During the war we were so stunned by its suddenness and vastness that we felt it would shatter all former systems of philosophy, that men would need a new philosophy of life after the war, just as they did after the Renaissance or the epoch-making discoveries of Darwin. This opinion, natural enough at the time, was certainly exaggerated. The war did not shatter all ideals; it did not create any new ones except the wave of spiritualism at present so wide-spread. But it did shift emphases, exposed the hollowness of many easy beliefs, and implanted new ideas in minds which otherwise might not have been ready for them. The soldier really presents the typical reaction to the war, while the civilian shows a milder type of influence and a smaller degree of change. The revaluation of values which is really demanded to-day is nothing so fundamental as we thought at the time. It is chiefly psychological, that we shall understand what is in the mind of the soldier, and by that means reach an understanding of the effect of the war on society as a whole. The world contains in diluted form those same influences which show so distinctly on these young men. The problem of evil is neither greater nor less than it was before the war; the problem of life and death is no different; the problem of conduct has not changed. But certain phases of each of these problems have come very strongly to the attention of the world; some of them have been branded into the consciousness of the soldier. Just as the soldier has a viewpoint toward American ideals, which America would do well to heed in working out her programs for the era after the war, so the Jewish soldier has his own viewpoint toward Judaism, which all who are interested in our people and our religion need to understand and utilize for the best development of our religious programs in the days that are just ahead.

It is hard to call the soldier a progressive in religion when he had so few theories about the matter. But he was certainly not a traditionalist. Religious ideas and practices had to satisfy his immediate needs or they had no meaning to him at all. This covered all cant words, all ready-made formulas, whether as ancient as the Talmud or as comparatively recent as reform Judaism. The answer of a twelfth century Jew of Spain or a nineteenth century Jew of Germany were on an equality to him; if either solved the problems of a young American at war it was acceptable. The soldier was willing to accept old answers to new questions if they were cogent; on the other hand, he was quite as willing to consider a new and revolutionary theory. He possessed that rare attribute, the open mind; on the narrow but keen basis of his own mental experience he grasped and estimated soundly the new ideas and the old.

The soldier enjoyed ceremonies that reminded him of home and childhood, but he regarded them largely as pleasant memories. However deep a meaning the symbols might possess, the soldier had not the background to grasp it. The symbols did not stand for enough to solve the problems of his immediate life. In the same way, theological concepts, however liberal, meant nothing to him practically. The liberal theology of reform Judaism might have appealed to the mass of the Jewish soldiers if they had been interested in it and had made an effort to understand it. As it was, liberalism in theology meant exactly nothing to them. They were not interested in theological problems; they did not care what one's opinion might be about the literal inspiration of the Bible or about the coming of the Messiah. The liberalism which expressed itself constantly among the soldiers, and which they brought back with them into civil life, was different from all this. Granting your liberalism or your conservatism in regard to beliefs and ceremonies, the soldier wanted to know your attitude toward other human beings. The liberalism he wanted was social and humanitarian. On this plane he had his being. This was the type of problem which interested him and which he could understand. The soldier felt too often that the churches and synagogues were dominated by capital, by a narrow social class which discriminated against him. Among Jewish soldiers, many felt that the religious ideas they might accept were expressed in rich reform temples, where they themselves would not be acceptable or would not feel at home. On the other hand, they did not feel at home in the little orthodox synagogues where their fathers offered up their daily prayers. They did not understand the Hebrew ritual uttered there, nor the devotional attitude which was there expressed.

But all this is not reaching directly the synagogue itself. The young men, the former soldiers, are not the trustees of our temples and synagogues; they are not a majority of our members; they are not often to be found in the pews, where we might see their response to a particular service or a particular sermon. If we are not very careful, the churches and synagogues will lose entirely the inspiration of their youthful vigor and find themselves tied entirely to the generation which has passed into middle age and is becoming old. We must call to the young men in the voice of youth, with the viewpoint and on the plane which they understand and on which they may respond. That means that we must be willing to accept new conclusions to new problems if these conclusions seem to fit the new times. That means also that we must have an aggressive attitude toward social and economic problems. This alone can make liberalism religious and make religion concrete, applicable to the needs of the latest era, the era after the world war. Without it, religion will remain moribund, liberalism irreligious. Religious bodies must give an equal hearing to both the conservative and the radical, must show a definite platform of religious and moral work on which the two can unite. That was done during the war. All groups in American Jewry, orthodox, conservative and reform, were associated in the Jewish Welfare Board and still work together on the Joint Distribution Committee for the relief of Jewish war sufferers. All groups in American life, Jew and non-Jew alike, met and worked together in the United War Work campaign, to care for the soldiers in our emergency. But the young men, no longer soldiers, need us as badly now, while we, the churches and the synagogues, need them more than ever, with their new experience and their new-found manhood. What they need and what we need, too, is that we learn to coÖperate on a common platform of action for their benefit now. If we want them, if we want to be at one with them, we must have a social program, a liberal attitude to life and especially to its most immediate economic problems, a willingness to sink differences of opinion that we may meet for practical effort and genuine progress.

The boys in the service became largely socialized through the tremendous, constant work of the welfare agencies. They felt the value of the Y. M. C. A. or other welfare hut, not only for the entertainments, dances and canteen, but just as much as a center for the soldier community, a place to write, to read, to play games, to meet their friends. Since their return they have turned to such institutions as the Y. M. C. A., the Y. M. H. A. and the rest, to find the club life, the community spirit, which they had in the welfare hut in camp or city at home and abroad. This need of the young men for a social center and a social life is a common need of all America. Every village needs a social center to further its growth into a finer culture and a more united citizenship. Every Jewish community large enough to have a little social life of its own needs a community center where that life can flourish and be guided in desirable and constructive channels. The expansion of the Jewish Welfare Board to join and assist the activities of the National Council of Young Men's Hebrew and Kindred Associations is a logical one, growing out of the similar needs of the same young men in war and peace. The furtherance of social centers for Jewish communities, for other groups of citizens who possess a common heritage or common background, and for a whole town where the town is not too large, is a piece of work in which the soldiers will participate and which their very existence among us should suggest to the rest of the community. The return of the soldier may assist us more than we expect in socializing the Jewish community. The social spirit we once showed in his behalf, the social education we gave him while in the service, will return to benefit us all if we convert the two into Jewish social life. Such a socializing will cut across congregational or sectional lines, across lines of birth and wealth, and unite the Jewish community in America, just as the same process will eventually, if carried far enough, weld together all the divergent social forces of America itself.

The need for personal religion at the front was a temporary need, or rather a temporary expression of a universal human yearning. It is now almost forgotten by the boys themselves, certainly by the church and the synagogue. Beside the liberal and the social demands of the day, there exists this mystical longing to be sure of God, to know for a certainty that He will protect His dear ones. This universal and eternal need was felt for the time by our men in immediate danger, in thankfulness, in mourning. Having discovered it once, they still feel it when the occasion comes. Here, however, there seems little likelihood of their contribution being accepted. The union of the social and mystical elements, even at different times and for different occasions, seems more than any human institution can accomplish. If the soldier, in tune with the urge of the age, demands a social and a liberal response from the synagogue, he may get it in a large number of cases. The mystical element he will not ask for, and his inarticulate mood, now hardly evident, will certainly evoke no response.

One thing certainly the young men feel, which American Judaism is accepting from them. While the young Jew is wholly sympathetic to Zionism, he hardly ever feels that Zionism is the center or the conclusion of the Jewish problem. Zionism, as a movement, has brought to fruition much of the latent love of the young Jew for his people and his religion. But the Jewish soldier, or the same boy as a civilian, is not interested chiefly in solving the economic or the cultural problems of Palestine. He responds also to the similar problems among the Jews of America. Zionism is not enough for him; he must have Judaism as well. He and all of us are compelled to confront the spiritual and moral problems of the new world after the war.

The young man does not know, and the synagogue does not always show him, that the very things he demands most urgently are inherent in Judaism, especially in those great prophets whose words still ring forth with a youthful fervor. The unfaltering search for new truth, the recognition of the poor and the weak, the unity of all groups in the community, the triumphant search for God and finding of God—all these the young Jew wants and the prophets have given us. This aspect of the problem, then, becomes one of leadership, to interpret our Judaism in terms which express the life of the new day and to show the young men that their dearest longings are part of the ancient Jewish heritage. The antiquity of the prophetic summons is no disadvantage to the young men if it answers their personal need. It is of the greatest advantage to the synagogue in responding to the call of the great days after the war. Those ancient responses to the errors and crimes of mobs and despots in the Orient contain principles whose vitality is not impaired by the passage of time. It needs but the skill and the courage to apply them again, as in prophetic times, to the western world in the twentieth century.

War gave the world a new angle of vision on life and death, on good and bad. The deepest impress of this new viewpoint is on those men who were themselves at the front, who underwent the most extreme phase of it in their own persons, but some traces have spread throughout the entire western civilization. America must realize it as Europe does; Judaism and Christianity alike are entering, for good or bad, a new period. The world has changed in some respects; we who see the world have changed far more. In facing the future, with its political, its social, its moral problems, we need a new fullness of insight into the young men whose lives have changed and whose souls expanded overnight, even though they remain in externals the boys they were. We need a new intellectual content, covering not only the new map of Europe and Asia, but also the new ideas and ideals which swept the world for a time, as though they were to be eternal. Above all, we must have complete honesty in facing the thrilling challenge of the immediate future. We do not need a new form of Judaism any more than we need a new type of government in America. We are confronted by the demand to adapt Americanism and Judaism to the changing demands of a changing era, to find among the temporary and evanescent elements in both those things which have permanent usefulness for any demand and any era. We need ideals of the past, indeed, but only such ideals as have survived the past, as apply fully to the present, as will aid in building up a future of promise and achievement for the Jew. Judaism is on trial to-day. If we answer the need of the young man, he will be the loyal, active Jew for to-day and to-morrow. If we ignore him, whether through uncertainty, ignorance or pride, he will not come to us and we shall not be going after him. Judaism needs the young man; it needs equally his great ideals, social and mystical as well. The test will result in a finer and more effective faith only if we respond to it bravely and honestly, in the very spirit of the soldier himself.