THE pilgrim who, leaving other countries, entered Palestine, must have felt as if he had crossed

the threshold of another world. Manners, customs, institutions, law, life, nay, the very

intercourse between man and man, were quite different. All was dominated by the one all-

absorbing idea of religion. It penetrated every relation of life. Moreover, it was inseparably

connected with the soil, as well as the people of Palestine, at least so long as the Temple stood.

Nowhere else could the Shekhinah dwell or manifest itself; nor could, unless under exceptional

circumstances, and for `the merit of the fathers,' the spirit of prophecy be granted outside its

bounds. To the orthodox Jew the mental and spiritual horizon was bounded by Palestine. It was

`the land'; all the rest of the world, except Babylonia, was `outside the land.' No need to

designate it specially as `holy;' for all here bore the impress of sanctity, as he understood it. Not

that the soil itself, irrespective of the people, was holy; it was Israel that made it such. For, had

not God given so many commandments and ordinances, some of them apparently needless,

simply to call forth the righteousness of Israel;1 did not Israel possess the merits of `the fathers,'2

and specially that of Abraham, itself so valuable that, even if his descendants had, morally

speaking, been as a dead body, his merit would have been imputed to them?3 More than that,

God had created the world on account of Israel,4 and for their merit, making preparation for

them long before their appearance on the scene, just as a king who foresees the birth of his son;

nay, Israel had been in God's thoughts not only before anything had actually been created, but

even before every other creative thought.5 If these distinctions seem excessive, they were, at

least, not out of proportion to the estimate formed of Israel's merits. In theory, the latter might

be supposed to flow from `good works,' of course, including the strict practice of legal piety,

and from `study of the law.' But in reality it was `study' alone to which such supreme merit

attached. Practice required knowledge for its direction; such as the Am-ha-arets (`country

people,' plebeians, in the Jewish sense of being unlearned) could not possess,6 who had

bartered away the highest crown for a spade with which to dig. And `the school of Arum' - the

sages - the `great ones of the world' had long settled it, that study was before works.7 And how

could it well be otherwise, since the studies, which engaged His chosen children on earth,

equally occupied their Almighty Father in heaven?8 Could anything, then, be higher than the

peculiar calling of Israel, or better qualify them for being the sons of God?