character and capitalism have one more point in common -- practical rationalism, by which I mean the shaping of all activities in accordance with reason.

To make the whole parallelism even more plain, let me illustrate it by concrete instances. The Jew is well fitted for the part of undertaker because of his strength of will and his habit of making for some goal or other. His intellectual mobility is accountable for his readiness to discover new methods of production and new possibilities of marketing. He is an adept at forming new organizations, and in these his peculiar capacity for finding out what a man is best fitted for stands him in good stead. And since in the world of capitalism there is nothing organic or natural but only what is mechanical or artificial, the Jew’s lack of understanding of the former is of no consequence. Even undertaking on a large scale is itself artificial and mechanical; you may extend a concern or contract it; you may change it according to circumstances. That is why Jews are so successful as organizers of large capitalistic undertakings. Again, the Jew can easily grasp impersonal relationships. We have already noted that he has the feeling of personal dependence only in a slight measure. Hence, he does not care for your hoary "patriarchalism," and pays little attention to the dash of sentimentality which is still sometimes found in labour contracts. In all relations between sellers and buyers, and between employers and employed, he reduces everything to the legal and purely business basis. In the struggle of the workers to obtain collective agreements between themselves and the masters, which shall regulate the conditions of their labour, the Jew is almost invariably on the side of the first.

But if the Jew is well fitted to be an undertaker, still more is he cut out for the part of the trader. His qualities in this respect are almost innumerable.

The trader lives in figures, and in figures the Jew has always been in his element. His love of the abstract has made calculation easy for him; it is his strong point. Now a calculating talent combined with a capacity for working always with some aim in view has already won half the battle for the trader. He is enabled to weigh aright the chances, the possibilities and the advantages of any given situation, to eliminate everything that is useless, and to appraise the whole in terms of figures. Give this sober calculator a strong dose of imagination and you have the perfect speculator before you. To take stock of any given state of things with lightning speed, to see a thousand eventualities, to seize upon the most valuable and to act in accordance with that -- such, as we have already pointed out, is the aim of the dealer. For all this the Jew hasthe necessary gifts of mind. I should like expressly to emphasize the close kinship between the activities of the clever speculator and those of the clever physician who can successfully diagnose a disease. The Jew, because of his qualities, is eminently fitted for both.

A good dealer must be a good negotiator. What cleverer negotiators are there than the Jews, whose ability in this direction has long been recognized and utilized? To adapt yourself to the needs of a market, to meet any specified form of demand, is the one prime essential for the dealer. That the Jew with his adaptability can do this as well as any other is obvious. The second is the power of suggestion, and in this also the Jew is well qualified by his ability to think himself into the situation of another.

Wherever we look the conclusion forces itself upon us that the combination of no other set of qualities is so well fitted, as are those of the Jew, for realizing the best capitalistic results. There is no need for me to take the parallelism further; the intelligent reader can easily do so for himself. I would only direct his attention to one point more before leaving the subject -- the parallel between the feverish restlessness of Stock Exchange business, always intent on upsetting the tendency towards an equilibrium, and the restless nature of the Jew.

In another place I have sought to characterize the ideal undertaker in three words -- he must be wide-awake, clever and resourceful. Wideawake: that is to say, quick of comprehension, sure in judgment, must think twice before speaking once, and be able to seize upon the right moment.

Clever: that is to say, he must possess a knowledge of the world, must be certain of himself in his judgment and in his treatment of men, certain in his judgment on a given conjuncture; and above all, acquainted with the weaknesses and mistakes of those around him.

Resourceful: that is to say, full of ideas. The capitalistic undertaker must have three additional qualities: he must be active, sober and thorough. By sober, I mean free from passion, from sentiment, from unpractical idealism. By thorough, I mean reliable, conscientious, orderly, neat and frugal.

I believe this rough sketch will, in broad outline, stand for the capitalistic undertaker no less than for the Jew.

---
Notes to Chapter 12

1. Cf. also R. S. Woodworth, "Racial Differences in Mental Traits," in Bulletin mensuel des Institut Solvay (1910), No. 21.

2. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Israel chez les nations (1893), p. 289; also cf. H. St. Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts (3rd ed., 1901), p. 457. [An English edition of this book is now to be had.]

3. I cannot here enter into a disquisition of the various meanings attached to the terms People, Nation, Nationality. The reader will find all that he needs in that excellent study of F. J. Neumann, Volk und Nation (1888). See, too. Otto Bauer, Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie (1907); F. Rosenblüth, Zur Begriffsbestimmung von Volk und Nation (1910).

4. A. Jellinek, Der jüdische Stamm in Sprichwortem (2nd series, 1882), pp. 18, 91.

5. J. Zollschan, Das Rassenproblem writer besonderer Berücksichtigung der theoretischen Grundlagen der jüdischen Rassenfrage (1910), p. 298.

6. Jellinek, op. cit; (3rd series, 1885), p. 39.

7. Juan Huarte de San Juan, Examen de ingenios para las Ciencias. Pamplona (1575), (Biblioteca de autores Españoles, lxv, p. 469).

8. Jellinek, op. cit. This book by the well-known Rabbi of Vienna is one of the very best that has been written on the Jewish spirit Good, too, is the booklet of D. Chwolson, Die semitischen Völker (1872), which criticizes Renan’s Histoire générale et systeme compare de langues Sèmitique (1855). A third writer who in my opinion has looked deep into the Jewish soul is Karl Marx, in his Judenfrage (1844). What has been said about the Jewish spirit since these men (all Jews!) wrote is either a repetition of what they said or a distortion of the truth.

9. For Jews as mathematicians, see M. Steinschneider in Monatsschrift, vols. 49-51 (1905-7).

10. For Jews as physicians, see M. Kayserling, "Zur Geschichte der judischen Aerzte," in Monatsschrift, vols. 8 (1859) and 17 (1868).

11. Zollschan, op. cit.. p. 159.

12. C. Lassen, Indische Altertumskunde, vol. 1 (1847), p. 414.

13. "Une certaine gravité orgueilleuse et un fierté noble fait le caractère distinctif de cette nation," Pinto, "Reflexions," etc., in the Lettres de quelques juifs, vol. 1, p. 19.

14. J. M. Jost, Geschichte des Judentums und seiner Sekten, vol. 3 (1859), p. 207.

15. Derech Erez Zutta, ch. viii.

16. Megilla, 16.

17. Midrash Rabba to Genesis, 1, 44.

18. "Développer une chose qui existe en germe, perfectionner ce qui est, exprimer tout ce qui tient dans une idée qu’il n’aurait pas trouvée seul." -- M. Murel, L’esprit juif (1901), p. 40.

19. K. Knies, Credit, vol. 1, p. 240; vol. 2, p. 169.

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