What the Bible Means to Me

Light for Israel "The entrance of thy words giveth light." Psalm 119:130

What the Bible Means to Me
"The Bible is the Only Source of all Jewish Truth"
by Louis Rabinowitz

     The Bible is the only source of all Jewish truth; the only rule for Jewish life; the only book that unfolds to us the realities of eternity. There is no book like the Bible for excellent wisdom and use. There never was found, in any age of the world, either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible.

     The Bible is a window in this prison of hope, through which we look into eternity. The Bible is the light of my understanding, the joy of my heart, the fullness of my hope, the clarifier of my affections, the mirror of my thoughts, the consoler of my sorrows, the guide of my soul through this gloomy labyrinth of time.

     The Bible is a telescope sent from heaven to reveal to the eye of man the amazing glories of the more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they may have been written.

     In whatever light we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue. Bad men or devils would not have written the Bible, for it condemns them and their works. Good men or angels could not have written it, for in saying it was from God when it was but their own invention, they would have been guilty of falsehood, and thus could not have been good. The only remaining being who could have written it, is God - its real author.

     The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering and the most comfortable way of dying. There are no songs comparable to the songs of Zion; no orations equal to those of the prophets; and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach.

     The truths of the Bible have the power of awakening an intense moral feeling in every human being. They make bad men good and send a pulse of healthful feeling through all the domestic, civil and social relations. They teach men to love right and hate wrong and seek each others welfare. They control the hateful passions of the heart and thus mae men proficient in self-government. Finally they teach man to aspire after conformity to a being of infinite holiness and fill him with hopes more purifying, exalting and suited to his nature than any other book the world has ever known. These are facts as incontrovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the demonstrations of mathematics.

     It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom. A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district (all studied and appreciated as they merit) are the principal support of virtue, morality and civil liberty.

____________________________________________________________________

Site Map | Privacy Policy