A Bargain

Today you had the privilege of reading to the congregation from all three parts of the Bible. From the Torah, the five books of Moses, you read several verses. Your haftarah was taken from the second division of the Bible, the prophets. And you also read us a psalm, which is from the third section of the Bible called the Holy Writings.

This psalm you read to us, Psalm 145, is an important psalm. The rabbis said that whoever recites this psalm daily is assured of a place in the world to come. They did not mean by this, of course, that one can be a wicked person, and get away with it just by saying psalms. What they did mean is that whoever understands and puts into effect the lesson of this psalm will be a righteous person. Let me read two or three verses of the psalm to remind you what it has to say.

I will praise thee, my God, O King; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. The Lord is gracious and full of mercy; patient, and very faithful. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.

One of the rabbis points out that the key word in the psalm is the word king. All the beautiful things that the psalm has to say have meaning only if we accept God as supreme ruler. Our world could be a paradise, if we wished. But the terrible things we read in our newspapers come about because men do not want to accept God as ruler. They want to see themselves as rulers, and whether in Cuba or Germany, the result is the same, cruelty and sadness and misery.

I am sure that you do not want to be one of those who live for themselves alone. I know that you have room in your heart for God, and if you do, you have room for all mankind, for you cannot love God, if you do not love your fellow man. If you recognize God as king, if in everything you do, you take him into account, and think whether it would please or displease him, your life will be a very different life. It will be an unselfish life, a worthwhile life, one in which you will discover in the words of the Psalm, that God's greatness is past searching out.

I hope that you will always use your undoubted abilities for good purposes. It seems to me that you are just at the point of discovering what religion is all about, and I hope you will not stop now that your interest is awakened.

I hope that you will continue your Jewish education, and so be able to inherit all the spiritual treasures which are your birthright. You can study, and you should, for there is no reason why you should be ignorant when you have the talent and the facilities to learn more about your faith and that vast cultural treasure that is Judaism.

Your parents and grandparents are, I know, proud of you on this day, and I hope you will always give them cause to be proud of you. You owe them so much, and repay it best by your good citizenship, and attempts to fit yourself for a useful life in the service of your God and your country. May the Almighty be with you in all that you do, and prosper the work of your hands.