t life is one of complete
devotion to a scholarly career in the service of our ancient and
medieval classics. But unfortunately the very young men who give
promise of presenting in a creditable manner our intellectual heritage
for the benefit of the majority otherwise occupied, have no means of
their own, and yet are not ready (as it should not be expected of them
that they should be) to take the vow of poverty and celibacy and form
a Jewish monastic order of St. Haninah. Accordingly not a few of these
choose the Rabbinic career as the most likely profession to enable
them to keep in touch with Jewish learning--more or less a
disappointed hope to the real scholar who has no other fitness for the
modern Rabbinate except his scholarship. Others are completely
side-tracked and lost to Jewish scholarship.

Thus the lack of interest in Jewish learning and scholarship keeps
promising young men away from these unpromising studies. The result is
that the field in English remains uncultivated, which reacts again
unfavorably in a diminution of interest, and the vicious circle is
complete.

_The Need of Encouragement to Jewish Learning_

I HAVE used my text in good old fashion as a pretext for a little
sermon to the intelligent lay reader of THE MENORAH JOURNAL who may be
an influential member of the American Jewish community, pointing out
that we are sorely in need of a great many such books as the present
one, treating various "aspects of the Hebrew Genius"; and they are
sure to come just as soon as there is a real demand for them. The
Jewish students in our colleges and universities whose number is
rapidly increasing have in their midst a great many talented young men
who only need encouragement to devote their best energies to Jewish
learning. These will serve as a leaven to raise the entire Jewish
community of America to a more intelligent Jewish level. What we need
is liberal endowments for Jewish chairs in our universities and for
the promotion of Jewish education generally.

And now to proceed to my proper topic: _Aspects of Hebrew Genius_ is a
very creditable volume consisting of eight well-written essays on
several topics of Jewish history and thought. Norman Bentwich
contributes an article in which he gives an interesting sketch of the
Jewish Alexandrian period of the first two centuries B. C., whose
thought activities culminated in the works of Philo, the first man in
history who attempted an amalgamation of Heb