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"I say 25 years, because the change will come mainly through the young people. Many of the fathers I know can't understand what has happened to their children. A friend of mine who is a very successful industrialist is still amazed by the fact that his son is turning into a brilliant theologian; just a short time ago, I talked to the 16-year-old boy whose father runs a chain of retail stores. Father wants me to go into his business, he said. I am the only child. But why should I waste my life in business? I want to go to the seminary and become a rabbi.
"[Philosopher] Alfred North Whitehead once said to me: 'What America needs is not a philosopher but a prophet.' What I see and what I hope for the Jewish community in America is that it will give birth to a school of prophets and rise toward its own spiritual potential as a holy people. And this will have a profound effect on America and on the whole world. Even a tiny minority, when they are spiritually dedicated, can have a deep influence on the world around them—like the Essenes among the ancient Hebrews, or the Pharisees, or the early Christians, or the Quakers.
"To me, the prophetic message is summarized in the idea of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah.* The Christians take this to be the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, but Jewish tradition sees it as the role of the Jews in the world. And the important part of the concept is the word 'servant.' Suffering, too, if necessary—and it often seems to be necessary. But suffering by itself is not enough."
Impious Question. There must be action and example. One way in which U.S. Jews can serve their country and the world, says Finkelstein, is "by bringing people together and helping them understand each other."
Finkelstein himself has done plenty to "bring people together." In 1938, he helped found the Institute for Religious and Social Studies, a "graduate school" of clergymen and lay religious leaders, Christian and Jewish, which holds 13 sessions a year in Manhattan and six in Chicago. This year, for the twelfth time, he was elected president of the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, which meets each year at Columbia University. "When I am at work on those enterprises," he says, "I feel that I am obeying the commandments just as much as when I go to the synagogue for prayer."
As they grow more spiritually minded, he thinks, U.S. Jews will more & more observe the Law's injunction to make "peace between man and his fellow" a part of their religious duties. "When sometimes I am talking about this and someone asks me why we Jews should bear the burden when other groups don't seem interested in doing anything, I consider it an impious question. Jews must see themselves as God intends them to be—His servants and the servants of mankind."