Lecture on the Menorah Last Night

Dr. Henry Berkowitz last night delivered the first of a series of public lectures to be given under the auspices of the Harvard Menorah Society. His subject was "The Menorah in the Light of History."

The lecture dwelt upon the origin of the Menorah, the seven-branched candle-stick, in the festival described in the Book of Maccabees. He went on to describe the 500 years' struggle between the Hellenic and Hebraic ideals, which culminated in the annihilation of the Jews as a nation after the conquest of Judaea by Titus. Beauty was the Greek ideal, while that of the Hebrews was goodness, and of this the Menorah was emblematic.

Since the realization of intellectual and civil freedom in the nineteenth century, the Jews have begun to emerge from their prolonged seclusion, and the contrast of ideals is renewed. But, though the contrast is again in evidence, let there be no conflict. Let the Jewish ideal, that of goodness and character, combine with the beauty and culture, which the western races have inherited from the Greeks, to form a single, solid basis upon which to lay the foundations of future greatness.