the Tannaim could say, "Whoever possesses no sense of shame
and chastity, of him it is certain that his ancestors did not stand at
Sinai."(1117)

Naturally enough, the Greek and Roman people took offense at this
aloofness and separation from every contact with the outer world, and
explained it as due to a spirit of hostility to mankind. Even up to the
present it has been the lot of Jewry and Judaism to be misunderstood by
the world at large, to be the object of either its hate or its pity. The
world disregards the magnificence of the plan by which an entire people
were to be reared as a priest-nation, as citizens of a kingdom of God,
among whom, in the course of centuries, the seed of prophetic truth was to
germinate and sprout forth for the salvation of humanity. If, in complete
contrast to heathen immorality, the Jew in his life, his thinking, and his
will was governed by the strictest moral discipline; if, in spite of the
most cruel persecutions and the most insidious temptations, the Jewish
people remained steadfast to its pure belief in God and its traditional
standards of chastity, exhibiting a loyalty which amazed the nations and
the religious sects about, but was neither understood nor followed by
them, this was mainly due to the hallowing influences of the priestly
laws. They steeled the people for the fulfillment of their duty and
shielded them against all hostile powers both within and without. The very
_burden_ of the law, so bitterly denounced by Christianity since the time
of Paul, lent Judaism its dignity at all times, protecting it from the
assaults of the tempter; and that which seemed to the outsider a heavy
load was to the Jew a source of pride in the consciousness of his divine
election.(1118)

6. But most significant in the character and development of Judaism is the
fact that all the leading ideas and motives which emanated from the
priesthood of the Jewish people were concentrated in one single focus, the
_hallowing of the name of God_. Two terms expressed this idea in both a
negative and a positive form, the warning against "_Hillul ha
Shem_"--profanation of the name of God--and the duty of "_Kiddush ha
Shem_"--sanctification of God's name. These exerted a marvelous power in
curbing the passions and self-indulgence of the Jew and in spurring him on
to the greatest possible self-sacrifice and to an unparalleled willingness
to undergo suffering and martyrdom for the cause. These terms are derived