THE SOCIAL ASPECT OF RELIGION 



BY EMIL G. HIRSCH 



[Emil G. Hirsch, Rabbi of Chicago Sinai Temple; Professor of Rabbinical 

 Philosophy and Jewish History, University of Chicago, b. Luxemburg, 

 Europe, May 22, 1852. A.B. University of Pennsylvania, 1875 ; A.M. ibid.; 

 Berlin University, 1872-76; Leipzig, 1876; High School for Jewish Science, 

 Berlin, 1872-79 (Rabbi and Ph.D.). Rabbi, Baltimore, 1877-78; Louisville, 

 1878-80; Chicago, 1880- ; Editor of Jewish Encyclopedia, 1900. President 

 of Public Library, Chicago, 1886-97; Elector at large (for McKinley) of the 

 State of Illinois, 1896. Aiember of the State Board of Charities, 1900. Author 

 of New Tamid (1896); The Crucifixion; Biblical Department of Jewish En- 

 cyclopedia.] 



THE character and influence of religion as a social force are attested 

 on every page of human history. On the one hand, innumerable 

 and important social institutions have been found to be rooted in 

 religious conceits, while, on the other, profound religious doctrines, 

 dealing with the deepest mysteries of the soul and its yearnings and 

 trepidations, have come to be better understood as reflecting social 

 institutions and practices. Without straying far afield into the 

 domain of folklore, in quest for illustrations, the student cannot 

 but stumble upon examples when consulting his Bible. That bro- 

 ther or next of kin shall marry the widow of the deceased brother 

 or kinsman seems, at first glance, an arbitrary, if peculiar, pro- 

 vision of Biblical legislation. The root notion, however, from which 

 it developed, is religious. It is antecedent to Israel's prophetic 

 monotheism. Basic to it is the conception, emphasized in primitive 

 animism under whatever zone it may have arisen, that unless filial 

 honor be shown the deceased, no rest will be found by his hapless 

 soul. To assure the departed of an heir in whom his name shall be 

 revived, and through whose filial piety his own final peace shall be 

 brought to pass, the institution of the Levirate marriage, rendered 

 even poetic in the idyl of Ruth, sprang up. Affecting personal rights 

 and property inheritance, this social institution rests on religious 

 conceits. Closely akin to the conception underlying the Levirate, is 

 that which is fundamental to the practice and obligation of avenging 

 the blood of one come to his death by violence. That the clan is 

 responsible for the deeds of every one of its component members 

 is the assumption on which the social institution of the sacred Ven- 

 detta rests. Among the Semites this doctrine is universally enter- 

 tained. The sins of the fathers are visited on the sons in never 

 interrupted succession of vicarious responsibility. In it is opera- 

 tive the rudimentary thought of crude animism, that the spirit of the 

 murdered and slain will not enter into rest unless blood be spilled 

 in requitement for blood previously shed. The terrible law of talia- 



