they remained as a protest and an appeal. Their aim and
permanent influence tended toward relations between the upper and lower
classes, which would insure the latter some degree of independence and
dignity. In fact, the foundations laid by the Hebrew Scripture underlie
all our great modern efforts to turn the forces of charity so as to check
the sources of evil in our social organism. Modern philanthropy, taking
its clue from the old Hebrew ideal, aims not to alleviate but to cure, and
to stimulate the natural good in society, material, moral and
intellectual, that it may overcome the evil. We are recognizing more and
more the principle of mutual responsibility and interdependence of men and
classes. Yet this very principle, modern as it seems, was recognized by
the Jewish sages, as we see in the remarkable passage where the rabbis
comment on the law concerning the case of a slain body found in the field,
with the murderer unknown. The Bible commands that in such a case the
elders of the city should kill a heifer, wash their hands over it, and
say: "Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen
it."(1580) The rabbis then ask: "How could the elders of a city ever be
suspected of the crime of murder?" and their reply is: "Even if they only
failed to provide the poor in their charge with the necessary food, and he
became a highway robber and murderer; or if they left him without the
necessary protection, and he fell a victim to murderers, they are held
responsible for the crime before the higher court of God."(1581) That is,
according to our station we are all responsible for the social conditions
which create poverty and crime, and it is our duty to establish such
relations between the individual and the community as will remove the
causes of all the evils of society.

11. This, in a way, anticipates the third maxim of Hillel: "If not now,
when then?" Judaism cannot accept the New Testament spirit of
other-worldliness, which prompted the teaching: "Take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what
ye shall put on," or "Resist not evil."(1582) Such a view disregards the
values and duties of domestic, civic, and industrial life, and creates an
inseparable gulf between sacred and profane, between religion and culture.
In contrast to this, Jewish ethics sets the highest value upon all things
that make man more of a human being and increase his power of doing go