us
through the Lord, the shield of thy help, and that is the Sword of thy
excellency!" Excellency then meant national independence and welfare.
It was the period of the Omrides whose exploits are merely hinted at
in our sources, whose sway marked the nascent struggle between
Hebraism and Judaism. For the time being, Hebraic culture was on the
ascendant, successor to the indigenous Canaanite civilization which it
had absorbed, remodelled, developed.

The chief difference between the Hebraic culture and Judaism which
supplanted it consists in the fact that, whereas the latter was
bookish, transforming its votaries into the "people of the book," the
former was the sum total of all that goes to make up the concern of a
nation living upon its own soil. Bookishness, literature, has a place
in the affairs of a nation, but it contributes only a side in its
manifold activities. The spoken word precedes the written. The writer
has an eye to aftertimes. He lives in the future. The speaking voice
addresses itself to the present and its varied needs. Saints are
canonized after death. The act of canonization means the verdict of
the survivors who from a distance are able to gauge the merits of past
deeds. When a literature is pronounced canonical or classical, it is
no more. In its dying moments it is reduced to rule, and its range
becomes norm. But normalization is an act of choosing, of accepting
and excising. A living literature is far from being normalized. Much
that is written serves a temporary purpose, but is none the less
effective while it has vogue. However, it is only a part of the
national activities, mirroring them and commenting upon them. So is
religion another part of the national life. Government policy and
legal procedure and the arts and the crafts occupy a nation's living
interests. The Hebraic culture meant all that. It is now a thing of
the distant past. It speaks to us from beneath the Hebrew Scriptures
by which it is overlaid, themselves the remnant of what in times gone
by stirred the nation's spirit. A revival of that culture may come,
but when it comes it will be tempered by Judaism. And the Hebrew
Scriptures which constitute the bridge between them both will act as
the peacemaker.

[Illustration: Signature: Max L. Margolis]

_JEWISH knowledge to me is valuable in the sense in
which the word "knowledge" is employed in Hebrew. For
"to know" in Hebrew_ (yada) _does not merely mea