Grace Aguilar, "Power by Faith to Win Salvation"
David Shasha
Power by Faith to Win Salvation
By: Grace Aguilar
Grace Aguilar (1816-1847) was likely the most outstanding as well as the most prolific Jewish writer of the 19th century. In addition to writing popular fiction – on both general and Jewish themes – she composed a number of important non-fiction books on Judaism.
These include most prominently The Spirit of Judaism (1842), The Women of Israel (1845), and The Jewish Faith (1846).
For more information on Aguilar’s work, see the recent SHU post which provides bibliographical information and my article on a recent anthology of her work:
https://groups.google.com/group/Davidshasha/browse_thread/thread/cd6ae4ed73deba79#
The following excerpt comes from The Jewish Faith, a series of letters on subjects related to the religion of the Hebrew Bible. The letters were written for an imaginary young woman named Annie Montague by another character named Inez Villena. Young Annie has become perplexed by Judaism and is seriously considering converting to Christianity.
The letters represent Aguilar’s attempt to summarize the values of the Hebrew Bible in a way that reflects her Sephardic-Converso background. The letters delve deeply into what Judaism stands for and how it has been misunderstood and abused by the Christian world. It is a clarion call for a contemporary Judaism that speaks to the truth of the Bible in a way that will resonate with the spiritual needs of the present.
According to Aguilar’s biographer and anthologist Michael Galchinsky the arguments reflect her enlightened Victorian Jewish sensibility which drew from contemporary Humanism and sought to affirm the historical origins of many important Christian values as coming from Jewish sources. Her fixation on the Bible is very much part of the Converso tradition where rabbinic literature was unavailable and thus not well appreciated. In both The Spirit of Judaism and The Jewish Faith Aguilar’s friend and editor Isaac Leeser provides marginal notes that seek to address her unorthodox way of seeing the Talmudic tradition.
The final section of the book goes into great detail on the Biblical origins of the Afterlife; a matter of some confusion given the battle between Sadducees and Pharisees and the fact that there are no explicit formulations of it in the Bible itself.
The following passage is one of the most emotionally moving discussions of Justice in the context of the Afterlife in modern Jewish sources. According to Aguilar it is simply impossible to accept the legal system of the Bible without acknowledging that final justice must be found outside the world we now live in. She goes to great pains to review the relevant texts and emphatically argues that denying the Afterlife as a Jewish concept is simply wrong.
But more generally, it is the deep feeling that Aguilar injects into the discussion that is most astounding. With echoes of her own personal pain – she died at the age of 31 from the lingering effects of a childhood illness that she had to live with since the age of 3 – the discussion takes on a heightened intensity.
Aguilar’s physical pain and her immense desire to communicate the truth of Judaism and her view of human existence more generally drew her to writing and when she discusses the matter of Justice and the Afterlife her prose lights up and takes on a deeply inspirational character.
It is hard not to be moved by her passionate words that tell the truth of God’s justice with its hope for every human being that suffers unjustly while living a moral life. It is an abiding faith that is certain of God’s mercy and equity. For those who seek to live an ethical life in the midst of immorality and degenerate cruelty, Aguilar’s arguments will resonate strongly. She knows all too well that those who suffer unjustly remain beloved by God and will receive their just reward after passing this mortal life.
DS
“Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? WE SHALL NOT DIE” Habakkuk says in the twelfth verse of his first chapter, following it with an humble inquiry as to why “He who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity” should so bear with the treacherous and wicked, as to permit them to go on their way rejoicing and triumphing over the righteous; the subject does not conclude with the chapter, as the division might lead us to suppose. The second continues it, by the prophet declaring he will stand on the watch-tower and look for the reply, but it was not to come distinctly. God said, “Write the vision and make it plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” This alludes to the inspirings of the prophetic spirit within him reproving the impatience which would see the end at once. The next verse answers his inquiries directly. “The soul which is lifted up [to inquire more than God chooses to reveal] is not upright within him; BUT THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY HIS FAITH.” In these few words we have one of the sublimest references to our immortal destiny which the prophets contain. What could be the use of faith, if we were only created for a life which is, as it were, revealed to mortal sight? There is no virtue so scoffed at, and so little understood, as that which God Himself declares will win us LIFE! And it is because it is of Him, that it leads to Him, and therefore seemingly is of no possible use in a mere worldly career, that it is so scorned. The very fact of its being deemed romance, and folly, and superstition by men whose only aim is to amass wealth, and who live up to all goods and pleasures and luxuries of earth, who minds are so narrowed that they can see nothing beyond their individual interests, and so declare that they will believe nothing but what can be proved, nothing but what they can understand – this very fact is proof of its spiritual and deathless nature, incompatible with the mere animal or earthly part of our existence. Created as we are with capabilities, feelings, impulses, aspirations for ever looking beyond, utterly distinct form, the wants of the animal, there would and must be constant suffering without faith; and were there no other existence, we may be sure a merciful God would have created us differently. He would never have promised that the just shall LIVE by his faith, if there were not some other existence where that faith would be swallowed up in reality, and our vain yearnings all be filled. He would never have given this solemn promise, if there were nought beyond the present scene; for it would be demanding a most difficult virtue from His children, which would neither profit no save them, and could only excite thoughts, and hopes, and feelings never to be fulfilled. And not only are these blessed words evidence unanswerable of a revealed and destined immortality, but contain in themselves the most intrinsic evidence of their divinity. None but the universal Father would have made the sole condition of His children’s salvation a virtue attainable by all, from the lowest to the highest, the poorest to the wealthiest, the most deficient in intelligence to the wisest, the youngest child to the greatest sage. None but the Eternal, to whom all creation and all time are revealed, would have demanded a virtue utterly distinct from the things of sense and sight, the use of which could only be known to Him and with Him. Had wisdom, power, and riches been made the condition of LIFE, how few could have attained to it; but faith is in the power of all, though not all may choose to encourage and use it. And because it is in the power of all, because it is absolutely necessary not only for our happiness as individuals, but for our obedience and loving service, as children and subjects of our God, because without it neither reason, nor riches, nor might could enable us to understand, and to endure calmly the evil, and sin, and sufferings in ourselves and around us, because without it, even God himself must be denied or doubted: therefore, it is made the condition of our salvation and acceptance; and O, how thankful should we be that so it is! How often are there conditions and circumstances in life, when we can do nothing but believe, when we can realize nothing but faith, when prayer itself seems to have lost its comfort, when the spirit is so crushed under the burden of the clay that the very sense of God’s love is darkened, when all that had seemed beautiful and good is changed into deformity and evil, when our very wisdom and reason seem leagued against us, and tell us all is vanity and vexation. Still, still, if we can but believe that all will be clear again, that our Father has not forsaken us, though the comfort of resting on Him seems to have departed, if we can but fell “Yea, though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him:” we are safe – safe, though every outward service is denied us, safe, however man may deem us wanting, safe, not only for eternal life, but for returning temporal joy.
And yet, dearest Annie, there are those who declare that Jews have no faith; that faith forms no part of Judaism; ay, even amongst ourselves I have heard this charge, and every pulse has throbbed with the vain wish to prove to them their great, their fearful error. Habakkuk does but reiterate that which the Hebrews had known from the time that “Abraham believed in the Lord, and his faith was accounted to him as righteousness,” and Moses was rebuked when he struck the rock, “because ye believed me not,” through all the varied phases of their history – rebellion, and doubt, and insubordination which had obtained yet more powerful dominion in the time of the prophets than before, and even they, holy and righteous men, were led to demand how it was the wicked should so triumph and that He, who was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, could yet bear with them, forgetting in the triumphs around them the words of their prophet-king, “That when the wicked flourish it is that they shall be destroyed forever.” And God, therefore, in His mercy, declares that the vision, or His judgment between the righteous and the wicked, “shall yet speak and not lie;” that though it tarry, man was calmly to wait for it; for “the soul which is lifted up to inquire more than it is right or needful for man in this world to know, is not upright within him;” but the just, however tried and sad his life on earth, is secure of LIFE IN HEAVEN through his FAITH.
Excerpt from The Jewish Faith: Its Spiritual Consolation, Moral Guidance, and Immortal Hope (Cincinnati: Bloch Publishing, 1864, Originally published, London, 1846), Letter XXVIII, pp. 402-406