we need to realize that religion itself is expressed in part through the quest of truth and the acquisition of wisdom for its own sake. Learning must be understood as a high purpose of life, not merely as a way to improve one’s earning power. As Rabbi Zadok put it, we must not turn wisdom into “a spade with which to dig.” 21
This emphasis would, in the course of time, change the prevailing spirit in our academic campuses. Students would not be driven to equate learning with grades, and professors would not be pressed to “publish or perish.” Learning would be esteemed as a way of life, noble in its own right. Whatever professions we may choose, we need to acquire the zest for wisdom as the supreme value of the good life.
The new age of automation is likely to provide many people with leisure hours that they could well utilize in a continuous program of self-education. But education requires emotional, hence religious motivation: “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.”22
In the Western World, the marks of a religious life have been identified almost exclusively with the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Noble as these qualities are, they can be easily suborned and put to the service of fanatics and benighted crusaders. Does not history afford a thousand illustrations of this melancholy fact? Indeed, the virtue of self-criticism is as essential to faith, personal or collective, as a steering wheel is to a car. The task of aggiornamento is a divine imperative for every generation and for every faith. It is the Word of God in action—“The soul of man is a candle of the Lord, searching his inmost parts.”23
The practice of self-criticism is our only safeguard against the tyranny of the mob, which, as Plato warned us, is the peculiar disease of democracy. Mass education made possible the kind of totalitarian thought-control that even the medieval world did not know. The soft virtues of faith, hope, and charity are of little help in resisting totalitarian idolatry. Propagandists do not dispute the maxim “love your neighbor”; they merely distort the image of the neighbor into that of a monstrous fiend. And distortions of this type exert a peculiar appeal to the “pooled pride” of the people. Bloody crusades are far more likely to be initiated by calls addresed to man’s noblest instincts than by appeals to his selfishness. This is particularly true in our day, when nuclear war could only result in the total impoverishment, if not the annihilation, of mankind.
It would seem that only madness could drive the world to a nuclear holocaust. Yet, such madness will surely wear the mask of the Messiah—it will inaugurate the “Reich of a thousand years,” it will establish the “classless” society, it will “make the world safe for democracy.” Only the readiness of people to accept the scalpel of criticism as the cutting edge of faith is likely to protect us against a resurgence of the seductive delusions of pseudo-Messianism.
THE ETHICS OF RACE AND GROUP RELATIONS
It is now generally accepted that national boundaries do not constitute the limits of our ethical obligation. So, the Torah begins the teaching of Judaism with the narrative telling of the creation of mankind.
In addition to our duties as American citizens, we owe certain obligations to those who share our faith and our historic heritage; we possess a certain kinship with those who share our culture and our freedoms; we are obligated to serve the entire society of mankind. There is no neat way in which these duties can be meshed together. In the perspective of the Way and Vision polarity, we recognize that a dynamic transition from one social pattern of loyalties to another is the rule rather than the exception.
First, within the boundaries of America. As a “nation of nations,” creating one community out of diverse ethnic strains and religious traditions, America cannot but strive for a unity of sentiment and fellowship as well as of multifarious strands of law. While we begin with the law affording equal justice to all, without any distinctions of race or creed, we cannot be content with the bare bones of legal justice, but must supplement it with the sentiments and aspirations of a common fellowship. If the French nation, emerging suddenly into the air of freedom, found it necessary to aim at fraternity, as well as liberty and equality, we cannot set a lesser goal for America. The inner logic of patriotism does not permit us to stop short of this consummation. Hence, the need of supplementing the legal structure of the nation by positive acts of philanthropy and concern, interethnic and all-American in scope, that will have the effect of creating a true American brotherhood, not merely a congeries of competing groups.
It follows that we need to combat the divisive spirit of racism, whether it arises among “white supremacists” or “black nationalists.” Upon all of us, there rests the duty to help those who for historical reasons were late in enjoying the benefits of American society. We have to complete the laws of equality by charitable concern for those who stand in the doorway of our society, partly in and partly out, either in a social, or in an economic, or in a cultural sense.
However, in our drive for national unity, we must not ignore either the claims of individual’s or the values that are inherent in the subcultures of our society. It was the specious siren call for unity that in our time served the fascist dictators so well. The Vision of Unity that we seek must not be a doctrinaire mold, imposed from without, but an organic reality growing out of the American Way; integrating its values, not crushing them into the monolithic gray of conformity. The image of the “melting pot” suggests the ultimate homogenization of society, its turning into a viscous soup, without any lumps. In the realm of ideals and sentiments, the abstractionism of radicals may be as vicious as the prejudice of reactionaries; with due attention to the existing patterns as well as the looming vision, we can only aim at the growth of fellowship and mutual regard, not the obliteration of differences.
In the integration of the Negro, the Mexican, and other races, our guiding policy must be to guard the rights of the individual and to administer even-handed justice to all. Our governing principle is equality of opportunity, rather than egalitarianism, the attempt to impose an artificial level of equality upon all groups. We know from the sad annals of our history that such attempts create discord and stifle the creative talents of those who have most to give to society. In the interests of the nation as a whole, we cannot allow the organization of ethnic groups on a quasi-political basis, groups that would fight each other for the spoils of the national economy. The bitter rivalry of racist pressure-groups is a corrosive poison that our society can ill afford.
An economy that is open to all individual’s on the basis of merit will be supplemented by a cultural atmosphere that is receptive to all ideas and values, allowing the diverse ethnic subcultures and religious faiths to make their respective contributions to American culture. While it is true that some Americans have no subculture or religious faith to enrich their lives, we must insist that only an inverted sense of justice would require that all social-cultural enclaves be erased in order to make all “equal.”
TENSIONS BETWEEN NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL VALUES
To what extent should ethnic and religious subgroups maintain their bonds of unity with their coreligionists or their respective national homelands? On the one hand, the subgroups should recognize the rightfulness of the overriding loyalties of the American nation. This is the context into which, as individuals, we assume our rights and obligations. On the other hand, all cultural values, feelings of kinships, and sentiments of philanthropy are worth-while in themselves; hence, their claim upon us is that of moral values, which, if possible, ought to be incorporated into our life.
In the event of a conflict between these parochial values and the interests or ideals of the American nation, the latter take precedence. Such is the implication of the moral-legal context of our day.
The emphasis on the sanctity of the individual in our tradition implies that it is for the individual to resolve such matters of cultural conflict as do not concern the nation as a whole. In turn, the choice by the individual is to be made on the basis of his moral obligation to sustain as many as