Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/97

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George Eliot and Judaism.
85

calls out to him, "As to the connection of our race with Palestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it's as demoralising as the old poor-law. The raff and scum to there to be maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by the angel Gabriel when they die. It's no use fighting against facts, we must look where they point; that is what I call rationality. The most learned and liberal among us who are attached to our religion are for clearing our liturgy of all such notions as a literal fulfilment of the prophecies about restoration, and so on. Prune it of a few useless rites and literal interpretations of that sort, and our religion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier, but a union, between us and the rest of the world." Others will say that the establishment of a national State is not the aim of Jewish history at all. Taking the analogy of the